RUSSIA-UKRAINE BORDER TENSION

About:

• Ukraine says that Russia has amassed around 90,000 troops at the border, and US intelligence reports say that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is possible as early as next month.
  
  
• Russia has shown, as recently as 2014, that it is not averse to taking military action in Ukraine. In that year, Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in what was the first time a European country annexed territory from another country since World War Two.
  
  

Background

• Ukraine and Russia share hundreds of years of cultural, linguistic and familial links. As part of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was the second-most powerful Soviet republic after Russia, and was crucial strategically, economically and culturally.
  
  
• Ever since Ukraine split from the Soviet Union, both Russia and the West have vied for greater influence in the country in order to keep the balance of power in the region in their favour.
  
  
• For the United States and the European Union, Ukraine is a crucial buffer between Russia and the West.
  
  
• Efforts to induct Ukraine into NATO have been ongoing for many years and seems to have picked up pace recently. Russia has declared such a move a “red line”, with Moscow worried about the consequences of the US-led military alliances expanding right up to its doorstep.