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At 3am GMT this morning, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that his country’s armed forces were undertaking a “special military operation” in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. It turned out this was the full-scale invasion that the intelligence agencies of various western countries have been warning the world about for weeks, despite Putin’s persistent denials.
The United Nations held an emergency meeting of the Security Council. But the room for diplomacy is limited – and will remain so while the invasion lasts. The west must be prepared to present Putin with a strong, united response that will deter him from any future foreign policy adventurism while leaving room to address Russian security concerns.
Putin has certainly not made any secret of his belief that Ukraine should not exist independently from Russia. Just this week, he made a long and rambling speech on Russian television in which he insisted that Ukraine was merely an “artificial construct”, created by Lenin in 1917. He also delivered some disturbing remarks about Russia’s “empire”. But his view of history does not tally with that of most experts.
The invasion has set the financial markets into a spin and will hugely affect the global supply of some key commodities. Here are some of those likely to be affected.
Awkwardly – and rather ironically – the UN security council is currently chaired by Russia. Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, has complained that Russia should not have automatically inherited the USSR’s permanent membership when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. But there are other countries that might not want to open that particular can of worms.
You can follow our continuing coverage of the Ukraine crisis here.
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