Russia's war in Ukraine

Russia and Ukraine are at war over where Ukraine belongs and who holds Crimea and the Donbas. Russia wants a neutral Ukraine outside NATO and recognition of the territory it has taken. Ukraine wants its 1991 borders back and guarantees against another attack. European states arm and fund Ukraine. The United States, its main backer until 2025, now tries to broker an end to the fighting.

Where it stands · September 2026

On 5 September Putin ordered a three-day pause in strikes on Kyiv while US envoys visited Moscow. The envoys went on to Kyiv on 6 September. On 14 September Trump said Ukraine and Russia had agreed to stop striking energy sites. On 20 September Ukraine launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia during a Russian vote, hitting Moscow. On 22 September Macron, Trump and Zelensky met in New York as truce talks intensified. No ceasefire has followed.

What the dispute is about

Three questions are tied together, which is why none has been settled alone.

Alignment. For twenty years the West and Russia have each treated Ukraine's full integration into the other camp as a loss they could not accept.

Territory. Russia has held Crimea since 2014 and claims four more regions, which it partly controls.

The Ukrainian state itself. What kind of nation Ukraine is: its language, its memory of the twentieth century, the place of its Russian-speaking people, and whether Moscow has any say in these.

Russia says a Ukraine in NATO threatens its security. Ukraine says neutrality without guarantees invites the next attack, and that it has tried it. Each side's minimum is the other's defeat.

How each side explains it

Moscow's account

The West spent two decades pulling Ukraine into its camp and in 2008 promised it a place in NATO over Russia's objection. In 2014 an elected president was overthrown with open American backing, and those who took power set about building a Ukrainian state against its Russian half: against its language, its memory of the war against Nazi Germany, and its ties to Russia. For millions of Russians on both sides of the border the point of no return was Odessa on 2 May 2014, when dozens of opponents of the new government were killed in a besieged, burning building and nobody was punished. Crimea chose Russia. The Donbas rose, and Kyiv answered with its army; the peace agreed at Minsk was never carried out, and thousands were killed over eight years. Russia's proposal for a security treaty in late 2021 was refused. The operation begun in February 2022, to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine and protect the Donbas, was in this account forced on Russia.

In our coverage

Russia's war is a defensive special military operation; Ukraine strikes are terror →2502 headlines
Covered by:TASS (EN) · RT · Lenta.ru · TASS · Gazeta.ru · RIA Novosti
The war is a US/NATO proxy war; Western aid prolongs it; freeze/settle →1147 headlines
TASS (EN) · Lenta.ru · Gazeta.ru · Anadolu Agency · RT · CGTN

What each account leaves out

Moscow's leaves out that the vote in Crimea was held under the control of its troops; that Ukrainian voters never gave the nationalist parties more than a few percent; that Russia armed and led the Donbas forces from the start; and the civilians killed in the cities its own army has taken.

Kyiv's, and the one most Western audiences know, leave out the Western hand in the change of power in 2014 and the constitutional shortcut by which it was done; the place given to radical nationalists in the new state, and a language and memory policy that drew protests even from Poland and Hungary; Odessa, and the impunity that followed, which the European Court of Human Rights confirmed in 2025; the civilians killed in the Donbas by Ukrainian shelling; the peace drafted in Istanbul in 2022 and abandoned; and that states which say they are not at war supply its weapons, training and targeting.

None of this is seriously disputed. What differs is which facts stay on the front page.

The ledger

Russia

Wanted: Ukraine outside NATO and inside its sphere.
Did: took Crimea, backed the Donbas, then sent its army.
Gained: Crimea, a land corridor to it, most of the Donbas, a Ukraine NATO will not admit while the war lasts.
Paid: very heavy casualties, its European energy market, dependence on China, a longer NATO border, and a hostile Ukraine.

Ukraine

Wanted: there was never one Ukrainian aim. Millions wanted Europe, millions wanted close ties with Russia, most wanted less corruption and a predictable life. The state since 2014 has wanted its borders, Europe and NATO.
Did: fought, and tied itself to Western money and arms.
Gained: survival as a state, a path to the European Union, an identity hardened by war.

Words in dispute

Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.

Revolution of Dignity / coup
annexation / reunification
invasion / special military operation
Odessa massacre / Odesa tragedy
separatists, militants / militia
occupation / liberation
denazification
proxy war
regime

Russia's war in Ukraine

What the dispute is about

How each side explains it

Moscow's account

What each account leaves out

The ledger

Russia

Ukraine

Words in dispute

Primary actors

Also involved

Kyiv's account

The European backers' account

Washington's account since 2025

The European backers

The United States

What changed the course