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Many countries, including Australia, Italy, Israel, the Netherlands and Japan have told their citizens to leave Ukraine. Some have also evacuated diplomatic staff and their families.

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More than a dozen countries have urged their citizens to leave Ukraine amid warnings from Western powers that an invasion by Russia could be imminent.

The US, UK and Germany are among those who told their nationals to leave.

Moscow has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops along Ukraine's border but denies any intent to invade.

In a phone call, US President Joe Biden again warned Russian leader Vladimir Putin of the costs of any invasion.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said invasion warnings could stoke panic, which he called "the best friend of our enemies".

The White House has warned that an invasion could happen at any time, and could begin with bombing from the air. Russia characterised such allegations as "provocative speculation".

Non-essential staff have been ordered to leave the US Embassy in Ukraine's capital Kyiv, and consular services will be suspended from Sunday, although "a small consular presence" will remain in the western city of Lviv "to handle emergencies".

Canada is also moving its embassy staff to Lviv, near the border with Poland, Canadian media reported. UK ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons tweeted that she and a "core team" are staying in Kyiv.

Russia itself is also making changes, saying it will "optimise the staffing" of its diplomats in Ukraine, citing "possible acts of provocation by the Kyiv regime or third countries".

The US has also pulled some 150 troops who were training Ukrainian soldiers out of the country, citing an abundance of caution. And Dutch airline KLM announced it would stop flying to Ukraine, effective immediately, Dutch media said.

Mr Zelensky said that if Western powers had any firm evidence of an impending invasion, he had yet to see it.

"I think there is too much information in the media about a deep, full-scale war," he said.

"We understand all the risks, we understand that they exist. If you or someone else has additional 100% reliable information about the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine... please share it with us."

Many countries, including Australia, Italy, Israel, the Netherlands and Japan have told their citizens to leave Ukraine. Some have also evacuated diplomatic staff and their families.

Mr Biden told Mr Putin that any invasion would result in "swift and severe costs on Russia", White House notes about the call said.

"While the United States remains prepared to engage in diplomacy... we are equally prepared for other scenarios," it said.

The Kremlin described the call as taking place amid "peak hysteria" from the US and its allies, and said Mr Putin had again told his counterpart that they had not addressed Russia's security concerns. But both leaders would continue to talk, it said.

French President Emmanuel Macron also spoke to Mr Putin by phone on Saturday, telling him that "a sincere dialogue was not compatible with escalation", according to notes released by the French embassy.

With foreign embassies withdrawing staff and a host of countries now telling their citizens to leave Ukraine, Kyiv still doesn't feel like a city in crisis.

The government here is telling people to stay calm and united and, in the words of a statement this morning, refrain from actions that undermine stability and sow panic. President Zelensky said the country had to be ready for any eventuality.

Across Ukraine, foreign citizens are now making hurried plans. Stuart McKenzie, who's lived in Kyiv for 28 years and runs a successful business, hopes to get his wife and two sons out on a flight. But he is ready, if necessary, to pack the family into the car and drive 300 miles to Poland. He loves Ukraine and can't quite believe it's come to this.

At the British Embassy, we found tight-lipped staff loading bags into a car and driving off. No-one seemed keen to talk.

Not far to the north, across the border in Belarus, Russia's war games are now well under way. Russian defence ministry pictures, released this morning, showed multiple rocket launchers being fired. Moscow still says it has no plans to invade. But there's a lot the Russians can do without ever setting foot inside Ukraine.

In Kyiv, several thousand people marched through the city on Saturday, chanting slogans pledging loyalty to Ukraine and resistance to any Russian invasion. The march was organised by a right-wing nationalist group called Gonor and anti-Zelensky far-right activist Sergiy Sternenko, but it attracted other people too.

BBC reporter Eleanor Montague says the demonstration was not huge, but was the first significant manifestation of public feeling since tensions escalated, finishing at the Maidan, the city's most famous square.

Sasha Nizelska, who works as a nanny in Kyiv, told the BBC that she would resist a Russian attack with all means in her power. The sentiment was repeated by people of all age groups attending the demonstration.

Tensions have steadily increased as Russia has continued to deploy troops along Ukraine's eastern border. Russian troops are also staging military exercises in Belarus to the north, while naval exercises in the Sea of Azov in the south-east have led to accusations that Russia is blocking Ukraine's access to the sea.

Meanwhile, some 7,500km (4,660 miles) away on Russia's eastern side, the Russian defence ministry says it spotted a US Navy submarine inside its territorial waters. Officials say the US submarine was near the Kuril Islands and failed to surface when instructed.

The Marshal Shaposhnikov destroyer took unspecified "appropriate" actions and the US submarine left the area, the ministry said. A US defence official has been summoned by Moscow over the incident.

