Conflict explained: What does Putin want in Ukraine?

After months of deflecting global attention over a possible war on Ukraine,  Russia's Vladimir Putin has now torn up a peace deal and increased military pressure on its ex-Soviet neighbour, threatening to destabilise the geopolitical peace and stability in the region.

The tension, which has been brewing up around Ukraine since last year, after Moscow started amassing tens of thousands of troops, equipment and artillery on the country's doorstep, has sparked warnings from the US intelligence officials that the Russian invasion could be imminent.

Even diplomatic efforts by big powers, such as France and Germany, besides the US, to defuse the tension have failed to reach a conclusion in recent weeks.

The picture on the ground is shifting rapidly, what happens next could jeopardise Europe's entire security structure.

What's the situation on the border?

It was in 2014 when Russia for the first time poured in more troops into the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk to overthrow the West-backed government of former president Viktor Yanukovych and annex the port of Sevastopol in the Crimean peninsula, where Russia's Black Sea Fleet has been based since Soviet times.

But now, it seems that the eight-year conflict in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region has never ended, and rather it could go beyond. 

Despite a ceasefire agreement in 2015, the two sides have not seen a stable peace, and the front line has barely moved since. Nearly 14,000 people have died in the conflict, and there are 1.5 million people internally displaced in Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian government.

Furthermore, an escalation in shelling in eastern Ukraine and a vehicle blast in separatist-held Donbas has heightened fears that Moscow could be stoking the violence to justify an invasion.

Satellite images, revealed in late 2021 and early 2o22, showed that Russia has already deployed more than 150,000 troops close to Ukraine's borders. He has also sent in so-called peacekeeping troops, but few believe they are there to keep the peace.

Interestingly, experts opine that Ukraine would be significantly outmatched by Russia's military, which has been modernised under Putin's leadership. 

If an all-out war broke out between the two countries, tens of thousands of civilians could die and up to 5 million made refugees, according to some estimates.

What has set the stage for the conflict?

Ukraine was a cornerstone of the Soviet Union until it voted overwhelmingly for independence in 1991, a milestone that turned out to be a death knell for the Russian superpower.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO, which is an intergovernmental military alliance between 27 European countries, 2 North American countries, and 1 Eurasian country, pushed more eastwards and brought most of the Eastern European nations, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, into its fold that had been under the Communist control until then. 

But declaring its intention to offer membership to Ukraine some day in the distant future was equivalent to crossing the red line for Russia. 

Putin, time and again, has voiced his concerns regarding NATO's expansion as an existential threat, and the prospect of Ukraine joining the Western military alliance a "hostile act."

Meanwhile, the Ukrainians, who in the last three decades have sought to align more closely with Western institutions, like the European Union and NATO, have further irked Moscow.

Why is Putin targeting Ukraine?

By now it must be clear to you that Russia doesn't want NATO to allow Ukraine to become its member as it will expand the grouping's footprint very close to its border. 

Putin has already claimed Ukraine to be “a puppet of the West” that was never in a proper state anyway.

Additionally, NATO, under the principle of collective defence, enshrined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, considers an attack against one or several of its members as an attack against all.

This is another reason why Russia is opposing NATO’s membership to Ukraine. It thinks that if Ukraine joins the group, it might try to take back Crimea by military action.   

"For us it's absolutely mandatory to ensure Ukraine never, ever becomes a member of Nato," said Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister.

Last year, Putin wrote a long piece describing Russians and Ukrainians as "one nation", and claimed modern Ukraine was entirely created by communist Russia. 

Russia has "nowhere further to retreat to - do they think we'll just sit idly by?" the Russian President complained further.