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Many states and international organisations reacted to the war in Donbas, a phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War that took place from 2014 to 2022 in the Donbas historical region in eastern Ukraine.
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Many states and international organisations reacted to the war in Donbas, a phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War that took place from 2014 to 2022 in the Donbas historical region in eastern Ukraine.
European Union: The EU began imposing sanctions on Russia in March 2014, following the annexation of Crimea, with the lists of sanctioned individuals and entities having been expanded multiple times concurrently with escalations in Donbas. [1] President of the European Council Donald Tusk stated that Russia was "[compensating] for its shortcomings by destructive, aggressive and bullying tactics against its neighbors." [2] 
NATO: NATO published a statement on the war in Donbas and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in August 2014. [3] It attempted to debunk the Russian government's accusations against the Ukrainian government, and also other statements made by Russia to justify its presence in Ukraine. According to the statement, Russia attempted to "divert attention away from its actions" and "levelled a series of accusations against NATO which are based on misrepresentations of the facts". It also said that Russia "made baseless attacks on the legitimacy of the Ukrainian authorities and has used force to seize part of Ukraine's territory". [3] In response to the unauthorised entry of the Russian "humanitarian convoy" on 22 August, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen stated that this incident could "only deepen the crisis in the region, which Russia itself has created and has continued to fuel. The disregard of international humanitarian principles raises further questions about whether the true purpose of the aid convoy is to support civilians or to resupply armed separatists". [4] NATO general Philip Breedlove said on 20 September that the ceasefire implemented as part of the Minsk Protocol was "a ceasefire in name only", and criticised Russia for allowing men and equipment to flow freely across its border into Donbas. [5] 
OSCE: In July 2015, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly condemned Russia's "unilateral and unjustified assault on Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity." [6] 
United Nations: A press release issued on behalf of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed the importance of "constructive and results-oriented dialogue between all concerned", and of adherence to the terms of the Geneva Statement on Ukraine. [7] The statement also made clear that the situation "remains extremely volatile". [7] 
Australia: In March 2014, Australia's foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop said that "International law does not allow one state to steal the territory of another on the basis of a referendum that cannot be considered free or fair,", after disputing the legitimacy of the Crimean referendum which voted to secede from Ukraine. The opposition's foreign affairs spokeswoman, Tanya Plibersek also said "Australia has a special responsibility as a member of the security council to join the international community in taking strong action to make clear our condemnation of the moves by Russia to annex Crimea and of the fatal attack on the Ukrainian serviceman in Crimea" firmly reiterating Australia's condemnation of Russian intervention across both parties in Parliament.[ citation needed ]
Belarus: Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko encouraged peace talks from the start of the Ukrainian crisis, and hosted the summits that produced the Minsk Protocol in September 2014 and Minsk II in February 2015. [8] 
Canada: In November 2014, Canadian foreign minister John Baird stated that he thought that Russian president Vladimir Putin was waging "a murderous campaign in Ukraine", and that if this continued, President Putin would "go down in history as the man who destroyed all that was once positive in Russia-Ukraine ties – historical, religious, cultural, even fraternal bonds sacrificed to his ruthless expansionism in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk". [9] In June 2015, Prime Minister Stephen Harper called for Putin "to end his invasion of Eastern Ukraine, to withdraw his soldiers, tanks and heavy weapons, and to cease providing military aid to insurgents." [10] 
China: premier Li Keqiang said in March 2015 that China "respects Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity" and expressed hope for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. [11] At the same time Russian business and financial institutions observed "ambiguous position regarding Russian banks in the wake of US and EU sanctions" from the Chinese financial institutions, meaning in practice reduced willingness of Chinese banks to finance trade and execute interbank transactions with their counterparts in Russia. [12] 
