Nikita Bohra

Posted On : Aug 31 2020

RUSSIA – UKRAINIAN WAR

The devastating Russia Ukrainian war is fuelling economic insecurity around the world. While Russia stands isolated in the international arena, Ukraine is grippling with uncertainty.

A bitter and bloody war in Ukraine has devastated the country, further isolated Russia from the West and fuelled economic insecurity around the world. It was Ukraine’s ties with the EU that brought tensions to a head with Russia in 2013–14. In late 2013, President Yanukovych, acting under pressure from his supporters in Moscow, scrapped plans to formalize a closer economic relationship with the EU. Russia had at the same time been pressing Ukraine to join the not-yet-formed EAEU. Many Ukrainians perceived Yanukovych’s decision as a betrayal by a deeply corrupt and incompetent government, and it ignited countrywide protests known as Euromaidan. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine that began in February 2014 with the covert invasion of the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea by disguised Russian troops. The conflict expanded in April 2014 when Russians and local proxy forces seized territory in Ukraine’s Donbas region. The Russo - Ukrainian War, previously referred to as the Ukrainian crisis in its early stages, is an ongoing international conflict between Russia, alongside Russian-backed separatists, and Ukraine. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists fighting the Ukrainian military in the Donbas war. The first eight years of conflict also included naval incidents, cyberwarfare, and heightened political tensions

Between October and November 2021, Russia began a massive buildup of troops and military equipment along its border with Ukraine. Over the following months, additional forces were dispatched to Belarus (ostensibly for joint exercises with Belarusian personnel), the Russian-backed separatist enclave of Transdniestria in Moldova, and Russian-occupied Crimea. By February 2022 Western defense analysts estimated that as many as 190,000 Russian troops were encircling Ukraine and warned that a Russian incursion was imminent. Putin dismissed these accusations and claimed that an accompanying Russian naval buildup in the Black Sea was a previously scheduled exercise. While Western leaders consulted with both Zelensky and Putin in an effort to stave off a Russian invasion that appeared inevitable, Putin issued demands that included de facto veto power over NATO expansion and the containment of NATO forces to countries that had been members prior to 1997. This would, in effect, remove the NATO security umbrella from eastern and southern Europe as well as the Baltic states. These proposals were flatly rejected. British and American intelligence services also took the unprecedented step of “pre-bunking” Russia’s manufactured casus belli by revealing classified information about Russia’s intentions.

On February 21, 2022, Putin responded by recognizing the independence of the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukrainian territory as “peacekeepers,” and Russian military activity in the Donbas—ongoing since 2014 but consistently disavowed by the Kremlin—at last became overt. Western leaders, pledging solidarity with Ukraine, responded by levying a raft of sanctions against Russian financial institutions. In the early hours of February 24, Zelensky, speaking in Russian, addressed the Russian people directly, delivering an impassioned plea for peace but vowing that Ukraine would defend itself.

Later that day, at about 6:00 AM Moscow time, Putin took to the airwaves to announce the beginning of a “special military operation.” Within minutes explosions were heard in major cities across Ukraine, and air raid sirens began to sound in Kyiv. Around the world, leaders condemned the unprovoked attack and promised swift and severe sanctions against Russia. Zelensky declared martial law and called for a general mobilization of Ukraine’s military-age population.

On June 30 Russian forces were driven from Snake, or Zmiinyi, Island, a small but strategically important outcropping in the western Black Sea. Located roughly 80 miles (130 km) south of Odesa and just 20 miles (32 km) from the mouth of the Danube River, Snake Island was taken by the Russians in the early hours of the war. Occupation of the island gave Russia significant leverage in the western Black Sea, and the proximity of Russian forces to Romania—a NATO member—posed an implicit threat to the alliance. With the sinking of the Moskva and the recapture of Snake Island, Russia’s ability to project force in the western Black Sea was significantly degraded. While Russia continued to maintain a blockade on most Ukrainian shipping, the liberation of Snake Island allowed the Ukrainians to expand their use of Danube ports and restore some measure of their export economy. The Russian defense ministry implausibly attempted to characterize their retreat from Snake Island as “a gesture of good will” toward Ukraine.

Where is the War heading?

Russian forces captured Lysychansk in the first week of July 2022, after weeks of indiscriminate bombardment that left the city in ruins. The fall of Lysychansk and the neighbouring city of Syeverodonetsk gave Russia control of the last remaining major population centres in Luhansk oblast (region). This would prove to be the high-water mark of Russia’s offensive in the Donbas, however. Russian attackers would spend the next six months attempting sanguinary assaults on the Ukrainian stronghold at Bakhmut in Donetsk oblast without success.

While Bakhmut held, Ukrainian forces launched bold counterstrokes elsewhere along the front. In late July American-supplied HIMARS made their presence known with a series of strikes that heavily damaged bridges around Russian-occupied Kherson. Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnieper River were in danger of being cut off, and Russian commanders shifted their attention from the Donbas to what appeared to be the focus of Ukraine’s efforts. Throughout August Ukrainian forces launched probing attacks along the Kherson front, but the large-scale offensive expected by many did not materialize. On August 9 a massive explosion at a Russian air base in Crimea destroyed as many as 9 aircraft and sent Russian holidaymakers fleeing. Purportedly the work of Ukrainian special operations or partisan units, the attack on the air base led the Russian occupation government in Crimea to declare a state of emergency. As the buildup around Kherson continued, a HIMARS strike destroyed the headquarters of the Wagner Group in Luhansk, killing as many as 100 mercenaries. Despite this setback, Wagner and its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, continued to gain influence within the Kremlin as commanders in Russia’s regular army struggled to produce the desired results for Putin’s “special military operation.”

With Russia’s attention largely remaining fixed on Kherson, on September 6 the Ukrainians carried out a stunning offensive in the Kharkiv region. Russian lines crumpled, and, in the space of a week, Ukrainian forces liberated more than 3,400 square miles (8,800 square km) of territory. Izyum, which had fallen to the Russians in April, was recaptured on September 10; the loss of the key supply hub was an embarrassment for Moscow, and fleeing Russian troops left behind massive stores of weapons and ammunition. By the time the Ukrainian advance slowed, virtually the entirety of Kharkiv oblast had been freed from Russian control. On October 1 Ukrainian forces retook Lyman, a strategic rail centre on the Svirsky Donets River.

Russia is expected to launch a new offensive in the coming days. Right now, focused fighting has been going on in some flashpoints along the frontline. For over seven months, PMC Wagner, a private Russian security force with close ties to the Kremlin, has been fighting to take Bakhmut, a city at the cross junction of several key arteries in Donetsk, one of the four Ukrainian regions annexed by Mr. Putin in September. Last month, Wagner took Soledar, a salt mine town in the outskirts of Bakhmut, and several settlements around the city thereafter. As of now, Russians control all major highways into Bakhmut, except one (Chasiv Yar), which Ukrainian troops are using for reinforcement and resupply.

Russians have opened two more fronts, one in Izium, northwest of Bakhmut in Kharkiv Oblast, and the other in Vuhledar, south of Bakhmut in Donetsk. They are also pushing the frontline in Zaporizhzhia and positional fighting is continuing in Kherson. Ukraine is trying to hold on to the territories until more weapons and trained fighters arrive from the West. It would take a few more weeks before the main battle tanks pledged by Western countries, including Leopard 2 (German), M1 Abrams (American) and Challenger 2 (British), arrive at the battlefield.