However, US officials later contradicted their Russian counterparts' version of events.

"There is no truth to the Russian claims of our operations in their territorial waters," US military spokesman Captain Kyle Raines said in a statement carried by Reuters.

"I will not comment on the precise location of our submarines but we do fly, sail, and operate safely in international waters."

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Ukraine tensions: A dozen nations tell citizens to leave Ukraine

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More than a dozen countries have urged their citizens to leave Ukraine amid warnings from Western powers that an invasion by Russia could be imminent. The US, UK and Germany are among those who told their nationals to leave. Moscow has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops along Ukraine's border but denies any intent to invade.

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More than a dozen countries have urged their citizens to leave Ukraine amid warnings from Western powers that an invasion by Russia could be imminent.

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Invasion of Ukraine: VICE News Tonight Full Episode

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Since Russia launched a full-scale military invasion into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, fighting has caused over one hundred civilian and pushed thousands of Ukrainians to flee to neighboring countries including Poland, a NATO country where U.S. troops are preparing to offer assistance.

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In the year and a half since Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine has recaptured 54 percent of occupied territory, while Russia still occupies 18 percent of the country. Ukraine's 2023 offensive has achieved minor territorial gains, but the frontlines have remained stable for almost a year. Both sides have dug in, making breakthroughs increasingly difficult, and the number of military casualties has climbed to an estimated half a million. Meanwhile, Russia continues to bombard Ukrainian cities and blockade its ports, and Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks on Russian ships and infrastructure. Since January 2022, Ukraine has received nearly $350 billion in aid, including $77 billion from the United States, though it warns of donor fatigue. Fighting and air strikes have inflicted nearly 22,000 civilian casualties, while 5.1 million people are internally displaced, and 6.2 million have fled Ukraine. 17.6 million people need humanitarian assistance.

Armed conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted in early 2014 following Russia's annexation of Crimea. The previous year, protests in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to reject a deal for greater economic integration with the European Union (EU) were met with a violent crackdown by state security forces. The protests widened, escalating the conflict, and President Yanukovych fled the country in February 2014.

One month later, in March 2014, Russian troops took control of the Ukrainian region of Crimea. Russian President Vladimir Putin cited the need to protect the rights of Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Crimea and southeast Ukraine. Russia then formally annexed the peninsula after Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation in a disputed local referendum. The crisis heightened ethnic divisions, and two months later, pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk held their own independence referendums.

Armed conflict in the regions quickly broke out between Russian-backed forces and the Ukrainian military. Russia denied military involvement, but both Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) reported the buildup of Russian troops and military equipment near Donetsk and Russian cross-border shelling immediately following Crimea's annexation. The conflict transitioned to an active stalemate, with regular shelling and skirmishes occurring along frontlines separating Russian- and Ukrainian-controlled eastern border regions.

Beginning in February 2015, France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine attempted to kickstart negotiations to bring an end to the violence through the Minsk Accords. The agreement framework included provisions for a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weaponry, and full Ukrainian government control throughout the conflict zone. Efforts to reach a diplomatic settlement and satisfactory resolution, however, were largely unsuccessful.

In April 2016, NATO announced the deployment of four battalions to Eastern Europe, rotating troops through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland to deter possible future Russian aggression elsewhere on the continent, particularly in the Baltics. In September 2017, the United States also deployed two U.S. Army tank brigades to Poland to further bolster NATO's presence in the region.

In January 2018, the United States imposed new sanctions on twenty-one individuals-including a number of Russian officials-and nine companies linked to the conflict in eastern Ukraine. In March 2018, the U.S. Department of State approved the sale of anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, the first sale of lethal weaponry since the conflict began. In October 2018, Ukraine joined the United States and seven other NATO countries in a series of large-scale air exercises in western Ukraine. The exercises came after Russia held its own annual military exercises in September 2018, the largest since the fall of the Soviet Union.

In October 2021, months of intelligence gathering and observations of Russian troop movements, force build-up, and military contingency financing culminated in a White House briefing with U.S. intelligence, military, and diplomatic leaders on a near-certain mass-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The only remaining questions were when the attack would take place and whether the United States would be able to convince allies to act preemptively. Both were answered on February 24, 2022, when Russian forces invaded a largely unprepared Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized a " special military operation " against the country. In his statement, Putin claimed that the goal of the operation was to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine and end the alleged genocide of Russians in Ukrainian territory.

