Ukraine and Russia have been butting heads for decades, but now, the conflict has escalated from tense to what politicians are calling identical to the pre-war era of World War II.

In recent weeks, the Ukraine versus Russia conflict has grown to a dangerous peak. President Biden of the U.S. as well as numerous other world leaders are now getting involved in attempts to cool the tension between the countries.

Over 150,000 Russian military troops are closing in on Ukraine, which puts Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, in the trigger position – the trigger being the ability to launch a full-blown invasion on Ukraine. At the moment, Putin’s military surrounds a little more than three sides of its target country, even expanding into Belarus to do so.

What does Russia want with Ukraine? What does Putin want?
The Russian government has repeatedly proposed security demands to the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a sole demand being that Ukraine never is granted entry into NATO and that countries involved in NATO reduce their military footprint in Eastern and Central Europe. Despite the Russian governments’ repetitive efforts, the U.S. and its allies have consistently denied them.

Now, Putin has had many discussions with President Biden in the last month and each time, he has reassured that he has no intentions of invading Ukraine and has plans to actually pull his troops back from the border.

The footage from the on-ground situation says otherwise.

The Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s border has continued even after Putin’s “reassurances.” In fact, 40% to 50% of troops have now moved away from their staging and into combat formation. U.S. officials say that Russia could launch its invasion within a matter of days. If Putin decides to pull that trigger of invasion, he will bring death to hundreds of thousands of citizens and ultimately change the world.
President Biden has spoken about what he can do to a certain point about the situation but that it is limited due to the risk of putting the U.S. in the crossfire. U.S. citizens have asked about Americans in Ukraine, and what he can do, but Biden says he will not be sending troops, pulling troops, or pulling citizens. “Once the U.S. gets involved, it becomes a world war,” Biden said last week.

As of Feb. 20th, world leaders struggle to ease the tension while France pushes for another meeting between Russian President Putin and U.S. President Biden.

UPDATE: On Feb. 23rd, Russia attacked Ukraine by bombing its cities. Now, the U.S. is sanctioning Russia, as they had warned they would do if Putin escalated. As of Feb. 24th, Ukrainian citizens are fleeing their country, moving towards their families in the west, away from the danger zones. See more in The Echo’s 3rd Issue of Articles “Ukraine vs. Russia ‘With Dawn Came The Bombs’.