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War in Ukraine
By the Center for Preventive Action
Updated March 16, 2023
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Background
Concerns
Recent Developments
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Background
Armed conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted in early 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The previous year, protests in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to reject a deal for greater economic integration with the European Union (EU) were met with a violent crackdown by state security forces. The protests widened, escalating the conflict, and President Yanukovych fled the country in February 2014.
One month later, in March 2014, Russian troops took control of the Ukrainian region of Crimea. Russian President Vladimir Putin cited the need to protect the rights of Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Crimea and southeast Ukraine. Russia then formally annexed the peninsula after Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation in a disputed local referendum. The crisis heightened ethnic divisions, and two months later, pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk held their own independence referendums.
Armed conflict in the regions quickly broke out between Russian-backed forces and the Ukrainian military. Russia denied military involvement, but both Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) reported the buildup of Russian troops and military equipment near Donetsk and Russian cross-border shelling immediately following Crimea’s annexation. The conflict transitioned to an active stalemate, with regular shelling and skirmishes occurring along frontlines separating Russian- and Ukrainian-controlled eastern border regions.
Beginning in February 2015, France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine attempted to kickstart negotiations to bring an end to the violence through the Minsk Accords. The agreement framework included provisions for a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weaponry, and full Ukrainian government control throughout the conflict zone. Efforts to reach a diplomatic settlement and satisfactory resolution, however, were largely unsuccessful.
In April 2016, NATO announced the deployment of four battalions to Eastern Europe, rotating troops through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland to deter possible future Russian aggression elsewhere on the continent, particularly in the Baltics. In September 2017, the United States also deployed two U.S. Army tank brigades to Poland to further bolster NATO’s presence in the region.
In January 2018, the United States imposed new sanctions on twenty-one individuals–including a number of Russian officials–and nine companies linked to the conflict in eastern Ukraine. In March 2018, the U.S. Department of State approved the sale of anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, the first sale of lethal weaponry since the conflict began. In October 2018, Ukraine joined the United States and seven other NATO countries in a series of large-scale air exercises in western Ukraine. The exercises came after Russia held its own annual military exercises in September 2018, the largest since the fall of the Soviet Union.
In October 2021, months of intelligence gathering and observations of Russian troop movements, force build-up, and military contingency financing culminated in a White House briefing with U.S. intelligence, military, and diplomatic leaders on a near-certain mass-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The only remaining questions were when the attack would take place and whether the United States would be able to convince allies to act preemptively. Both were answered on February 24, 2022, when Russian forces invaded a largely unprepared Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized a “special military operation” against the country. In his statement, Putin claimed that the goal of the operation was to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine and end the alleged genocide of Russians in Ukrainian territory.
In the days and weeks leading up to the invasion, the Joe Biden administration made the unconventional decision to reduce information-sharing constraints and allow for the broader dissemination of intelligence and findings, both with allies—including Ukraine—and publicly. The goal of this strategy was to bolster allied defenses and dissuade Russia from taking aggressive action. Commercial satellite imagery, social media posts, and published intelligence from November and December 2021 showed armor, missiles, and other heavy weaponry moving toward Ukraine with no official explanation from the Kremlin. By the end of 2021, more than one hundred thousand Russian troops were in place near the Russia-Ukraine border, with U.S. intelligence officials warning of a Russian invasion in early 2022. In mid-December 2021, Russia’s foreign ministry called on the United States and NATO to cease military activity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, commit to no further NATO expansion toward Russia, and prevent Ukraine from joining NATO in the future. The United States and other NATO allies rejected these demands and threatened to impose severe economic sanctions if Russia took aggressive action against Ukraine.
In early February 2022, satellite imagery showed the largest deployment of Russian troops to its border with Belarus since the end of the Cold War. Negotiations between the United States, Russia, and European powers—including France and Germany—failed to bring about a resolution. In late February 2022, the United States warned that Russia intended to invade Ukraine, citing Russia’s growing military presence at the Russia-Ukraine border. President Putin then ordered troops to Luhansk and Donetsk, claiming the troops served a “peacekeeping” function. The United States responded by imposing sanctions on the regions and the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline a few days later. Nevertheless, just prior to the invasion, U.S. and Ukrainian leaders remained at odds regarding the nature and likelihood of an armed Russian threat, with Ukrainian officials playing down the possibility of an incursion and delaying the mobilization of their troops and reserve forces.
