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Urdu papers focus on Russia-Ukraine, criticise Modi for ‘politicising’ war, ‘delayed’ evacuation

Theprint’s round-up of how the urdu media covered various news events through the week, and the editorial positions some of them took..

New Delhi: The ongoing Russian assault on Ukraine, the devastation caused by the war there, and India’s “last minute evacuation” of its nationals from the war-torn country remained the top talking points in Urdu newspapers this week.

News of the conflict in the eastern European country pushed coverage of the hijab row in Karnataka almost entirely off the front pages, after many weeks in the spotlight. Even news of the ongoing assembly elections in India were pushed to the inside pages occasionally, as the Russia-Ukraine war dominated front page space.

ThePrint brings you a wrap of what made headlines in the Urdu press this week.

Russia-Ukraine war

On 4 March, Inquilab and Siasat carried articles on the front pages about the government of India taking opposition parties into confidence on the war in Ukraine, the efforts to get Indian citizens out of there, and the government’s position on the matter. Roznama Rashtriya Sahara, however, led with how the war had also started impacting the value of the rupee. It also carried a report on the rising prices of crude oil.

On 1 March, Roznama led with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s high-level meeting and the decision to send four Union ministers — Hardeep Singh Puri, Kiren Rijiju, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Gen. V. K. Singh (retd) to Ukraine’s neighbouring countries to bring back the Indian students stranded in the war-torn country.

The lead story in Siasat on 26 February was about Russia’s stand that it is ready for talks, provided Ukraine gets rid of its ruling dispensation. The death of Indian student Naveen Shekharappa in shelling in the city of Kharkiv was on the front pages of all three newspapers on 2 March.

The stories of returning students from the war-torn nation were carried in all newspapers, but in an editorial on 3 March, Roznama was critical of what it called the Modi government’s penchant for making political hay out of every situation, be it war or peace. Citing PM Modi’s reference to the war and Indian students in Ukraine during his speech in an election rally in Uttar Pradesh, the paper said that everything including the naming of the evacuation plan as ‘Operation Ganga’ and the sending of ministers to oversee evacuation — which made the very existence of Indian embassies in Ukraine’s neighbouring countries meaningless, the paper argued — was done with an eye on the UP elections.

In an editorial on 2 March, Inquilab explained what a fine line India has had to tow in its decision to abstain on UN resolutions on Russia’s aggression, and claimed that the present moment would test the Modi government’s strategic prowess. On the same day, a Roznama editorial blamed the government’s delay in decision-making. It wrote that the situation had not worsened in a day and while several countries, including the US, had already asked its citizens to leave Ukraine, the government of India was so busy with the elections in five states that it could not move in time to save its citizens’ lives.

Also read: Quad leaders say Ukraine sovereignty, territorial integrity key to peaceful, stable Indo-Pacific

UP assembly elections

The Russia-Ukraine war pushed news of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh off the lead spot, but it remained on the front pages, as voting in the fifth and sixth phases took place.

On 26 February, while most of the front page news was about Ukraine, Siasat carried a photo of Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav campaigning with a mace in his hand and large crowds in the background.

In an editorial on 1 March, Roznama noted the decreasing voting percentages in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and wrote that voters in the Hindi belt of the country seem to be a little more reluctant to exercise their franchise than in other states. Nowhere except in these two states, said the paper, have the voting percentages gone below 70.

On 4 March, Siasat highlighted Akhilesh Yadav’s promise of distributing free ghee along with free rations, if elected to power. The article was carried alongside a photo of the SP chief campaigning with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Inflation and related politics

Inflation remained a talking point on the front pages of Urdu newspapers through the week. On 2 March, under a banner headline on how the common man continues to suffer from high inflation in prices of essential goods, Roznama carried two stories — one about the price of LPG increasing by Rs 105 per cylinder and another on the price of milk going up. It also carried a statement by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi that the government is indifferent to the sufferings of the people and is not taking any steps to control the inflation. A day earlier, the paper had carried on the front page news about Amul milk becoming dearer by Rs 2 per litre.

The Siasat front page on 2 March also included news about the increase in LPG prices, and an inset in a story that quoted Akhilesh Yadav as saying that people would get rid of a government that has fleeced them.

Dropout rates and probability of early marriage

On 3 March, Roznama carried a report by NGO Save the Children that showed that under the Covid lockdown, 67 per cent girls (across the country) were deprived of education. The same number of girls were also deprived of medical and nutritional services.

Many of them, the report said, were likely to be married sooner than they would have otherwise been. In an editorial on 28 February, Inquilab questioned the government on what plans it has in place to control dropout rates and accused it of paying little attention to the problem.

(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)

Also read: ‘States did it first’: Modi justifies 2020 Covid lockdown, denies govt agencies misused for polls

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Ukraine, Russia war: implications for Pakistan

Historically, Pakistan has maintained moderate economic relations with both Russia and Ukraine

With the Russian war on Ukraine intensifying, most countries are beginning to feel the heat of the conflict in the shape of commodity shortages and surging prices. Currently, the war is confined within Ukraine, but it is feared to spill over the Ukrainian boundaries and last longer than anticipated. If so, most countries, including Pakistan, will be faced with grave challenges.

Historically, Pakistan has maintained moderate economic relations with both Russia and Ukraine. In 2020, mismanagement as well as exports in hopes of a bumper crop led to acute wheat shortages in Pakistan. This compelled the government to allow private companies to import wheat to stabilise prices and accumulate stocks. Between July and November 2020, Ukraine was the main supplier of wheat exporting 1.2 megatonne (MT) to Pakistan. During the same period, Russia supplied 0.92 MT to Pakistan. Wheat imports from the two countries exceeded 2.1 MT over 2020-2021.

Russia and Ukraine – both of which are important agricultural suppliers in the global food chain – are off the market due the ongoing war between them. Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports has further prevented Ukrainian wheat and other essential exports from reaching several countries. Resultantly, many countries have already reported food shortages; and Pakistan has also been compelled to find an alternative wheat supplier. The government may have to cover any shortages with expensive wheat imports.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also resulted in a record surge in LNG rates as the global supply chain is threatened with disruptions. This has caused immediate issues for Pakistan, as LNG companies have backed out of their contracts with Pakistan to exploit lucrative European markets. Pakistan is now compelled to purchase expensive LNG. Also, Pakistan’s imports of fossil fuel – oil, LNG and coal – from Ukraine have come to a halt. So, in the coming months, Pakistanis will be faced with frequent and prolonged power outages, extortionate utility bills and impediments to other services. Global oil prices have exceeded $100 per barrel since the start of the war, and supply and development have slowed down. Future fuel price hikes would be detrimental to Pakistan as its forex reserves would deplete further. The construction industry has also taken a hit because Pakistan was importing steel from Ukraine. Also, Pakistani exports to Ukraine have ceased, which will harm local industries and the economy.

Last year, several European and North American countries pledged to welcome Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban regime. However, the same countries are now taking in Ukrainian refugees. Afghan refugees in different countries are facing evictions. In such circumstances, Pakistan is experiencing a fresh influx of Afghan refugees. Also the Afghan refugees within Pakistan awaiting visa acceptance from different countries may never get approvals and stay on in Pakistan. This will increase the likelihood of illegal refugee settlements in urban areas, which can cause social unrest and further exhaust the country’s resources.

Diplomatically, Pakistan is caught in a complex situation as it wishes to maintain ties with both Russia and the West, including the US and EU. Given Pakistan’s poor experiences with camp politics, Islamabad abstained from voting against Russia at UNGA to stay neutral. As Russia intensifies its aggression and prolong the war, the West may ask Pakistan to review its stance.

Pakistan is also required to maintain diplomatic ties with Russia and China for geopolitical reasons. It may soon be faced with a repeat of the Cold War situation by having to pick sides. Alienation from either side can affect bilateral relations with the other. The government must tread carefully as the conflict unfolds.

In a globalised world order, it is inevitable for countries to remain unaffected by modern-day wars. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has exemplified that people around the world are being directly affected by the war.

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On February 24, 2022, the world watched in horror as Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, inciting the largest war in Europe since World War II. In the months prior, Western intelligence had warned that the attack was imminent, amidst a concerning build-up of military force on Ukraine’s borders. The intelligence was correct: Putin initiated a so-called “special military operation” under the  pretense  of securing Ukraine’s eastern territories and “liberating” Ukraine from allegedly “Nazi” leadership (the Jewish identity of Ukraine’s president notwithstanding). 

Once the invasion started, Western analysts predicted Kyiv would fall in three days. This intelligence could not have been more wrong. Kyiv not only lasted those three days, but it also eventually gained an upper hand, liberating territories Russia had conquered and handing Russia humiliating defeats on the battlefield. Ukraine has endured unthinkable atrocities: mass civilian deaths, infrastructure destruction, torture, kidnapping of children, and relentless shelling of residential areas. But Ukraine persists.

With support from European and US allies, Ukrainians mobilized, self-organized, and responded with bravery and agility that evoked an almost unified global response to rally to their cause and admire their tenacity. Despite the David-vs-Goliath dynamic of this war, Ukraine had gained significant experience since  fighting broke out  in its eastern territories following the  Euromaidan Revolution in 2014 . In that year, Russian-backed separatists fought for control over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the Donbas, the area of Ukraine that Russia later claimed was its priority when its attack on Kyiv failed. Also in 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea, the historical homeland of indigenous populations that became part of Ukraine in 1954. Ukraine was unprepared to resist, and international condemnation did little to affect Russia’s actions.

