On Feb. 27, 2014 Russia invaded Ukraine , specifically the Ukrainian peninsula known as Crimea. This invasion was in response to a popular revolution in Ukraine, the Revolution of Dignity, which had ousted a Russian surrogate, Viktor Yanukovych, who had been elected president largely through Russian election interference four years earlier. In those four years the surrogate president had extended incongruous privileges to his masters in the Kremlin, decimated the Ukrainian armed forces, and