On February 24, 2022, during a last-ditch UN Security Council effort to dissuade Russia from attacking Ukraine, Putin announced the beginning of a full-scale land, sea, and air invasion of Ukraine targeting Ukrainian military assets and cities across the country. U.S. President Joe Biden declared the attack “unprovoked and unjustified” and issued severe sanctions against top Kremlin officials, including Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov; four of Russia’s largest banks; and the Russian oil and gas industry in coordination with European allies. On March 2, 141 of 193 UN member states voted to condemn Russia’s invasion in an emergency UN General Assembly session, demanding that Russia immediately withdraw from Ukraine.
Since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Ukraine has also increasingly been the target of thousands of cyberattacks. In December 2015, more than 225,000 people lost power across Ukraine in an attack on electricity generation firms, and, in December 2016, parts of Kyiv experienced another power blackout following a similar attack targeting a Ukrainian utility company. In June 2017, government and business computer systems in Ukraine were hit by the NotPetya cyberattack, which has been attributed to Russia; the attack spread to computer systems worldwide and caused billions of dollars in damages. In February 2022, Ukrainian government websites, including the defense and interior ministries, banking sites, and other affiliated organizations were targeted by distributed denial-of-service attacks alongside the Russian invasion.
Concerns
The current conflict has severely strained U.S.-Russia relations and increased the risk of a wider European conflict. Tensions are likely to increase between Russia and neighboring NATO member countries that would likely involve the United States, due to alliance security commitments. The conflict will also have broader ramifications for future cooperation on critical issues like arms control; cybersecurity; nuclear nonproliferation; global economic stability; energy security; counterterrorism; and political solutions in Syria, Libya, and elsewhere. Additionally, Russia’s increasing isolation has not only destabilized global energy and resource markets but also pushed the country to seek stronger strategic ties with those states (e.g., China) still willing to partner with it, largely in opposition to the West. The war has also compounded other global crises, with military operations and violence hindering the delivery and distribution of much-needed aid, including food, and exacerbating an already severe shortage of available global humanitarian assistance and resources.
Recent Developments
As the initial Russian invasion slowed, long-range missile strikes caused significant damage to Ukrainian military assets, urban residential areas, and communication and transportation infrastructure. Hospitals and residential complexes also sustained shelling and bombing attacks. In late March 2022, Russia announced that it would “reduce military activity” near Kyiv and Chernihiv. By April 6, Russia had withdrawn all troops from Ukraine’s capital region. In the aftermath of the Russian withdrawal from Kyiv’s surrounding areas, Ukrainian civilians described apparent war crimes committed by Russian forces, including accounts of summary executions, torture, and rape.
On April 18, Russia launched a new major offensive in eastern Ukraine following its failed attempt to seize the capital. By May, Russian forces took control of Mariupol, a major and highly strategic southeastern port city that had been under siege since late February. Drone footage published by Ukraine’s far-right Azov Battalion revealed the brutality of the Russian offensive, which had reduced the city to rubble and caused a massive humanitarian crisis. Indiscriminate and targeted attacks against civilians in the city, including an air strike on a theater and the bombing of a maternity hospital, also amplified allegations against Russian forces for international humanitarian law violations.
Since the summer of 2022, most fighting has largely been confined to Ukraine’s east and south, with Russian cruise missiles, bombs, cluster munitions, and thermobaric weapons devastating port cities along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The Russian seizure of several Ukrainian ports and subsequent blockade of Ukrainian food exports compounded an already acute global food crisis further exacerbated by climate change, inflation, and supply chain havoc. Prior to the conflict, Ukraine had been the largest supplier of commodities to the World Food Program (WFP), which provides food assistance to vulnerable populations. In July, Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement to free more than twenty million tons of grain from Russian-controlled Ukrainian ports. The first grain shipments to leave Ukraine since the Russian invasion departed from Odesa on August 1; they arrived in Russian-allied Syria on August 15, although their originally presumed destination had been Lebanon.
In mid-August, the southern shift of the war’s frontline sparked international fears of a nuclear disaster at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant along the Dnieper River. The largest nuclear plant in Europe, the Zaporizhzhia facility was seized by Russian forces in the earliest stages of the war. Escalating tensions between the plant’s Ukrainian staff and its Russian occupiers have also raised uncertainty regarding its continued safe operation. Fighting in the territory surrounding the facility also raises concerns that the plant could be critically damaged in the crossfire: shelling of the plant’s switchyard has already led to a city-wide black-out in Enerhodar, where the plant is located. Representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, visited the plant in early September to assess the threat of a nuclear accident. In a report [PDF] on the findings of its inspection, the IAEA called for “a nuclear safety and security protection zone” around the plant and for “all military activity” in the adjacent territory to cease immediately.