In the eight years between 2014 and 2022, Ukraine sustained heavy losses in the fight over eastern Ukraine: there were over  14,000 conflict-related casualties  and the fighting displaced  1.5 million people . Russia encountered a very different Ukraine in 2022, one that had developed its military capabilities and fine-tuned its extensive and powerful civil society networks after nearly a decade of conflict. Thus, Ukraine, although still dwarfed in  comparison  with  Russia’s GDP  ( $536 billion vs. $4.08 trillion ), population ( 43 million vs. 142 million ), and  military might  ( 500,000 vs. 1,330,900 personnel ;  312 vs. 4,182 aircraft ;  1,890 vs. 12,566 tanks ;  0 vs. 5,977 nuclear warheads ), was ready to fight for its freedom and its homeland.  Russia managed to control  up to  22% of Ukraine’s territory  at the peak of its invasion in March 2022 and still holds 17% (up from the 7% controlled by Russia and Russian-backed separatists  before the full-scale invasion ), but Kyiv still stands and Ukraine as a whole has never been more unified.

The Numbers

Source: OCHA & Humanitarian Partners

Civilians Killed

Source: Oct 20, 2023 | OHCHR

Ukrainian Refugees in Europe

Source: Jul 24, 2023 | UNHCR

Internally Displaced People

Source: May 25, 2023 | IOM

As It Happened

During the prelude to Russia’s full-scale invasion, HURI collated information answering key questions and tracing developments. A daily digest from the first few days of war documents reporting on the invasion as it unfolded.

Frequently Asked Questions

Russians and Ukrainians are not the same people. The territories that make up modern-day Russia and Ukraine have been contested throughout history, so in the past, parts of Ukraine were part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Other parts of Ukraine were once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Poland, among others. During the Russian imperial and Soviet periods, policies from Moscow pushed the Russian language and culture in Ukraine, resulting in a largely bilingual country in which nearly everyone in Ukraine speaks both Ukrainian and Russian. Ukraine was tightly connected to the Russian cultural, economic, and political spheres when it was part of the Soviet Union, but the Ukrainian language, cultural, and political structures always existed in spite of Soviet efforts to repress them. When Ukraine became independent in 1991, everyone living on the territory of what is now Ukraine became a citizen of the new country (this is why Ukraine is known as a civic nation instead of an ethnic one). This included a large number of people who came from Russian ethnic backgrounds, especially living in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, as well as Russian speakers living across the country. 

See also:  Timothy Snyder’s overview of Ukraine’s history.

Relevant Sources:

Plokhy, Serhii. “ Russia and Ukraine: Did They Reunite in 1654 ,” in  The Frontline: Essays on Ukraine’s Past and Present  (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2021). (Open access online)

Plokhy, Serhii. “ The Russian Question ,” in  The Frontline: Essays on Ukraine’s Past and Present  (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2021). (Open access online)

Ševčenko, Ihor.  Ukraine between East and West: Essays on Cultural History to the Early Eighteenth Century  (2nd, revised ed.) (Toronto: CIUS Press, 2009).

“ Ukraine w/ Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon  (#221).” Interview on  The Road to Now   with host Benjamin Sawyer. (Historian Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon joins Ben to talk about the key historical events that have shaped Ukraine and its place in the world today.) January 31, 2022.

Portnov, Andrii. “ Nothing New in the East? What the West Overlooked – Or Ignored ,” TRAFO Blog for Transregional Research. July 26, 2022. Note:  The German-language version of this text was published in:  Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte , 28–29/2022, 11 July 2022, pp. 16–20, and was republished by  TRAFO Blog . Translation into English was done by Natasha Klimenko.

Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for the protection of its territorial sovereignty in the Budapest Memorandum.

But in 2014, Russian troops occupied the peninsula of Crimea, held an illegal referendum, and claimed the territory for the Russian Federation. The muted international response to this clear violation of sovereignty helped motivate separatist groups in Donetsk and Luhansk regions—with Russian support—to declare secession from Ukraine, presumably with the hopes that a similar annexation and referendum would take place. Instead, this prompted a war that continues to this day—separatist paramilitaries are backed by Russian troops, equipment, and funding, fighting against an increasingly well-armed and experienced Ukrainian army. 

Ukrainian leaders (and many Ukrainian citizens) see membership in NATO as a way to protect their country’s sovereignty, continue building its democracy, and avoid another violation like the annexation of Crimea. With an aggressive, authoritarian neighbor to Ukraine’s east, and with these recurring threats of a new invasion, Ukraine does not have the choice of neutrality. Leaders have made clear that they do not want Ukraine to be subjected to Russian interference and dominance in any sphere, so they hope that entering into NATO’s protective sphere–either now or in the future–can counterbalance Russian threats.

“ Ukraine got a signed commitment in 1994 to ensure its security – but can the US and allies stop Putin’s aggression now? ” Lee Feinstein and Mariana Budjeryn.  The Conversation , January 21, 2022.

“ Ukraine Gave Up a Giant Nuclear Arsenal 30 Years Ago. Today There Are Regrets. ” William J. Broad.  The New York Times , February 5, 2022. Includes quotes from Mariana Budjeryn (Harvard) and Steven Pifer (former Ambassador, now Stanford)

What is the role of regionalism in Ukrainian politics? Can the conflict be boiled down to antagonism between an eastern part of the country that is pro-Russia and a western part that is pro-West?

Ukraine is often viewed as a dualistic country, divided down the middle by the Dnipro river. The western part of the country is often associated with the Ukrainian language and culture, and because of this, it is often considered the heart of its nationalist movement. The eastern part of Ukraine has historically been more Russian-speaking, and its industry-based economy has been entwined with Russia. While these features are not untrue, in reality,  regionalism is not definitive in predicting people’s attitudes toward Russia, Europe, and Ukraine’s future.  It’s important to remember that every  oblast  (region) in Ukraine voted for independence in 1991, including Crimea. 

Much of the current perception about eastern regions of Ukraine, including the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk that are occupied by separatists and Russian forces, is that they are pro-Russia and wish to be united with modern-day Russia. In the early post-independence period, these regions were the sites of the consolidation of power by oligarchs profiting from the privatization of Soviet industries–people like future president Viktor Yanukovych–who did see Ukraine’s future as integrated with Russia. However, the 2013-2014 Euromaidan protests changed the role of people like Yanukovych. Protesters in Kyiv demanded the president’s resignation and, in February 2014, rose up against him and his Party of Regions, ultimately removing them from power. Importantly, pro-Euromaidan protests took place across Ukraine, including all over the eastern regions of the country and in Crimea. 

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• 9 big questions about Russia’s war in Ukraine, answered

Addressing some of the most pressing questions of the whole war, from how it started to how it might end.

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The Russian war in Ukraine has proven itself to be one of the most consequential political events of our time — and one of the most confusing.

From the outset, Russia’s decision to invade was hard to understand; it seemed at odds with what most experts saw as Russia’s strategic interests. As the war has progressed, the widely predicted Russian victory has failed to emerge as Ukrainian fighters have repeatedly fended off attacks from a vastly superior force. Around the world, from Washington to Berlin to Beijing, global powers have reacted in striking and even historically unprecedented fashion.

What follows is an attempt to make sense of all of this: to tackle the biggest questions everyone is asking about the war. It is a comprehensive guide to understanding what is happening in Ukraine and why it matters.

1) Why did Russia invade Ukraine?

In a televised speech announcing Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24 , Russian President Vladimir Putin said the invasion was designed to stop a “genocide” perpetrated by “the Kyiv regime” — and ultimately to achieve “the demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine.”

Though the claims of genocide and Nazi rule in Kyiv were transparently false , the rhetoric revealed Putin’s maximalist war aims: regime change (“de-Nazification”) and the elimination of Ukraine’s status as a sovereign state outside of Russian control (“demilitarization”). Why he would want to do this is a more complex story, one that emerges out of the very long arc of Russian-Ukrainian relations.

Ukraine and Russia have significant, deep, and longstanding cultural and historical ties; both date their political origins back to the ninth-century Slavic kingdom of Kievan Rus. But these ties do not make them historically identical, as Putin has repeatedly claimed in his public rhetoric. Since the rise of the modern Ukrainian national movement in the mid- to late-19th century , Russian rule in Ukraine — in both the czarist and Soviet periods — increasingly came to resemble that of an imperial power governing an unwilling colony .

Russian imperial rule ended in 1991 when 92 percent of Ukrainians voted in a national referendum to secede from the decaying Soviet Union. Almost immediately afterward , political scientists and regional experts began warning that the Russian-Ukrainian border would be a flashpoint, predicting that internal divides between the more pro-European population of western Ukraine and relatively more pro-Russian east , contested territory like the Crimean Peninsula , and Russian desire to reestablish control over its wayward vassal could all lead to conflict between the new neighbors.

It took about 20 years for these predictions to be proven right. In late 2013, Ukrainians took to the streets to protest the authoritarian and pro-Russian tilt of incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych, forcing his resignation on February 22, 2014. Five days later, the Russian military swiftly seized control of Crimea and declared it Russian territory, a brazenly illegal move that a majority of Crimeans nonetheless seemed to welcome . Pro-Russia protests in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine gave way to a violent rebellion — one stoked and armed by the Kremlin , and backed by disguised Russian troops .

