![]() ![]() “Today we consider the current build-up as the second stage of the first build-up,” said Oleg Ignatov, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Russia. Yet officials have said that since at least November, Russia has been moving troops to the border. Russian paratroopers wait to be loaded into a plane for airborne drills during manoeuvres in Taganrog, Russia, 22 April 2021. It later said that it withdrew those troops. In the spring of 2021, Russia began building up tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine in response to what it described as threats from NATO, a move that was widely condemned internationally. There was hope of progress in 2019 as Russia and Ukraine swapped prisoners and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Euronews in 2020 that he thought there was a “high chance of ending the war” but clashes have continued. Since that agreement, there have been repeated violations of the ceasefire agreement with the conflict transforming into a trench war. While Russia and Ukraine signed agreements in Minsk in 20 aimed at bringing forth a ceasefire, the conflict has now killed more than 14,000 people. The Kremlin said they acted on a Crimea referendum in favour of rejoining Russia but Western countries, including the EU, said the referendum, which occurred after troops invaded, was "illegal and illegitimate".Ĭonflict later broke out between the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatists who declared two regions in eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, known as the Donbas, self-proclaimed republics. The largely Russian-speaking peninsula had been transferred to Ukraine in 1954 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Shortly after, Russia annexed Crimea in a move that was denounced as illegal by a UN General Assembly resolution.
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