In the days and weeks leading up to the invasion, the Joe Biden administration made the unconventional decision to reduce information-sharing constraints and allow for the broader dissemination of intelligence and findings, both with allies-including Ukraine-and publicly. The goal of this strategy was to bolster allied defenses and dissuade Russia from taking aggressive action. Commercial satellite imagery, social media posts, and published intelligence from November and December 2021 showed armor, missiles, and other heavy weaponry moving toward Ukraine with no official explanation from the Kremlin. By the end of 2021, more than one hundred thousand Russian troops were in place near the Russia-Ukraine border, with U.S. intelligence officials warning of a Russian invasion in early 2022. In mid-December 2021, Russia's foreign ministry called on the United States and NATO to cease military activity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, commit to no further NATO expansion toward Russia, and prevent Ukraine from joining NATO in the future. The United States and other NATO allies rejected these demands and threatened to impose severe economic sanctions if Russia took aggressive action against Ukraine.

In early February 2022, satellite imagery showed the largest deployment of Russian troops to its border with Belarus since the end of the Cold War. Negotiations between the United States, Russia, and European powers-including France and Germany-failed to bring about a resolution. In late February 2022, the United States warned that Russia intended to invade Ukraine, citing Russia's growing military presence at the Russia-Ukraine border. President Putin then ordered troops to Luhansk and Donetsk, claiming the troops served a "peacekeeping" function. The United States responded by imposing sanctions on the regions and the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline a few days later. Nevertheless, just prior to the invasion, U.S. and Ukrainian leaders remained at odds regarding the nature and likelihood of an armed Russian threat, with Ukrainian officials playing down the possibility of an incursion and delaying the mobilization of their troops and reserve forces.

Since the summer of 2022, fighting has largely been confined to Ukraine's east and south, with Russian cruise missiles, bombs, cluster munitions, and thermobaric weapons devastating port cities along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The Russian seizure of several Ukrainian ports and subsequent blockade of Ukrainian food exports compounded an already acute global food crisis further exacerbated by climate change, inflation, and supply chain havoc. Prior to the conflict, Ukraine had been the largest supplier of commodities to the World Food Program (WFP), which provides food assistance to vulnerable populations. In July, Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement to free more than twenty million tons of grain from Russian-controlled Ukrainian ports. The first grain shipments to leave Ukraine since the Russian invasion departed from Odesa on August 1, 2022; they arrived in Russian-allied Syria on August 15, although their originally presumed destination had been Lebanon. On October 29, Russia suspended the grain deal in response to an alleged Ukrainian attack on Russian naval forces, which Ukraine called a "false pretext." Nonetheless, Russia did not enforce the blockade when Ukraine defiantly continued shipments, and Turkey quickly negotiated Russia's return to the deal, which has been consistently extended to date.

The current conflict has severely strained U.S.-Russia relations and increased the risk of a wider European conflict. Tensions are likely to increase between Russia and neighboring NATO member countries that would likely involve the United States, due to alliance security commitments. The conflict will also have broader ramifications for future cooperation on critical issues like arms control; cybersecurity; nuclear nonproliferation; global economic stability; energy security; counterterrorism; and political solutions in Syria, Libya, and elsewhere. Additionally, Russia's isolation has not only destabilized global energy and resource markets but also pushed the country to seek stronger strategic ties with those states (e.g., China) still willing to partner with it, largely in opposition to the West. The war has also compounded other global crises, with military operations and violence hindering the delivery and distribution of much-needed aid, including food, and exacerbating an already severe shortage of available global humanitarian assistance and resources.

On June 6, 2023, a breach in the Nova Kakhovka dam, sixty kilometers north of Kherson on the Dnipro River, caused severe flooding in southwest Ukraine, affecting over eighty thousand people who live in the riparian zone. Ukraine accuses Russia of blowing up the dam to prevent a southeastern offensive, while Russia claims Ukraine carried out the attack to deprive Crimea of water and distract from the battlefront. The Ukrainian dam operator says it has been destroyed beyond repair. Furthermore, the draining of the reservoir raises concerns over the availability of water to cool the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant reactors, though the cooling ponds are reportedly stable.

In June 2023, Ukraine launched a much-anticipated counteroffensive, attempting to break through Russian defenses eastward in Donetsk province, including around Bakhmut, and southward in Zaporizhzhia province, which forms the " land corridor" to Crimea. Zelenskyy said Ukraine aims to liberate 18 percent of occupied territory in the current phase, but Ukrainian forces have met stiff resistance and suffered heavy losses against hardened Russian defensive positions, air superiority, and minefields. Nonetheless, Ukraine has made small gains on the ground and has stepped up attacks on bridges to Crimea, Russian ships, and buildings in Moscow.

