27/04/2026
Russia vs NATO in Ukraine
Ukraine 🇺🇦 and NATO — here’s the full picture, in plain terms.
While most headlines are fixed on what’s happening in Iran, the war in Ukraine is still ongoing. People are still dying every day. This war started in 2022 when Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces into Ukraine. Since then, over 500,000 people — both civilians and soldiers on both sides — are believed to have lost their lives. Millions have also fled their homes and scattered across Europe as refugees. It’s the deadliest conflict Europe has seen since World War II.
At the heart of this war is one major issue: Russia does not want Ukraine getting too close to Western countries. More specifically, Russia has made it clear that Ukraine must not join NATO.
Now, NATO didn’t just appear out of nowhere. It was created in 1949 by the United States and its Western allies as a way to protect Western Europe and North America from the Soviet Union. I’ll get into that properly, but first, let’s be clear about something.
Ukraine is an independent country. Like any sovereign state, it has the right to choose its allies and decide who it wants to work with.
But in reality, things are not that straightforward.
To really understand this war — or what many call Putin’s war — you have to go back in time.
Ukraine wasn’t always the independent country it is today. It used to be part of the Soviet Union, which was formed in 1922 and later broke apart in 1991. Even before that, Ukraine wasn’t a stable, united country. It was a region controlled by different empires, including the Russian Empire.
When the Soviet Union was formed in 1922, Ukraine became one of its founding members.
The Soviet Union itself was a huge state made up of 15 republics:
Russia
Ukraine
Belarus
Uzbekistan
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Azerbaijan
Georgia
Lithuania
Moldova
Latvia
Armenia
Estonia
Out of all these, Russia was the dominant force. It controlled about 75% of the land and had more than half the population. Moscow was the capital, and Russian was the main language. That’s why many people mix up Russia with the Soviet Union, even though they weren’t exactly the same thing.
After World War II, the Soviet Union became the main rival of the United States. This period is known as the Cold War. It wasn’t a direct war, but both sides were competing for power and influence across the world.
The Soviet Union pushed communism, while the United States stood for capitalism.
This divided the world into two major sides:
The Western Bloc, led by the U.S.
The Eastern Bloc, led by the Soviet Union
Some countries didn’t want to pick a side. They formed a group called the Non-Aligned Movement.
As tensions grew, both sides began forming military alliances. The U.S. and its allies created NATO, where an attack on one member would be treated as an attack on all.
In response, the Soviet Union created its own alliance, the Warsaw Pact.
At that point, the world was on edge. It felt like things could spiral into a third world war at any time.
Then came a major turning point.
In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. The 15 republics became independent countries, and the Warsaw Pact also ended. With that, the United States came out as the world’s top superpower.
Russia, on the other hand, became weaker and had to rebuild.
In the years that followed, something important started happening. Countries that were once part of the Eastern Bloc began joining NATO. Remember, these were countries influenced by the Soviet Union, not part of it.
Places like Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary joined NATO.
Czechoslovakia later broke into two countries — the Czech Republic and Slovakia — and both eventually joined NATO.
East Germany reunited with West Germany and automatically became part of NATO.
Even more sensitive for Russia, three former Soviet republics — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — also joined NATO. Russia wasn’t happy about it, but it couldn’t stop it.
By this point, most of Russia’s western side was now bordered by NATO countries. Only Belarus and Ukraine remained outside NATO.
So from Russia’s point of view, it started to feel surrounded.
For years, Russia kept warning that NATO expanding eastward was a red line — especially if Ukraine was involved.
Ukraine is not just any country to Russia. It shares a long, flat border with Russia — the kind of terrain armies have used in the past to enter Russian territory. Also, Kyiv is quite close to Moscow compared to other former Soviet states that joined NATO.
So in simple terms, if Ukraine joins NATO, Russia fears that Western military forces could be positioned right on its doorstep.
That’s a big part of why Russia is strongly against it.
In global politics, powerful countries don’t like their neighbors getting too close to their rivals. They often try to influence the choices of nearby countries.
Now, fast forward to around 2013 — this is where things really start to heat up.
Ukraine was about to sign a major trade deal with the European Union. Russia opposed it strongly. Under pressure from Putin, Ukraine’s president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych, decided to reject the EU deal and instead move closer to Russia.
That decision didn’t sit well with many Ukrainians.
Mass protests broke out. Things turned violent. By 2014, Ukraine’s parliament removed Yanukovych from power, and he fled to Russia.
Russia called it a coup and refused to accept the new Ukrainian government.
From there, things escalated quickly.
Russia moved in and took control of Crimea, saying it was protecting ethnic Russians living there. Around the same time, it began supporting separatist groups in eastern Ukraine, especially in the Donbas region, who wanted to break away from Ukraine.
After Crimea, Ukraine kept building closer ties with Western countries.
Russia saw this as a growing threat — and used it as part of its reason to launch a full scale invasion in 2022.
Years later, the war is still ongoing.