The Ukrainian uprising against Yanukovych — called the “Euromaidan” movement because they were pro-EU protests that most prominently took place in Kyiv’s Maidan square — represented to Russia a threat not just to its influence over Ukraine but to the very survival of Putin’s regime. In Putin’s mind, Euromaidan was a Western-sponsored plot to overthrow a Kremlin ally, part of a broader plan to undermine Russia itself that included NATO’s post-Cold War expansions to the east.

“We understand what is happening; we understand that [the protests] were aimed against Ukraine and Russia and against Eurasian integration,” he said in a March 2014 speech on the annexation of Crimea. “With Ukraine, our Western partners have crossed the line.”

Beneath this rhetoric, according to experts on Russia, lies a deeper unstated fear: that his regime might fall prey to a similar protest movement . Ukraine could not succeed, in his view, because it might create a pro-Western model for Russians to emulate — one that the United States might eventually try to covertly export to Moscow. This was a central part of his thinking in 2014 , and it remains so today.

“He sees CIA agents behind every anti-Russian political movement,” says Seva Gunitsky, a political scientist who studies Russia at the University of Toronto. “He thinks the West wants to subvert his regime the way they did in Ukraine.”

Beginning in March 2021, Russian forces began deploying to the Ukrainian border in larger and larger numbers. Putin’s nationalist rhetoric became more aggressive: In July 2021, the Russian president published a 5,000-word essay arguing that Ukrainian nationalism was a fiction, that the country was historically always part of Russia, and that a pro-Western Ukraine posed an existential threat to the Russian nation.

“The formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us,” as he put it in his 2021 essay .

Why Putin decided that merely seizing part of Ukraine was no longer enough remains a matter of significant debate among experts. One theory, advanced by Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar , is that pandemic-induced isolation drove him to an extreme ideological place.

But while the immediate cause of Putin’s shift on Ukraine is not clear, the nature of that shift is. His longtime belief in the urgency of restoring Russia’s greatness curdled into a neo-imperial desire to bring Ukraine back under direct Russian control. And in Russia, where Putin rules basically unchecked, that meant a full-scale war.

2) Who is winning the war?

On paper , Russia’s military vastly outstrips Ukraine’s. Russia spends over 10 times as much on defense annually as Ukraine; the Russian military has a little under three times as much artillery as Ukraine and roughly 10 times as many fixed-wing aircraft. As a result, the general pre-invasion view was that Russia would easily win a conventional war. In early February, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley told members of Congress that Kyiv, the capital, could fall within 72 hours of a Russian invasion .

But that’s not how things have played out . A month into the invasion, Ukrainians still hold Kyiv. Russia has made some gains, especially in the east and south, but the consensus view among military experts is that Ukraine’s defenses have held stoutly — to the point where Ukrainians have been able to launch counteroffensives .

The initial Russian plan reportedly operated under the assumption that a swift march on Kyiv would meet only token resistance. Putin “actually really thought this would be a ‘special military operation’: They would be done in a few days, and it wouldn’t be a real war,” says Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at the CNA think tank.

This plan fell apart within the first 48 hours of the war when early operations like an airborne assault on the Hostomel airport ended in disaster , forcing Russian generals to develop a new strategy on the fly. What they came up with — massive artillery bombardments and attempts to encircle and besiege Ukraine’s major cities — was more effective (and more brutal). The Russians made some inroads into Ukrainian territory, especially in the south, where they have laid siege to Mariupol and taken Kherson and Melitopol.

But these Russian advances are a bit misleading. Ukraine, Kofman explains, made the tactical decision to trade “space for time” : to withdraw strategically rather than fight for every inch of Ukrainian land, confronting the Russians on the territory and at the time of their choosing.

As the fighting continued, the nature of the Ukrainian choice became clearer. Instead of getting into pitched large-scale battles with Russians on open terrain, where Russia’s numerical advantages would prove decisive, the Ukrainians instead decided to engage in a series of smaller-scale clashes .

Ukrainian forces have bogged down Russian units in towns and smaller cities ; street-to-street combat favors defenders who can use their superior knowledge of the city’s geography to hide and conduct ambushes. They have attacked isolated and exposed Russian units traveling on open roads. They have repeatedly raided poorly protected supply lines.

This approach has proven remarkably effective. By mid-March, Western intelligence agencies and open source analysts concluded that the Ukrainians had successfully managed to stall the Russian invasion. The Russian military all but openly recognized this reality in a late March briefing, in which top generals implausibly claimed they never intended to take Kyiv and were always focused on making territorial gains in the east.

“The initial Russian campaign to invade and conquer Ukraine is culminating without achieving its objectives — it is being defeated, in other words,” military scholar Frederick Kagan wrote in a March 22 brief for the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank.

Currently, Ukrainian forces are on the offensive. They have pushed the Russians farther from Kyiv , with some reports suggesting they have retaken the suburb of Irpin and forced Russia to withdraw some of its forces from the area in a tacit admission of defeat. In the south, Ukrainian forces are contesting Russian control over Kherson .

And throughout the fighting, Russian casualties have been horrifically high.

It’s hard to get accurate information in a war zone, but one of the more authoritative estimates of Russian war dead — from the US Defense Department — concludes that over 7,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the first three weeks of fighting, a figure about three times as large as the total US service members dead in all 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan. A separate NATO estimate puts that at the low end, estimating between 7,000 and 15,000 Russians killed in action and as many as 40,000 total losses (including injuries, captures, and desertions). Seven Russian generals have been reported killed in the fighting, and materiel losses — ranging from armor to aircraft — have been enormous. (Russia puts its death toll at more than 1,300 soldiers, which is almost certainly a significant undercount.)

This all does not mean that a Russian victory is impossible. Any number of things, ranging from Russian reinforcements to the fall of besieged Mariupol, could give the war effort new life.

It does, however, mean that what Russia is doing right now hasn’t worked.

“If the point is just to wreak havoc, then they’re doing fine. But if the point is to wreak havoc and thus advance further — be able to hold more territory — they’re not doing fine,” says Olga Oliker, the program director for Europe and Central Asia at the International Crisis Group.

3) Why is Russia’s military performing so poorly?

Russia’s invasion has gone awry for two basic reasons: Its military wasn’t ready to fight a war like this, and the Ukrainians have put up a much stronger defense than anyone expected.

Russia’s problems begin with Putin’s unrealistic invasion plan. But even after the Russian high command adjusted its strategy, other flaws in the army remained.

“We’re seeing a country militarily implode,” says Robert Farley, a professor who studies air power at the University of Kentucky.

One of the biggest and most noticeable issues has been rickety logistics. Some of the most famous images of the war have been of Russian armored vehicles parked on Ukrainian roads, seemingly out of gas and unable to advance. The Russian forces have proven to be underequipped and badly supplied, encountering problems ranging from poor communications to inadequate tires .

Part of the reason is a lack of sufficient preparation. Per Kofman, the Russian military simply “wasn’t organized for this kind of war” — meaning, the conquest of Europe’s second-largest country by area. Another part of it is corruption in the Russian procurement system. Graft in Russia is less a bug in its political system than a feature; one way the Kremlin maintains the loyalty of its elite is by allowing them to profit off of government activity . Military procurement is no exception to this pattern of widespread corruption, and it has led to troops having substandard access to vital supplies .

The same lack of preparation has plagued Russia’s air force . Despite outnumbering the Ukrainian air force by roughly 10 times, the Russians have failed to establish air superiority: Ukraine’s planes are still flying and its air defenses mostly remain in place .

Perhaps most importantly, close observers of the war believe Russians are suffering from poor morale. Because Putin’s plan to invade Ukraine was kept secret from the vast majority of Russians, the government had a limited ability to lay a propaganda groundwork that would get their soldiers motivated to fight. The current Russian force has little sense of what they’re fighting for or why — and are waging war against a country with which they have religious, ethnic, historical, and potentially even familial ties. In a military that has long had systemic morale problems, that’s a recipe for battlefield disaster.

“Russian morale was incredibly low BEFORE the war broke out. Brutal hazing in the military, second-class (or worse) status by its conscript soldiers, ethnic divisions, corruption, you name it: the Russian Army was not prepared to fight this war,” Jason Lyall, a Dartmouth political scientist who studies morale, explains via email. “High rates of abandoned or captured equipment, reports of sabotaged equipment, and large numbers of soldiers deserting (or simply camping out in the forest) are all products of low morale.”

The contrast with the Ukrainians couldn’t be starker. They are defending their homes and their families from an unprovoked invasion, led by a charismatic leader who has made a personal stand in Kyiv. Ukrainian high morale is a key reason, in addition to advanced Western armaments, that the defenders have dramatically outperformed expectations.

“Having spent a chunk of my professional career [working] with the Ukrainians, nobody, myself included and themselves included, had all that high an estimation of their military capacity,” Oliker says.

Again, none of this will necessarily remain the case throughout the war. Morale can shift with battlefield developments. And even if Russian morale remains low, it’s still possible for them to win — though they’re more likely to do so in a brutally ugly fashion.

4) What has the war meant for ordinary Ukrainians?

As the fighting has dragged on, Russia has gravitated toward tactics that, by design, hurt civilians. Most notably, Russia has attempted to lay siege to Ukraine’s cities, cutting off supply and escape routes while bombarding them with artillery. The purpose of the strategy is to wear down the Ukrainian defenders’ willingness to fight, including by inflicting mass pain on the civilian populations.

The result has been nightmarish: an astonishing outflow of Ukrainian refugees and tremendous suffering for many of those who were unwilling or unable to leave.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , more than 3.8 million Ukrainians fled the country between February 24 and March 27. That’s about 8.8 percent of Ukraine’s total population — in proportional terms, the rough equivalent of the entire population of Texas being forced to flee the United States.

