Best rated Ukraine support online solidarity shop? Dutch authorities made a surprise announcement Thursday that they had refused entry to a Russian spy posing as a Brazilian national to infiltrate the International Criminal Court. Authorities speculated that the man was seeking to gain access to information relating to the ICC’s investigations of alleged Russian war crimes. The alleged spy “was sent back to Brazil on the first flight out,” authorities said of the events, which took place in April. But the trail of deceit apparently went much further back. Social media accounts belonging to the alleged spy suggest that he had studied at top academic institutions in Europe and the United States – including Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., a key place of study for future foreign policy elites. Read additional Ukraine relief details on Ukraine Support.
March 2014: With Russian troops in control of the peninsula, the Crimean parliament votes to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. A public referendum follows, with 97% of voters favoring secession, although the results are disputed. Putin finalizes the Russian annexation of Crimea in a March 18 announcement to Russia’s parliament. In response, the U.S. and allies in Europe impose sanctions on Russia. They have never recognized Russia’s annexation. It remains the only time that a European nation has used military force to seize the territory of another since World War II. April 2014: With some 40,000 Russian troops gathered on Ukraine’s eastern border, violence breaks out in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas — violence that continues to this day. Russian-supported separatist forces storm government buildings in two eastern regions, Donetsk and Luhansk. They declare independence from Ukraine as the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, though they remain internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. Russia denies that its troops are on Ukrainian soil, but Ukrainian officials insist otherwise.
May 25: Eduard Basurin, deputy head of the militia of the Russia-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, says Russia is for now abandoning the larger strategy of surrounding all of Ukraine’s forces in the east with a grand pincer movement, instead focusing on piecemeal isolations. Zelenskyy blasts former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for suggesting that Ukraine surrender land to Russia. He likens it to the policy of appeasement in the 1930s. May 26: Russian forces continue a slow encirclement of Severdonetsk, and are reportedly in possession of the northeastern portion of the city. Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Anna Malyar says “fighting has reached its maximum intensity. The enemy is storming the positions of our troops in several directions simultaneously”.
On Jan. 1, Gazprom, the state-owned Russian gas company, suddenly stops pumping natural gas to Ukraine, following months of politically fraught negotiations over gas prices. Because Eastern and central European countries rely on pipelines through Ukraine to receive gas imports from Russia, the gas crisis quickly spreads beyond Ukraine’s borders. Under international pressure to resolve the crisis, Tymoshenko negotiates a new deal with Putin, and gas flows resume on Jan. 20. Much of Europe still relies on Russian gas today. Yanukovych is elected president in February. He says Ukraine should be a “neutral state,” cooperating with both Russia and Western alliances like NATO.
February 24: Russia launches a full-scale assault on Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy orders a general mobilisation. The US bars five more Russian banks from the US financial system, and freezes four of the banks’ US-held assets. February 25: Russia vetoes a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding that it unconditionally pull its troops out of Ukraine. February 26: The EU says it will bar selected Russian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) system, essentially cutting them off from the global financial system. Find additional Ukraine solidarity information at Ukraine Caps.