The Russian-Ukrainian war began in 2014 after pro-European protesters toppled the government of the Moscow-backed president Victor Yanukovych. This led to a rapid escalation of a crisis that resulted in the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014 and the establishment of two Russian-protected de facto states in eastern Ukraine: the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics (DPR, LPR).
By the time their territory had been consolidated with Russian help in February 2015, around 10,000 people had lost their lives as a direct consequence of the fighting. Since then, the number of casualties has risen to over 13,000, including nearly 300 people onboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
For the past seven years, this war on the territory of Ukraine has continued. It is fought between Ukraine’s armed forces and the forces of the Russian-backed DPR and LPR along the 2015 ceasefire line, monitored by the OSCE’s Special Observer Mission to Ukraine.
