Russia–Ukraine relations

R
ussia–Ukraine relations refer to the bilateral ties between the Russian
Federation and Ukraine. Following the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity in 2014,
Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula was occupied by unmarked Russian forces, later
being annexed by Russia, while pro-Russia separatists simultaneously engaged the Ukrainian
military in an armed conflict for control over eastern Ukraine; these events marked the
beginning of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. In a major escalation of the conflict on 24
February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of the Ukrainian mainland across a broad
front. Ukraine severed all formal diplomatic ties with Russia on the day of the 2022 Russian
invasion.[1][2][3]

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the successor states' bilateral relations have
undergone periods of ties, tensions, and outright hostility. In the early 1990s, Ukraine's policy
was dominated by aspirations to ensure its sovereignty and independence, followed by a
foreign policy that balanced cooperation with the European Union (EU), Russia, and other
powerful polities.[4]

Relations between the two countries have been notably hostile since the 2014 Revolution of
Dignity, which toppled Ukraine's elected president Viktor Yanukovych and his supporters in
response to his refusal to sign a political association and free-trade agreement with the EU that
enjoyed majority support in Ukraine's parliament. Ukraine's post-revolutionary government
wished to commit the country to a future within the both the EU and NATO, rather than
continue to play the delicate diplomatic game of balancing its own economic and security
interests with those of Russia, the EU, and NATO member states. In 2004, the Czech
Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovakia had joined the EU, followed
by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 (see member states of the European Union). The Russian
government feared that Ukraine's becoming of a member within the EU and NATO would
complete a Western wall of allied countries by restricting Russia's access to the Black Sea.
With South Korea and Japan being allied to the United States, the Russian government was
concerned that Russia was being ring-fenced by potentially hostile powers along a post-Cold
War alignment. Russia's annexation of Crimea was coincided by the creation of the Donetsk
People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic in areas of eastern Ukraine where there
is an ethnic Russian majority. The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War has killed more than 13,000
people, and has resulted in several Western sanctions on Russia.[5]

In 2019, amendments were made to the Constitution of Ukraine, which enshrined the
irreversibility of the country's strategic course towards EU and NATO membership. Throughout
2021 and 2022, a Russian military buildup on the border of Ukraine escalated tensions
between the two countries and strained their bilateral relations, with the United States
sending a strong message that an invasion would be met with dire consequences for Russia's
economy.[6][7]