IMPORTANT STUFF: THE UKRAINE BORDER CRISIS (UPDATED)

Announcement: This is the second edition of the blog’s newest segment, “Important Stuff.” It gives the most valuable insights on the week’s biggest stories that you do not want to miss! Every segment will have two parts. Number one, a brief overview of the story. Number two, our unique perspective. We publish articles every other Tuesday, so make sure to read! 

Last Week’s Recap: If you’re reading this, you already probably know what’s happening in Ukraine. But if not, here’s a brief rundown. In recent weeks, Russia has been amassing more than 100,000 troops along the Ukraine border, which has obviously been alarming for the United States and the rest of NATO as a whole. The reason Russia is doing this is likely so NATO can agree to demands such as not allowing Ukraine to become a part of NATO. 

What’s Changed: The reason we’ve done a follow up blog is because there have been several recent developments. The big change is the fact that Russia has recognized Ukraine sepratist regions as “countries” and is sending in “peace keeping forces” into the region. This of course, is an invasion of Ukraine, and the US including NATO allies have not been lenient. President Biden has imposed several sanctions on Russia. Some of these include, financial sanctions, and sanctions against Russian elites. These sanctions would be very harmful for Russia’s economy. All in all, this new update raises tensions significantly.

Our take: We all know that the recent events in the last few days have significantly raised tensions in the Ukraine border crisis. But will Russia go further and invade all of Ukraine? Let’s talk about it. Putin’s strategy seems to be like baby steps. First he builds up troops, hoping to intimidate the west into agreeing to demands such as not letting Ukraine become a NATO country. Putin waited for a few weeks, but when he saw that the United States and the rest of NATO were not backing down, he went and recognized separatist regions, and then installed troops in those regions, which is of course a breach of Ukrainian territory. Now NATO has still not caved in, and instead, Germany shut down the Nordstream 2 pipeline and the United States imposed sanctions. Now Russia is at a crossroads. Will Russia get scared of these sanctions and retreat? Or will Russia invade Ukraine even further? That remains to be seen.