{"id":32047,"date":"2017-02-11T05:01:45","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T04:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/32047-the-ukraine-conflict-five-things-to-know.html"},"modified":"2017-02-11T05:01:45","modified_gmt":"2017-02-11T04:01:45","slug":"the-ukraine-conflict-five-things-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/32047-the-ukraine-conflict-five-things-to-know.html","title":{"rendered":"The Ukraine conflict: Five things to know"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"txt-textContent\">\n<div class=\"text fontsize_0 jq_Content jq_langdir\">\n<p>The war between Kiev and Moscow-backed rebels has killed more that 10,000 people, rattled eastern Europe and plunged relations between the West and Russia to post-Cold War lows.<\/p>\n<p>Here are five key facts about the 33-month conflict in Ukraine's mainly Russian-speaking industrial east that has defied repeated international efforts to bring peace:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>- Ouster of Russian-backed leader -<\/h2>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The war erupted in April 2014 as the ex-Soviet republic was thrust into a geopolitical tug-of-war between Russia and the West.<\/p>\n<p>It followed the ouster of Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 after massive street protests over the government's decision to turn its back on closer ties with the European Union.<\/p>\n<p>Moscow responded by annexing Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in March before armed men without any insignia on their uniforms began taking over government buildings across southeastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin later admitted on television that he plotted the Crimean invasion to \"save\" the Russian-speaking region.<\/p>\n<p>Kiev and the West say Russia also instigated the eastern uprising and poured arms and troops across the border to bolster the two self-proclaimed rebel republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.<\/p>\n<p>But the Kremlin portrays the war as an internal conflict between an ethnic-Russian minority angered by a \"coup\" in Kiev and a nationalist government.<\/p>\n<p>Putin once said that any Russian citizen captured or killed in the war was a volunteer \"following the call of their heart\".<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>- Ukraine forces struggle -<\/h2>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The war began with Ukraine's army in shambles after decades of neglect.<\/p>\n<p>Kiev announced an \"anti-terrorist\" operation in April 2014 to push the Russian-backed separatist fighters out of towns in the industrial regions of Lugansk and Donetsk.<\/p>\n<p>But government troops suffered embarrassing early setbacks.<\/p>\n<p>Pictures emerged of woefully ill-prepared soldiers simply giving up their weapons and tanks to the rebels when faced by angry crowds of locals.<\/p>\n<p>Kiev often had to rely on a patchwork of volunteer battalions -- which included prominent far-right nationalists -- before co-opting them into a new National Guard run by the interior ministry.<\/p>\n<p>Government forces eventually made gains but the conflict settled into a stalemate. Ukraine estimated it was facing 40,000 insurgents and 10,000 regular Russian forces at its peak.<\/p>\n<p>Kiev has taken some strides towards bolstering its fighting capacity -- although shortages of equipment remain common among troops who are spearheading the fight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>- Economic shambles and corruption -<\/h2>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Heavy military spending and the loss of vital industries have seen Ukraine's economy shrink by about 17 percent between 2014 and 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Annual inflation rocketed to nearly 50 percent last year while the local currency has plunged against the dollar.<\/p>\n<p>Kiev has since negotiated a big debt writeoff deal with private creditors and secured a $17.5-billion (16.4-billion-euro) rescue loan from the IMF and other aid from foreign allies.<\/p>\n<p>But Ukraine has received just a fraction of the IMF cash because endemic corruption remains a hangover of its Soviet past.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts believe the problem has been especially severe in the army.<\/p>\n<p>They say senior commanders embezzle money assigned for new equipment and that lower-level officials accept payments from parents who don't want their children to go the battlefield.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>- Western response -<\/h2>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The United States and the European Union reacted to the annexation of Crimea by imposing economic sanctions on Russia and Putin's inner circle.<\/p>\n<p>NATO has also created a spearhead force to ward off any potential Russian advance into the Baltic states and eastern Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Poroshenko wants the sanctions extended for as long as the war lasts -- a possibility that may be in question with new US President Donald Trump seeking to rebuild ties with Russia.<\/p>\n<p>Major Western powers have also flown equipment and training squads into Ukraine to boost the country's fighting capabilities and morale.<\/p>\n<p>But Kiev has been frustrated by the West's refusal to send in weapons that could really counter Russia and swing the war in Ukraine's favour.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>- Mysterious rebel deaths -<\/h2>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the insurgents' biggest weakness is that they are not a single force and have different agendas.<\/p>\n<p>A string of assassinations of rebel warlords in the east remain unresolved.<\/p>\n<p>Some Kiev analysts believe the killings resulted from a desire of one particular warlord to usurp another while the rebels themselves place the blame squarely on Kiev.<\/p>\n<p>Each of the two republics are seeking full autonomy from the central government and have their own self-proclaimed presidents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The war between Kiev and Moscow-backed rebels has killed more that 10,000 people, rattled eastern Europe and plunged relations between the West and Russia to post-Cold War lows. Here are five key facts about the 33-month conflict in Ukraine's mainly Russian-speaking industrial east that has defied repeated international efforts to bring peace: \u00a0 - Ouster [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[2533],"class_list":["post-32047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed","ji_location-ukraine"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3.1 (Yoast SEO v25.3.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Ukraine conflict: Five things to know - JusticeInfo.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/32047-the-ukraine-conflict-five-things-to-know.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Ukraine conflict: Five things to know\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The war between Kiev and Moscow-backed rebels has killed more that 10,000 people, rattled eastern Europe and plunged relations between the West and Russia to post-Cold War lows. 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