Two key anniversaries mark Russia’s escalating actions against Ukraine since 2014, revealing Moscow’s broader ambitions to reshape the global order.
Anniversaries Mark Escalation
Next week marks two key anniversaries. February 27 marks 12 years since Russian special forces soldiers, wearing unmarked uniforms, began the military annexation operation of Crimea. February 24 marks four years since the start of the full-scale, open invasion against Ukraine.
Between these dates, Moscow organized separatist republics in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, also carried out numerous sabotage actions and information warfare campaigns aimed not only at Ukraine itself, but also at third countries supporting it.
Russia’s Broader Ambitions
The goal was not only to install pro-Kremlin authorities in Kyiv and pacify pro-Western and democratic tendencies in Ukraine. The ambitions were much greater.
It was about discrediting the West in its own eyes as a helpless spectator of this spectacle, and as a result, about Russia’s return to the global stage as a full-fledged, great power player. This demonstrates that the informal influence networks and economic dependencies built over years finally allow Moscow to explicitly reject the old rules.