The war in Ukraine did not start in 2022, but in 2014

Vsn February 24, 2024, political leaders and the media will mark the “second anniversary” of the war in Ukraine, an event whose significance has not diminished since its outbreak. The shock that is always felt when mentioning this date is due to the clarity of the events that happened that day: military intervention by Vladimir Putin on television in the morning, columns of armored vehicles plunging deep into Ukrainian territory, airstrikes all over. country…

This declaration of war in the proper form (even if the Russian president prefers the euphemism of “special military action”), this invasion that is no longer hidden only for form, creates clear criteria, seems even more shocking that they come from one nation. A forgotten age, of further and open conflict between states. Does this mean that the Russian war in Ukraine, the Russian war against Ukraine, actually started two years ago? On February 24, the forces attacking Ukraine from the south, rushed to Mykolaiv and Novaya Kakhovka, entered the Crimea. Control of the peninsula gives Moscow an additional option in its offensive plans.

The mention of Crimea also serves as a reminder: Russian troops have been present on the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine (including by Russia) for – at that point – already eight years. After denying it, Vladimir Putin himself recognized that the unmarked soldiers who occupied public buildings, military bases and main roads on the peninsula in late February 2014 were Russian troops. It was carried out as it was, it is wrong to say that annexation was carried out “without being shot”

. The death toll is disputed, but at least two Ukrainian soldiers lost their lives, as well as a handful of pro-Kiev demonstrators, adding to the dozens of missing people.

reverse logic

This first invasion had been long contemplated and prepared, other Russian sources acknowledged. Medals awarded to the small arms of the alliance (which would later be legitimized by a coup against the parliament of Simferopol and a hastily organized referendum) also mention the date of February 20, 2014, as the start of the operation. Two days before Viktor Yanukovych’s flight to Russia, Ukraine’s president-elect was then challenged by street demonstrations.

In Russian writing of the war in Ukraine, this Maidan Revolution is a central point. It is after that “rebellion”, according to the expression used by Moscow to describe Mr. Yanukovych’s dismissal by parliament, that Kiev may have begun persecuting the Russian-speaking population of the south and east. According to this version, the annexation of Crimea made it possible for the peninsula to avoid the same fate as Donbas, namely the rise of Ukrainian “punitive battalions” responsible for suppressing the local population.

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