By international correspondent Mark Corcoran Posted 29 Jul 2014
Photo: Ukrainian forces are involved in a stand-off the likes of which have not been seen since the Cold War. (AFP: Genya Savilov)
The region where Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down is at the heart of a conflict that has been raging for months.
Ukraine has been in turmoil since November 2013, when its Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovych walked away from a free-trade deal with the European Union and instead sought closer economic ties with Russia.
His decision triggered huge protests in the capital Kiev that soon turned violent as police attempted to suppress the demonstrators. Following weeks of deadly street clashes, Mr Yanukovych was toppled as president in February 2014.
In response, pro-Russian gunmen seized key installations and airports in Ukraine's predominately Russian-speaking Crimea region.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said the armed men were not Russian troops but "self-defence forces".
Moscow had additional motives in maintaining control of the region.
Crimea is home to the Russian navy's Black Sea Fleet and other military facilities that are permitted under a long-term agreement with the Kiev government. Moscow warned that it had a right to protect its bases.
Seeking to avoid provoking a full-scale military confrontation, Ukraine withdrew its forces from Crimea.
Infographic: A map showing the situation in eastern Ukraine
In late March, separatists declared that 97 per cent of voters in a Crimea regional referendum wanted to join Russia.
The European Union and the US imposed their first range of sanctions, freezing assets and blocking travel of individuals leading the Crimea secessionist movement.
But it proved to little avail, as Mr Putin signed an historic treaty that formally absorbed Crimea into Russia – the first time Moscow had extended its national borders since World War II.
Emboldened by swift victories in the south, separatists in Ukraine's eastern region, bordering Russia, also occupied government buildings in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk.
Ukraine's government responded by launching an "anti-terrorist operation" against the rebels.
Beyond contested east Ukraine, the diplomatic landscape was soon littered with the wreckage of failure.
The European Union and the United Nations were unable to de-escalate tensions. Phone calls between US president Barack Obama and Mr Putin were tense and inconclusive.
The combatants – and their political and diplomatic proxies - blamed each other.
Photo: Pro-Russian militants take position on the roof of Donetsk international airport in May (AFP: Alexander Khudoteply)
Mr Putin declared Ukraine was on the verge of civil war, while Ukraine's prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk warned the Russians were on the brink of triggering "a third World War".
European Union intervention by peace monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were intimidated or detained by rebels. When not being harassed, the observers could only watch impotently as the conflict escalated and casualties mounted.
By June, the separatists, who repeatedly denied they were covertly supported by Russian special forces, were displaying a markedly increased sophistication in both the tactics used and the weapons deployed in their war against Ukraine government forces.
The airspace over east Ukraine turned deadly as the rebels began shooting down government military aircraft and helicopters.
Several low-flying helicopters and jets were targeted.
Then ominously on July 14 a Ukraine military transport plane was blown out of the sky by a surface-to-air missile while flying at 21,000 feet.
Three days later MH17 was shot down with the loss of 298 men, women and children.
This deadly regional conflict suddenly accelerated into far more dangerous territory – a potential stand-off between major powers - a political confrontation not seen since the days of the Cold War.
Infographic: Aircraft shot down over eastern Ukraine
MH17: How did the conflict in Ukraine start? - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
