The invasion of Ukraine by Russia, started at the end of February 2022, culminates a war that has been rampant, between the two nations, since 2014. This conflict, which one, with facility, could consider simple, is in fact a multi-faceted, multi-scale, profoundly complex topic. The goal here is to help the reader grasp some elements of context, to the most important crisis, that the citizen of the Earth have faced, within numerous decades.
The method which underlies this portal is that of analysis/synthesis: dive into ideas and topics, understand, make links, "simplexify", and climb back up to report to the reader. The alternative title of this portal is Go and see, my love, from the 1987 movie The Big Blue. The aim is to help cool down. It is also to give clues to overcome the darkness of our time, find hope, and possibly discover new paths.
The following sections will unravel many topics worth covering: culture, history, economics, geopolitics and eventually military. Each section and further paragraph will start from the local conflict, and then broaden the field of view, unzooming geographically. This can be seen as pedantic or too cryptic, but might be of interest to some readers: in the hard words of 
Mathematics, the two ensembles - human activity and knowledge domains on one hand, and geographical scales on the other hand, will be matrix multiplied then serialized.
Culture, demography, ethnography
The cultures of Ukraine and Russia have deep common roots, in the slavic heritage of Kievan Rus' and as Slavs, specifically East Slavs. Ukraine and Russia share the cyrillic script, which originates from the First Bulgarian Empire and distinguishes itself from the roman alphabet, while sharing common greek ancestry, in that cyrillic is prominent in the geographic regions of the Black and Caspian seas. Both Russians and Ukrainians are known for a profound tradition of singing and dancing.
Religion portal
Russia is mostly orthodox, whereas Ukraine is mostly Christian. The latest schism between Moscow and Constantinople, in 2018, is an important angle of view.
Demography
Ukraine is populated with 41 million people, Russia with 145, as of 2022.
Language portal
Russian and Ukrainian, as languages, have differences.
There have been in the past centuries waves of Russification during for example the Soviet Union, alongside great historical tragedies such as Holodomor. After independence, Ukraine has known on the other hand an episode of Ukrainisation. During Putin and before the 2014 war, a Russian report indicated that the russophones of east Ukraine where not feeling threatened, in majority.
History
Ukraine and Russia share a rich history. They have been both united under a same state or split, during several centuries in the past; from unity with Kievan Rus', before the Mongol invasions, to a long period of split between Halych-Volhynia and Vladimir Suzdal in the middle of the 13th century, to Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Russia in early 1900, followed by unity again during the Soviet union, to eventually Ukraine independence pronounced at the fall of the latter communist regime - independence which remains until this day. During the period of split, the frontier between the occidental regime and the Russian one have often been around the Dniepr river, with Donbass and Crimea pertaining to Russia.
| History of Ukraine |
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| History of East Slavs |
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| Middle Ages |
| Early modern period |
| Late modern period |
| Post-Soviet states |
| History of states |
Russia and Europe share history, as both parties of the Indo-European land: they dwell on the same geographical region, which traditionally spans from the western Atlantic coast to the Ural Mountains in Russia, East of Moscow.
The spread of marxism during the second half of the 19th century, and the revolutions that it provoked in numerous parts of Eastern Europe, cannot be omitted. This deflagration wave gave birth to the Soviet Union.
In modern history, the development of the European Union (EU) is prevalent in the context of this crisis. Numerous Eastern countries joined since 2014, and Ukraine is considering adhesion. Strengths and limitations of EU, as an alliance focused mostly on economy and finance, from quite to vastly neglecting the environmental, social and military aspects of a union, are key elements.
Economics
Both Russia and Ukraine have recovered from the collapse of the Soviet Union during the 1990-2010 period. Ukraine is famous for its agricultural power, as is Russia to some extent.
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Both are developed and industrialized economies, which have a mature service economy.
Economics portal
The Western world, including Ukraine, operates upon neoliberalism capitalist principles, with the addition of social liberalism. Russia follows the same economic model, with a slight difference in the prominent role played by the famous Russian oligarchs. Russia, although having privatised its economy in the 1900s, has still a prounounced state control over the economy, contrary to Ukraine which is more market-controlled. For example, Russia's exports of fossil fuels account for 60% of its gross domestic product (GDP), and the president of the federation of Russia nationalised back a significant part of the energy industry past decade. Russia is also known for its important military economy.
