On Monday, February 21st, Russian president Vladimir Putin affirmed the Ukrainian separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin then ordered troops to these regions, but it remains unclear if this is the start of a full-scale invasion that nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom have feared. While Putin referred to the troops as a “peacekeeping mission,” the global community remains skeptical. 

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, stated in an emergency UN Security Council meeting that “[Putin] calls them peacekeepers. This is nonsense. We know what they really are.” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky told the Ukrainian people in a televised statement that “we are on our own land; we are not afraid of anything or anyone,” while Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė expressed her disdain by saying that “Putin just put Kafka and Orwell to shame: no limits to dictator’s imagination, no lows too low, no lies too blatant, no red lines too red to cross.”

This blatant disregard of Ukrainian sovereignty is just the latest in Russia’s recent series of aggressions against their neighbor. While Putin certainly does not seem to care about the thoughts of the global community or Ukrainian sovereignty, other nations must resist the urge to lay down harsh blanket sanctions against Russia. Sanctions end up harming ordinary citizens the most since the political elite have mechanisms to get around them. Despite sanctions seeming like a promising option, their impacts on Russian citizens— who bear no responsibility for the invasion— must be considered. 

President Putin made an impassioned speech to the Russian public via state television on Monday, stating that Ukraine is a “country made by Russia.” This reflects his pan-Slavic views that state all Slavs (the ethnolinguistic group that Russians, Ukrainians, and others are in) should be grouped together in one nation. Some Russians believe this resurgence in pan-Slavic views is being used to unite the Russian public and distract them from domestic issues such as surging COVID-19 cases and economic instability. This tactic was used before during World War II, referred to in Russia as the “Great Patriotic War,” when Stalin used unitary rhetoric to unite the Russian people after Germany invaded. 

Russia sending troops to Ukraine, even though they are only going to separatist regions, is an unprecedented new level of escalation and aggression. This act will send shockwaves throughout the entire region, and will certainly escalate the war that has already been raging for years.