Page 7 - The Inprovoked War: Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

same year. Since that time, Ukraine has strengthened ties with
the Western world, expressing interest in joining the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), a coalition of the United States and
European nations dedicated to keeping peace in Europe. Russia,
which shares a 1,282-mile (2,063 km) border with Ukraine, is not
a NATO member, and Putin has long viewed Ukraine’s quest to
join NATO a threat to Russia.
Putin has voiced many other perceived threats to explain his
invasion of Ukraine. He has claimed that Ukrainian saboteurs
destroyed military vehicles on Russian soil. He has warned that
Ukraine was preparing to use chemical weapons against Russian
forces. He has accused Ukraine’s leaders, who are based in the
capital of Kyiv, of conducting systematic genocide against Rus-
sians living in their country—much like the Nazis once carried out
against Europe’s Jews. These are serious accusations—and, ac-
cording to experts on Russia-Ukraine relations, not one of them
is true. Putin has manufactured these and other falsehoods as an
excuse to move against Ukraine. In a televised address on Febru-
ary 24, Putin announced the invasion, which he characterized as

On March 10, 2022, a Ukrainian
drone captured this image of a
Ukrainian ambush on a column of
Russian tanks passing through a
town near Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.