Economic sociology
Both in Russia and in Ukraine, and more generally on planet Earth, social inequalities are high, and, combined with the aspect of a global oligarchy, these are key elements.
| International relations theory |
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 Politics portal |
Russia and Ukraine are in the vast plains of Northern Europe. Both countries share a lengthy border which is at the geographical center of the current conflict.
Ukraine is becoming a nation state, with a strong patriotic verve - this last expression is different from nationalism, although there always exist such movements.
Ukraine has chosen democracy, while Russia is characterized by quite an autocratic regime. Russia is known for its president Vladimir Putin having been 20 years in power, as a best-in-class silovik. In Europe, social liberalism is the current paradigm. Autocracy is a central aspect of the Chinese communist party as well. In the United States of America, democracy is the regime. In all the previously mentioned main powers, securocracy is a salient point, to widely varying degrees.
Russian foreign policy has been described as transitioning from atlanticism to neo-imperialism over the course of the past two decades. Russia has repeatedly warned against the enlargement of NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The USA have been known for their imperialism. The world, in the sequel of the cold war, with then a logic of confrontation between the Western and the Soviet blocks, has known in the early 21st century a uni-polar moment – referring to the neorealism school, paraphrasing Mearsheimer. A Back to America moment spurred during the presidency of D. Trump. Currently, the world is falling back to a multi-polar situation, with China, Europe, Russia, the USA, and tomorrow India, Africa. Second cold war is being evoked. On a fresher note, the world also kept going towards more integration with the United Nations, with for example a general decrease of extreme poverty, but a global surge of poverty and decline of middle classes as well, except in 
China portal where the middle class is still growing.
Elements of Mahan's theory of sea power, Monroe's doctrine, Roosevelt's corollary, Brezinski's Eurasian chessboard, Nye's soft power and Tuathail's critics geopolitics are still present in the strategy of USA. Further reading: Les grands théoriciens de la géopolitique, Florian Louis, 2016 • ISBN 9782130750123 • Please pardon my French ':o
Contrary to what was often times a major motivation for previous historical wars, today, known total energy reserves are sufficient to skyrocket climate warming, 3.5 times up the 1.5°C temperature rise aim of the 2015 Paris agreement, and prevent humanity from living Earth as we currently know it. In the temporal vicinity of the 2022 Russian invasion on Ukraine, the 6th report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC, the climatologic venue from the United Nations, solemnly warns that irreparable, somewhat total, damage to the Earth environment, is imminent. António Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, declared in March 4th 2022: "The addiction to coal and fossil fuels of major emitters is putting people everywhere at risk. We need urgent, transformative efforts to eliminate emissions and halt warming at 1.5 degrees, and to build resilience against the impacts already underway." This is the third key element that will be pointed-to here.
Military aspect of cratopolitics
The Ukrainian army is smaller than the Russian army. Russia has vastly superior terrestrial armed forces and equipment.
Europe (EU, with NATO political support) has started shipping weapons for Ukraine to resist the Russian invasion. Germany has broken the golden rule, sending, as a strong symbol, for the first time since World War II, lethal weapons that will be used against Russia, around 400 kilometers away from the Battle of Stalingrad that was fought by Russia against nazism.
Russia is a military superpower, and is competing with the two full superpowers, the USA and China - and the European Union. The European Union, a nuclear power, but not a military superpower in itself, is reliant on North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the USA to ensure its defense, in the event of a total war against another superpower.
The previously mentioned superpowers, with EU, are major nuclear powers. The former three have a combinations of land and marine missile launch facilities, missile defense systems, and weapons of mass destruction - among which hypersonic-glide-vehicle (HGV) inter continental ballistic missiles (ICBM) carrying H bomb warheads. A total war between these countries can still ensure mutual assured destruction (MAD), despite the various disarmament treaties of the past.
Risks of a total war are non-completely negligible, and the security counsil of the United Nations, can hardly do much, due to its veto system, the general policy of non-interference, and overall lack of executive power.
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