Right now, Russian forces have been building up near the border.
Analysts say that they're seeing intel that shows Russia is preparing
for a military offensive, potentially within weeks.
Russia says that it doesn't actually want to invade Ukraine and that its troop
movements are actually defensive,
something that a number of European countries aren't buying.
We are convinced that Russia is
actually preparing for all-out war.
There are a couple of reasons: the first is national identity.
Ukraine and Russia have a lot of shared history.
Before 1991, both were a part of the USSR, or Soviet Union.
While Russia was the dominant force within the Soviet Union,
Ukraine held a lot of importance, both strategically and culturally.
When the Soviet Union finally collapsed in 1991,
what we now know as modern day Russia rose
from the ashes and a number of republics
that were a part of the union, like Ukraine, gained independence.
The thing is, many Russians,
including the top Russian himself, President Vladimir Putin,
still consider some of these former Soviet states to be Russian.
And Putin has repeatedly said
he believes the collapse of the Soviet Union was a tragedy.
Putin has always felt that
Ukraine is part of Russia.
Ukraine should not be an independent, sovereign state.
Now, there are a
number of people living in Ukraine that identify as Russian.
However, polling has shown that the majority of the country identifies
as Ukrainian and is keen to see Ukraine remain independent from Russia.
All of this isn't just about national identity, though.
Ukraine also holds a lot of strategic importance.
It has access to the Black Sea, significant natural resources
and important trade routes.
Plus, it's somewhere where Russia would like to have military bases.
When you zoom out a bit, Ukraine represents a bit of a buffer between
Russia and Europe, or, more importantly, Russia and members of NATO.
NATO is a military alliance
that doesn't share the rosiest of relationships with Russia.
And by that, I mean, in the past, Russia has called NATO its biggest
military threat.
NATO denies this and says it's a purely defensive organisation.
Basically, when you're a NATO member, an attack on one is an attack on all.
This is designed to keep NATO members safe from invasion
but Ukraine is not a member of NATO, even though in the past
it has said that it would like to be.
Russia on multiple occasions has pressured
NATO to not give Ukraine membership.
Its view has been that NATO must not under any circumstances
admit Ukraine, that it shouldn't station
permanent troops or equipment in Ukraine
and it basically
wants to make sure that Ukraine is part of its sphere of influence.
NATO's chief has publicly rejected Russia's demands to deny Ukraine entry.
We cannot accept that Russia is trying to re-establish
a system where big powers like Russia have spheres of influence.
But if Ukraine was to become a member,
there are genuine worries that Russia
would respond aggressively,
whether that be economically or militarily.
For example, Germany, one of the biggest members
of NATO, gets a significant chunk of its natural gas from Russia.
Germany is 37% dependent on Russian gas
and if the Russians turn off the tap, then
that means, not just German business
suffers significantly and German industry,
but it means people freeze in winter.
Now, time for the big question:
Let's start with some of the reasons why an invasion may happen.
The first is that Russia has invaded Ukraine before.
In 2014, Ukraine's president, who was accused of being pro-Russia
and anti-European Union, was kicked out during the Ukraine revolution.
Shortly after the revolution kicked off
Russian forces invaded Ukraine and took control of two different areas.
At first, Crimea and eventually parts of the East.
Both of these areas are known to be,
compared to other parts of Ukraine,
home to more ethnic Russians
or Ukrainians that are sympathetic to Russia.
Russia,
I think,
saw an opportunity, or at least was concerned,
that a pro-Western government
would shut out its access to the Crimean peninsula.
It launched very quickly a set of
cyber attacks, a whole bunch of disinformation
and then sent in what they referred to as the 'friendly green men'.
These were heavily armed people without any unit insignia
who quite quickly took over Sevastopol
and Simferopol, the main cities in Crimea
and Russian control over the peninsula was complete within a couple of days.
At first, Russia denied it had any involvement
and said that the forces that had taken control of Crimea weren't theirs.
It was 'Oh, no, these have nothing to do with Russia whatsoever'.
And then it was, 'well, you know, they might be irregular
forces with ties to Russia'.
And then it was, 'Yes, they're ours'.
There was a lot of international backlash,
and Russia was hit with some pretty heavy economic sanctions.
But no outside countries physically stepped in to stop it happening
and fighting between competing factions, particularly in
the East, has continued to this day.
He's been conducting this not-quite covert war
in Ukraine since April
of 2014 in order to change the country's national security policy.
He's failed with that.
That's why he's now threatening a major invasion.
Russia maintains that what happened wasn't an invasion,
but simply locals trying to restore the Russia of old.
In terms of the broader conflict in the Donbas, Russia's been fairly
keen to say these are Ukrainians fighting for,
or if not Ukrainians,
ethnic Russians, fighting for a broader Russia, 'Novorossiya',
this idea of a bigger Russia that dates back to Catherine the Great.
Fast forward to today and Ukraine's army is a lot stronger than it was in 2014
but most experts universally agree that it's still no match for Russia's military.
Plus, you have a country like the United States
saying that it won't be sending in troops, even if an invasion happens.
That is not on the table.
Despite all of this,
there are many experts that still believe an invasion probably won't happen.
The chances are serious, but far from likely.
It's certainly not more than 25% in my judgment.
It may be as low as 15%.
World leaders have warned Russia it will face massive political
and economic sanctions if it goes ahead with an invasion.
If he moves on Ukraine,
the economic consequences for his economy are going to be devastating.
Instead, many experts reckon this is less about planning an actual invasion
and more about pressuring world leaders to give Russia more of a say
on the future of Ukraine.
If Putin really wanted to invade Ukraine, he probably could have done so by now.
He's trying to intimidate the West with Ukraine into giving him
something of value.
Simply the threat of an invasion might be enough to keep NATO out
and pressure Ukraine into letting go of Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
Just quickly, it's important to note that while Russia is quick to point
to NATO as the reason for it feeling insecure about Ukraine,
there are questions about whether all of this, specifically keeping NATO out
of Ukraine and pushing for independence in Crimea and eastern Ukraine,
is just part of an attempt by Putin to recreate the Soviet Union in another form.
Putin has on numerous occasions used this term 'Novorossiya', New Russia,
supposedly 'autonomous', in inverted commas, and 'independent', in inverted commas.
Regions of the world over which
there would be absolutely no doubt
where the control was coming from.
A big problem for NATO and the US in all of this, is that if they give in
to too many of Russia's demands, confidence in both of these powers
could take a big hit on the international stage.
For example, the Baltic nations, which are part of NATO
but are also former Soviet states like Ukraine,
may feel less confident that they'll be safe from Russia
if it ever decides that it wants to reunify.
Central and Eastern Europe still include generations
that remember very well Soviet occupation.
So, the threat of an invasion by Russia is something they take very seriously,
and when they see a massing of this kind of force
against Ukraine, it has to make them shudder.
Overall, it's a very complicated diplomatic dance
with a lot of moving parts.
Right now, the Russian and Ukrainian president are both in
talks with world leaders trying to figure out a solution
to this very delicate situation
that currently hangs in the balance.