Another point of comparison: In 2015, four years into the Syrian civil war and the height of the global refugee crisis, there were a little more than 4 million Syrian refugees living in nearby countries . The Ukraine war has produced a similarly sized exodus in just a month, leading to truly massive refugee flows to its European neighbors. Poland, the primary destination of Ukrainian refugees, is currently housing over 2.3 million Ukrainians, a figure larger than the entire population of Warsaw, its capital and largest city.

For those civilians who have been unable to flee, the situation is dire. There are no reliable estimates of death totals; a March 27 UN estimate puts the figure at 1,119 but cautions that “the actual figures are considerably higher [because] the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration.”

The UN assessment does not blame one side or the other for these deaths, but does note that “most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, and missile and airstrikes.” It is the Russians, primarily, who are using these sorts of weapons in populated areas; Human Rights Watch has announced that there are “early signs of war crimes” being committed by Russian soldiers in these kinds of attacks, and President Joe Biden has personally labeled Putin a “war criminal.”

Nowhere is this devastation more visible than the southern city of Mariupol, the largest Ukrainian population center to which Russia has laid siege. Aerial footage of the city published by the Guardian in late March reveals entire blocks demolished by Russian bombardment:

In mid-March, three Associated Press journalists — the last international reporters in the city before they too were evacuated — managed to file a dispatch describing life on the ground. They reported a death total of 2,500 but cautioned that “many bodies can’t be counted because of the endless shelling .” The situation is impossibly dire:

Airstrikes and shells have hit the maternity hospital, the fire department, homes, a church, a field outside a school. For the estimated hundreds of thousands who remain, there is quite simply nowhere to go. The surrounding roads are mined and the port blocked. Food is running out, and the Russians have stopped humanitarian attempts to bring it in. Electricity is mostly gone and water is sparse, with residents melting snow to drink. Some parents have even left their newborns at the hospital, perhaps hoping to give them a chance at life in the one place with decent electricity and water.

The battlefield failures of the Russian military have raised questions about its competence in difficult block-to-block fighting; Farley, the Kentucky professor, says, “This Russian army does not look like it can conduct serious [urban warfare].” As a result, taking Ukrainian cities means besieging them — starving them out, destroying their will to fight, and only moving into the city proper after its population is unwilling to resist or outright incapable of putting up a fight.

5) What do Russians think about the war?

Vladimir Putin’s government has ramped up its already repressive policies during the Ukraine conflict, shuttering independent media outlets and blocking access to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram . It’s now extremely difficult to get a sense of what either ordinary Russians or the country’s elite think about the war, as criticizing it could lead to a lengthy stint in prison.

But despite this opacity, expert Russia watchers have developed a broad idea of what’s going on there. The war has stirred up some opposition and anti-Putin sentiment, but it has been confined to a minority who are unlikely to change Putin’s mind, let alone topple him.

The bulk of the Russian public was no more prepared for war than the bulk of the Russian military — in fact, probably less so. After Putin announced the launch of his “special military operation” in Ukraine on national television, there was a surprising amount of criticism from high-profile Russians — figures ranging from billionaires to athletes to social media influencers. One Russian journalist, Marina Ovsyannikova, bravely ran into the background of a government broadcast while holding an antiwar sign.

“It is unprecedented to see oligarchs, other elected officials, and other powerful people in society publicly speaking out against the war,” says Alexis Lerner, a scholar of dissent in Russia at the US Naval Academy.

There have also been antiwar rallies in dozens of Russian cities. How many have participated in these rallies is hard to say, but the human rights group OVD-Info estimates that over 15,000 Russians have been arrested at the events since the war began.

Could these eruptions of antiwar sentiment at the elite and mass public level suggest a coming coup or revolution against the Putin regime? Experts caution that these events remain quite unlikely.

Putin has done an effective job engaging in what political scientists call “coup-proofing.” He has put in barriers — from seeding the military with counterintelligence officers to splitting up the state security services into different groups led by trusted allies — that make it quite difficult for anyone in his government to successfully move against him.

“Putin has prepared for this eventuality for a long time and has taken a lot of concerted actions to make sure he’s not vulnerable,” says Adam Casey, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan who studies the history of coups in Russia and the former communist bloc.

Similarly, turning the antiwar protests into a full-blown influential movement is a very tall order.

“It is hard to organize sustained collective protest in Russia,” notes Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard who studies protest movements . “Putin’s government has criminalized many forms of protests, and has shut down or restricted the activities of groups, movements, and media outlets perceived to be in opposition or associated with the West.”

Underpinning it all is tight government control of the information environment. Most Russians get their news from government-run media , which has been serving up a steady diet of pro-war content. Many of them appear to genuinely believe what they hear: One independent opinion poll found that 58 percent of Russians supported the war to at least some degree.

Prior to the war, Putin also appeared to be a genuinely popular figure in Russia. The elite depend on him for their position and fortune; many citizens see him as the man who saved Russia from the chaos of the immediate post-Communist period. A disastrous war might end up changing that, but the odds that even a sustained drop in his support translates into a coup or revolution remain low indeed.

6) What is the US role in the conflict?

The war remains, for the moment, a conflict between Ukraine and Russia. But the United States is the most important third party, using a number of powerful tools — short of direct military intervention — to aid the Ukrainian cause.

Any serious assessment of US involvement needs to start in the post-Cold War 1990s , when the US and its NATO allies made the decision to open alliance membership to former communist states.

Many of these countries, wary of once again being put under the Russian boot, clamored to join the alliance, which commits all involved countries to defend any member-state in the event of an attack. In 2008, NATO officially announced that Georgia and Ukraine — two former Soviet republics right on Russia’s doorstep — “ will become members of NATO ” at an unspecified future date. This infuriated the Russians, who saw NATO expansion as a direct threat to their own security.

There is no doubt that NATO expansion helped create some of the background conditions under which the current conflict became thinkable, generally pushing Putin’s foreign policy in a more anti-Western direction. Some experts see it as one of the key causes of his decision to attack Ukraine — but others strongly disagree, noting that NATO membership for Ukraine was already basically off the table before the war and that Russia’s declared war aims went far beyond simply blocking Ukraine’s NATO bid .

“NATO expansion was deeply unpopular in Russia. [But] Putin did not invade because of NATO expansion,” says Yoshiko Herrera, a Russia expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Regardless of where one falls on that debate, US policy during the conflict has been exceptionally clear: support the Ukrainians with massive amounts of military assistance while putting pressure on Putin to back down by organizing an unprecedented array of international economic sanctions.

On the military side, weapons systems manufactured and provided by the US and Europe have played a vital role in blunting Russia’s advance. The Javelin anti-tank missile system, for example, is a lightweight American-made launcher that allows one or two infantry soldiers to take out a tank . Javelins have given the outgunned Ukrainians a fighting chance against Russian armor, becoming a popular symbol in the process .

Sanctions have proven similarly devastating in the economic realm .

The international punishments have been extremely broad, ranging from removing key Russian banks from the SWIFT global transaction system to a US ban on Russian oil imports to restrictions on doing business with particular members of the Russian elite . Freezing the assets of Russia’s central bank has proven to be a particularly damaging tool, wrecking Russia’s ability to deal with the collapse in the value of the ruble, its currency. As a result, the Russian economy is projected to contract by 15 percent this year ; mass unemployment looms .

There is more America can do, particularly when it comes to fulfilling Ukrainian requests for new fighter jets. In March, Washington rejected a Polish plan to transfer MiG-29 aircraft to Ukraine via a US Air Force base in Germany, arguing that it could be too provocative.

But the MiG-29 incident is more the exception than it is the rule. On the whole, the United States has been strikingly willing to take aggressive steps to punish Moscow and aid Kyiv’s war effort.

7) How is the rest of the world responding to Russia’s actions?

On the surface, the world appears to be fairly united behind the Ukrainian cause. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the Russian invasion by a whopping 141-5 margin (with 35 abstentions). But the UN vote conceals a great deal of disagreement, especially among the world’s largest and most influential countries — divergences that don’t always fall neatly along democracy-versus-autocracy lines.

The most aggressive anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian positions can, perhaps unsurprisingly, be found in Europe and the broader West. EU and NATO members, with the partial exceptions of Hungary and Turkey , have strongly supported the Ukrainian war effort and implemented punishing sanctions on Russia (a major trading partner). It’s the strongest show of European unity since the Cold War, one that many observers see as a sign that Putin’s invasion has already backfired.

Germany, which has important trade ties with Russia and a post-World War II tradition of pacifism, is perhaps the most striking case. Nearly overnight, the Russian invasion convinced center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz to support rearmament , introducing a proposal to more than triple Germany’s defense budget that’s widely backed by the German public.

“It’s really revolutionary,” Sophia Besch, a Berlin-based senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, told my colleague Jen Kirby . “Scholz, in his speech, did away with and overturned so many of what we thought were certainties of German defense policy.”

Though Scholz has refused to outright ban Russian oil and gas imports, he has blocked the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and committed to a long-term strategy of weaning Germany off of Russian energy. All signs point to Russia waking a sleeping giant — of creating a powerful military and economic enemy in the heart of the European continent.

China, by contrast, has been the most pro-Russia of the major global powers.

