Do you know why Russia started the war and what the repercussions have been? 

Some History

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine became an independent country. Until then, both Russia and Ukraine had been part of the former USSR.

In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine and conquered a small peninsula (that’s a part of the land that sticks out into the sea) called Crimea. Most people who lived there speak Russian and think of themselves as more Russian than Ukrainian.

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, said he was protecting the Russian citizens and Russian speakers that were living there and giving them their freedom.

Since then, there has been occasional fighting there between Ukrainian and Russian troops.

Empty Threats? Not.

About a year before the current war started, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked US President Joe Biden if the Ukraine could join NATO.

What is NATO and why should Vladimir Putin care if Ukraine joins?

NATO is an abbreviation for the North American Treaty Organization, a group of democratic countries that agree to help each other out if they get into a war with another country. And since Ukraine shares its eastern border with Russia, Putin didn’t want to worry about all those other armies poking their noses into Russia’s business.

Putin said he wanted the countries that belong to NATO to promise they wouldn’t send troops to Ukraine, or anywhere near Russia. He started sending lots of soldiers all along the border with Ukraine to show he wasn’t kidding. Even though Putin kept threatening to send troops into Ukraine, most people didn’t really believe him. There couldn’t really be a war in a nice, normal, civilized country like Ukraine, could there?

But that’s exactly what happened. On February 24, Russian soldiers marched into Ukraine.