On February 24, 2022, Russia sent military units to Ukraine. Many students have said that they have no idea what’s going on over there. So here’s a quick rundown:

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 resulting from WWII, Ukraine declared itself an independent country. Ukraine has been trying to get closer to the United Nations and NATO. Unfortunately, Russia sees this as a threat to their own security and an apparent break of treaties.

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. They slowly took over the Crimean Peninsula, which is Ukraine’s biggest trading hub in the Black Sea. This is called the War on Donbas, which is a huge part of this ongoing crisis.

The troops were partially brought back in June of 2021. In November and October of the same year, Russia sent about 100,000 troops to the borders of Ukraine. They were fully covering three sides of Ukraine by December. Even though there were numerous reports of this happening, Russian officials denied the actions against Ukraine, saying it was for military training exercises.

      On February 21, 2022, Russia invaded Donbas, which officially broke the Minsk Protocol. This was a protocol ending combat in that area of Eastern Ukraine. The next day, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that those protocols were no longer valid.

On the morning of February 24, 2022, Putin launched a full scale invasion on Ukraine.

Since then, Russia has been invaded and taking many prominent cities in Ukraine, like Kharkiv (Ukraine’s second largest city), the port city of Mariupol, and the southern city of Kherson. People in the capital city of Kyiv have been told to leave in fear of potential airstrikes.

These are the key points so far. Russia has been facing more resistance than usual. While there was an attempt for a cease-fire on March 1, it was not successful.

This was last updated on March 2, 1:53 pm.