By: Emily Keaveney
Vladamir Putin, the President of Russia, justifies his invasion of Ukraine by stating his goal is to “demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine”, yet the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish. Ironic, isn’t it? Tensions have always been high between Russia and Ukraine, as Ukraine was once part of the former Soviet Union. Ukraine declared independence in 1991 after the Soviet Union collapsed.
In recent years, there have been talks of Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The idea of Ukraine joining NATO angered Russia because Russia did not want a neighboring country to be a part of NATO. NATO provides both political and military alliances between countries in Europe, along with the United States and Canada. This means that if Ukraine was part of NATO, a Russian invasion of Ukraine would have required NATO to defend Ukraine and provide a military alliance. Tensions also began to rise when Russia illegally annexed Crimea, a peninsula of Ukraine in 2014 (Kirby, 2022).
Vladimir Putin rationalizes his actions by claiming he wants to protect the Russian people from the “eight years of bullying and genocide from the Ukrainian government”, although there is absolutely no evidence to back up this claim. Putin also states that Ukrainians are Nazis and that Ukraine is “anti-Russia” (Kirby, 2022). All of these claims are Putin’s ways of justifying his unprovoked and unjust war. Putin also stated that it was Western Europe’s fault for trying to weaken, divide, and destroy Russian territory and that Ukraine was at fault for possessing or trying to possess nuclear weapons. Although once the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine gave up all nuclear weapons that were kept on its land (Kirby, 2022).
Russia wanted to get rid of Ukraine’s elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and erase the modern state of Ukraine (Kirby, 2022). The war is unprovoked, and the country of Ukraine is getting destroyed by it. It is the result of Putin’s ambition and fear of Ukraine joining NATO.
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