Russian-Ukrainian War: the Way How the "Gray War" in the East of Ukraine Turned Into a Large-Scale "Black" One

Abstract

After Putin came to power, the hybrid war against Ukraine acquired a pronounced existential character, as the Ukrainian people demonstrated independence in making political decisions, in spite of all forces and means imposed by the totalitarian Russian "brotherhood". In 2014, as a result of the occupation of Crimea and certain territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, hybrid aggression against Ukraine was usually considered in the concepts of the gray zone conflict. Taking into account the conventional nature of the actions of the russian authorities in the East of Ukraine, the authors of the article operate with the concept of "gray war" and the artificially created real and conditional "gray zone" in the Donbass as an instrument of a hybrid war against the whole Ukraine. Using the factor of quarantine measures in connection with the Covid-19 Pandemic, the temporarily occupied territories were purposefully isolated (physically and mentally) from free Ukraine, which made it possible to prepare the “graynzone” with impunity as a springboard and pretext for a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.