On 24th February 2022, in a flagrant violation of the obligations imposed on States by the United Nations Charter and the norms of European security, Russian armour and ground forces rolled into Ukraine from Belarus whilst Russian missiles struck targets across Ukraine. This was not the first time this decade that Russia has violated Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. In February 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “little green men” – Russian special forces without identifying insignia – began Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. In the following months, that incursion would spill over into the Donbas region of Ukraine, fomenting a war in the guise of a separatist uprising. That marked the start of what Ukrainians call “the great war”....... |