#9 2021’s Build-up to Today’s War
The war in Donbas never ended, despite the West getting involved to de-escalate the military action in 2015. This sparked the appearance of the 2015 Minsk agreement, known as the Minsk Protocol, which despite being signed by both parts of the conflict, ended up not holding up.
It remained blocked as it contained parts that neither country wanted to abide by, considering them unacceptable: be it that Ukraine did not want to grant political independence to the two regions by organizing elections because Russia did not agree with granting Ukraine control of their border with them, or because Russia refused to admit to having sent troops over, nor did they want to withdraw them
In late 2021, local intelligence services as well as western ones, saw the massive movement of Russian troops to the Ukrainian borders, along with infrastructure for a possible invasion. Russia denied these allegations time and time again, calling the movement military exercises. Despite this, Russia still demanded the stop of further spread of NATO in East European Countries (including Ukraine), restrictions on the type of weapons brought by NATO in the countries which joined after 1997, and the halt of NATO cooperation with ex-Soviet member states (notably, Ukraine and Georgia).
As these demands were not acceptable in full to the West, Ukraine, and NATO and the discussion between world leaders went nowhere since the Russian president didn’t want to back down, Vladimir Putin called the Minsk Protocol void. He blamed Ukraine for it, even if they did not do their part in honoring the agreement, and invaded Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022.