Since February 24, 2022, the United States has committed nearly forty billion dollars in security assistance to Ukraine, including nineteen billion in immediate military aid and sixteen billion in humanitarian aid. Additionally, in early 2023 the Biden administration approved the provision of increasingly advanced weaponry, such as the Patriot air defense system, crucial for defending against Russian airstrikes, and top-tier battle tanks. The United States has also dramatically increased U.S. troop presence in Europe, bringing the total to more than one hundred thousand. On June 8, 2023, in a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Biden said he believes the United States has the funds to "support Ukraine as long as it takes." A day later, the Department of Defense announced another 2.1 billion dollars in military aid. While the United Nations, Group of Seven member states, EU, and others continue to condemn Russia's actions and support Ukrainian forces, Russia has turned to countries like North Korea and Iran for intelligence and military equipment and continues to sell discounted oil and gas to India and China, among others.

By June 2023, the UN Human Rights Office recorded nearly nine thousand civilian deaths and over fifteen thousand civilian injuries since Russia's full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The violence has internally displaced nearly six million people and forced nearly eight million to flee to neighboring countries, including Moldova and Poland, a NATO country where the United States and other allies are helping to accommodate the influx of refugees.

On June 23, Putin faced a major internal challenge when Yevgeniy Prigozhin released a video claiming the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) shelled Wagner forces and announced a "march of justice" to unseat the military leadership. The mutiny follows months of tensions with the MoD, which Prigozhin often insulted and accused of not supplying adequate munitions, and an attempt by the MoD to reign in Wagner fighters. Wagner forces quickly occupied Rostov-on-Don and seized Russia's southern military headquarters. Wagner convoys then advanced more than halfway to Moscow; Putin declared the march " treason" and offered amnesty for soldiers who stopped. On June 24, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko negotiated for Wagner soldiers to return to their bases and for Prigozhin to move to Belarus. Prigozhin's true aims remain unknown, but the incident left both the Wagner Group and Putin weakened.

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War in Ukraine | Global Conflict Tracker

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Understand the conflict in Ukraine since it erupted in 2014 and track the latest developments around Russian and U.S. involvement on the Global Conflict Tracker from the Center for Preventive Action.

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In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden announced the United States would ban Russian oil, natural gas, and coal imports. The European Union plans to cut its reliance on Russian gas by as much as 80 percent this year; EU officials plan to seek new gas supplies, boost energy efficiency, and introduce a massive bond-buying program to fund increased energy and defense spending. British oil giant Shell said it will stop new purchases of oil and gas from Russia

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While many member states quickly condemned Russia’s actions, others most notably China and India made more general calls for de-escalation on all sides and a return to diplomatic dialogue. Russia’s representative continued to defend its actions as necessary responses to Ukraine’s own hostility toward the people of Donetsk and Luhansk. Ukraine’s representative, meanwhile, called on Russia to end its aggression.

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Group of 7 (G-7)
Feb. 24 at 11:24 a.m. EST: Stoltenberg announced that he plans to convene a "summit with allied leaders" on Feb. 25.

Feb. 25: President Biden joined an on Feb. 25 from the White House Situation Room. This meeting included the plus partners Finland and Sweden. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg opened the meeting with public remarks stating " Moscow bears sole responsibility for the deliberate, cold-blooded and long-planned invasion .... We fully support Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, its right of self-defense, and its right to choose its own path." , Stoltenberg said that NATO will hold Russia accountable as the aggressor in Ukraine and will hold Belarus accountable as an enabler. Stoltenberg reiterated the strength and core defense tenets of the NATO alliance, and stated NATO will begin deploying forces from the (NRF) to include members of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force to ensure the security of NATO allies. This is the first time the NRF has been used in a defensive manner since its inception in November, 2002. The alliance also released a formal following its meeting, promising to "take all measures and decisions required to ensure the security and defence of all Allies." The NATO statement also noted that "Russia bears full responsibility" and underlined its "unwavering support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders, including its territorial waters."

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)

Feb. 25: At a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Albania's ambassador accused Russia of trying to turn the historical clock backwards and destroy a less powerful neighbor in an action that would "stain[] the Charter of the United Nations with innocent blood." After a vote to condemn Russian actions was vetoed by Russia, the ambassador, Ferit Hoxha, pledged that Albania would stand ready to shelter Ukranians fleeing to safety.

Feb. 24: Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov the aggression of Russia against Ukraine. "The military aggression has not been provoked by Ukraine ... It is unacceptable for us to stand hostilities on such a serious scale in Europe in the 21st century." This statement was supported by Radev, who "[h]aving strategic bombers and missiles flying in Europe in the 21st century, assaults by air and sea against a sovereign state, is absolutely inadmissible."

Feb. 27 at 9:39 a.m. EST: In response to "Russia's severe aggression to Ukraine,"

Kosovo requested accelerated membership consideration in NATO and a permanent American military base.

The Egyptian foreign minister for an emergency Arab League meeting at delegate level to discuss developments in Ukraine.

