Panorama: Two years of war in Ukraine

The background to the conflict

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, but Russian threats to Ukrainian sovereignty date back to long before the invasion. On February 22 of the same year, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a televised address to the nation, recognized the independence of the Ukrainian separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. In addition, the president presented what can be considered the justification (from his point of view) for the “Special Military Operation”, i.e. the war in Ukraine.
To better understand the issue, however, we need to understand that the political division of the former Soviet republics usually revolves around Russia. The population is thus divided between those who want to be closer to Russia and those who are more sympathetic to European integration. It is no coincidence that governments are debating whether to keep certain symbols, such as statues of war heroes, associated with the Soviet period. In the same vein, Ukraine also had a certain geographical division, with the east being more under Russian influence (including linguistically), in contrast to the west.
With this in mind, the so-called Euromaidan protests (named after the square where the demonstrators gathered in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital) erupted in 2014. The protests began in November 2013 because of then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision not to enter into a trade agreement with the EU. Instead, Yanukovych preferred financial relief from Russia. Amid exchanges of accusations between Russia and the so-called West of interference in Ukrainian politics and after four months of protest, Yanukovych was deposed and fled to Russia. In 2019, the deposed president was convicted of high treason and complicity in Russian military aggression. That’s because, back in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea.
Thus, the invasion of Ukraine that began in 2022 can be considered a continuation of the events of 2014, since part of Ukrainian territory had already been occupied since that year. The incorporation of Crimea into Russian territory, however, was not merely Russian retaliation for the deposition of Yanukovych. This is because the incorporated territory is home to the base of Sevastopol, where the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet is located. Ukraine became independent from the now-defunct Union of Soviet Republics (USSR) in 1991 and in 1997, an agreement was signed between Ukraine and Russia, which made the latter the leaser of the port for 30 years. As a result, the base in Sevastopol remained a historic Russian base, albeit on Ukrainian territory.

Graphic representation of the geographical location of the Sebastopol Base.

In addition, there was an ethnic Russian majority on the Crimean peninsula, as there is in eastern Ukraine. Thus, Russian nationalists in the region began to demand integration into Russia, triggering the crisis. The annexation of Crimea took place quickly and peacefully, characterizing it as a fait accompli. This was because under the bilateral treaty between Russia and Ukraine that followed the aforementioned agreements, Russia could keep up to 25,000 troops stationed on the peninsula. Russia was sanctioned internationally for its action, since the annexation (not recognized as legitimate by Ukraine) is contrary to international law. As in the current conflict, the economic sanctions applied against Russia have not been enough to deter Russian objectives.
Furthermore, since 2014, Russia has been using the so-called “little green men”, i.e. professional soldiers who do not wear insignia (they are not linked to a national flag). These soldiers have become even better known for their participation in the current conflict in eastern Ukraine, where they have been working with Ukrainian separatists since 2014. The tensions involving the Wagner Group in June 2023, when the mercenary group marched to Moscow, became even more relevant when Prigozhin, the group’s leader, died after his executive jet crashed in August of the same year. The group’s uprising was motivated, according to Prigozhin, by mistakes by the Russian leadership that resulted in the deaths of many fighters. Putin considered such an act a betrayal, but denied any involvement in the crash.

Putin’s justification for the “Special Military Operation”

Given this panorama, in 2022, when Putin was already showing signs of the invasion, such as the mobilization of troops on the Russian-Ukrainian border. These signs were seen by some as a demonstration of power, a quest to coerce the Kiev government into not pursuing its (constitutional) aspirations to join the EU and NATO. This was the reading adopted by the Ukrainian government itself, which weeks before the invasion didn’t seem to give it enough credibility.

On February 22, 2022, Putin gave a televised speech to the nation in which he recognized the independence of Ukraine’s breakaway republics in the Don Basin region. In this speech, Putin’s view of Ukraine is clear: “I would like to emphasize once again that Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space.” Perhaps the historical-cultural considerations of relations between these two countries should have been given more weight in the Western reading of Russian interests in Ukraine.

Even so, the justifications put forward by the Russian government for the intervention in Ukraine were:

To guarantee Ukrainian neutrality (i.e. its non-adherence to the EU and NATO);
To guarantee the security of Russian territory (Putin sees Ukraine’s membership of NATO as a direct threat to Russia);
Protecting ethnically Russian populations living in the Donbass region (which is a duty of the Russian government, according to its constitution);
“Denazify” the Kiev government.

Although they don’t justify the invasion from the point of view of international law, which considers war to be illegal, the points made by Putin are relevant to understanding the reasons that led to the conflict. Despite Putin’s legalistic justifications, which evoked Article 51 of the UN Charter to justify the intervention in Ukraine, the violation of Ukrainian sovereignty – since 2014 – is clear.

NATO’s position

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for its part, maintains its “open door policy”, characterized by the openness of any European country to apply for membership. As the Organization’s own website states, NATO membership is open to “any other European state in a position to promote the principles of this Treaty and contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area”. In this spirit, NATO not only refused to issue guarantees that Ukrainian membership would not occur, but expanded with the accession of Finland and Sweden. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO was given a new lease of life, since it is precisely the Russian threat that justifies the Organization’s existence. Before the invasion, NATO was facing challenges in terms of its budget expenditures, as well as domestic support from its populations. The Russian aggression, however, served to strengthen the importance of the military alliance.

Debates on military support for Ukraine in the US Congress

Like Russia, the United States has presidential elections scheduled for 2024, which increases the pressure on the current government to provide military aid to Ukraine. Added to this is the war in Gaza, which has also cost American coffers. Unlike Ukraine, however, Israel has more bipartisan support in the US and tends to have priority when it comes to approving donations to the conflict regions. In addition, allegations of corruption in the Ukrainian government, as well as the lack of prospects for an end to the war in Ukraine, have led some American politicians, especially some wings of the Republican party, to question the extent to which their country should finance the war.
On the one hand, there are those who defend military aid as a way of “bleeding Russia dry”, i.e. forcing the government to spend more resources on the conflict and damaging its economy. On the other hand, NATO countries are also suffering from the conflict, as they are also impacted by the economic sanctions and are investing heavily in the defense of Ukraine. Examples of this are the rise in energy prices in countries like the UK and Germany or even the protests by farmers in France against the entry of (cheaper) Ukrainian grain into the French market. In addition, the Russian military industrial complex has shown itself to be capable of replenishing armaments and war equipment. Data from the European Union indicates that the joint military aid from these countries to Ukraine already totals thirty billion dollars. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the US has provided 46.8 billion dollars in military aid. So isn’t Russia “bleeding out” the West in return?

Prospects for the conflict

Ukraine has not signaled an interest in changing its constitutional amendment regarding EU membership, much less does it want to cede part of its territory to Russia. On the contrary, Ukrainian President Zelensky has sought to reaffirm Ukraine’s interests in moving closer to the West. In this way, he reinforces the desire to move away from the Russian sphere of influence, as well as ratifying Ukrainian territorial integrity (including Crimea). Zelensky also seeks to reinforce the perception of collective interest in the outcome of the war. In other words, he wants the countries that support him to consider the Ukrainian resistance of vital importance for the future of democracies or even for the future of the territorial integrity of sovereign countries and, by extension, for the maintenance of international order. The higher the stakes for each country involved, the greater the commitment to the final outcome of the war.

Russia, for its part, has not signaled a retreat from the invasion. In any case, Ukraine depends on foreign aid and, once this continues, the country is likely to face a prolonged conflict. The perception of a long war, however, brings serious considerations for the West. If a defeat in Ukraine is seen as a precedent that cannot be set, how long should military aid continue?