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The question of knowing where the borders of Ukraine with Russia should be established in any peace negotiation were strongly to the point this week after Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary for Defense, said that he was “unrealistic” For Ukraine to try to find the whole territory that Russia had seized since 2014.
The government of Ukraine has long said that its objective was to restore its borders where they were before Russia launched its first invasion over ten years ago.
Here is an overview of the borders of Ukraine and the progress of Russia in its territory:
Borders of independence
The borders of Ukraine were set when it won independence in 1991 while the Soviet Union collapsed. He borders the Bélarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west; and Romania and Moldova in the south. He also borders his giant neighbor from Russia to the East.
Invasion 2014 and annexation of Crimea
Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2014, entering Crimea, a peninsula extending from its southern coast. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia annexed the territory, a decision that is not recognized international. The Ukrainian government has said that the recovery of Crimea, by force or diplomacy, is one of its most important objectives in the war.
In 2018, Russia opened a bridge through the Kerch Strait connecting its territory to Crimea. Ukraine has bombed the bridge several times.
Military experts have long declared that the reconquest of Crimea by force is not a realistic option for Ukraine, given the military force of Russia. Ukrainian forces have made little progress by opening a road to Crimea.
In the 2014 invasion, Russian forces and proxy militias also seized the territory in the Donbas region, in eastern Ukraine, including the capitals of the two provinces he understands, Donetsk and Luhansk. Since then, Moscow has held these cities and a large part of the surroundings.
Large -scale invasion
The Kremlin launched a large -scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Russian forces failed with their objective of seizing the capital, kyiv, but they captured more territory in Donetsk and Luhansk, including the cities of Mariupol and from Bakhmut.
Russia has also won the land in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in southern Ukraine, actually taking control of a field along the northern coast of the Azov Sea. Which connected the Russian forces in Crimea with a territory which they controlled in eastern Ukraine.
In the fall of 2022, Moscow illegally annexed Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk, just as he had done with Crimea, although she does not control all of these provinces. In the past year, the fiercest fighting in Ukraine took place in Donetsk, where Russian forces have taken control of several cities and villages.
Russia now controls approximately 20% of the territory of Ukraine, including the southern and east areas, Crimea and the Land north of Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine.
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