Russia launched a sweeping invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, hitting cities and military bases with aerial or artillery bombardment and sending troops and tanks from multiple directions, in a move that could rewrite the geopolitical landscape. The Ukrainian government called for help as civilians piled into trains and cars to flee.

Russian President Vladimir Putin downplayed international condemnations and new sanctions as he unleashed the biggest ground war in Europe in decades. Chillingly, Putin referred to his country’s nuclear arsenal, threatening “consequences they have never seen” to any other country that tries to interfere.

However, all this conflict has a whole context behind it that we will tell you about below.

What is the origin of the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine?

To understand the origin of this conflict, we must go back several years. When the USSR was dissolved in 1991 and 15 republics were formed, including Ukraine, which in part of its territory had a population related to Western ideals and sought rapprochement with the rest of Europe, while another part of the citizenry maintained strong ties with Russia.

The high point between these two nations came in 2013 when Russia prevented Ukraine from ‘allying’ itself with the European Union, sparking a series of protests known as Euromaidan and ultimately leading to the impeachment of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, while tensions were rising in Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk.

Keys to understand the origin of the war between Russia and Ukraine

After knowing the context of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine, it is time to break down the keys that led to this war.

Crimea’s accession to Russia

In 2014, after the overthrow of Yanukovych, Russia launched a military intervention in Crimea, a peninsula whose territory had belonged to Ukraine since 1954. The Russian ‘invasion’ was to ‘safeguard’ the pro-Russians in Crimea.

In March of that same year, there was a referendum in which the pro-Russian authorities accepted the accession of Crimea to the Russian Federation. The accession process is not recognized by Ukraine, which regards it as illegal.

Donbas War

What happened in Crimea is reproduced in the Donbas region, to the east of Ukraine. In May 2014, separatist and pro-Russian groups in Donetsk and Lugansk proclaimed themselves “people’s republics” and demanded integration with Russia. For this reason , a war conflict broke out in this area between pro-Russian separatists, with political and military support from Moscow, and the Ukrainian army, which claimed the lives of 14,000 people.

The Minsk Agreements

The Minsk agreements are two pacts signed in 2014 and 2015 by representatives of Ukraine, Russia, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic to stop the war in Donbas.

These treaties were negotiated under the protection of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and their main objective was the ceasefire between the Ukrainian Army and the pro -Russian separatist forces in Donetsk and Lugansk.

Russia’s recognition of the Independence of Donetsk and Lugansk

This was the ‘last straw’. Russia recognized the independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic and mobilized up to 100 thousand Russian soldiers towards the borders with Ukraine, with which they broke with the Minsk agreements and took the first step towards the ‘invasion’ of the territory Ukrainian, which is partly due to Russia’s claim to NATO and its rapprochement with Eastern European countries, including Ukraine, which it considers an “aggression” on its security.

Putin’s ‘special military operation’

Finally this Thursday, February 24, in a televised message at the beginning of the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a ‘special military operation’ was necessary to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces and separatists backed They have been fighting for Russia for almost eight years.

The United States had predicted that Putin would falsely claim that rebel-controlled regions would be attacked to justify what Washington has called an invasion.

The Russian leader warned other countries that any attempt to intervene would have “consequences that they have never seen in history”, a dark threat that could imply that Russia was prepared to use its nuclear weapons.

Putin assured that Russia does not have the objective of occupying Ukraine, but of “demilitarizing” it.