Dr Nishant A.Irudayadason
Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth, Pune.

Russia’s military operation on Ukraine launched on 24 February provoked indignant reactions from many countries. For the time being, economic sanctions are being imposed against Russia by the European Union and the United States. It is important to understand why in the first place, this conflict arose. Ukraine, a country of 44 million people located between Europe and Russia, that was part of the former Soviet Union became independent in 1991. While much of the country is rather pro-Western, the eastern part of Ukraine is predominantly Russian-speaking and feels close to Moscow. In the 2000s, Ukraine, which was not part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) created in 1949 to curb the expansion of the Soviet Union, considered becoming part of NATO.
In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea. The population of the peninsula, mostly Russian-speaking, is in favour of its attachment to Moscow. Fighting broke out in the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in Donbass, which called themselves “people’s republics”. Since then, the Ukrainian army has been fighting these separatists in a war that has left more than 13,000 dead. These clashes decreased since the Minsk agreements in 2015, but violence still broke out regularly. Kiev and its Western allies have long accused Moscow of supplying troops and weapons to pro-Russian separatists in Donbass. These accusations were vehemently rejected by the Kremlin. But for Russia, these separatists are Russians who must be protected by Moscow.
In April 2021, Russia massed troops on the border with Ukraine, then claimed to have withdrawn them. The situation escalated in October 2021, when videos showing movements of Russian troops, tanks and other heavy weapons towards the Ukrainian border circulated on social media. Russia in turn accused Ukraine of massing troops in the east of the country. In the beginning of February, NATO announced the establishment of standby forces, ships and combat aircraft in Eastern Europe. Washington has also put the military on high alert. These announcements provoked a reaction from Kremlin, which then denounced a “hysteria” in Europe. After refusing a summit with Joe Biden on 21 February, Vladimir Putin recognizes the independence of the pro-Russian separatist territories of eastern Ukraine. The invasion of Ukraine began three days later.
Russia does not want Kiev to join NATO, which it perceives as a threat. Until now, Vladimir Putin has accused the West of stoking tensions, with military exercises in the Black Sea and the delivery of modern weapons to Kiev. Negotiations that began in December with the West to obtain “legal guarantees” against NATO’s extension to the East were still stalling in early 2022. Ukraine has long refused to give up its plan to join NATO and any other “guarantees”. It also called for accession to the European Union. In an interview with ABC broadcast on 07 March, the Ukrainian President Zelensky said he was ready for a “compromise” on the status of the separatist territories in eastern Ukraine.
Russia is also demanding the withdrawal of NATO troops from Romania and Bulgaria or the cessation of Western military cooperation with Ukraine. In an article published in July 2021, Vladimir Putin accused Western countries of cultivating anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine. He claims that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people”, by stressing the spiritual, human, civilizational ties that have been woven for centuries. He made it clear that he will never allow people who are historically and geographically having proximity to Russia to be used against Russia. In his long indictment on 21 February, he explained that Ukraine had been created by Lenin but the latter had at that time “disadvantaged” his motherland. He therefore intended to correct the work of his Bolshevik predecessor.