The Ukrainian crisis has been at the center of Russia’s confrontation with the West since February 2014, when a popular revolution, seen in Moscow as a Western-sponsored coup, ousted the pro-Russian government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. This, the Kremlin believed, was an attempt by Western powers to radically change the balance of power by incorporating Ukraine into Euro-Atlantic institutions and to eventually politically and militarily undermine and subjugate Russia.
Moscow’s reaction was swift and forceful: a massive deployment of troops to Crimea, disarmament of local Ukrainian garrisons, and occupation and speedy annexation of the peninsula, followed by a Moscow-supported “separatist” insurrection in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.
The West, in response, imposed punitive sanctions. Russia’s relations with Europe and the United States have been unraveling ever since.