The Russo-Ukrainian War: Origins and Implications

Caption from NPR: “Members of a Ukrainian civil defense unit pass new assault rifles to the opposite side of a blown up bridge on Kyiv's northern front on Tuesday, March 1.”

By: George Huang (4/25/2022)

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Viewed in part as an act of Russian irredentism, the aspiration to regain former territory, the conflict has since devolved into a humanitarian crisis. The invasion is an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, an eight-year conflict that began in 2014 when Russia invaded the Donbas region in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and annexed the Crimean Peninsula.

Conflict Origins

Contemporary Russian aggression is contextualized by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and this history continues to plague geopolitical relations in Eastern Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to restore his nation’s regional hegemony. Since the fall of the USSR, Russia has supported separatist movements in former Soviet Republics including Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine in bids to limit Western encroachment.[1] Following the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, Brookings Institution President Strobe Talbott warned that “Putin’s wish to reconstitute Greater Russia requires him to re-conquer neighbors, piece by piece.”[2] Similarly, months after President Biden’s election, American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Michael Rubin asserted that the new administration’s biggest foreign policy challenge would be a rise in irredentism around the globe, particularly in China and Russia.[3] The 2022 invasion of Ukraine offers irrefutable evidence of the Kremlin’s ambitions to re-establish the political and economic power once possessed by the USSR.

While Russia downplayed U.S. warnings about the impending invasion, upon its commencement, the pursuit of “denazification” and the sovereignty of Russian-backed separatists had become the Kremlin’s major talking points. On February 24, 2022, Putin declared that “the purpose of this operation is to protect people who for eight years now have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime.”[4]  

Ramifications

The 2022 invasion has induced major economic, political, and humanitarian consequences for Ukraine, Russia, and the international community. Currently, one-quarter of Ukrainians, over 10 million people, have been forced from their homes.[5] At least 4.6 million refugees have fled Ukraine and arrived in neighboring countries. The vast majority of refugees migrated to nearby nations: Poland houses 2.6 million, Romania 709,000, Hungary 434,000, Russia 433,000, Moldova 415,000, and Slovakia 323,000.[6] 

The Russian military has indiscriminately attacked civilian infrastructure including homes, hospitals, and schools. Furthermore, the Ukrainian forces have been accused of shelling population centers in the Russian-controlled oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk. A UN human rights monitoring mission confirmed that by March 26th, 2022, 2,909 verified civilian casualties had occurred, noting that the actual numbers were “much higher.” The mission has also documented 16 instances of cluster munitions deployed by Russian forces and 74 instances of attacks on medical infrastructure.[7] Reports of rape, looting, and summary executions by Russian forces have also emerged.[8]

The invasion also has innumerable political and economic implications. Sanctions levied by the U.S. and thirty nations have imposed severe costs on Russian banks and state-owned enterprises. Moreover, the White House expects the Russian economy to lose fifteen years of economic gains as the nation’s GDP plummets.[9] It appears increasingly likely that the Russian Federation will default on its foreign debt, an unprecedented event.[10] Furthermore, Georgia and Moldova have formally applied to join the European Union, and Finland and Sweden appear poised to enter NATO.[11] Thus, the invasion has accelerated the dealignment of the former Soviet states from Russia and increased the potency of the West’s major military alliance.

In a bid to restore its former political, economic, and cultural power in Eastern Europe and around the globe, Russia has increasingly alienated itself from the international community. The invasion of Ukraine has expedited the realignment of former Soviet nations toward the West, damaged the Russian economy, and induced immeasurable destruction, instability, and suffering in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

[1] “U.S.: Russia trying to topple Georgian government,” CNN, August 11, 2008, http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/10/un.georgia/index.html; Sarah Reid, “Celebrating a nation that doesn’t exist,” BBC, February 6, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200205-celebrating-a-nation-that-doesnt-exist.

[2] Strobe Talbott (@strobetalbott), “Putin's wish to reconstitute Greater Russia requires him to re-conquer neighbors, piece by piece. It ended badly before, will do so again,” Twitter, March 19, 2014, https://twitter.com/strobetalbott/status/446460791592869889.

[3] Michael Rubin, “Joe Biden’s biggest foreign policy challenge: Irredentism,” American Enterprise Institute, December 28, 2020, https://www.aei.org/op-eds/joe-bidens-biggest-foreign-policy-challenge-irredentism/.

[4] Russian Mission in Geneva (@mission_russian), “(Part 4 of 5) President Vladimir #Putin’s video address on February 24 in English,” Twitter, February 24, 2022, https://twitter.com/mission_russian/status/1496874393485598725?s=20&t=glWDTkaqh_jSoy-bt179HA.

[5] Pamela Falk, “Russia's war in Ukraine has driven 10 million people to flee from their homes,” CBS News, March 21, 2022, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-un-war-displaced-10-million-people-refugees-internally-displaced/.

[6] “Ukraine Refugee Situation,” UNHCR, accessed April 13, 2022, https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine.

[7] “HRMMU Update on the human rights situation in Ukraine, 24 February – 26 March 2022,” Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/HRMMU_Update_2022-03-26_EN.pdf.

[8] “Ukraine: Apparent War Crimes in Russia-Controlled Areas,” Human Rights Watch, April 3, 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/03/ukraine-apparent-war-crimes-russia-controlled-areas.

[9] “FACT SHEET: United States, G7 and EU Impose Severe and Immediate Costs on Russia,” The White House, April 6, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/04/06/fact-sheet-united-states-g7-and-eu-impose-severe-and-immediate-costs-on-russia/.

[10] David Gura, “3 things to know as Russia heads to a historic debt default,” NPR, April 12, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/04/12/1092077016/russia-historic-debt-default-sanctions-invasion-ukraine.

[11] “Georgia, Moldova Formally Apply For EU Membership Amid Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, March 3, 2022, https://www.rferl.org/a/georgia-moldova-eu-applications/31734092.html; Ian Bremmer, “Finland and Sweden Seem Likely to Join NATO. What That Means for Europe,” TIME, April 23, 2022, https://time.com/6169708/finland-sweden-nato-expansion/.