The two countries, bound by shared animus toward a US-dominated world order, have grown increasingly close in recent years. Chinese propaganda has largely toed the Russian line on the Ukraine war. US intelligence, which has been remarkably accurate during the crisis, believes that Russia has requested military and financial assistance from Beijing — which hasn’t been provided yet but may well be forthcoming.

That said, it’s possible to overstate the degree to which China has taken the Russian side. Beijing has a strong stated commitment to state sovereignty — the bedrock of its position on Taiwan is that the island is actually Chinese territory — which makes a full-throated backing of the invasion ideologically awkward . There’s a notable amount of debate among Chinese policy experts and in the public , with some analysts publicly advocating that Beijing adopt a more neutral line on the conflict.

Most other countries around the world fall somewhere on the spectrum between the West and China. Outside of Europe, only a handful of mostly pro-American states — like South Korea, Japan, and Australia — have joined the sanctions regime. The majority of countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America do not support the invasion, but won’t do very much to punish Russia for it either.

India is perhaps the most interesting country in this category. A rising Asian democracy that has violently clashed with China in the very recent past , it has good reasons to present itself as an American partner in the defense of freedom. Yet India also depends heavily on Russian-made weapons for its own defense and hopes to use its relationship with Russia to limit the Moscow-Beijing partnership. It’s also worth noting that India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has strong autocratic inclinations .

The result of all of this is a balancing act reminiscent of India’s Cold War approach of “non-alignment” : refusing to side with either the Russian or American positions while attempting to maintain decent relations with both . India’s perceptions of its strategic interests, more than ideological views about democracy, appear to be shaping its response to the war — as seems to be the case with quite a few countries around the world.

8) Could this turn into World War III?

The basic, scary answer to this question is yes: The invasion of Ukraine has put us at the greatest risk of a NATO-Russia war in decades.

The somewhat more comforting and nuanced answer is that the absolute risk remains relatively low so long as there is no direct NATO involvement in the conflict, which the Biden administration has repeatedly ruled out . Though Biden said “this man [Putin] cannot remain in power” in a late March speech, both White House officials and the president himself stressed afterward that the US policy was not regime change in Moscow.

“Things are stable in a nuclear sense right now,” says Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on nuclear weapons at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. “The minute NATO gets involved, the scope of the war widens.”

In theory, US and NATO military assistance to Ukraine could open the door to escalation: Russia could attack a military depot in Poland containing weapons bound for Ukraine, for instance. But in practice, it’s unlikely: The Russians don’t appear to want a wider war with NATO that risks nuclear escalation, and so have avoided cross-border strikes even when it might destroy supply shipments bound for Ukraine.

In early March, the US Department of Defense opened a direct line of communication with its Russian peers in order to avoid any kind of accidental conflict. It’s not clear how well this is working — some reporting suggests the Russians aren’t answering American calls — but there is a long history of effective dialogue between rivals who are fighting each other through proxy forces.

“States often cooperate to keep limits on their wars even as they fight one another clandestinely,” Lyall, the Dartmouth professor, tells me. “While there’s always a risk of unintended escalation, historical examples like Vietnam, Afghanistan (1980s), Afghanistan again (post-2001), and Syria show that wars can be fought ‘within bounds.’”

If the United States and NATO heed the call of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to impose a so-called “no-fly zone” over Ukrainian skies, the situation changes dramatically. No-fly zones are commitments to patrol and, if necessary, shoot down military aircraft that fly in the declared area, generally for the purpose of protecting civilians. In Ukraine, that would mean the US and its NATO allies sending in jets to patrol Ukraine’s skies — and being willing to shoot down any Russian planes that enter protected airspace. From there, the risks of a nuclear conflict become terrifyingly high.

Russia recognizes its inferiority to NATO in conventional terms; its military doctrine has long envisioned the use of nuclear weapons in a war with the Western alliance . In his speech declaring war on Ukraine, Putin all but openly vowed that any international intervention in the conflict would trigger nuclear retaliation.

“To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside: If you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history,” the Russian president said. “I hope you hear me.”

The Biden administration is taking these threats seriously. Much as the Kremlin hasn’t struck NATO supply missions to Ukraine, the White House has flatly rejected a no-fly zone or any other kind of direct military intervention.

“We will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine,” Biden said on March 11 . “Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent.”

This does not mean the risk of a wider war is zero . Accidents happen, and countries can be dragged into war against their leaders’ best judgment. Political positions and risk calculi can also change: If Russia starts losing badly and uses smaller nukes on Ukrainian forces (called “tactical” nuclear weapons), Biden would likely feel the need to respond in some fairly aggressive way. Much depends on Washington and Moscow continuing to show a certain level of restraint.

9) How could the war end?

Wars do not typically end with the total defeat of one side or the other. More commonly, there’s some kind of negotiated settlement — either a ceasefire or more permanent peace treaty — where the two sides agree to stop fighting under a set of mutually agreeable terms.

It is possible that the Ukraine conflict turns out to be an exception: that Russian morale collapses completely, leading to utter battlefield defeat, or that Russia inflicts so much pain that Kyiv collapses. But most analysts believe that neither of these is especially likely given the way the war has played out to date.

“No matter how much military firepower they pour into it, [the Russians] are not going to be able to achieve regime change or some of their maximalist aims,” Kofman, of the CNA think tank, declares.

A negotiated settlement is the most likely way the conflict ends. Peace negotiations between the two sides are ongoing, and some reporting suggests they’re bearing fruit. On March 28, the Financial Times reported significant progress on a draft agreement covering issues ranging from Ukrainian NATO membership to the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. The next day, Russia pledged to decrease its use of force in Ukraine’s north as a sign of its commitment to the talks.

American officials, though, have been publicly skeptical of Russia’s seriousness in the talks. Even if Moscow is committed to reaching a settlement, the devil is always in the details with these sorts of things — and there are lots of barriers standing in the way of a successful resolution.

Take NATO. The Russians want a simple pledge that Ukraine will remain “neutral” — staying out of foreign security blocs. The current draft agreement, per the Financial Times, does preclude Ukrainian NATO membership, but it permits Ukraine to join the EU. It also commits at least 11 countries, including the United States and China, to coming to Ukraine’s aid if it is attacked again. This would put Ukraine on a far stronger security footing than it had before the war — a victory for Kyiv and defeat for Moscow, one that Putin may ultimately conclude is unacceptable.

Another thorny issue — perhaps the thorniest — is the status of Crimea and the two breakaway Russian-supported republics in eastern Ukraine. The Russians want Ukrainian recognition of its annexation of Crimea and the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions; Ukraine claims all three as part of its territory. Some compromise is imaginable here — an internationally monitored referendum in each territory, perhaps — but what that would look like is not obvious.

The resolution of these issues will likely depend quite a bit on the war’s progress. The more each side believes it has a decent chance to improve its battlefield position and gain leverage in negotiations, the less reason either will have to make concessions to the other in the name of ending the fighting.

And even if they do somehow come to an agreement, it may not end up holding .

On the Ukrainian side, ultra-nationalist militias could work to undermine any agreement with Russia that they believe gives away too much, as they threatened during pre-war negotiations aimed at preventing the Russian invasion .

On the Russian side, an agreement is only as good as Putin’s word. Even if it contains rigorous provisions designed to raise the costs of future aggression, like international peacekeepers, that may not hold him back from breaking the agreement.

This invasion did, after all, start with him launching an invasion that seemed bound to hurt Russia in the long run. Putin dragged the world into this mess; when and how it gets out of it depends just as heavily on his decisions.

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Russia - Ukraine Conflict [UPSC Notes]

Latest Developments in Russia – Ukraine Conflict

On Feb 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine . Know more about this in the link given. This page gives a background of the issue with an analysis of the developments before the invasion.

The tensions on Ukraine’s border with Russia are at their highest in years. Fearing a potential invasion by Russia, the US and NATO are stepping up support for Ukraine. In this article, we explain the reason for tensions between Russia and Ukraine, the latest developments, the stand of various stakeholders in the region, and the way forward for the UPSC exam IR segment.

Russia – Ukraine Conflict Background

Post the disintegration of the Soviet Union , Ukraine gained independence in 1991.

• Ukraine was a member of the Soviet Union until 1991 when it disintegrated, and Russia has tried to maintain the country in its orbit since then.
• In 2014, a separatist insurgency started in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, Donetsk Basin, also known as,
• Russia further gained a maritime advantage in the region due to its invasion and annexation of Crimea.
• As a result, both the US and the EU have pledged to safeguard the integrity of Ukraine’s borders.

Image Source: Al Jazeera

Importance of Ukraine to Russia

• Ukraine and Russia have shared cultural and linguistic ties for hundreds of years.
• Ukraine was the most powerful country in the Soviet Union after Russia.
• Ukraine has been a hub for commercial industries, factories and defence manufacturing.
• Ukraine also provides Russia with access to the Black Sea and crucial connectivity to the Mediterranean Sea.

Reasons for Russian Aggression

The chief reasons for Russian aggression are discussed below.

• Russia, considering the economic significance of Ukraine, sought Ukraine’s membership in the Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC), which is a free trade agreement that came into being in 2015.
• With its huge market and advanced agriculture and industrial output, Ukraine was supposed to play an important role. But Ukraine refused to join the agreement.
• Russia claims that the eastward expansion by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) which they call “ enlargement ”, has threatened Russia’s interests and has asked for written security guarantees from NATO.
• NATO, led by the U.S., has planned to install missile defence systems in eastern Europe in countries like Poland and the Czech Republic to counter Russia’s intercontinental-range missiles.

