Time-stamp: February 24, 2022. Early this morning, Russian forces invaded Ukraine, carrying out a thoroughly-planned operation by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. After months of positioning over 100,000 Russian troops on the ground and maritime borders on the north, east and south borders of the country, Putin reaffirmed he was not planning an invasion of Ukraine, but rather a peace-keeping mission to protect Ukraine from what he called “a Nazi government.” The United States and the other members of NATO watched distrustfully as Putin’s plan emerged, just to be proven right that a Russian attack was imminent.

Why does  Putin continue to misrepresent his intentions of invading Ukraine? Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin has continued to express his resentment  for what he called “the disintegration of historical Russia.” Since then, he has been a prominent figure in Russian politics and has attempted to reacquire territory the nation lost after the fall of the communist regime, as seen by the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Putin also strongly denounced  the incorporation of more Eastern European countries into NATO, which were formerly nations of the Soviet block. Since 1997, fourteen of these countries have joined and are now under the protection of NATO. According to Article 5 of the NATO Treaty known as the “commitment clause”: “every member of NATO agrees that it will consider an armed attack against any member state, whether in Europe or North America, as an attack against all 30 members.” By invading and reannexing Ukraine, Putin wants to limit the expansion of NATO further east towards Russia.

Although Ukraine was formerly part of the Soviet Union, it is now a democratic country. Volodymz Zelensky, the current democratic president of Ukraine, continues to advocate for peace and diplomatic resolutions to the Russian conflict. He now fears for his own life, his family’s welfare, and the safety of his country’s people. As a Jewish person himself who lost relatives during the Holocaust, he negates Putin’s lies that his presidency is of Nazi ideology. He and the rest of Ukraine wish to remain a democratic republic, and be allowed the freedom to flourish as such. 

Now that Putin has invaded Ukraine, what can be done? The United States and other NATO members have tried diplomatic solutions to no avail. They will not become involved in combat with Russia unless, and if Russia attacks one of the NATO countries that borders Ukraine: Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. In the meantime, to discourage any further warfare, the US, England and other countries are imposing economic sanctions on Russia. This includes freezing assets of important Russian individuals, institutions, and banks, encouraging all NATO members to limit or eliminate trade with Russia, and stopping any availability of defense or technology materials to Russia. Moreover, NATO has begun to deploy troops to protect member countries in case Putin’s attacks cross Ukrainian borders into the West.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the most poignant military attack in Europe since World War II. Will Putin stop or be stopped?