About

Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine has a unique context. It is the first full-scale war in the geographical centre of Europe since the Second World War finished.

Although the formal countdown to the War started in 2022, in reality it has been ongoing since 2014, when two pseudo-people’s pseudo-republics (so called “LNR” and “DNR”) were self-proclaimed in eastern Ukraine with Russia’s armed and ideological support, and the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea was illegally annexed.

It is an open, albeit undeclared, interstate war, which is hopefully extremely rare in the XXI century, which has been marked mostly by regional or intrastate conflicts.

This War is hybrid by nature – in addition to classical military tactics, the Russian aggressor employs broadly and systematically cyberattacks, systematic torture and other forms of ill-treatment, propaganda, disinformation, economic and political pressure. Its ongoing protraction has shaken global geopolitics and exposed the fragility of the international legal order.