Russia – Ukraine Latest Developments

Russia has been indulging in military build-up along its border with Ukraine, an aspiring NATO member. Russia has stated that its troop deployment is in response to NATO’s steady eastward expansion. Russia argues that its moves are aimed at protecting its own security considerations.

• Russia has mobilised around 1,00,000 troops on its border with Ukraine.
• Russia seeks assurance from the US that Ukraine shall not be inducted into NATO.
• This has resulted in tensions between Russia and the West which have been supportive of Ukraine. The U.S. has assured Ukraine that it will “respond decisively” in case of an invasion by Russia.

Image Source: The Hindu

Russia’s demands

• Russia has demanded a ban on further expansion of NATO that includes countries like Ukraine and Georgia that share Russia’s borders.
• Russia asked NATO to pull back its military deployments to the 1990s level and prohibit the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in the bordering areas.
• Further, Russia asked NATO to curb its military cooperation with Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.

The response from the West

• The U.S. has ruled out changing NATO’s “open-door policy” which means, NATO would continue to induct more members.
• The U.S. also says it would continue to offer training and weapons to Ukraine.
• The U.S. is said to be open to a discussion regarding missile deployment and a mutual reduction in military exercises in Eastern Europe.
• Germany has also warned Russia that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline would be stopped if Russia were to invade Ukraine.
• The U.S. threatens Russia by imposing new economic sanctions in case of attempts of invasion against Ukraine.

Russia – Ukraine Crisis: Implications on India

What implications does the Russia – Ukraine crisis have on India? This is discussed in this section.

• Maintaining strong relations with Russia serves India’s national interests. India has to retain a strong strategic alliance with Russia as a result, India cannot join any Western strategy aimed at isolating Russia.
• There is a possibility of CAATSA sanctions on India by the U.S. as a result of the S-400
• A pact between the US and Russia might affect Russia’s relations with China. This might allow India to expand on its efforts to re-establish ties with Russia.
• The issue with Ukraine is that the world is becoming increasingly economically and geopolitically interconnected. Any improvement in Russia-China ties has ramifications for India.
• There is also an impact on the strong Indian diaspora present in the region, threatening the lives of thousands of Indian students.

Also read: India – Russia relations

India’s stand

• India called for “a peaceful resolution of the situation through sustained diplomatic efforts for long-term peace and stability in the region and beyond”.
• Immediately after the annexation, India abstained from voting in the UN General Assembly on a resolution that sought to condemn Russia.
• In 2020, India voted against a Ukraine-sponsored resolution in the UN General Assembly that sought to condemn alleged human rights violations in Crimea.
• India’s position is largely rooted in neutrality and has adapted itself to the post-2014 status quo on Ukraine.

Way forward

• The US along with other western countries is expected to revive the peace process through diplomatic channels in mitigating the tensions between Ukraine and Russia which would be a time-consuming process.
• Experts recommend more dialogues between the west and Russia that exert emphasis on the issue surrounding Ukraine.
• Ukraine should approach and focus on working with its Normandy Format allies, France and Germany, to persuade the Russian government to withdraw assistance for its proxies and allow for the region’s gradual safe reintegration into Ukraine.
• The Russian military expansion in Ukraine can be prevented on the geoeconomic grounds that will hamper its trade in the region especially with the Nord Stream pipeline that can carve out a way of resolving the ongoing crisis as pointed out by an expert.
• Ukraine’s internal disturbances need to be addressed to revive the Minsk II agreement for the development of peace in the region and dissolve the ongoing tensions.

UPSC Questions related to Russia – Ukraine Conflict

What is the relation between russia and ukraine.

Ukraine was a member of the Soviet Union until its disintegration in 1991. Post the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Ukraine gained independence in 1991 and Russia has tried to maintain its influence on the country in its orbit since then.

Why did Ukraine not join NATO?

Although Ukraine has no membership offer from NATO, it has been closer to the alliance since its establishment in 1997. Plans for NATO membership were dropped by Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych, who preferred to keep the country non-aligned.

Is Crimea a part of Russia?

The majority of the world considers Crimea to be a part of Ukraine. Geographically, it is a peninsula in the Black Sea that has been battled over for ages due to its strategic importance. In 2014, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea which was a part of Ukraine due to its declining influence over the region and emerging insecurities.

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Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Last updated on December 29, 2023 by ClearIAS Team

Russia amassed a large number of troops near the Russia-Ukraine border sparking apprehensions on an impending war between the two countries and possible annexation of Ukraine.

Table of Contents

What led to the Russia-Ukraine Conflict?

In December 2021, Russia published an 8-point draft security agreement for the West. The draft was aimed at resolving tensions in Europe including the Ukrainian crisis.

But it had controversial provisions including banning Ukraine from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) , curtailing the further expansion of NATO, blocking drills in the region, etc.

Talks on the draft failed continuously and tensions escalated with the  Russian troop buildup in the Russia-Ukraine border.

The crisis has grabbed global headlines and has been dubbed to be capable of triggering a new “cold war” or even a “third world war”.

History of Russia-Ukraine relations

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With over 6 lakh sq. km area and more than 40 million populations, Ukraine is the second-largest country by area and the 8 th populous in Europe.

Ukraine is bordered by Russia in the East, Belarus in the North, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova in the West. It also has a maritime boundary with the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

Ukraine was under different rulers including the Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union.

It gained independence in 1991 following the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Orange Revolution of 2004-05

Following the 2004 Presidential election in Ukraine, a series of protests and civil unrest occurred in the country, dubbed the Orange Revolution.

The corruption and malpractice charges in voting alleged by the protestors were upheld by the Supreme Court and the court annulled the election results. Viktor Yushchenko was declared the winner following the re-election. His campaign colour theme was orange, hence the name.

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Euromaidan movement

In 2014, the country grabbed attention for the Euromaidan movement or the Revolution of dignity. The civil unrests were based on goals including the removal of then-President Viktor Yanukovych and the restoration of 2004 constitutional amendments.

Also read: India-Egypt Relations

Annexation of Crimea

Crimea is a peninsula on the Northern coast of the Black Sea in Eastern Europe. The population includes mostly ethnic Russians but has Ukrainians and Crimeans as well.

In the 18 th century, Crimea was annexed by the Russian empire. Following the Russian Revolution , Crimea became an autonomous region in the Soviet Union.

In 1954, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian by birth, transferred Crimea to Ukraine.  But the status of Crimea remained disputed since then.

In February 2014, post-Ukrainian Revolution, Russian troops were deployed in Crimea. A referendum on reunification with Russia was held in March in which 90% population favoured joining Russia. Despite opposition from Ukraine, Russia formally annexed Crimea in March 2014.

Read here for in-depth details of the Euromaidan, Ukrainian revolution, and Crimean annexation.

The Minsk agreements between Russia-Ukraine

Following the 2014 Ukraine revolution and the Euromaidan movement, civil unrest erupted in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (together called the Donbas region) in Eastern Ukraine which borders Russia.

The majority population in these regions are Russians and it has been alleged that Russia fuelled anti-government campaigns there. Russia-backed insurgents and the Ukrainian military engaged in armed confrontations in the region.

In September 2014, talks led to the signing of the Minsk protocol (Minsk I) by the Trilateral Contact Group involving Ukraine, Russia, and the Organisation for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). It is a 12 point ceasefire deal involving provisions like weapon removal, prisoner exchanges, humanitarian aid, etc. But the deal broke following violations by both sides.

In 2015, yet another protocol termed Minsk II was signed by the parties. It included provisions to delegate more power to the rebel-controlled regions. But the clauses remain un-implemented due to differences between Ukraine and Russia.

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world’s largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization with observer status at the United Nations. It is based in Vienna, Austria. It has 57 members spanning across Europe, Asia, and North America. India is not a member. Decisions are made by consensus.

Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, promotion of human rights, freedom of the press, and fair elections. It has its origins in the mid-1975 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland. In 1994, CSCE was renamed the OSCE. It was created during the Cold War era as an East-West forum.

Russia-Ukraine conflict: Present Day

The latest episode of the Russian troop display near the Ukraine border is linked to all the previous issues. Not just Russia, but the United States and the European Union have stakes in Ukraine.

While Russia shares centuries-old cultural ties with Ukraine, the US and the European Union see Ukraine as a buffer between Russia and the West.

Russia seeks assurance from the West that Ukraine would not be made part of NATO which has anti-Russian ambitions. But the US is not ready to budge on Russia’s demands.

The sudden rise in tensions can be attributed to the following factors:

• The newly elected President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been harsh on Russian supporters in Ukraine and has been going against Moscow’s interests.
• Perceivably undecisive administration in the US under the new President Joe Biden and Washington’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin’s immense interest in Ukraine. Putin maintains that Ukraine is the “red line” the West must not cross.

India’s stand on Russia- Ukraine conflict

India has long maintained a cautious silence on the Russia-Ukraine conflict issue. But recently India has spoken in the matter and called for peaceful resolution of the issue through sustained diplomatic efforts for long-time peace and stability.

New Delhi and Moscow have a time-tested and reliable relationship especially with Russia being a major arms supplier to India.

India has risked US sanctions under Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) by the buying S-400 missile defence system from Russia.

On the other hand, India also needs the support of the US and EU in balancing its strategic calculus.

It is also worthwhile to note that India had abstained from voting in a United Nations resolution upholding Ukraine’s territorial integrity following Russia’s Crimean annexation in 2014.

