Why Russia invaded Ukraine… What does Putin want?

In the air, on the ground, in the sea. Russia has launched a devastating attack on Ukraine, a democratic country with a population of 44 million.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied rumors of an invasion of Ukraine for several months. However, breaking the peace agreement, Russian forces invaded Ukraine’s northern, eastern and southern borders.

As the death toll rises now, Putin cannot escape his responsibility for breaking peace in Europe, and future developments could jeopardize the security of the continent as a whole.

Where is the Russian invasion area?, The reason is?

Airports and major military installations across Ukraine, including Boryspil International Airport near the Ukrainian capital Kiev, were among the first to be targeted.

And tanks and ground forces came from near Kharkiv in the northeast of Ukraine, a city of 1.4 million people, from near Lugansk in the east, from the bordering country of Belarus to the north, and from Crimea to the south. Paratroopers occupied an airfield just outside Kiev, and Russian forces also landed in Odessa and Mariupol, Ukraine’s largest port city.

Shortly before the invasion, Putin said in a televised speech that the “continuous threat from modern Ukraine” made it difficult for Russia to “feel safe, develop and exist”.

Most of Putin’s claims are false and unreasonable. Putin said the military action aims to “demilitarize and de-Nazi” Ukraine and to protect those who have been subjected to harassment and genocide by the Ukrainian government.

However, there was no genocide in Ukraine. Ukraine is a vibrant democracy led by a Jewish president. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky compared the Russian invasion to the Nazi invasion of Germany during World War II and asked, “How can I become a Nazi?”

Putin has frequently argued that Ukraine has fallen into extremists’ hands since pro-Russian ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in 2014 after months of anti-government protests.

Russia then retaliated by annexing Crimea in southern Ukraine. He also supported separatist rebels against Ukrainian government forces in a conflict in eastern Ukraine that has claimed the lives of 14,000 people so far.

In late 2021, Putin began building Russian troops near the Ukrainian border. And this week, it recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) occupied by the rebels, breaking the 2015 peace agreement signed for a ceasefire in the eastern region.

Russia has long opposed Ukraine’s attempts to join the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In ordering the invasion, Putin accused NATO of threatening “Russia’s historical future as a state.”

Russia believes that Ukraine must be “liberated and cleansed from Nazism”, but did not answer whether it wants to overthrow a democratically elected government in Ukraine.

Putin has spoken of bringing “those who have committed countless bloody crimes against civilians” to court.

Russian forces have also advanced from Belarus and there is no doubt that they are targeting the capital Kiev, given that the Ukrainian military airport, Hostomel Airport, has also been captured.

Before deploying up to 200,000 troops on the Ukrainian border, Putin focused his attention on eastern Ukraine.

Recognizing the Eastern Regions of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) as independent states, President Putin decided that these regions were not part of Ukraine.

He later said he supported the rebels who wanted more territory in Ukraine. These two self-proclaimed People’s Republics cover about a third of the total area of ​​Lugansk and Donetsk, and the rest are coveted.

For the first time since World War II, war of aggression is taking place in Europe, and now is a scary time not only for the Ukrainian people, but also for the rest of Europe.

Dozens of people, including civilians and soldiers, have already been killed in the invasion, which Germany calls “Putin’s War”. And European leaders are having their darkest time since the 1940s with this Russian invasion.

French President Emmanuel Macron described it as a turning point in European history. Recalling the Soviet Union during the Cold War, President Zelensky said Ukraine was trying to avoid the new “iron curtain” that isolated Russia from the civilized world.

Uneasy days will continue for the families of the soldiers on both sides. The Ukrainian army has already waged a terrible war with pro-Russian separatists for the past eight years. Currently, the Ukrainian Army has called up all reservists between the ages of 18 and 60.

Marc Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that given the size of the Russian military, fighting in densely populated urban areas could be a “terrible” scenario.

The Russian invasion also had a cascading effect on Russia and many other countries bordering Ukraine. Latvia, Poland and Moldova said they were preparing for a large influx of refugees. Thousands of displaced women and children are already in Lithuania and Moldova, which have declared national emergencies.

The Russian people are also not ready for this war. This is because the invasion was approved by the Russian Senate, which does not have universal support.

Although NATO has put the fighters on alert, the Western Allies have made it clear that they have no plans to send troops to Ukraine. Instead, Western countries sent military advisers to support weapons and field hospitals.

Meanwhile, NATO has deployed 5,000 troops to the Baltic States and Poland. An additional 4,000 troops could be deployed to Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia.

Instead of military intervention, Western countries are targeting Russia’s economy, industry and individuals.

The EU has announced it is blocking access to Russia’s capital markets and cutting-edge technology. The 351 members of the Russian House of Representatives who recognized the independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) have already been subject to sanctions.

Germany has halted the opening of the Nordstream-2 gas pipeline, which has been heavily invested by Russian and European companies.

The US has announced that it will block Russian access from Western financial institutions, and that it will target Russia’s “elite” elite.

The UK has frozen the assets of all major Russian banks and has added 100 people, including individuals and institutions, to sanctions. It also said that Russian flag carrier Aeroflot would be banned from landing in the UK.

Ukraine has urged its allies to stop buying Russian oil and natural gas. The Baltic States have appealed to the international community to prevent Russian banks from accessing the SWIFT payment system. These sanctions could also adversely affect the US and European economies.

The UEFA Champions League final was scheduled to be held this season in St. Petersburg, Russia, but this seems impossible for security reasons. UEFA is also planning further action.

Putin has criticized NATO’s dongjin. Earlier, he complained that Russia “has no place to step back” and “does the West think that we are sitting and suffering?”

Ukraine is exploring a timeline for NATO accession. But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said: “It is absolutely necessary to ensure that Ukraine will never join NATO.”

In a lengthy post last year, Putin described Russia and Ukraine as “one country” and described the December 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union as “the disintegration of historical Russia.” He also argued that modern Ukraine was entirely created by communist Russia and described the present Ukrainian government as a puppet swayed by the Western world.

Putin also argued that if Ukraine joined the NTAO, NATO could try to retake Crimea.

But Russia is not just focusing on Ukraine. Russia calls for NATO forces to withdraw outside the ‘1997 border’.

Putin is calling for NATO to withdraw troops and military infrastructure from member states that NATO has joined since 1997 and not to “deploy weapons near Russian borders”. It is to withdraw from the three countries of Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Baltic States.

Putin sees the West as moving forward in 1990, despite the promise that NATO “will not extend an inch to the east”.

But this was before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. So this promise to then General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev was referring to East Germany in the context of a united Germany.

Gorbachev later said at the time that “there was no discussion of NATO expansion.”

NATO, the military alliance of Western countries, has an “open door” policy for new member states. And the 30 NATO member states remain unchanged in this policy.

As the German Chancellor has made clear, it is unlikely that Ukraine will join NATO anytime soon. However, the idea that a current NATO member would give up its membership is not persuasive.

Whatever agreements may be reached in the future, if not right now, should include disarmament and conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The US proposed a meeting, citing a new treaty on intercontinental missiles and restrictions on short- and medium-range missiles. Russia wants all US nuclear weapons banned outside US territory.

The proposal for a “transparency mechanism” of mutual verification of two Russian bases and NATO missile bases in Romania and Poland has been positively received by Russia.