The Russo-Ukrainian war has been an ongoing war since 2014 but it has escalated vastly starting in 2022. The conflict first started when Russia invaded Crimea and annexed the land due to a highly disputed referendum. The war in Donbas began in April 2014 when Russian separatists took over the Ukrainian government and claimed the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk’s People’s Republic. Over the course of the next eight years,  Ukraine fought for control over Donbas and this resulted in more than 14,000 people killed. Harsh battles in 2014-2015 ended with the territory occupied by Russian Proxy Statelets which eventually led to the Minsk Accords, several negotiations to end the violence between France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine.

Even though fighting and news about the war had decreased significantly, everything picked up after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. During the first few days of combat, Russia made huge gains but Ukraine quickly started launching counterattacks towards Russian forces. In his statement, President Vladimir Putin claimed that the point of the infiltration was to demobilize and denazify Ukraine. He saw the war as a strike against hostility in the West and it was a planned attack to protect Russia’s hold over the east of Europe. In recent weeks after the attack, Putin had called NATO’s expansion a conspiracy to destroy Russia. 

Unfortunately for Ukraine, military experts predict that the war is most likely to be prolonged and Ukraine will have to fight for several more years. The war has caused 13 million citizens to flee their homes and seek refuge in neighboring countries. On top of the estimated 500,000 people killed since 2022, the infrastructure, housing, and industry is close to hundreds of billions of dollars. Even though an end to the war is not in sight, many scholars have predicted that to end the war, one of the sides will have to score a clear victory or a treaty would have to be settled. The only thing that the US can do now is to continue helping Ukraine with financial needs and praying that this everlasting war will finally come to a stop.