Czech Republic: Czech president Miloš Zeman said on 5 September that the situation in Donbas could "develop into a Russian invasion, but at this stage, it is a civil war between two groups of Ukrainian inhabitants". [13] His words were at odds with statements by Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and Defence Minister Martin Stropnický, who both said there were at least 5,000 Russian troops in Ukraine. Prime Minister Sobotka also said: "I suppose that Europe should not harm itself by these sanctions. I consider the escalation of sanctions a very risky business." [14] 
Estonia: In March 2014, Estonia's president Toomas Hendrik Ilves said: "Justification of a military invasion by a fabricated need to protect ethnic "compatriots" resuscitates the arguments used to annex Sudetenland in 1938." [15] 
France: France was criticised at the time of the annexation of Crimea for continuing to prepare two Mistral class amphibious assault ships for delivery to Russia. The first one was meant to be delivered in October 2014. France eventually decided to place the delivery on hold in September, following increasing escalation in the Donbas, and reported Russian intervention there. [16] 
Georgia: In April 2014, Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili said in an interview, "I don't think it's a right choice to alienate Russia, to cut relations with Russia. Because alienating Russia makes Russia even more aggressive, unpredictable and dangerous". He said that Russia should be made to understand "that relations between neighbours or countries around the world aren't built through military interventions". [17] In March 2015, he followed up his earlier remarks, saying, "the occupation of Georgian territories in 2008, war in Ukraine in 2014 and support of separatists in Transnistria is nothing but...Georgia's, Ukraine's and Moldova's punishment by Moscow for their European choice". [18] 
Germany: According to the German Foreign Office, Merkel said that the war was never a conflict "within Ukraine", but a confrontation between Russia and Ukraine.[ citation needed ] In November 2014, Merkel stated that "old thinking about spheres of influence, which runs roughshod over international law" put the "entire European peace order into question" and said that if Ukraine had chosen the Eurasian Economic Union, the West would not have responded by making 'noise' on the Ukrainian-Polish border. [19] 
Kazakhstan: During a 22 December visit to Kyiv, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev stated "I am asking Russia and Ukraine to think about a compromise in order to end this conflict and preserve the territorial integrity of Ukraine, because this situation is nonsense and it should not have happened". [20] He also called the international economic sanctions against Russia "a road to an impasse and a path to nowhere". [20] 
Lithuania: In September 2014, Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė said "I think that Russia is terrorising its neighbours and using terrorist methods", and that "It is a shame on all the Western leaders to allow an aggressor to do what he wants with a sovereign country in the 21st century". [21] In November 2014, she stated that "We know that today Ukraine is fighting for peace in Europe, for all of us. If a terrorist state that is engaged in open aggression against its neighbor is not stopped, then that aggression might spread further into Europe". [22] 
Poland: In April 2015, Polish president Bronisław Komorowski said, "Today, when the sons of Ukraine are dying in the east of their country in the defence of national independence, they are also defending Europe. They are defending it against the return of imperial thinking, against policies that pose a threat to the freedom of all Europeans". [23] 
Romania: Romanian president Klaus Iohannis condemned attacks on the city of Mariupol, stating that the responsibility for these attacks did not fall only on the separatists, but also on the Russian Federation. He added that Romania condemned the violation of Ukraine's territorial sovereignty, and supported further sanctions against Russia. [24] 
Russia: The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukrainian authorities of "blaming" the Russian government for all its troubles and stated "Ukrainian people want to get a clear answer from Kyiv to all their questions. It's time to listen to these legal claims". [25] [26] It also stated it was "carefully observing" events in the east and south of Ukraine, and again called for "real constitutional reform" that would turn Ukraine into a federation. [27] In a 7 April opinion piece in The Guardian , Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov wrote that it was Europe and the United States, and not Russia, that was guilty of destabilising Ukraine and that "Russia is doing all it can to promote early stabilisation in Ukraine". [27] [28] The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a stern condemnation of the "criminal order" by Kyiv for armed aggression against Donetsk: "The Kiev authorities, who self-proclaimed themselves as a result of a coup, have embarked on the violent military suppression of the protests," demanding that "the Maidan henchmen, who overthrew the legitimate president, to immediately stop the war against their own people, to fulfill all the obligations under the Agreement of 21 February."[ citation needed ] Russian president Vladimir Putin compared the siege of the DPR and LPR-controlled cities of Donetsk and Luhansk to the Siege of Leningrad during the Second World War: "Sadly, it reminds me of World War II, when German fascist forces surrounded our cities, like Leningrad, and shelled population centres and their residents". [29] On 4 September 2015 the Investigative Committee of Russia published an insulting letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine with threats of holding "Nuremberg-2 trials" against the government of Ukraine in addition to calling the Ukrainian language "retarded". [30] [31] 
