Russia's Invasion of Ukraine: UN Involvement and Solutions

Back in 2014, the Ukrainian citizens in Kyiv began protesting to get their current president, Viktor Yanukovych, out of office. Yanukovych had previously angered the people of Ukraine by rejecting a deal for greater economic integration with the European Union. As the riots and protests grew more intense Yanukovych fled his own country. Russia took advantage of this weakness and there was when Russia's Invasion of Ukraine began. 

Russian troops started off by taking control of Ukraine’s Crimea region. Russian president, Vladimir Putin, defended the invasion by saying that he needed to protect the rights of the Russian citizens in Crimea and other parts of southeast Ukraine. Russia has also stated that the Crimean Peninsula was annexed because the Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation in disputed local referendum. After this occurrence, conflict in the region quickly broke into Russian-backed forces and the Ukrainian military. This led to the buildup of Russian troops and military equipment near Donetsk and Russian bombing. 

In the next year, 2015, Germany and France joined the conflict. These new allies as well as the original Russia and Ukraine, tried to start up negotiations and the termination of violence in the Minsk Accords. this ended up being unsuccessful. In April 2016, NATO announced that the alliance would deploy four battalions to Eastern Europe. After this announcement, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland's troops were all used to deter the Russian aggression in Europe. The following year, the United States released two U.S. Army tank brigades to Poland lengthening the amount of time NATO spent in this region. In February began an approved sale of anti-tank weapons to Ukraine. This had been the first sale of murderous weapons since the beginning of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Fortunately, later that year Ukraine joined the U.S. and many other NATO countries in a sequence in air exercises. These incidents came after Russia’s annual military practices. This was the largest recorded since the fall of the Soviet Union. Ukraine has also experienced many targeted cyberattacks during this conflict. In late 2015, more than 225,000 people, lost power in their own country during an attack on Ukraine’s generation firms. The following year, many parts of Kyiv worked through another power blackout. A remarkably similar attack was once again targeted Ukrainian utility companies. Due to these actions, earlier the next year, computer systems all over Ukraine were hit by a cyberattack known as NoPeyta. This attack from Russia spread to computer systems all over the world and caused billion-dollar damages. In the beginning of this year, Ukraine’s government established websites, those which were defense and interior ministries, banking sites, and many other organizations were targeted by distributed-denial-of-service attacks alongside the Russian invasion.

UN Involvement

Country Policy

In the past 6 years the United Sates has given more than $7.3 billion in support of Ukraine. In addition to this the United Sates had provided Ukraine with three sovereign loans adding up to $3 billion US dollars. President Biden signed the bipartisan Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations act to fund Ukraine with an added 13.6 billion in humanitarian, military, and economic aid to help Ukraine to the further resist the further expansion of Russia. This money will also assure that the Ukrainian government can act appropriately to support the people of Ukraine as they continue to face attacks from Russia’s army. Money totaling about 1 additional billion will go to Ukraine in security assistance supporting them with weapons it needs to combat Russian forces. Another 653 million will go to Ukraine in humanitarian aid, directed towards communities in Ukraine attacked by Russia, payments started 8 years ago when Russia first invaded, and continue with 302 million this year. In humanitarian aid, the United States is now the largest single-country donor, with funding still being forwarded to the Ukranian cause. Apart from monetary assistance the United States is planning to up to 100,000 Ukranian citizens in need of a home due to Russia aggression. This program is planned to provide these refugees with humanitarian parole, visas and the US refugee admissions program. To discourage Russia from attacking Ukraine further the United States has officially banned the Import of Russian energy products as of March 8th. This is in hopes of removing economic resources Putin needs to continue the invasion of Ukraine. The United States plans to cut Russia's access to technological inputs, atrophy its industrial base, and undercut its ambitions to exert influence on the world stage. sanctions

Solutions

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the biggest threat on peace in Europe since the Cold War ended in 1991, this is a significant event for the future of democracy and the world as a whole. To resolve this the United States proposes a multi outcome plan. First, The US will continue to provide Ukraine with support against its struggle against Russia, this will include providing them with arms, welcoming refuges, and with any monetary support needed, but has decided to not attack Russia, only to support Ukraine as it is not a part of NATO. The United States will also call upon NATO to protect more countries by including them in the alliance to protect these countries from the attacks of Russia, they will also get support from the monetary from the United States in order to remain democratic countries and collaborate to resist Russia. From here the end results differ ermined by actions taken by Russia. The first and most favorable outcome for the United States would be that Russia determines to retreat its troops from Ukraine or fail to take over the Ukrainian government, leaving Ukraine to govern independently as a sovereign democracy. The United States understands that this is not a likely outcome, thus the US will start posting troops on NATO soil as a defensive measure, to deter Putin from attempting to enter NATO territory through Belarus. The US is prepared to send 400 additional troops to Lithuania and Latvia as a protective procedure. This is a course taken to temporarily protect NATO should Russia decide to invade these countries, which would result in war. This will provide the allies with time to set up their military to protect from attacks and move into attack-prone countries such as Poland and Slovakia, relying on the other NATO allies closer geographically to the affected countries, such as Britain and France, to assist. This would imply a world war, to this the US would reply by deploying troops to protect from further Russian invasion, eventually bringing in tanks, helicopters, and ships. We will engage in military combat allied with the 30 members of NATO, pooling our resources to combat Russian forces. From here the United States is willing to continue fighting like this until either side forfeits but again acknowledges that Russia might not do the same, meaning the start of nuclear combat. The United States has 1,389 active nuclear weapons and is ready to use them if attacked, though this would be an extreme measure on Russia’s part that would be devastating to all countries involved, as well as deemed a war crime.

Conclusion

The Russian government has denied any direct involvement in the conflict, but there is significant evidence of Russian military and financial support for the separatists. The international community, including the European Union and United States, has imposed economic sanctions on Russia in response to its actions in Ukraine.

The situation in Ukraine remains tense, and the conflict continues to escalate. The international community continues to call for a peaceful resolution to the crisis and for Russia to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.