Feb 21: During a U.N. Security Council meeting on the situation in Ukraine, representatives from Gabon stated that they view the situation in Ukraine as "an attack on the fundamental principles of the Charter of the United Nations." Gabon expressed that their country "is attached to a rules based international order, one based on the Rule of Law, not the law that the strongest will prevail."

East and Southeast Asia

Feb. 23: In front of the U.N. Security Council, China's ambassador for restraint, stating that the "door to a peaceful solution is still open." He also blamed the conflict on "many factors" and expressed a hope for rationality and dialogue.

"This is an unprovoked attack by Russia. By choosing to pursue this entirely avoidable path, an unthinkable number of innocent lives could be lost because of Russia's decision." Foreign Affairs Minister Mahuta added. " New Zealand has consistently expressed our strong support for international efforts to de-escalate the Ukraine crisis diplomatically. Given Russia has demonstrated a disregard for these efforts they must now face the consequences of their decision to invade."

Feb. 23: In front of the U.N. Security Council, Mexico's ambassador stated that the president of Mexico will not accept Russia's attack on Ukraine and reminded the Russian delegation of its recent promise not to invade Ukraine.

Feb. 24: During a press conference, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asserted that "Mexico is a country that has always supported peace and a peaceful solution to conflict...And we're hopeful that the situation in Ukraine will return to normal quickly, that there will be dialogue and it will be resolved."

Venezuela (Administration of Nicolás Maduro)

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The World Reacts to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

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Group of 7 (G-7) Feb. 24 at 11:24 a.m. EST: Stoltenberg announced that he plans to convene a "summit with allied leaders" on Feb. 25. Feb. 25: President Biden joined an on Feb. 25 from the White House Situation Room. This meeting included the plus partners Finland and Sweden.

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Currently no NATO member wants to risk a direct military confrontation between its troops and those of Russia. President Joe Biden, for example, has repeatedly stated that there will be no US troops fighting in Ukraine.

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The death toll continues to rise after the first full day of Russia's incursion into Ukraine.

The Ukrainian health minister, Viktor Lyashko, initially said 57 citizens were dead and another 169 people were wounded amid the fighting, the Associated Press and NBC News reported.

Hours later came a grave revision upward: Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said early Friday local time that 137 people had been killed and 316 were wounded, according to reports.

Many of those killed appear to be soldiers, per the AP, citing earlier figures that 40 Ukrainian soldiers were among the dead.

However, there were also reports of civilians who were killed, including at least one young child. NBC News reported the figures also include medical staff.
For more on what's happening in Ukraine, listen below to our daily podcast on PEOPLE Every Day.
The extent of Russian casualties remained unclear.

Details are emerging all the time about the ongoing attack on Ukraine; information about the extent and toll of the fighting continues to shift.
RELATED: Ways to Help the People of Ukraine as Russia Launches War
Ukrainian officials had said Russia began a widespread assault on the country early Thursday, with troops moving from the north, south and east. Airstrikes and bombings were also reported with threats mounting against the capital of Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million people.

"The general feeling is that everyone should prepare for the worst and be ready to leave in a couple of minutes," Vitaly Vavryshchuk, a 41-year-old investments worker living in Kyiv, tells PEOPLE.

"Everyone understood there was a risk of attack," Vavryshchuk says.

But even so, the reality is something else.

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP/Shutterstock Mariupol, Ukraine, on Thursday

"Beyond imagination," Vavryshchuk says. "Putin is threatening Ukraine, but he would never be prepared to kill Ukrainians. We thought it was a geopolitical game and there would be a political solution."

A number of world leaders have condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin, who insists Ukraine has historic ties to his country and that he is only interested in "peacekeeping" amid separatist movements and other tensions.

Putin likewise has challenged NATO's influence in Europe, with Ukraine sandwiched between Russia and the easternmost NATO countries.
RELATED: The 'Very, Very Dangerous' Risk of Damaging Chernobyl in Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
President Joe Biden said in a White House speech Thursday he was imposing even more severe economic punishments on Russia but would be deploying troops only in support of NATO countries, not Ukraine. He said the U.S. would support Ukraine in other ways.

Ukraine President Zelenskyy has sought to project courage.

"We are defending our country, we fight for our country and we protect our country," he said in one address.
* With reporting by AMY ESKIND The Russian attack on Ukraine is an evolving story, with information changing quickly. Follow PEOPLE's complete coverage of the war here, including stories from citizens on the ground and ways to help.

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At Least 137 People Killed in First Day of Russia's Attack on Ukraine, Officials Say

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The death toll continues to rise after the first full day of Russia's incursion into Ukraine. The Ukrainian health minister, Viktor Lyashko, initially said 57 citizens were dead and another 169 people were wounded amid the fighting, the Associated Press and NBC News reported.