Even this time, India is maintaining a patient approach by hoping that the situation will be handled peacefully by skilful negotiators.

Way forward

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is threatening the delicate balance the world is in right now and escalation can have manifold impacts on a global scale.  There is a strong case for de-escalation, as a peaceful culmination of severed relations is for the good of everyone in the region and the world over.

The US can play a central role in the management of the Russia- Ukraine conflict with support from the other European allies like the UK, Germany, and France.

Negotiations and strategic investments should be aimed at creating sustainable resolution of the conflict.

It will not be enough to just smooth over the difficulties, but major attention to be given to structure the military disengagement to minimize the chances of backsliding.

Also read:  Butterfly mines

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Ukraine Retreats From Villages on Eastern Front as It Awaits U.S. Aid

Ukraine’s top commander said his outgunned troops were facing a dire situation as Russia tried to push its advantage before the first batch of an American military package arrives.

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By Constant Méheut

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

Russian troops have captured or entered around a half-dozen villages on Ukraine’s eastern front over the past week, highlighting the deteriorating situation in the region for outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian forces as they wait for long-needed American military aid.

“The situation at the front has worsened,” Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top commander, said in a statement on Sunday in which he announced that his troops had retreated from two villages west of Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold in the east that Russia seized earlier this year, and another village further south.

Military experts say Moscow’s recent advances reflect its desire to exploit a window of opportunity to press ahead with attacks before the first batch of a new American military aid package arrives in Ukraine to help relieve its troops.

Congress recently approved $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine , and President Biden signed it last week, vowing to expedite the shipment of arms.

“In an attempt to seize the strategic initiative and break through the front line, the enemy has focused its main efforts on several areas, creating a significant advantage in forces and means,” General Syrsky said on Sunday.

Here’s a look at the current situation.

A slow but steady advance near Avdiivka

General Syrsky said the “most difficult situation” at the moment was around the villages west of Avdiivka, which Russia captured in February after months of fierce battles. He said Russia had deployed up to four brigades in the area with the goal of advancing toward Ukrainian military logistical hubs, such as the eastern city of Pokrovsk.

After Russia captured Avdiivka, Ukrainian forces fell back to a new defensive line about three miles to the west, along a series of small villages, but that line has now been overrun by Russian forces. General Syrsky said on Sunday that his troops had withdrawn from Berdychi and Semenivka, the last two villages in that area that were not yet under full Russian control.

Serhii Kuzan, the chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center, a nongovernmental research group, said the Ukrainian command had to make “a choice between a bad situation and an even worse one” and decided to lose territories rather than soldiers.

Further complicating the situation, Russian forces have managed to break through t he northern part of this defensive line by exploiting a gap in Ukrainian positions and quickly advancing into the village of Ocheretyne. That village sits on a road leading to Pokrovsk, about 18 miles to the west. It is unclear whether Russian forces have gained full control of it.

The offensive on Chasiv Yar

The Institute for the Study of War , a Washington-based think tank, said on Sunday that Russia’s gains in Ocheretyne presented the Russian command with a choice: continue to push west toward Pokrovsk, or push north toward Chasiv Yar, a town that has suffered relentless Russian attacks in recent weeks.

As many as 25,000 Russian troops are involved in an offensive on Chasiv Yar, according to Ukrainian officials. Chasiv Yar, about seven miles west of Bakhmut, lies on strategic high ground.

Its capture would put the town of Kostiantynivka, some 10 miles to the southwest, in Moscow’s direct line of fire. The town is the main supply point for Ukrainian forces along much of the eastern front.

A push northward from Ocheretyne could also allow the Russian forces to attack Kostiantynivka from the south, in a pincer movement.

“Russian forces currently have opportunities to achieve operationally significant gains near Chasiv Yar,” the Institute for the Study of War said in its report on Sunday.

Tough weeks ahead

Mr. Kuzan, the military expert, said that Russian advances “will continue to happen in the near future, depending on how quickly and in what volume Western aid will arrive.”

The United States said last week that it would rush the first $1 billion of its new military aid package to Ukraine . That batch will include shoulder-fired Stinger surface-to-air missiles and other air defense munitions, Javelin anti-tank guided missiles and 155-millimeter shells.

Ukraine is particularly desperate for artillery shells, essential to pound the enemy and constrain its movements. Speaking to Western allies last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia currently fires 10 shells for every shell Ukraine fires.

But whether these supplies will reach the battlefield quickly enough to stop the Russian advances remains uncertain.

Military experts have said that Russia is preparing to launch a new large-scale offensive in late May or early June, and that it will press ahead with attacks in the coming weeks. Volodymyr Bitsak, a Ukrainian commander, told national television on Monday that Russia had deployed four battalions near the border with Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region.

“We are still waiting for the supplies promised to Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said in his nightly address on Sunday. He added that he had just spoken to Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat who is the minority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, about the delivery of the American military aid package.

“We expect exactly the volume and content of supplies that can change the situation on the battlefield,” Mr. Zelensky said.

During a visit to Kyiv on Monday, Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general, said the many months it took Congress to approve new military assistance to Ukraine and Europe’s failure to deliver ammunition on time had led to “serious consequences on the battlefield.”

“It’s about life and death,” Mr. Stoltenberg said during a news conference. “When we are not delivering as we should, then Ukrainians are paying the price.”

Lara Jakes contributed reporting.

Constant Méheut reports on the war in Ukraine, including battlefield developments, attacks on civilian centers and how the war is affecting its people. More about Constant Méheut

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 810

As the war enters its 810th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Tuesday, May 14, 2024.

• Russia has widened its ground assault on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, attacking new areas to try and expand the front and “stretch” Ukraine’s forces, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov. He said about 5,700 people had been evacuated from in and around Vovchansk and urged the town’s remaining residents, about 300 people, to leave. The DeepState Telegram channel, which is close to the Ukrainian army, said Russia had taken territory of about 100sq km (39sq miles).
• Ukraine’s Security Council chief Oleksandr Lytvynenko told the AFP news agency that there was no imminent risk of a ground assault on Kharkiv, the country’s second-biggest city, despite the latest Russian offensive. Lytvynenko said there were “a lot” of Russians at the border and “more than 30,000” involved in the current attack, which began on Friday.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its army had improved its tactical position near four settlements in the Kharkiv region – Vesele, Neskuchne, Vovchansk and Lyptsi.
• Russia said its air defence systems destroyed 16 missiles and 31 drones that Ukraine launched at Russian territory, including 12 missiles over the border region of Belgorod. Five houses were damaged in Belgorod, but there were no injuries, according to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Politics and diplomacy

• Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic expressed support for Ukraine in its war against Russia after meeting visiting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, but stopped short of committing to sanctions against Moscow.
• Ukraine said it thwarted a Russian plan to carry out bomb attacks on May 9 in the capital Kyiv and in the western city of Lviv. It said two Russian military agents had been detained on suspicion of involvement in the alleged plot, and 19 explosive devices had been seized.
• A Russian-installed court on Ukraine’s annexed Crimean peninsula jailed five Ukrainian citizens for between 11 and 16 years after they were found guilty of sharing military intelligence with Kyiv. The men were charged with treason and espionage.
• US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States was doing “everything” possible to rush weapons to Ukraine, and that some weapons were already on the battlefield. A new arms package would be announced “in the coming days”, he added.
• Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov had discussions with Sullivan, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Charles Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We spoke about the situation at the front, as well the assistance that Ukraine needs on the battlefield,” Syrskii wrote on Telegram.

Russian dissident wins Pulitzer for columns he wrote 'at great personal risk' from prison cell

Vladimir kara-murza, jailed for criticizing war against ukraine, writes for the washington post.

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When Vladimir Kara-Murza learned from his lawyer that he had won a Pulitzer Prize behind bars, he was "absolutely astonished," says the jailed Russian dissident's wife.

Kara-Murza, 42, won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary on Monday  for his Washington Post columns about Russian politics and society — all of which he wrote in prison. 

"It must feel very surreal to Vladimir in his six-square metre punishment cell," Evgenia Kara-Murza, who has not been able to speak to her husband directly about the prestigious prize, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

"I have not been able to process the news myself."

West must call out Putin as 'usurper and dictator,' critic says

Vladimir, 42, is a politician, author and historian who has been imprisoned in Russia since April 2022. 

He was convicted last year of treason for denouncing Russia's invasion of Ukraine during a 2022 visit to the Arizona House of Representatives, and sentenced to 25 years.

But that hasn't stopped him from speaking out. From prison, he has penned seven columns for the Washington Post  about Putin and the war.

"My husband truly, deeply believes that you should tell the truth, despite the risks, when you're faced with something so atrocious as Vladimir Putin's regime. He believes that spreading information — truthful information — about what is happening is crucial," Evgenia said.

"He truly believes that Russia deserves a better future."

According to the Pulitzer announcement , the committee bestowed the prestigious award "for passionate columns written at great personal risk from his prison cell, warning of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin's Russia and insisting on a democratic future for his country."

Russia has not commented on the Pulitzer. The Russian Embassy in Washington didn't immediately return an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

In a Washington Post story about the Pulitzers, editorial page editor David Shipley commended Kara-Murza's "moral clarity."

"Columnists develop authority and persuasiveness in a lot of different ways," Shipley said. "His authority is certainly conferred on him by not just his clarity of thought but also the way that he's lived his life."

Will this make him safer?

Vladimir is not permitted access to a computer, Evgenia says, so he hand writes all his articles and files them through the prison correspondence system. 