As of early September, Ukrainian forces have been able to make strong advances in the northeast and mounted a revitalized southern counteroffensive. Although Russia continues to hold onto much of Ukraine’s southeastern territory, Ukraine claims to have retaken significant territory in the Kharkiv region, surprising Russian forces and cutting off important supply lines. Russia has indicated that it plans to send reinforcements—about ten to twenty thousand soldiers—to the eastern front to combat the new Ukrainian offensive. Russia also announced a partial mobilization on September 21 to refurbish the Russian army, prompting thousands of Russians to flee amid antiwar protests, and moved to annex four occupied territories: Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. In his speech announcing the illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory, Putin also made an overture of possible nuclear escalation, claiming that the United States had set a precedent by dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
By July 2022, the UN Human Rights Office recorded over five thousand civilian deaths and over six thousand civilian injuries since Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The violence has internally displaced nearly seven million people and forced over six million to flee to neighboring countries, including Moldova and Poland, a NATO country where the United States and other allies are helping to accommodate the influx of refugees.
The U.S. continues to commit military assistance to Ukraine; following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to the U.S. Congress on March 16, 2022, Biden announced an additional $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine. Since Russia’s invasion, the United States has committed about $4.6 billion in security assistance, including heavy weapons and artillery, to the country. The United States has also dramatically increased U.S. troop presence in Europe, bringing the total to more than one hundred thousand. On September 8, 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged continued support for Ukraine during a trip to Kyiv. The United States’ most recent installment of aid was announced in early October and included $625 million worth of arms. While the United Nations, Group of Seven member states, EU, and others continue to condemn Russia’s actions and support Ukrainian forces, Russia has turned to countries like North Korea and Iran for intelligence and military equipment.
Beginning on October 10, Russia launched its most extensive attacks on Ukraine in months, striking military and energy facilities, as well as several civilian areas during rush hour. The attacks spanned fourteen regions and included assaults on the capital. This renewed Russian offensive comes after Ukrainian forces destroyed part of the only bridge connecting the occupied Crimean Peninsula to Russia.
Arrest warrant edition
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UKRAINE - RUSSIAN WAR THREAD #7
We can rebuild edition
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Not really. If they keep pressing at this speed they will take it in 2 weeks at most. Their supply lines are almost cut, not to mention that the line of towns and settlements that goes next to a highway (North of Artemivsk) is getting pushed every day. They are losing ground both at the city and at that defensive line, if they lose the line they will get encircled from the North, and that would be worse than losing the supplying lines. If they don’t pull out they will be butchered by artillery.
The most military confrontations in Ukraine are now concentrated in the front-line city of Bakhmut in eastern part of the war-stricken country. The Russian military forces are finalizing the siege of the Ukrainian city by keeping on advancements in the northern, eastern and southern fronts of Bakhmut. The Russians continue military advancements in the northern Bakhmut battle field, following the seizure of other regions, including the town of Soledar, Sol, Krasnopolivka village, Pidhorodne and Blahodatne village along the Bakhmut-Siversk road, and the Russian military forces seized the village of Sakko i Vantsetti in the north of the road, and the confrontations in the southern areas extended into Krasna Hora and Paraskoviivka regions. The seizure of Krasna Hora and Paraskoviivka regions would be Russians last step to surround Bakhmut from the northern front.
In the eastern front of Bakhmut, the fighting continues and the Russian military forces succeeded in making some minor advances in this region. The confrontations continue in the eastern front of the Ukrainian city in vicinity of a meat factory as well as Zabakhmutivka neighborhood.
On the southern front of the Bakhmut city, Russian forces could advance toward the north of Klishchiivka district, and the clashes reached in vicinity of Ivanivske at the western entrance of the besieged city of Bakhmut. Furthermore, as a result of the advancement in the mentioned region, the Russian army took the control of the heights overlooking the Kostyantynivka-Ivanivske-Bakhmut road. Hence, the Russian military forces have fire superiority over the Kostyantynivka-Ivanivske-Bakhmut road, and the Ukrainian army’s logistics route from the western areas to the city of Bakhmut has been blocked; so, the only remaining path is the road from Chasiv Yar town.
Thing is there is another layer of defense line Behind Bakhmut, and another and another. While Russia stacks these massive gains with the speed of light, Ukraine prepares two large battle groups behind the front for the spring offensive. One south of Kharkov, this will punch into Lugansk, and one in Zaporyozha, which will strike towards Melitopol, Berdiansk (moar liek Berndiansk amirite), and Mariupol. From there they'll mount an attack at the Kerch strait, destroying the bridge and isolating the Russian forces in Kherson and Cimea.