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Ukrainians must receive social assistance, access to housing and medical care. In Poland and other countries bordering Ukraine, refugees can stay in reception centers if they don't have friends or relatives who can accommodate them. They receive food and medical care. Poland is also preparing a medical train to transport wounded Ukrainians. Hungary and Romania are offering financial support for food ans clothing.

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More than 1 million civilians have already fled Ukraine, Estimates indicate that the total of the number of people trying to leave the country because of the Russian invasion could reach 4 million. Refugees are crossing border, especially towards countries located on the western side of Ukraine, such as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.

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Five reasons why Ukraine has been able to stall Russian advance

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Almost two weeks into the Russian invasion of their country, Ukrainian forces have managed to hold up the advance of their foes with resistance that has won plaudits from Western allies.

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"On the Ukraine side, there is no option but to further increase attrition warfare capability by rapidly building up territorial troops and use of light weaponry as quickly as possible" said French Colonel Michel Goya

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Since the beginning of the conflict, the resistance has relied on "simple methods": making Molotov cocktails, blowing up bridges important to the Russian advance, piling up sandbags and installing cross-shaped metal beams, etc.

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After days of fighting, the war involving Ukraine tends to expend more and more every day, and considerably follows with the russian advance

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Russia's invasion of Ukraine has met with fierce resistance from the Ukrainian military and from ordinary citizens. Drawing on survey evidence, Pippa Norris and Kseniya Kizilova explain who among the Ukrainian population is willing to fight, and what motivates their decision to take up arms.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the tragic events in Ukraine concerns the sudden uprising of thousands or even millions of ordinary citizens, who have abandoned their normal humdrum lives and loved ones to take up arms and defend the mother country with AK-47 assault rifles, homemade incendiary Molotov cocktails, and even by kneeling to block Russian tanks. Some are likely to be seasoned army veterans with combat experience, including fighting Russian forces in the 2014 annexation of Crimea and invasion of the Donbas region. But others are reported to have never held a gun in their life. Ukraine's Defence Minister urged anyone who can hold a weapon to join the country's Territorial Defence Forces.

This massive civilian uprising seems unprecedented in the speed of rapid mobilisation after Putin's fateful decision to invade. Reports suggest that after just a few days, the armed resistance, by the Ukrainian professional military and volunteer civilians, had initially strengthened national morale, slowed the expected pace of the Russian invasion, and inflicted some serious damage. Yet rifles are no match for rockets. Nor are citizen soldiers a practical defence against cluster bombs. Massive convoys of Russian tanks continued to rumble towards major cities and to encircle Kyiv. But, among ordinary citizens, who is willing to fight for Ukraine? Why would Ukrainians, or indeed any people, voluntarily face 'pain, dirt, blood, and death', in the words of President Zelensky?
What fuels resistance by 'citizen-soldiers'?
Several explanations are commonly offered for the mobilisation of the Ukrainian resistance including the role of democratic freedoms, Ukrainian nationalism, and/or ethno-linguistic regional cleavages.

Many popular accounts claim that millions of Ukrainians are volunteering to defend the liberal ideals of democracy and freedom, the principles and values at the heart of the European Union. In this view, Ukrainians are at the frontline of the West standing for democracy against belligerent threats from Russia's authoritarianism. Putin's televised address on 24 February sought not just to reassert control over a neighbouring nation-state in the Soviet Union's former sphere of influence, but also to divide NATO, to restore Russia's place in the world, and to end the rule-based liberal world order respecting principles of national self-determination.

At the same time, however, claims that the Ukrainian resistance is firmly committed to liberal democratic ideals may be more rhetorical than real. President Zelensky can use this appeal to attract Western kit and support, such as in his address to the Munich Security Conference: "Putin began a war against Ukraine, and against the entire democratic world". In practice, Ukrainian democracy has had a chequered and volatile history, with the Varieties of Democracy regime classification shifting regularly between electoral democracy and electoral autocracy over successive decades. Today there remain endemic problems of corruption, attacks on media freedom, and political instability. As a result of these experiences, Ukrainians may well have become increasingly disillusioned with lofty claims of liberal democratic ideals and principles.

By contrast, the explanation for why Ukrainians are willing to fight may be simpler and more prosaic if closely related to the powerful forces of national and ethnic identities. In this interpretation, volunteers are likely to be more strongly motivated by Ukrainian nationalism, pride, and patriotism, the emotional tug of the yellow and blue, and deep anger towards Russians invading the Ukrainian homeland.

