Worldatwar

On February 24th, Russia launched a military invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin called it a “special military operation,” but the scale of the attack shows this is a full-scale war that has already caused more than 100 casualties and forced more than half a million Ukrainians to flee their homes. Ukraine and Russia’s conflict goes back to 2014, when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and Russian-backed separatist forces took over parts of southeastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. But to understand the full context behind the invasion, it’s important to go even farther back, to the time when Europe’s current-day divisions began, and see how that shaped Europe’s power balance today.

Russia accused Ukraine of carrying out an air strike against a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod on Friday, an incident the Kremlin said could affect peace talks, but a top Kyiv security official denied responsibility. Russia's defence ministry said that two Ukrainian helicopters struck the facility in Belgorod, some 35 km from the border with Ukraine, after entering Russia at extremely low altitude at around 5 a.m. Moscow time (0200 GMT). Ukraine's top security official rebuffed the Russian accusation - the first by Moscow of an air strike on Russian soil since Moscow launched its invasion on Feb. 24. Belgorod is one of Russia's main logistics hubs for the war.For some reason they say that we did it, but according to our information this does not correspond to reality," Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said on Ukrainian national television. Earlier, Ukrainian defence ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said he would neither confirm nor deny a Ukrainian role.