By Connor Carlin
Staff Writer
The international community has been thrown into turmoil since Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Fighting between Russian and pro-Russian forces and the Ukrainian Armed Forces is ongoing across several dozen Ukrainian cities. Countries across the world have been reacting to the situation as it unfolds, attempting to navigate perhaps the greatest geopolitical crisis since the end of the Cold War.
Shortly after Putin’s announcement of a “special military operation” in Eastern Ukraine, Russia launched missile strikes on more than a dozen cities and towns across the country. Russian ground troops were reported to then officially crossed the Ukrainian border, deploying in the port city of Odessa in the south and crossing into the eastern city of Kharkiv, the second largest in Ukraine. Troops in the north then began advancing towards the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
Russia has launched three lines of attack against Ukraine; an invasion from Russian-annexed Crimea across the south, a northeastern attack against Kharkiv and in support of the pro-Russian Donbas region, and a northern advance towards Kyiv from Belarus, which is allied with Russia. According to senior US officials, this is to execute a pincer maneuver to encircle and isolate Kyiv, the center of Ukraine’s current military and governmental leadership. Supported by continual barrages of rockets, Russian forces have occupied approximately half of Ukraine’s territory bordering the Black Sea, having captured the cities of Melitopol and Berdyansk in order to create a 155-mile strip of control along the Sea of Azov. Ukrainian forces in the south are currently fighting hard to keep the strategically important cities of Mykolaiv, Mariupol and particularly Kherson — which is currently occupied — from falling completely under Russian control.
In the north, fighting has been especially heavy in and around Kharkiv, with dozens of civilians killed by the onslaught of Russian rockets. The degree to which civilian areas have been targeted with indiscriminate rocket fire has led to the International Criminal Court launching a war crimes investigation in the area. Meanwhile, Russian forces in the city of Sumy and Konotop further West, alongside forces from the Russian-occupied Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, have been advancing on Kyiv, which despite ongoing street warfare and shelling, has held out against Russian troops so far.
Early predictions of a quick Russian conquest have not come to pass as Ukrainian resistance in the country’s major cities has been much more forceful than expected, and logistical problems amongst Russian forces, such as a lack of fuel, have slowed their advance. Initial talks between Russia and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ended on Feb. 28 without a resolution to the conflict, and Russia has pushed on towards its ultimate goal of taking Kyiv.
The Russian invasion, Europe’s largest conventional warfare campaign since World War II, has sparked a wave of action from a multitude of countries. For its own part, Ukraine’s government has been active in rallying support from the international community and defying Russia’s aggression. Zelensky has sought to bring both the United Nations’ International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court to stop the invasion, and submitted a formal request for Ukraine to join the European Union, urging the organization to immediately admit his country.
For the rest of the world, outrage against Russia’s attack has quickly organized itself, as countries line up to lend aid to Ukraine and also punish Russia. The European Union, a 27-nation bloc, agreed to send €500 million in arms to Ukraine, financing the delivery and purchase of weapons to a country under attack for the first time in its history. The organization also approved a raft of sanctions against Russia, including prohibiting transactions with the Russian Central Bank, banning Russian aircrafts from European airspace and Russian news outlets from European airwaves and cutting the country out of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). The last provision, agreed to by President Biden, has already sent Russia’s economy into turmoil, with the Ruble falling in value to less than 1 US cent.
Russia’s move against Ukraine has also caused a number of famously neutral or pacifist countries to dramatically switch course. German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz announced that he was approving a one-time €100 billion increase in German military spending, and would also commit Germany to spend 2 percent of its annual GDP on defense. Scholtz also promised that Germany would supply Ukraine with 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger missiles. Alongside Scholtz taking a more aggressive stance against Putin, Germany also halted the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Germany and Russia, a reversal of over three decades of cautious German foreign policy.
Sweden and Switzerland have also shifted their long-standing foreign policies of neutrality in response to the invasion of Ukraine. Sweden, a member of neither NATO or the Eurozone, has promised to send 135,000 field rations and thousands of helmets, body shields and anti-tank weapons, said Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, an action which Sweden has not taken since the Soviet Union invaded its neighbor Finland in 1939. As for the Swiss, the persistently neutral nation has broken with its normal stance and joined the EU’s financial sanctions against Russia, with President Ignacio Cassis saying that the assets of listed persons would be frozen and that Swiss airspace will be closed to all flights from Russia.
Chinese President Xi Jinping was seen prior to the invasion as one of Moscow’s few allies, having built an increasingly close relationship with Putin over the years. China has been one of the few nations to refuse to label Russia’s attack on Ukraine as an “invasion”, condemning Western sanctions and laying blame for the situation on US fear mongering. However, Chinese financial institutions have been quietly cutting themselves off from Russia, in compliance with U.S. sanctions. In addition, despite Xi’s claim that Russo-Chinese relations had “no limits”, Beijing risks alienating its economically vital Western allies if it chooses to firmly take Russia’s side in the conflict, a loss they could not weather.
For Russia, the invasion of Ukraine has come at a heavy price. The rapidly escalating sanctions on the country have left its economy increasingly isolated and unstable. The ruble lost 25% of its value in less than a day, after having earlier fallen by around 40%, leading the Russian central bank to more than double interest rates to 20%. Putin’s long-term attempts to shore up Russia’s economy against such sanctions have been undercut by around 50% of Russia’s reserves being frozen and made off limits to Moscow. The consequences for Putin’s adventurism in Ukraine will seemingly fall on the Russian people to foot the bill.
As of now, the situation in Ukraine is ongoing and uncertain. Numerous cities are in a tug of war for Ukrainian or Russian control, while Russia reels from renewed economic sanctions. If Putin is successful in his takeover, it may set a dangerous precedent for autocrats across the globe to engage in similar conquests. The invasion has already radically altered the status quo of geopolitics, and what comes next for Ukraine is yet to be determined.