So France just announced they will supply Ukraine with this tank.
It's the first modern western tank Ukraine will receive. A big step, because so far Western nations have shied away from tank deliveries for some reason. Rumour is, now that the ice is broken, USA might supply Bradleys and maybe Germany will move on the Leopard 2 issue.
In over words: Poccner is fucked.
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Ukraine bombs civilian targets in Russia – regional governor
https://www.rt.com/russia/565115-kiev-strikes-belgorod-russia/
The attack destroyed a school, a kindergarten and private houses, he claims
Ukraine has again shelled Russia’s Belgorod Region, the local governor announced on Friday. The attack was deliberately aimed at civilian infrastructure, the official added. Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on his Telegram channel: “thank God, there are no victims or wounded,” explaining that residents of the targeted area had been evacuated the day before. Gladkov said local authorities continue to go from house to house in the village, trying to convince people to leave for their own safety. Later in the day, the governor gave details of another attack on an industrial complex in the same district, directly hit by a Ukrainian shell, causing a major fire. According to preliminary data, at least one woman was injured in the incident.
“The medical team is already taking her to the hospital. All emergency services are on site. More details will come later,” he wrote.
>BREAKING:
>According to Armenian social media users, fighting has started all along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
>There is information about the shelling of the Armenian cities of Vardenis and Jermuk. The sounds of explosions are also heard near Goris and the village of Tatev
https://twitter.com/301arm/status/1569425312408125441
>Report:
>🇦🇲🇦🇿 - Villages of Sotk, Verin Shorzha, Norabak, Kut and Mets Masrik in the Vardenis region are all being shelled right now.
>Preliminary reports the population of Sotk is being evacuated.
>"Emergency briefing" by Azerbaijani MoD at 6pm EST
https://twitter.com/OsintTv/status/1569439207474532355
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There have been many seethenings ons twitter's OSINTvermin related to Pelosi's visit onto Armenia. How dare US suggest they might defend a country that has historically aligned with Russia and Iran! We should have free hands in proceeding the genocide!
Unfortunately, it would seem that hačik lobby controls the Dems. Is American internal politics, in the end, just power struggle between kikes and hačiks?
According to the ISWNews field information from the Republic of Azerbaijan, the government and the army of this country are preparing to launch a large-scale military offensive against Armenia and occupy the areas of Syunik, Vayots Dzor and Gegharkunik provinces in the south of Armenia after September 27, i.e. after the anniversary of the start of the second Karabakh war. The main goal of Azerbaijan is to occupy the historical region of Zangezur, which now geographically corresponds to Syunik province of Armenia. According to the received information, it is very likely that the Azerbaijani army will start its military attacks after September 27 (the end of September or the beginning of October) with the focus on occupying the Zangezur region and connecting the main territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Nakhchivan region.
During the last two weeks, the Azerbaijani army has sent troops and heavy military equipment to the borders of Armenia and these activities are still ongoing. In one of these cases, about 60 Azerbaijani military trucks have transferred and deployed a significant number of Azerbaijani military forces to Fuzuli area.The deployment of S300 air defense systems in Baku and its surroundings and the increase of air defense measures are observed in this region more than before.Also, the people who have just finished their military service have been re-called to the army, and soon a general call will be announced for a certain age range to introduce themselves to the army.On Turkey’s side, several thousands of troops have been prepared for a possible attack on Armenia from the west, and they will enter the war if necessary.All these cases and a series of other events show Azerbaijan’s serious intention for a large-scale military attack, and if nothing special happens, this attack will be carried out.Simultaneously with these activities, the US, British, and French embassies in Armenia have issued statements and maps asking their nationals not to travel to the mentioned areas. In the map published by the French Embassy, the possible areas of Azerbaijan’s operations in Armenia are clearly marked.
On September 24, Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister, Zakir Hasanov, officially announced in a statement that the country’s army may carry out further military operations against Armenia as they did between 12 and 14 September. Also, the military posts that were recently occupied by Azerbaijan in Armenia will receive supplies and equipment.In another move, Baku is hosting NATO’s OCC E&F training course from September 26. The Operational Capability Concept Evaluation and Feedback Programme (OCC E&F) is a multipurpose military mechanism designed to develop and establish closer operational relationships between NATO and potential contributor (here Azerbaijan) that are fully interoperable and capable of operating with NATO standards and procedures.