As Ukraine and Russia engage in ongoing conflict, U.S. President Joe Biden started evacuating embassies and troops Feb. 12 and telling Americans in Ukraine to leave. However, the U.S. may not be able to send in military aid to evacuate in the event of a Russian invasion for fear of sparking a world war. 

The U.K. and other countries in NATO, meanwhile, have taken similar actions, since it is believed that Russia could mobilize its 100,000 troops at any moment.

To understand the situation between Ukraine and Russia as it is now in 2022, one must look at Ukraine’s history and connection to Russia. Ukraine used to be a part of the Soviet Union before its declaration of independence in 1991.

Ever since, the country has been stuck in a battle between Russia and the West. This conflict has continued through the years, and recently the tensions in the region have reached a boiling point.

“One reason (for the conflict) is the geopolitical aspect, with a Western alliance moving closer to the borders of Russia, especially in Ukraine” Mac Bunyanunda, a political science professor at Chapman University, told The Panther. “Strategically, it’s important to Russia that (Ukraine) doesn’t fall formally into the Western orbit.” 

In the NATO-Russia Founding Act, Russia agreed to respect other countries’ rights to choose how they protect themselves. This includes Ukraine’s choice to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This treaty has not been respected by Russia, though, as the country has recently threatened nuclear war if Ukraine joins NATO.

“NATO is a defensive security alliance led by the United States; it’s from World War II, and it was the main bulwark against the Eastern Block — the Soviet Union” Bunyanunda said. “Since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, people thought that NATO as a Cold War structure would disappear, because the Soviet Union wasn’t there. But rather than disappearing, it expanded.”

After declaring its independence in the early 1990s and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine still spent years under Russian control until 2005 when a pro-West president, Viktor Yushchenko, rose to power. 

He planned for a future in which Ukraine joined NATO, but this soured the relationship between Russia and Ukraine, leading to disputes over gas and pipeline fees. But the nation of Ukraine is familiar with economic hardship.

“My parents left (Ukraine) right around the collapse of the Soviet Union, so the economy was in shambles, there were no jobs so they came here to America,” Danny Boudagian, a sophomore data science major who has family both in Ukraine and Russia, said in an interview with The Panther.

Part of Boudagian’s family left Ukraine to look for better opportunities, but some remained behind in Ukraine while others moved to Moscow and St. Petersburg in the 1990s.

“(My family) likes living in Russia, but they don’t really like Putin — the way he’s going and the direction he’s heading,” Boudagian said. “(My family) sees (Putin) as a big dictator. I have a cousin who just had a child, and she was telling me about how she doesn’t really see a future for her daughter in Russia right now.”

Ukraine didn’t want to remain under Russian rule, which is why in 2013, when the government decided to suspend talks with the EU and tried to reignite ties with Moscow, protests erupted in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.

Shortly after the protests, Russia invaded and subsequently annexed Crimea in 2014. Inspired by this, pro-Russian separatists declared independence in Donetsk and Luhansk, which has left the region of Donbass in chaos ever since.  

In 2021, Russia moved troops to Ukraines orders. In response, Biden warned Putin about possible sanctions from the West if Ukraine is invaded. Russia responded by denying any plans to invade the country, but most of the troops remained. At the beginning of 2022, NATO put its forces on stand-by, and many Western countries started evacuating most staff from their embassies in the country. 

When asked about the Russia-Ukraine conflict Jan. 19 at the first American press conference of 2022, Biden emphasized the importance of NATO being united in the decisions that are made and the difficulty that this poses when deciding to impose economic sanctions on Russia.

“The (economic sanctions) are things that are going to have a negative impact on the United States, as well as a negative impact on the economies of Europe and a devastating impact on Russia,” Biden said at the conference. “And so, I have got to make sure that everyone is on the same page as I move along. (Depending) on what (Putin) does is (to) what extent we’re going to be able to get total unity on the NATO front.”

The question arises as to why Putin would risk these sanctions, an economic crisis and perhaps even a war. When the protests after his election in 2011 occured, Putin blamed the West for the protests. 

Putin has supported extremist groups to undermine the European democracies as well as dictators around the world. According to Anne Applebaum, a prize-winning historian and reporter, Putin is not only fighting Russian protesters, but also all democracies of the world.

Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 due to the nation’s protests against the Russian government, Applebaum said, and now he’s doing the same thing, because he wants democracy in Ukraine to fail. In doing so, he has managed to expose the weaknesses and disagreements within NATO. 

So is Putin going to invade Ukraine, or is this just a strategy to accomplish his larger goals?

“The only thing I'm confident of is that (the) decision is totally, solely, completely, Putin's decision,” Biden said when questioned on his thoughts of an invasion. “Nobody else is going to make that decision. Nobody else is going to impact that decision.”