Sweden: In September 2014, then Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt said that "[Russian president Vladimir] Putin's actions threaten the entire basis of the post-Cold War order in Europe" and that "Ukraine is an independent nation. It has the right to choose its own destiny. If it wants to belong to the EU, that is up to Ukrainians. Russia has no right to dismember or destabilise independent countries if it doesn't agree with their choices". [32] 
Turkey: In May 2015, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that "Nothing can justify what Russia has been doing in its neighbourhood. Ukraine. Crimea. Georgia." [33] 
United Kingdom: In a statement at a meeting of the UN Security Council on 6 August, UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations Sir Mark Lyall Grant said: "The truth of the matter is that this is not an insurrection born in the Donbas; it is an insurgency manufactured in Moscow. It is led by Russians, using Russian-supplied weapons, in a deliberate effort to destabilise Ukraine and to exert control over Kiev". [34] Sir Mark made another statement to the Security Council on 28 August, and listed "100 main battle tanks, 80 armoured personnel carriers, 100 man-portable air-defence systems, 100 anti-tank weapons and over 100 artillery pieces" that were supplied to the Donbas insurgents directly by Russia. [35] Defence Secretary Michael Fallon announced on 7 March 2015 that Britain would send an additional £850,000 in non-lethal aid following Ukraine's request.[ citation needed ] On 19 January 2016, Michael Fallon said that Ukraine will receive 3,500 first-aid kits equal to £500,000 in April before the British training of Ukrainian troops. [36] The Queen pledged that her government will continue to work to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. [37] 
United States: US Secretary of State John Kerry said on 7 April 2014 that the events "did not appear to be spontaneous" and called on Russia to "publicly disavow the activities of separatists, saboteurs and provocateurs" in a phone call to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. [25] A spokeswoman for the US National Security Council noted that the separatists appeared to be supported by Russia. "We saw similar so-called protest activities in Crimea before Russia's purported annexation," she said in a statement, adding: "We call on President (Vladimir) Putin and his government to cease all efforts to destabilize Ukraine, and we caution against further military intervention." [38] American ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt characterised the pro-Russian insurgents as "terrorists". [39] The US government is sending military advisors to Ukraine to aid the Ukrainian government in its fight against the insurgents. [40] [41] [42] [43] In April, the US Defence Department shipped a 7 million US dollar package of non-lethal military equipment to the Ukrainian forces. Plans for another 8 million dollar million aid package were announced on 1 August 2014. The package was meant to include armoured personnel carriers, goods and patrol vehicles, binoculars, night vision goggles and small patrol boats. [44] On the same day, the Defence Department also proposed a 19 million dollar aid package to help train the National Guard of Ukraine. This proposal required congressional approval, and would come into effect in 2015. It had been announced in July that a group of Defence Department specialists in strategy and policy would visit Kyiv to evaluate the military needs of the Ukrainian government. [45] On 8 September 2014, The New York Times reported that only a portion of the initial non-lethal aid package had actually arrived in Ukraine. [46] While this report cited concerns about provoking escalation in the region as the reason for the delay, a 13 September 2014 report by The Globe and Mail cited various sources that indicated that both the American package and a $200 million Canadian military aid package were delayed by concerns about diversion of saleable equipment due to corruption among Ukrainian officials. [47] On 11 March 2015, the American government said it would send an additional 75 million US dollars worth of non-lethal aid to Ukraine. [48] This included radios, first-aid kits, surveillance drones, counter-mortar radar systems, military ambulances, 30 armoured Humvees and 300 unarmoured Humvees. [48] In March 2016, US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland stated that a total of 266 million dollars was spent on non-lethal aid to Ukraine. [49] She also said that nearly 1,200 Ukrainian soldiers and 750 National Guard members had been trained by American military personnel. [49] 
