The relationship between the Russian Federation and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) stretches back to December 1971, when the Soviet Union and UAE established diplomatic relations. Relations between the two countries have been described as close and a "somewhat strategic partnership", with the countries cooperating closely in Iraq, Egypt and Libya.
International reactions to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation have largely been condemnatory of Russia's actions, supportive of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and supportive of finding a quick end to the crisis. The United States and the European Union responded by enacting sanctions against Russia for its role in the crisis, and urged Russia to withdraw. Russia accused the United States and the EU of funding and directing the revolution and retaliated to the sanctions by imposing its own.
The Minsk agreements were a series of international agreements which sought to end the Donbas war fought between armed Russian separatist groups and Armed Forces of Ukraine, with Russian regular forces playing a central part. After a defeat at Ilovaisk at the end of August 2014, Russia forced Ukraine to sign the first Minsk Protocol, or the Minsk I. It was drafted by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, consisting of Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), with mediation by the leaders of France and Germany in the so-called Normandy Format. After extensive talks in Minsk, Belarus, the agreement was signed on 5 September 2014 by representatives of the Trilateral Contact Group and, without recognition of their status, by the then-leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). This agreement followed multiple previous attempts to stop the fighting in the region and aimed to implement an immediate ceasefire.
The Volnovakha bus attack was an attack on a highway checkpoint near the village of Buhas outside of the Volnovakha municipality in the Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on 13 January 2015. It resulted in the deaths of 12 passengers of an intercity bus and injuries to 18 others in the area. The attack was the largest single loss of life since the signing of the Minsk Protocol in September 2014, which attempted to halt the War in Donbas. The incident has been labeled an "act of terror" by both the Ukrainian authorities as well as the rebels.
InformNapalm is a volunteer initiative to inform Ukrainian citizens and the foreign public about the Russo-Ukrainian War and the activities of the Russian special services as well as the militants of DPR, LPR, and Novorossiya. The team members are engaged in a wide range of other volunteer activities. Authors publish materials in 30 languages, including Japanese and Chinese.
The Wagner Group, officially known as PMC Wagner, is a Russian state-funded private military company (PMC) controlled until 2023 by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former close ally of Russia's president Vladimir Putin, and since then by Pavel Prigozhin. The Wagner Group has used infrastructure of the Russian Armed Forces. Evidence suggests that Wagner has been used as a proxy by the Russian government, allowing it to have plausible deniability for military operations abroad, and hiding the true casualties of Russia's foreign interventions.
During Ukraine's post-Soviet history, the far-right has remained on the political periphery and been largely excluded from national politics since independence in 1991. Unlike most Eastern European countries which saw far-right groups become permanent fixtures in their countries' politics during the decline and the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the national electoral support for far-right parties in Ukraine only rarely exceeded 3% of the popular vote. Far-right parties usually enjoyed just a few wins in single-mandate districts, and no far right candidate for president has ever secured more than 5 percent of the popular vote in an election. Only once in the 1994–2014 period was a radical right-wing party elected to the parliament as an independent organization within the proportional part of the voting: Svoboda in 2012. Since then far-right parties have failed to gain enough votes to attain political representation, even at the height of nationalist sentiment during and after Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are the special forces of Ukraine and one of the eight branches of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with headquarters in Kyiv.
The Battle of Khasham, also known as the Battle of Conoco Fields, was a military engagement of the Syrian civil war fought on 7 February 2018 near the towns of Khasham and Al Tabiyeh in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria. The Operation Inherent Resolve coalition delivered air and artillery strikes on Syrian Armed Forces and pro-government militias after they reportedly engaged a U.S. military and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) position in the region.
From April 2014 until September 2022, the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) claimed to be independent states. Their sovereignty was recognized by South Ossetian authorities in 2014, Russia and Abkhazian authorities in February 2022, Ba'athist Syria in June 2022 and North Korea in July 2022.
The Russo-Ukrainian War has seen foreign volunteers participate on both sides of the conflict. Most foreign fighters joined the conflict during one of two waves. The first wave happened from 2014 to 2019 during the War in the Donbas and consisted of approximately 17,241 foreign fighters. The second wave is considered by researchers to have been much larger and began in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"On conducting a special military operation" was a televised broadcast by Russian president Vladimir Putin on 24 February 2022, announcing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine violated international law. The invasion has also been called a crime of aggression under international criminal law, and under some countries' domestic criminal codes – including those of Ukraine and Russia – although procedural obstacles exist to prosecutions under these laws.
On 9 March 2022, the Russian Air Force bombed Maternity Hospital No. 3, a hospital complex functioning both as a children's hospital and maternity ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring at least sixteen, and leading to at least one stillbirth.
Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina, also known under the pen name Daria Platonova, was a Russian journalist, political scientist, and activist. She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a supporter of Vladimir Putin and a far-right political philosopher, whose support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine she shared.
The general mobilization in the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic began on 19 February 2022, 5 days before the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Tens of thousands of local residents were forcibly mobilized for the war.
The Sabotage Assault Reconnaissance Group(DShRG) "Rusich" is a Russian far-right and neo-Nazi paramilitary unit that has been fighting against Ukrainian forces in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Its co-founder and leader is Alexey Milchakov and operates within the Wagner Group. "Rusich" fought on the side of pro-Russian military in the Donbas war from June 2014 to July 2015, and in the Russian invasion of Ukraine alongside Russian troops.
Relations between Syria and Ukraine have existed since 1992, except for a two-year period from 2022 to 2024 when they were severed following Syria's recognition of the Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Relations were reestablished after the collapse of the Assad regime. The Ukrainian embassy in Lebanon currently protects Ukrainian interests in Syria.
