What is the historical relationship between Russia and Ukraine?

Ukraine occupies an important place in Russian history. Together with Belarus, it formed the medieval Kyivan Rus state that Moscow and Kyiv both claim laid the foundation of their countries. Kyiv was a significant city in the 9th and 10th centuries, before economic power in the region shifted east. Later, parts of what is now Ukraine joined the Russian Empire. But other regions, particularly in the west, cultivated ties to European powers. In 1917, as two revolutions convulsed Russia, Ukrainian nationalists exploited the moment to make a bid for self-determination. Soon after, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was established and would become one of the founding members of the Soviet Union, a federation that would eventually be governed by Moscow. Ukraine suffered greatly under the Soviet Union, whose leadership caused a famine that killed millions of Ukrainians between 1932 and 1933. It was also the site of some of the worst violence of World War II when Nazi Germany occupied much of the land.

How did their relationship change after the collapse of the Soviet Union?

As the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, Ukrainians voted to become an independent state. Ukraine also became a democracy, albeit an imperfect one. Like its neighbor, Russia, the newly independent and democratic Ukraine suffered economic hardship that ended up fueling widespread corruption. Ukraine also sought better ties with the West and announced its aspirations to eventually join both NATO and the European Union. In the early 2000s, Putin, then Russia’s new president, began to view these developments with alarm. Ukraine is also home to large ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking populations, particularly in the eastern part of the country. So when pro-Western protests broke out in Kyiv in 2014, ousting the Moscow-aligned president, Russia responded by invading and annexing the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. Since then, Moscow has also supported armed separatists in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

Why has conflict broken out now?

Late last year, Western officials raised the alarm over a massive buildup of Russian troops and military equipment near the border with Ukraine. By mid-February, U.S. officials said that roughly 190,000 troops were stationed near the border and warned that Moscow could stage a false-flag attack to justify an invasion. For Putin, Ukraine has become a focal point of broader ire toward the West. In an article posted on the Kremlin’s website in July, Putin described Russians and Ukrainians as one people and wrote that the “true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia.” When announcing in February that Russia would formally recognize the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, Putin appeared to suggest that Ukraine was an aberration of history. “Modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia, more specifically the Bolshevik, communist Russia,” Putin said in a speech to the Russian nation on Feb. 21. This obsession with Ukraine has long existed in Moscow. Czarist leaders referred to Ukraine as “little Russia” and said that its language “never existed, does not exist, and shall not exist.” Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin had his own maxim — “If we lose Ukraine, we lose our head” — while Mikhail Gorbachev later said that there could be no Soviet Union without Ukraine, and no Ukraine without the union. Ukraine’s growing relationship with NATO has been of intense interest to Putin, however. The Russian president has long wanted a “sphere of influence” over former Soviet states and has a significant interest in Ukraine, which is “potentially most likely to join NATO,” said Matthew Sussex, a Russia expert at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia. It is “clear that Russia’s fundamental concerns have been ignored,” Putin said in early February of U.S. and NATO proposals to de-escalate the crisis.

Could a war backfire for Russia?

The military assault on Ukraine could backfire on Russia because it has spurred NATO to increase its presence in Eastern Europe. NATO activated a special response force for the first time. The United States, Canada and European countries have already moved more troops to the region. In a major policy shift, Germany announced it would increase its military spending and send arms to Ukraine, while Switzerland announced Monday that it would join other European countries in sanctioning Putin and Russia, in a break from its long-standing neutrality. Economic ramifications are also a major concern. The United States, Britain, Canada and the European Union last week all announced coordinated sanctions against Russian companies, banks and officials, including Putin and Kremlin-linked business executives. Germany also halted the authorization of a major pipeline built to transport natural gas from Russia to Europe. On Feb. 26, Washington and its European allies said they would block Russia’s access to sizable foreign currency reserves held in the West and cut off Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system , which connects banks worldwide. Those measures sent the ruble plunging. Russia’s central bank hiked interest rates to shore up Russia’s currency. Russian officials initially dismissed the potential impact of the measures, arguing that Russia has weathered sanctions before. But on Saturday, Putin said that the unprecedented international sanctions against Moscow put “the future of Ukrainian statehood” at risk and compared them to a “declaration of war.” There is also the cost of occupying Ukraine in the post-invasion period, which would pile up if a Ukrainian insurgency challenges Moscow’s control. Significant Russian casualties, as well as the deaths of Ukrainian civilians, could create problems for Putin at home, since many Russian citizens have personal ties to Ukraine. At least 351 civilians have been killed in the conflict so far, the United Nations human rights office said, cautioning that the true death toll is probably much higher. Some 500 Russian soldiers have been killed and nearly 1,600 have been wounded in the fighting, Moscow said this week, while Ukrainian authorities claim that thousands of Russian troops have died. More than half of Russians said in a poll conducted before the invasion that a global war was one of their biggest fears. Signs of dissent inside Russia emerged swiftly — and were silenced by Russian authorities just as fast. Thousands in Russia took to the streets to decry the invasion in a rare display of public condemnation in a country where public protests can lead to jail or fines. Mass arrests followed. Russia has also sought to cut off its citizens’ access to information on the invasion, blocking Facebook entirely and criminalizing news coverage that accurately portrays the bloody incursion. John Hudson in Washington, and Bryan Pietsch and Amy Cheng in Seoul contributed to this report.

What you need to know about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

For weeks, Western officials warned that a massive buildup of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine signaled a plan by Moscow to invade. Now, a full-scale invasion by Russian forces is underway, with missiles and artillery raining down on major cities, hundreds of civilians killed and some places — including Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant — already under Russia’s control.

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The war has produced more than 1.3 million refugees since it began on Feb. 24, according to the United Nations refugee agency, and is upending decades of peace in Europe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he seeks to “demilitarize” Ukraine and ensure that it stays out of NATO, whose expansion he sees as a security threat to Russia. But the invasion has already come at a steep cost to Moscow, now the target of sweeping international sanctions that have crashed Russia’s currency and sparked an exodus of foreign investors and brands from the country.

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The Washington Post's Sudarsan Raghavan reports from Markhalivka, Ukraine, where at least six people died from a suspected Russian airstrike. (The Washington Post)

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