Nordic countries: A joint declaration on the Ukrainian crisis by the defence ministers of Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the foreign minister of Iceland was released in Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten on 9 April 2015. The declaration stated that Russian aggression against Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea are violations of International law and other international treaties, and that the Nordic countries will evaluate Russia on the basis of its actions, rather than on rhetoric promoted by the Russian government. After pointing out that Russia had increased military exercises and intelligence gathering activity in the Baltic and the North Sea, violating Nordic borders and jeopardising civilian air traffic, the declaration stated that the Nordic countries intended to face these threats with solidarity and increased cooperation. The document said that this collaboration would be extended to include solidarity with the Baltic countries, work with the EU, and to collaboration with NATO, to maintain the transatlantic link. [50] In contrast to the unanimous condemnation by western governmental spokespeople of the Russian role in the conflict, European politicians representing euroscepticism, mainly on the right of the political spectrum, criticised the role of western governments in allegedly precipitating the crisis, in some cases supporting Russian president Vladimir Putin's position. [51] [52] Agence France-Presse reported that "From the far right to the radical left, populist parties across Europe are being courted by Russia's Vladimir Putin who aims to turn them into allies in his anti-EU campaign" and that "A majority of European populist parties have sided with Russia over Ukraine." [53] Some of the parties have received Russian support and financing. [54] [55] After the May 2014 European parliament election, eurosceptic representation increased in that body from 92 seats to 150 (out of 751). Such opinions were expressed in Britain by Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, [56] in France by Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right National Front, [57] in Austria by Heinz-Christian Strache, the chairman of the Freedom Party of Austria, [57] in the Netherlands by Geert Wilders, [57] founding leader of the Party for Freedom, and in Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria. The shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over the Donbas conflict zone in mid-July moderated these opinions.
Reviewing votes in the EU Parliament on resolutions critical of Russia or measures not in the Kremlin's interests (e.g., the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement), Hungary's Political Capital Institute found that future members of Europe of Nations and Freedom voted "no" in 93% of cases, European United Left–Nordic Green Left in 78% of cases, and Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy in 67% of cases. [58] The writers stated that "It would therefore be logical to conclude, as others have done before, that there is a pro-Putin coalition in the European Parliament consisting of anti-EU and radical parties." [58]
Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov said that Russian president Vladimir Putin sought to "punish" Ukraine to prevent an anti-corruption revolution like Euromaidan from taking place in Russia. [59] Former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili said that Ukraine "is [Putin's] West Berlin – the taking of which was a matter of principle for Stalin and the successful protection of which ultimately reversed the spread of communism in Europe. The dismantlement of Ukraine is how Putin seeks to erode the values of the transatlantic alliance, and the future of Europe is no less at risk than it was decades ago in Germany". [60] Garry Kasparov considered the West's response to be weak, saying politicians were "lining up to become a new Chamberlain." [61] [62] In February 2015, former Lithuanian president Andrius Kubilius said that he thought that "What we see in Ukraine is not a "Ukrainian crisis", nor is it a "conflict in Ukraine". This is Putin's war, which was initiated by him, which has been supported by him, which is being implemented by him, and which can only be stopped by him. [...] Mr. Putin, along with the mainstream political class in Russia, is still living with a lot of nostalgia for the imperial past". [63] The Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, stated that the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum were failing to honour their security assurances to Ukraine, which "has been attacked and needs such guarantees more than ever". [64]
