The whole world has been shocked by the recent events in Europe. Russia waged war against Ukraine—a dramatic escalation of 8 year long tensions between the countries.
The conflict started in 2014 during the Ukrainian revolution when Russia annexed Crimea and the Donbas region claimed its independence from Ukraine. However, the international community and Ukraine did not agree to recognize these territories as parts of Russia. One of the reasons is that The Russian Federation has been sponsoring anti-Ukrainian groups in the Donbas region, making it difficult for people there to express what they actually wanted.
Since the beginning of 2021, Russia has been gathering forces on the Ukrainian borders. On 24 February 2022, Russian armies attacked. Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, claimed that his nation could not be "safe, develop and exist" next to modern Ukraine and announced his goal of "demilitarization and de-Nazification" of Ukraine.
There are many questions to Mr Putin’s words. Political tensions aside, the situation has become a catastrophe for ordinary people in the region. People in Ukraine have been living in a state of war, many trying to escape the country. Many countries announced sanctions against Russia and have sent military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. A lot of them, especially the neighboring countries, have also opened their borders to Ukrainian refugees. However, Belarus, a Ukrainian neighbor, hasn’t done so. There has been evidence that Belarus has been siding with Russia. This situation escalates the political situation in Belarus and Russia. People in these countries protested against the war, and many were arrested for doing that.
The situation continues to unfold. It is the biggest conflict in Europe since the Second World War in terms of the size of the involved countries, with many people worrying about where it could lead to.