In a related claim, willingness to fight may be attributed to the long-standing ethno-linguistic cleavage which divides Russophone and Ukrainian regions and populations. This is often over-simplified into depicting Huntington's ' clash of civilisations' splitting provinces, oblasts and municipalities in the East and West along the dividing line of the Dnipro river. Western provinces are regarded as more pro-Ukrainian, European-leaning, agrarian and Catholic, while by contrast Eastern provinces are seen as more Russophone, industrialised, Orthodox and pro-Russian. In practice, however, revised scholarship suggests that a more complex regional pattern exists, with diversity and overlap among cross-cutting cleavages, and socially-constructed ethnic divisions sharpened by Russian aggression.
Survey data
Some systematic evidence to explore the underlying reasons associated with Ukrainian willingness to fight, and the importance of nationalism, ethnic cleavages, and the protection of democratic freedoms, is available from pooled European Values Study/ World Values Survey (EVS/WVS) data. The most recent 7 th wave included interviewing a representative sample of 2,901 Ukrainians in autumn 2020, well before the recent drums of war although during the long simmering conflict which has existed since the annexation of Crimea.

Interviews were conducted throughout Ukraine (except for the annexed Crimea and occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts). In total 10,926 Ukrainians have been surveyed at roughly five-year intervals on successive occasions by the EVS/WVS ever since the mid-1990s to monitor cultural change. The results can be compared with the equivalent surveys of 16,172 Russians surveyed over successive surveys since 1989. One of the standard questions in the survey, asked ever since the first wave in the early-1980s, concerns willingness to fight for one's country:

" Of course, we all hope that there will not be another war, but if it were to come to that, would you be willing to fight for your country?"

This invites a simple binary yes-no response (excluding the 'don't know' category, with only valid answers included in the analysis here). This standard item has been analysed in several previous academic studies, such as here, here, and here. The willingness of citizens to fight for their country is widely regarded as important for each country's capacity to defend itself, to draft citizens voluntarily, and to mobilise the civilian population in times of war.

Public opinion monitored in the series of EVS/WVS surveys can give insights into the underlying reasons for ordinary citizens being willing to fight. But one important data limitation should be emphasised: the autumn 2020 Ukrainian survey provides only a snapshot of public opinion well before the latest outbreak of war. In a November 2021 IRI survey, for example, when asked about the three most important issues facing Ukraine, only 8% mentioned relations with Russia. Clearly the intense shock of the current Russian invasion may well prove critical in changing attitudes and behaviour, spurring many Ukrainians into action who might never have contemplated bearing arms before. More recent surveys among Ukrainians by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) indicate that resistance to the potential threat of Russian armed intervention rose over the last few months.

In a survey by Rating on 1 March 2022, 80% of the Ukrainian respondents said they were ready to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine with weapons in hand. Compared to the pre-war times, this figure has significantly increased (it was 59% in 2020). The highest level of readiness is observed in the West and in the Centre of the country, while a slightly lower level of readiness is observed in the South and in the East. But even in the South-Eastern regions, readiness to fight for the country is extremely high (almost 80% in the South and almost 60% in the East).

The existing EVS/WVS surveys can therefore provide reliable data to help us understand the general profile, values, and attitudes of those most willing to fight prior to the most recent invasion. Estimates of the actual strength of the resistance can only be monitored in subsequent studies after the extraordinary conflict ends.
Trends and patterns
Trends below in Figure 1 show that willingness to fight has usually been higher in Russia than Ukraine. Overall, in the 2020 EVS/WVS survey, around three-quarters of Russians said that they would be willing to fight compared with about 70% of Ukrainians. But the proportion of Ukrainians willing to defend their country rose sharply by 13 percentage points in recent waves - even before the intense anger and outrage over the Russian invasion and destruction of their home.
Figure 1: Trends in willingness to fight in Russia and Ukraine
Note: Responses to question Q151: "Of course, we all hope that there will not be another war, but if it were to come to that, would you be willing to fight for your country?" % Yes. Source: EVS/WVS
National identities (land)
What explains ordinary people's willingness to fight? 'National identities' (land) provide one potential answer, a concept that refers to what Benedict Anderson called 'imagined communities' or a socially constructed sense of belonging which often reflects shared historical traditions, languages, religions, cultural values, and territorial boundaries. Feelings of national identity can exist for diasporas without states, exemplified by the Kurds in the Middle East, and the borders of states like Canada and the United Kingdom may contain multiple national identities.