In April 2014, historian Timothy D. Snyder wrote that Russia's foreign policy was "based openly upon the ethnicization of the world. It does not matter who an individual is according to law or his own preferences: that fact that he speaks Russian makes him a Volksgenosse requiring Russian protection, which is to say invasion." [65] Although majorities in all regions voted to be part of an independent Ukraine during the 1991 referendum, former Czech president Václav Klaus, said that Ukraine was an artificially created state, and that Ukraine was in a state of civil war. [66] In an article that appeared in Foreign Affairs , John J. Mearsheimer, an American neorealist international relations theorist at the University of Chicago, assigned most of the responsibility for the crisis to the United States and the European Union. [67] He offered an invitation to "imagine the American outrage if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico", and recommended that "the United States and its allies should abandon their plan to westernise Ukraine and instead aim to make it a neutral buffer". His article was criticised by Anders Åslund of the Peterson Institute, who said that Mearsheimer showed "contempt for democracy, national sovereignty, and international law", and that his thesis gave "Russia has the right to decide the fate of the countries in its neighbourhood in its own interest". [68] Writing in World Affairs , Mariana Budjeryn also dismissed Mearsheimer's argument, saying "That the Russians failed to design a model of development and a security arrangement that would be equally attractive and did not require arm-twisting to keep together is not the west's fault. Turns out, democracy and rule of law is not the west's property to peddle around the world, but a political model post-Communist societies chose to pursue when they were free to do so". [69]
In April 2014, a survey by infratest dimap found that 49% of Germans preferred a "middle position" for Germany between the west and Russia. [70] This was reflected in the policy of moderation and mediation that Chancellor Angela Merkel espoused over the course of the Russo-Ukrainian War. [71] After the war escalated, German public opinion turned against Russia, with 79% saying they had an unfavourable view of Russia and 82% saying Russia could not be trusted in an August 2014 poll. [72] [73] Ukrainian-American historian Alexander J. Motyl criticised the Social Democratic Party of Germany for its approach to Russian aggression in Ukraine, saying that they "appear increasingly committed to doing everything possible to appease Russian imperialism". [74]
Gallup's 2014 world survey found that disapproval of the Russian leadership was highest in Norway (89%), the Netherlands (86%), Finland (86%), Switzerland (83%), Sweden (82%), Germany (81%), Ukraine (81%), Belgium (80%), Italy (78%), and Canada (77%). [75] According to a Pew survey conducted from March to May 2015, negative views of Vladimir Putin were held by three-quarters of western Europeans, North Americans, and Australians (81%), and a majority in the Middle East, with the most negative responses found in Spain (92%), Poland (87%), France (85%) and Ukraine (84%). [76] Outside of Russia (88%), the most favorable views of Putin were found in Vietnam (70%) and China (54%). [76]
Some minor organisations have been formed to support the pro-Russian militants in the Donbas region, among them the Donbas Association in Sweden. [77]
At the 30–31 August 2014 EU summit, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso told other EU leaders that, when he phoned Putin about the war in Donbas on 29 August 2014, during which Barroso said that he held Putin accountable for the military actions of separatists in eastern Ukraine, Putin allegedly replied: "The issue is not this. If I want, I can take Kyiv in two weeks." [94] In a 2 September statement to TASS, Kremlin spokesperson Yuri Ushakov did not deny Putin had made this remark, but said that "[i]t was taken out of context and had a totally different meaning." [94] The next day, Putin threatened to release the full recording and transcript of his phone call with Barroso, with ambassador Vladimir Chizhov adding that making details of a private conversation public was a breach of diplomatic protocol. [95] On 5 September, TASS stated that "EC admits Barroso's words on phone talks with Putin were made public out of context", [96] and that the Kremlin now considered the issue "closed" and no transcript would be published. [97]
However, according to a 18 September Süddeutsche Zeitung article, when Barroso visited Kyiv on 12 September 2014, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko told Barroso that Putin had now also expressed similar threats to him (Poroshenko) on the phone, allegedly saying: "If I wanted to, Russian troops could not only be in Kyiv in two days, but also in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw or Bucharest." [98]
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a former Ukrainian politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He also served as the prime minister of Ukraine several times between 2002 and 2007 and was a member of the Verkhovna Rada from 2006 to 2010. A member of the pro-Russian Party of Regions, Yanukovych provoked mass protests — the Euromaidan — against his rejection of closer integration with the EU and was removed from the presidency by the Ukrainian parliament in 2014, at the time neighboring Russia started to annex Ukrainian Crimea and started the Russo-Ukrainian War. Since then, he has lived in exile in Russia.
Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev is a Russian politician, security officer and former intelligence officer who served as the secretary of the Security Council of Russia from 2008 to 2024. He previously served as the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) from 1999 to 2008. Belonging to the siloviki faction of president Vladimir Putin's inner circle, Patrushev is believed to be one of the closest advisors to Putin and a leading figure behind Russia's national security affairs. He played a key role in the decisions to seize and then annex Crimea in 2014 and to invade Ukraine in 2022.
Russia–European Union relations are the international relations between the European Union (EU) and Russia. Russia borders five EU member states: Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland; the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad is surrounded by EU members. Until the radical breakdown of relations following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU was Russia's largest trading partner and Russia had a significant role in the European energy sector. Due to the invasion, relations became very tense after the European Union imposed sanctions against Russia. Russia placed all member states of the European Union on a list of "unfriendly countries", along with NATO members, Switzerland, Ukraine, and several Asia-Pacific countries.
The United States and Russia maintain one of the most important, critical, and strategic foreign relations in the world. Both nations have shared interests in nuclear safety and security, nonproliferation, counterterrorism, and space exploration. Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, relations became very tense after the United States imposed sanctions against Russia. Russia placed the United States on a list of "unfriendly countries", along with South Korea, Taiwan, European Union members, NATO members, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Micronesia, Japan and Ukraine.
There are currently no diplomatic or bilateral relations between Russia and Ukraine. The two states have been at war since Russia invaded the Crimean peninsula in February 2014, and Russian-controlled armed groups seized Donbas government buildings in May 2014. Following the Ukrainian Euromaidan in 2014, Ukraine's Crimean peninsula was occupied by unmarked Russian forces, and later illegally annexed by Russia, while pro-Russia separatists simultaneously engaged the Ukrainian military in an armed conflict for control over eastern Ukraine; these events marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War. In a major escalation of the conflict on 24 February 2022, Russia launched a large scale military invasion across a broad front, causing Ukraine to sever all formal diplomatic ties with Russia.
The foreign policy of Vladimir Putin concerns the policies of the Russian Federation's president Vladimir Putin with respect to other nations. He has held the office of the President previously from 2000 to 2008, and reassumed power again in 2012 and has been President since.
Relations between Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) started in 1991 following Ukraine's independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Ukraine-NATO ties gradually strengthened during the 1990s and 2000s, and Ukraine aimed to eventually join the alliance. Although co-operating with NATO, Ukraine remained a neutral country. After it was attacked by Russia in 2014, Ukraine has increasingly sought NATO membership.
Relations between the NATO military alliance and the Russian Federation were established in 1991 within the framework of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. In 1994, Russia joined the Partnership for Peace program, and on 27 May 1997, the NATO–Russia Founding Act (NRFA) was signed at the 1997 Paris NATO Summit in France, enabling the creation of the NATO–Russia Permanent Joint Council (NRPJC). Through the early part of 2010s NATO and Russia signed several additional agreements on cooperation. The NRPJC was replaced in 2002 by the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), which was established in an effort to partner on security issues and joint projects together.
