A Trail of Tears—and Destruction—in Ukraine 2022 And Beyond
Let there be no mistake about it: There are more than enough war-related instances of suffering and forced displacements occurring across Earth on a daily basis. The country of Ukraine, in 2022, is one of the most recent instances of forced displacements. As previously noted on the Data Grid page of this website and as noted by publications such as the UNHCR's report titled Global Trends in Forced Displacement – 2020, the phenomenon known as "war refugees" is a very common, recurring, and seemingly intractable human problem as illustrated by the table below.
Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP)
Regional Refugee Response Plan (RRP)
Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP)
Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP)
Migrant Response Plan (MRP)
Joint Response Plan (JRP)
Flash Appeal (FA)
This page is about Ukraine's war with Russia in 2022. The Ukrainian focus of this page is not to overlook or minimize the upheaval, strife, violence, hatred, suffering, fighting, destruction, harm, bloodshed, war, and killing experienced by many other humans across Earth that is a direct result of the many armed conflicts currently and simultaneously being waged. These disparate incidences of human-on-human hatred, violence, fighting, and killing one another across Earth are all too tragic and avoidable.
On 24-February-2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. It was an unprovoked invasion of conquest. Despite the many horrors of the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war, becoming a refugee of war is not an unusual occurrence on Earth. Instead, Russia's 2022 war with Ukraine is but another sorrowful episode of human-on-human atrocities.
For students of USA history, the horrific human toll resulting from Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine is akin to the long-ago American Indian "trail of tears." In the infamous trail of tears, between 1830 and 1850, many American Indians were uprooted from their ancestral tribal lands by the USA government and forcibly relocated to Indian [reservation] Territory (as depicted by the map and image below). According to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, "The Cherokee Nation removal has become known as The Trail of Tears. In 1838–1839 the Cherokee Nation endured a forced march to Indian Territory," which is the present-day Oklahoma area of the USA.
Fast forward to 2022. With Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on 24-February-2022 and with Russia's subsequent bombardments of Ukrainian cities, the arduous flight of Ukrainian citizens to neighboring countries to survive is not too dissimilar from the Native American "trail of tears." That is to say, in both instances, both uprooted peoples endured heartache, agony, fear, misery, hardship, injury, pain, hunger, suffering, sickness, tears, chaos, convulsions, and death. Will humans' inhumanity to one another ever stop? Will these types of human-on-human atrocities ever end? Has Earth not witnessed enough violence, cruelty, and hatred emanating from the human species over the millennia? It is madness! It is yet another manifestation of "the evil that [humans] do…"
Russia's Unprovoked War of Conquest on Ukraine in 2022
According to wikipedia.org, before there was the country presently known as the Russian Federation, there was the country of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) or more commonly known as the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1991. The Soviet Union consisted of 15 union republics as illustrated in the map below.
The tenure or reign of the Soviet Union's historical period (from 1922 to 1991) revolved around the rise and fall of communism within the Eastern European bloc of nations. With the end of the Cold War and with the fall of communism, the Soviet Union was dissolved on 26-December-1991. As a result of the Soviet Union's dissolution, its union republics became independent countries. Ukraine became one of those independent countries. At that 1991 point in time, besides Russia, the former Eastern European bloc countries of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan possessed nuclear weapons. At the urging of the West, on 5-December-1994, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances with Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom (which was later joined by France and China). In signing the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan agreed to dispose of or dismantle their nuclear weapons in exchange for Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom never threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.
Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum in 2014 by annexing Crimea—perhaps after taking into account the fact that Ukraine no longer possessed any nuclear bombs and after realizing that the West feared igniting a nuclear war with Russia if the West confronted Russia too harshly about Russia's annexation of Crimea. In 2014, Russia also laid claim to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. In 2022, an emboldened Russia formally declared war against Ukraine. Russia proceeded to militarily win control over more of Ukraine's 1991 territorial land mass. As of 2025, the Russia-Ukraine war has reached something of a stalemate or impasse albeit Russia's armed forces appear to be on the offensive. The fact remains that, overall, Russia is controlling upwards to 20% of Ukraine's 1991 territorial land mass. So, from the perspective of the amount of territory gained, Russia is clearly winning the war. Ukraine is bravely and ferociously fighting back, but Ukraine is not taking or maintaining control of any of Russia's territorial land mass.
The first map below shows Ukraine's territorial land mass after Ukraine's independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991. The second map below shows Ukraine's reduced territorial land mass after Russia's 2014 annexations of parts of Ukrainian territory. The third map below shows Ukraine's territorial land after Russia started an unprovoked war against Ukraine in 2022. Russia allegedly launched its 2022 war against Ukraine because Russia was not happy with the fact that Ukraine was seeking closer social, cultural, political, economic, and military ties to and integration with Western Europe—a provocation from Russia's perspective thereby justifying Russia's war effort to impose Russia's will on another sovereign country. Russia sought to put a halt to Ukraine's Western European ambitions by invading Ukraine. Russia's definition of a successful war outcome is for Ukraine to have nothing whatsoever to do with Western Europe much like the Belarus model. Russia would like to see Ukraine perpetually maintain close ties to Russia similar to the way in which Belarus maintains close ties to Russia.
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