It is believed that Russian president Vladimir Putin has multiple goals in invading Ukraine. The Russian leader’s primary aim was to overrun Ukraine and depose its government, and thereby end its desire to join NATO. Prior to launching the invasion on 24 February, he told the Russian people that his goal was to “demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine’, in order to safeguard the people who are subjected to what he called eight years of bullying and genocide by the Ukrainian government. These accusations of genocide in Ukraine are false according to several observers, and many say it is much like the Russian allegation that Ukraine was building a plutonium-based ‘dirty’ bomb.
Whatever its justification, Russia saw this as an important moment. Russia invaded from the north, through Belarus, and from the south and east, but Ukraine’s sturdy resistance has forced the Kremlin to drop its plan to oust the government.
After a month into the invasion, Russia declared that its main goal was the “liberation of Donbas”, referring to Ukraine’s eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. More than a third of this area was already seized by Russian-backed separatists in a war that began in 2014, and now Russia has plans to acquire all of it.
Cities like Mariupol and Odessa were destroyed almost completely. Towns in the area freed by Ukrainian armies faced severe damage from shelling and attacks, as well as casualties among civilians. In Bucha near Kyiv, images of bodies in the streets, some with hands bound, have raised concern about war crimes by Russia. But Russia has denied any involvement in civilian killings.
Apart from his military goals, President Putin’s broader demand is Ukraine’s future neutrality. Some fear that his military setbacks in Ukraine may pave the way to even bloodier scenes of retribution in the near future.
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