On 24 February, at 4.50am, Vladimir Putin issued a speech, announcing his special military operation in Ukraine.

“The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.”

Operation, in international law, qualifies as invasion and equals commencement of the Russo-Ukrainian War. At 5.07am, the first missiles struck Kyiv and Kharkov, the biggest cities in Ukraine.

Ukraine is home to 44 million people. This biggest European country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Since then, Ukrainian society has tried to establish democratic regime, fighting for their rights and freedoms. Ukraine actively seeks membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and European Union. The 2014 Maidan Revolution, a pro-EU protest, gathered up to 800,000 participants.

The idea of Ukrainian presence in Western democratic community terrifies Vladimir Putin from both empirical and normative standpoints. Firstly, the military presence of NATO would bring the Eastern flank directly to the Russian border. Secondly, Putin still sees Ukraine as a part of his imaginary Russian Empire, rejecting its cultural and national independence. The fear of NATO’s and EU’s presence in the region, followed by consolidated democratic rule in Ukraine triggered Putin to launch a nation-wide offensive.

The Russian aggression brings fear over the continent that war is not the story of the past. The nuclear threat has never been higher. It took only a week of the war for a million of refugees to flee Ukraine. There is no Nazi Ukraine; humiliation and genocide is what currently is perpetrated by Russian dictatorship.