«Persons taking no active part in the hostilities […] shall in all circumstances be treated humanely […] the following acts are and shall remain prohibited: a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture» Article 3 of the IV Geneva Convention, 1949

Russia claimes its aggression is an effort to liberate Russian-speaking residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (Donbas) from suffering. Russia claims that, for eight years, the Ukrainian military has been attacking and committing genocide in these regions, thus forcing Russia to start a war to liberate the people of Donbas.

The EU’s dependency on Russian energy imports remains the Continent’s largest tie to Moscow. The EU imports 90% of its gas consumption, with Russia providing 45% of the EU’s total natural gas import in 2021. Russia also accounts for 27% of oil imports and 46% of coal imports.

Cyber army. Ukraine has taken resistance to cyberspace. IT army of Ukraine is a self-organized volunteer movement, which continuously engages developers to join the “IT army” tasked with specific cyber challenges. The IT Army brought together more than 400,000 volunteers from IT and non-IT backgrounds and has carried out numerous successful cyberattacks taking out more than 25 Russian governmental services portal and popular Russian propaganda media on February 26th.

On 24 February 2022, Russian military forces seized the Chornobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) and the whole 30-km exclusion zone contaminated after Chernobyl accident in 1986. While the plant has not been operated already for many years, there are more than 22 000 highly-radioactive spent fuel assemblies in storages on the ChNPP territory.