The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia occupied and annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists fighting the Ukrainian military in the Donbas War. These first eight years of conflict also included naval incidents and cyberwarfare. In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and began occupying more of the country, starting the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. The war has resulted in a refugee crisis and tens of thousands of deaths.
From the end of February 2014, in the aftermath of the Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity, which resulted in the ousting of Russian-leaning Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, demonstrations by Russian-backed, pro-Russian, and anti-government groups took place in Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Odesa. The unrest, which was supported by the Russian military and intelligence services, belongs to the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. This took place in the relative power vacuum immediately following the Revolution of Dignity. It marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The following lists events that happened in 2014 in Russia.
The war in Donbas, also known as the Donbas war, was a phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War in the Donbas region of Ukraine. The war began in April 2014, when a commando unit headed by Russian citizen Igor Girkin seized Sloviansk in Donetsk oblast. The Ukrainian military launched an operation against them. The war continued until subsumed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Media portrayals of the Russo-Ukrainian War, including skirmishes in eastern Donbas and the 2014 Ukrainian revolution after the Euromaidan protests, the subsequent 2014 annexation of Crimea, incursions into Donbas, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, have differed widely between Ukrainian, Western and Russian media. Russian, Ukrainian, and Western media have all, to various degrees, been accused of propagandizing, and of waging an information war.
In March and April 2021, prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces began massing thousands of personnel and military equipment near Russia's border with Ukraine and in Crimea, representing the largest mobilisation since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. This precipitated an international crisis due to concerns over a potential invasion. Satellite imagery showed movements of armour, missiles, and heavy weaponry towards the border. The troops were partially withdrawn by June 2021, though the infrastructure was left in place. A second build-up began in October 2021, this time with more soldiers and with deployments on new fronts; by December over 100,000 Russian troops were massed around Ukraine on three sides, including Belarus from the north and Crimea from the south. Despite the Russian military build-ups, Russian officials from November 2021 to 20 February 2022 repeatedly denied that Russia had plans to invade Ukraine.
Many states, international organizations, and civil society actors worldwide had expressed their reactions to the then-escalating crisis between Russia and Ukraine that started in March 2021. The crisis eventually culminated in a Russian invasion of Ukraine, beginning on 24 February 2022.
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which started in 2014. The invasion, the largest conflict in Europe since World War II, has caused hundreds of thousands of military casualties and tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties. As of 2024, Russian troops occupy about 20% of Ukraine. From a population of 41 million, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced and more than 8.2 million had fled the country by April 2023, creating Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II.
"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 following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Russo-Ukrainian War:
The United Kingdom has supported Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. After it began on 24 February 2022, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the invasion, provided military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and sanctioned Russia and Belarus, the two countries most involved in invading Ukraine. Support to Ukraine continued under Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and incumbent prime minister Keir Starmer.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)The Russian invasion of Ukraine must be considered by the UN Security Council as act of aggression, the UN must react accordingly – this is war,
"It's a hybrid war that Russia has begun against Ukraine, a war with the participation of the Russian security services and the army," Turchynov said.
"[A]t the 30–31 August [2014 EU summit[,] Commission President José Manuel Barroso (...) shared what Putin told him over their last telephone conversation, held on 29 August. Barroso said he held Putin accountable for the military action of the separatists in Ukraine. At this point, Putin erupted: "The issue is not this. If I want, I can take Kyiv in two weeks," he is reported to have said.
Laut einer Gesprächszusammenfassung des Auswärtigen Dienstes der Europäischen Union, die der Süddeutschen Zeitung vorliegt, berichtete Poroschenko dem EU-Kommissionspräsidenten José Manuel Barroso am vergangenen Freitag während dessen Besuchs in Kiew von den Drohungen. Wörtlich habe Putin zu ihm, Poroschenko, gesagt: "Wenn ich wollte, könnten russische Truppen in zwei Tagen nicht nur in Kiew, sondern auch in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warschau oder Bukarest sein."
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