With the argument that modern, Western-leaning Ukraine was a continual threat and Russia could not feel "secure, develop, and exist," Vladimir Putin launched the largest conflict in Europe since World War Two.
Thousands of people have perished since then, towns and cities like Mariupol are in ruins, and 13 million people have been forced to flee their homes. However, the questions remain: what was the point of it all, and how will it all end?
The Russian leader's primary goal was to conquer Ukraine and remove its government, effectively eliminating Ukraine's desire to join NATO. After a month of setbacks, he abandoned his attempt to conquer Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, and focused his efforts on the country's east and south.
On the day of the invasion, he told the Russian people that his purpose was to "demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine." His stated goal was to safeguard individuals who had been subjected to what he described Ukraine's government's "eight years of intimidation and genocide." Another goal was quickly added: maintaining Ukraine's neutral status.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, spoke of rescuing Ukraine from despotism, while Sergei Naryshkin, Russia's foreign intelligence chief, said that "Russia's destiny and its future place in the world are at stake."
"The adversary has classified me as target number one; my family is target number two," Ukraine's democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said. Russian military attempted to invade the presidential compound twice, according to his adviser.
The Russian president declined to refer to it as an invasion or a war. Moscow continues to refer to Europe's most serious conflict since 1945 as a "special military operation."
The allegations of Nazis and genocide in Ukraine are absolutely false, but they are part of a Russian narrative that has been repeated for years. "It's insane; sometimes they can't even describe what they're talking about," Ukraine's foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
However, according to an opinion piece published by the state-run news agency Ria Novosti, "denazification unavoidably also means de-Ukrainisation," effectively eliminating the contemporary state.
And it is Russia that is now being accused of war crimes by the world community. Several countries, notably the United States and Canada, have gone so far as to term it genocide.
"It is not our aim to conquer Ukrainian territory; we do not seek to impose anything on anyone by force," Russian President Vladimir Putin said after so much destruction.
Russia withdrew from Kyiv a month into the invasion and announced its main goal to be the "liberation of Donbas," which refers to Ukraine's eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. In a battle that began in 2014, Russian proxy forces took more than a third of this territory; now Russia planned to conquer the entire region.
The Kremlin said that the first phase of the invasion had "largely met" its goals, which it described as significantly diminishing Ukraine's combat capabilities. However, Russia's pullout revealed that it had scaled back its goals.
"Putin requires a triumph," Russian International Affairs Council head Andrei Kortunov stated. "Back the very least, he needs something he can show his constituents at home."
Russian officials are now concentrating their efforts on conquering the two largest eastern districts and establishing a land corridor running east from Crimea to the Russian border. They have taken control of Kherson's southern district, and a senior Russian general has stated that they plan to seize land further west along the Black Sea coast, into Odesa and beyond.
"Control over the south of Ukraine is another way out to Transnistria," said Maj Gen Rustam Minnekayev, referring to a Moldovan breakaway region where Russia has 1,500 troops.
If Russia captures both eastern regions, he will very certainly try to annexe them through a phoney referendum, as he did with Crimea in 2014. Ukraine also accuses occupation forces in Kherson of arranging a referendum, claiming that they are already implementing Russia's rouble as of May 1.
According to Tatiana Stanovaya of RPolitik and the Carnegie Moscow Center, capturing Donbas and the land corridor is a must for the Kremlin: "They're going to keep going. 'We have no choice but to escalate,' I hear over and over."
The question is whether Russian forces have the numbers to advance. The Kremlin cannot mobilise nationally without declaring war, and military researcher Michael Kofman believes Russia's Donbas offensive will fail unless this happens.
The magnitude of the Western response to President Putin's invasion has astounded him. Not only has Ukraine been given weapons, but a slew of sanctions are threatening to shrink Russia's economy by up to 10% this year and raise inflation by more than 20%.
The European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other Western nations have targeted Russia's economy in a variety of ways:
The assets of Russia's central bank have been frozen, and major banks have been cut off from the worldwide SWIFT payment network.
Anyone who opposes the war has been targeted by Russia's Putin. "True patriots will always be able to tell the difference between filth and traitors," he stated.
Over 15,400 anti-war demonstrators have been arrested, and practically all independent media outlets have been shut down.
There is no significant political opposition left since it has either departed the country or been imprisoned for years in a strict-regime penal colony, as opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been.
blogpay
Total Comments: 0