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Tensions are high once again between Russia and Ukraine Moscow’s deploying troops along the border and Kyiv is warning of a possible invasion but what's triggered this crisis and can it be contained?
Ukraine is accusing Russia of mobilizing tens of thousands of soldiers near their shared border. The movement of Russia’s 41st army units has raised fears of a military strike. It's the second time this year Moscow has amassed combat-ready forces in the region. Recently, Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine said that Russia was planning a coup to overthrow his government. Moscow rejected those allegations and blamed Kyiv and the US for the escalating tensions. President Joe Biden says he's likely to speak to both leaders to ease the dispute.
The conflict between the West
and Russia:
The annexation of Crimea in 2014 worsened ties between the West and Russia. Moscow seized the region from Ukraine in march 2014 prompting international condemnation and sanctions. In The following month, war broke out in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian army. More than 13,000 people have been killed in the fighting and at one point about 1.5 million people were displaced. Now in 2015 France and Germany brokered a peace agreement but efforts to reach a political settlement have failed. NATO has warned Moscow that any military adventurism in Ukraine would have serious implications.
Ukrainian leadership and Putin:
President Putin is very unhappy with the Ukrainian leadership here describing it as foot-dragging in implementing its side of a peace agreement signed in 2015, an agreement that many analysts say is very much weighted in Russia’s favor and could potentially give Russia too much control of Ukrainian internal affairs. Amidst tensions, the US, France, and Germany, the allies of Ukraine in NATO, have warned Russia of serious consequences if indeed there was to be a further escalation but it remains to be seen just how far they would go to protect Ukraine if needed.
Read more: Russia and China: The possibility of divergence?
Will Russia invade
Ukraine?
Alexi Haran's argument, a professor at the Kyiv Molya academy and the director of research at democratic initiatives foundation:
There's no way Vladimir Putin is actually going to invade. Is he? We need to know that actually, Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014. He annexed Crimea in violation of all the international agreements including the Russian Ukrainian treaty and then he moved his regular troops to Donbas in the east of Ukraine. One-third of the Donbas which is around two percent of Ukrainian territory is occupied by Russia and its puppet regimes. And there are violations every day and Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are being killed. Russian troops are there, and despite all the agreements that were signed regarding ceasefire and the first ceasefire was signed in 2014, the next in 2015, I've just checked the report, the daily report of the special monitoring mission of OSCE-- the organization for security and cooperation in Europe, there were 800 violations of the ceasefire in a single day. So basically there is an ongoing Russian Ukrainian war with ups and downs. We don't see a large military offensive right now but at any time there could be the possibility of that. War never ended from 2014.
Argument by Pavel Felgenhauer from Moscow:
The war never ended and civilians are dying every day. It didn't really end. There is no political solution and skirmishes have continued in the Donbas for many years already. It's the conflict; you can't call it fully frozen because skirmishes continue but it's a very low level. However, since there is no political solution, and right now there seem to be no meaningful negotiations even planned and the Normandy so-called format has been also frozen which means there's a possibility of escalation of the fighting and the rhetoric on both sides is becoming increasingly toxic. Although it is not a looming conflict, maybe an escalation, yet it can be very serious and can happen in months or maybe even weeks.
Public pressure and Putin:
It's true the Russian military is much stronger than the Ukrainian military. But it's also true that many Russian soldiers will die in that case and the Russian public has said multiple times in polls conducted by the Levada center they don't want Russian troops fighting in Ukraine. And they don't want Russia to be fighting against Ukraine. So for Putin to escalate substantially is a very serious gamble and binding.
Vladimir Putin's thinking why now and why this level of escalation?
NATO and the integration
of Ukraine:
Well, the level of escalation has been building up. During the years and especially and the in the year 2021. It's fortunate that it didn't break out into a big region of war but the threat is there. Moscow has said many times that there are red lines that integration of Ukraine into NATO and the appearance of NATO American military assets on Ukrainian territory is totally unacceptable for Russia. It means that most likely Russia, in the last resort, is ready to go to war to prevent that. But still, there is a prospect of resolving the issue without engaging in a large-scale conflict. However, with each passing month, the possibility of a regional war is growing if a political solution is not reached.
Does Russia really fear
the expansion of NATO?
First of all we here since 2014. We hear Russian propaganda that Russia needs to invade Ukraine because of threats from NATO and this is totally a lie. Because before those actually in 2014 Ukraine had non-bloc status supporters of NATO in Ukraine. We are always in the minority because we Ukrainians believed that we could have good pragmatic relations with Russia. We had a treaty with Russia we had a Budapest memorandum where Russia promised to be a guarantor of Ukrainian territorial integrity. So there was no talk about NATO in 2014 and then in 2014 Russian aggression started. It completely changed the views of Ukrainians that in any case but even if Ukraine is outside of nato, even if Ukraine is a neutral country, it doesn't prevent Russian aggression. That's why definitely Ukraine needs support from the west and Ukraine understands that nobody will fight for it because it is not in nato.
Limited military help:
Unfortunately, this military help was belated. President Obama didn't provide for this help. The javelins anti-tank weapons Ukrainian s started to receive only under the Trump administration. So I would say that the military support is quite limited and what Russia is saying is that oh we had a red line because of NATO because American built up in Ukraine again is totally a lie.
Way out:
The Role of the US?
View by the Former US ambassador to Ukraine, John Herbst:
How does Biden deal with this? If he doesn't act on Ukraine, he's going to be seen as being weak but if he does act there's a threat to Russia there. Biden recognizes an escalation would be a very bad thing for American interests. That's why he stated very clearly and his secretary of state and secretary of defense have stated very clearly that there will be punishing additional sanctions on Russia if Putin escalates substantially.
Further, the US can perform the role of a broker. Now Ukraine gets a lot of military aid from the US government already. It's been getting it since 2014. Further, the US does not want to ruin its relations with Russia as well due to growing ties between the former and China.
Read more: Russia emerging power: the question of 'great power status'
Moreover, another thing important definitely at
this point is the increase of military support and secondly convincing Russia about the extension of economic sanctions. There are economic sanctions against Russia already.
What is important is to warn Putin that in case of attack it will have dramatic
consequences for the Russian economic sphere.
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