The concept of national identities can be monitored in the 2020 Ukrainian survey by three EVS/WVS questions tapping into first, a sense of national pride; second, feeling close to your country; and third, whether respondents are Russophone speakers at home. Willingness to fight should be predicted by stronger Ukrainian nationalism and weakened by Russophone ethnic identities, both individually and by region.
Support for democracy (freedom)
By contrast, another potential explanation relates to the desire to defend democratic principles and protect fundamental liberal rights and freedoms. Support for democracy can be monitored by three standard measures in the pooled EVS/WVS 2020 survey, namely: approval of democracy as a very good way of governing the country; disapproval of having a strong leader in power who doesn't have to bother with parliament or elections; and confidence in the core agencies of the regime, including government, parties, the civil service, and parliament. Strong democrats should be more willing to fight than those sympathetic towards authoritarian values and principles.
Controls
In general, sex and age need to be controlled in any analysis, at a minimum, since these are some of the most predictable demographic characteristics linked to willingness to fight. A familiar attitudinal gender gap linked to the deployment of military force and use of war has been consistently observed in many societies, including the United States. Also, while the young commonly sign up for action, older cohorts are normally more physically limited in their capacity to engage in strenuous and demanding military action, hence they are exempt from conscripted service.
Table 1: Who is willing to fight for Ukraine?
Note: The dependent variable is willingness to fight for Ukraine (No 0 / Yes 1). Sig P **=.010 *** = .001 Source: World Values Survey / European Values Study, Ukrainian survey only (2020) 1,721 respondents.

The results in Table 1 confirm that, as expected, all the selected indicators significantly correlated with willingness to fight. Feelings of Ukrainian pride and self-identified closeness to the country were indeed positive predictors of willingness for military service, while Russophone populations were more reluctant to join up. Similarly, however, approval of democracy and confidence in the key agencies of the Ukrainian state were also linked to mobilisation, while approval of strongman rule predicted greater reluctance to engage. The forces of nationalism are strong but appeals to democratic freedoms also appear to contribute towards the mobilisation of citizen soldiers.

Finally, as expected, there was a substantial gender gap and the interwar cohort, in particular, were less willing to fight. Figure 2 illustrates these patterns. The gender gap is observed across nearly all cohorts, especially for those in their 30s, when women may have the primary responsibility for care of children and elderly dependents living at home. The biggest drop by cohort comes for those in their 70s and 80s, the least physically capable of military duties. Many other attitudes and background factors like education, income and religion were also examined, but none of these significantly strengthened the explanation.
Figure 2: Willingness to fight by age and sex
Source: World Values Survey/ European Values Study, Ukrainian survey only (2020) 2,901 respondents.

Finally, what of ethno-linguistic cleavages and how does the pattern vary geographically across the whole country? The survey data shows that differences are complex but they do reflect the classic 'East' versus 'West' division. Western regions display more pro-Ukrainian and patriotic attitudes, for example from 2011-2020, willingness to fight surged by around 26 points in the Western provinces, and by 16 points in the East and Centre, but by only 5 points in the South (in part, due to technical differences excluding Crimea in the 2020 survey).

At the same time the geographic differences among provinces should not be attributed only to ethno-linguistic cleavages; among Russian-speaking Ukrainians, 51% were willing to fight, compared to 61% among the Ukrainian-speaking population. Far from reflecting fixed ethno-linguistic identities, however, there has been a rise of nationalism and willingness to fight for their country in the East and in the South - particularly those regions bordering the annexed Crimea and the occupied Donbas territories. With the Russian army stationed just a few kilometres away, the existential threat is much more real in the Ukraine-controlled parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and Kherson, Odessa, and Mykolaiv located next to Crimea, rather than in other regions.
Figure 3: Willingness to fight by province
Source: EVS-WVS dataset for Ukraine (autumn 2020), N=2,418.
Conclusions
Overall, therefore, willingness to engage in defending the country prior to the outbreak of war is predicted by strong feelings of Ukrainian nationalism, as many expect. But it is also associated with the endorsement of democratic values among ordinary citizens, controlling for the demographic characteristics of sex and age. This is not just rhetoric; feelings of nationalism (our land), as well as the genuine desire to protect democratic freedoms (our rights), fuel activism in the resistance. In Zelensky's words to the European Parliament: "Our people are very much motivated, very much so, we are fighting for our rights, for our freedoms, for our life."

The Ukrainian army, of course, but also ordinary people, have shown a tremendous example of community solidarity by offering help to each other with transportation, food, security, and much, much more, as well as millions actively fighting in a courageous resistance against the massive might of the Russian military. Events and public opinion continue to unfold. Any predictions are foolhardy. Our feelings are in turmoil, divided between hope and fear.

But some say that the revolution of 2014 gave birth to civil society in Ukraine. Perhaps the best outcome, probably reflecting a triumph of our hearts over heads, is that this bloody and shocking war may ultimately give birth to a stronger Ukrainian nation and global rejection of the forces of authoritarian repression. But the final outcomes - for Ukraine, European security, and indeed the rules-based liberal world order - are currently lost in the fog of war.
Note: This article gives the views of the authors, not the position of EUROPP - European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Dagnija Samsone on Unsplash

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What mobilises the Ukrainian resistance?

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Russia's invasion of Ukraine has met with fierce resistance from the Ukrainian military and from ordinary citizens.