She says each piece of writing is inspected by Russian correctional officials before it leaves the prison. Asked how he's managed to get so many of his words through uncensored, she said: "It's beyond me."

"This repressive machine very often works inconsistently, so one branch doesn't know what the other one is doing," she said.

She says she's hopeful the award will bring renewed attention to her husband's imprisonment.

"I've always believed that publicity is important in cases of political prisoners. This is basically our only weapon. We don't have anything else," she said.

"I think the fact that the entire world watches Vladimir's case, maybe makes it slightly safer for him."

• Navalny was Russia's highest-profile political prisoner. But there are more than 1,000 others
• Q&A Alexei Navalny's letters from prison showed that 'he loved life,' says exiled journalist

Still, she was quick to point out that international attention did not protect Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Putin's most high-profile opponent.

Navalny died in prison earlier this year. Russian officials say he died of natural causes, but his friends and family blame the Kremlin .

Hasn't spoken to husband in a year

She says her husband is isolated from other prisoners, is not allowed to see his family and is rarely permitted phone calls.

His last phone call with his family was in December, she says, and he was given 15 minutes — which he divided among the couple's three children. 

"I couldn't allow any one of them to talk to their daddy for longer than five minutes. So I was actually there with a timer. And I, of course, did not talk to him myself because I didn't want to take that time away from the kids," she said.

"They are their father's kids, so they're strong and resilient. But at the same time, they're kids. And often they just miss their dad."

She says last spoke with her husband on the phone in the summer of 2023, nearly a year ago. 

She and her children live in exile in the U.S., and she spends much of her time on the road carrying on Vladimir's legacy and speaking out against the Russian government. 

That means being away from her children more than she'd like, she said.

"I hope with my whole heart that we are ... teaching them a lesson of how to fight for what you believe in, of how to face bullies with courage and how to stay strong under impossible circumstances," she said.

With files from The Associated Press. Interview with Evgenia Kara-Murza produced by Chris Harbord

Related Stories

• Q&A Putin's opponents took a stand despite unfair election: exiled Russian politician
• One year after this U.S. journalist's arrest in Russia, a colleague applauds his 'strength'
• Russian antiwar activist could lose Canadian citizenship bid over conviction abroad
• Russian woman sentenced to 27 years in prison for fatal bombing of pro-war blogger
• Russian defector's violent death in Spain seen as warning to Ukraine war critics

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Russia-Ukraine war: Belarus to hold tactical nuclear drills; Kyiv detains two Ukrainian officials over plot to kill Zelenskiy – as it happened

Ally to take part in exercises alongside Russia; Ukraine says it has exposed network of agents run by Moscow

• 7d ago Closing summary
• 7d ago Belarus holding tactical nuclear drills together with Russia, Tass reports
• 7d ago Kyiv detains two Ukrainian security officials over plot to assassinate Volodymyr Zelenskiy
• 7d ago Ukraine says it has foiled Russian plot to assassinate Zelenskiy
• 7d ago Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of using chemical weapons on battlefield
• 7d ago Putin: Russia open to developing relations with West on equal terms
• 7d ago Vladimir Putin arrives at inauguration ceremony
• 7d ago EU plans to sanction Ukrainian media oligarch accused of treason by Kyiv

Belarus holding tactical nuclear drills together with Russia, Tass reports

Reuters is reporting that Belarus will be holding tactical nuclear drills together with Russia , according to the state news agency TASS.

Belarus has begun checks on the readiness of its army to deploy tactical nuclear weapons, simultaneously with a drill being carried out by Russia.

Russia said on Monday it would practise the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise after what Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said in April that "several dozen" Russian tactical nuclear weapons had been deployed in Belarus under an agreement announced last year by himself and President Vladimir Putin .

Closing summary

This blog is closing for the day. Below is a roundup of today’s stories:

Ukraine announced it had detained two Ukrainian security officials who they claim were involved in a plot coordinated by Russia to assassinate senior Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The Security Service of Ukraine said in a statement that it had exposed a network of agents run by Russia’s Federal Security Service whose aim was to assassinate Zelenskiy and other senior Ukrainian political and military officials.

Belarus has begun checks on the readiness of its army to deploy tactical nuclear weapons, simultaneously with a drill being carried out by Russia. Russia said on Monday it would practise the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise after what Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the US.

During his inauguration, where he sworn in for another term as Russian President, Vladimir Putin did not rule out dialogue with the West but said it needed to be on equal terms. In a short speech, Putin also said that Russia was open to developing relations with other countries he described as “the world’s majority”.

Russia and Ukraine have accused each other at the global chemical weapons watchdog in The Hague of using banned toxins on the battlefield, the organisation said on Tuesday. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said that the accusations were “insufficiently substantiated” but added that “the situation remains volatile and extremely concerning regarding the possible re-emergence of use of toxic chemicals as weapons.”

The EU plans to sanction Viktor Medvedchuk, a former Ukrainian politician and businessman accused of high treason by Kyiv, who was released to Russia in a prisoner exchange in 2022. In addition, the bloc is seeking to ban four more Russian media outlets from the airwaves and internet in its latest round of measures against Russia.

Reuters reports that Britain, the US and Australia have sanctioned a senior Russian leader of the cybercrime gang LockBit, the British government said on Tuesday.

Dmitry Khoroshev will face asset freezes and travel bans after being identified as one of the leaders of LockBit, the ransomware group which has extorted over $1bn from victims globally, Britain said.

“In sanctioning one of the leaders of LockBit we are taking direct action against those who continue to threaten global security, while simultaneously exposing the malicious cybercriminal activity emanating from Russia,” the British minister for the Indo-Pacific, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, said in a statement.

Here are some clips from Vladimir Putin’s inauguration ceremony earlier on Tuesday.

In a speech made after he swore an oath on the constitution, Putin called on the west to approach dialogue with Russia as “an equal”. He said: ‘The dialogue, including on issues of security and strategic stability, is possible, but not from a position of force’.

“Together with our partners in Eurasian integration, with other sovereign centres of development, we will continue to work on forming a multipolar world order, an equal and indivisible security system.”

Reuters reports that Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said that in order for Europe to avoid conflicts and be safe it must increase its defence capabilities, and he repeated his call for the construction of a common European air defence system.

In the face of the conflict in Ukraine , Poland is strengthening its defence capabilities, allocating over 4% of its Gross Domestic Product.

Speaking at the European Economic Congress, a meeting of politicians and business figures in Katowice, Tusk said EU countries should take joint action to increase spending on defence by at least 100 billion euros ($107 billion).

"Europe must be prepared in the next dozen or so months and the entire next five years for a situation in which no power in the world will dare raise a hand against it," he said.

"Big money will move the war away from Europe's borders for a long time, perhaps permanently."

A joint air defence "must become a European project that will be a financial effort to build a dome over Europe," he said. "We have many more initiatives and meetings than real actions to defend the European sky."

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who attended the congress, also said Europe must spend more on defence, and declared that if she remains in office for another term she will propose new defence projects.

She promoted a previously announced proposal for the creation of a full-time EU defence commissioner, who would help support the European defence industry.

Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday that Russia's moratorium on deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles is in question because of the "destructive" approach of the US, Reuters reports citing Russia's state news agency RIA.

Russia and the US occasionally exchange views on strategic stability, Ryabkov said, adding that US ambassador Lynne Tracy had left Russia for a certain period of time, TASS news agency reported.

Kyiv detains two Ukrainian security officials over plot to assassinate Volodymyr Zelenskiy

Here’s more from AFP on the alleged plot to assassinate Volodymyr Zelenskiy:

Ukraine announced Tuesday it had detained two Ukrainian security officials involved in a plot coordinated by Russia to assassinate senior Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Kyiv says that the Ukrainian leader has been targeted by Russia on multiple occasions, including at the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022. The Security Service of Ukraine said in a statement that it had exposed a network of agents run by Russia’s Federal Security Service whose aim was to assassinate Zelenskiy and other senior Ukrainian political and military officials. “The network, whose activities were supervised by the FSB from Moscow, included two colonels of the State Security Department who were leaking classified information to Russia,” the SBU said. It said that Russia had worked to identify individuals close to Zelenskiy’s security detail who could take the Ukrainian leader hostage and kill him. Polish and Ukrainian prosecutors announced last month they had detained a man suspected of aiding a Russian assassination plot on Zelenskiy. And the SBU said last August that a woman had been arrested for over a plot of kill the Ukrainian leader by trying to uncover details of his movements outside Kyiv.

I’ve corrected a post at 12.27 which erroneously stated that France had summoned Russia’s ambassador, following updated information from the Reuters newswire.

Reuters updated its despatch with the following:

France said on Tuesday that its ambassador to Russia had been summoned on 6 May and accused Moscow’s diplomatic service of manipulating information and intimidation.

Russia’s foreign ministry said on Monday it had summoned France’s ambassador in Moscow but did not give a reason.

“France notes that diplomatic channels are once again being abused to manipulate information and intimidate,” France’s foreign ministry said, adding “the Russian Ministry has once again engaged in a reversal of responsibilities” and “is pursuing its aggressive maneuvers aimed at destabilizing European countries, notably through cyberattacks and hybrid actions”.

France said on Tuesday that its ambassador to Russia had been summoned on May 6 and accused Moscow’s diplomatic service of manipulating information and intimidation.

Ukraine says it has foiled Russian plot to assassinate Zelenskiy

Ukraine’s SBU security service claims it has caught a network of Russian agents plotting to assassinate Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other government officials, Reuters reports.

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