With the recently extinguished Olympic flame in Sochi still warm, Russia has ignited it’s foreign policy by invading Ukraine. However, what many governing agencies (including the United Nations) believe to be a security risk is only precautionary measures, according to Russia, in order to protect the democracy. Though this may be true, is it possible that Russia has a hidden agenda?

An emergency UN security council meet to ask Russia to remove the 16,000 alleged troops that have since occupied the Ukraine, however according to CNN, the Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin insisted they were protecting millions of Russians by stopping radical extremists. He went on further presenting a letter from ousted Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych in which he asks Russian President Putin to “use the armed forces of the Russian Federation to establish legitimacy, peace, law and order, stability and defending the people of Ukraine.”

According to the U.S. Ambassador, Yanukovych’s correspondence no longer holds weight since he got voted out of office officially after abandoning his post. This plight came to fruition just a short time after the government decided to forgo joining the EU, favoring closer ties with Russia. This unpopular decision acted as a major catalyst in the civil uprising. The Euromaidan demonstrations started with peaceful pro-european rallies but soon turned into protesting their corrupt government. The protests grew to such a size that parliament members of the corrupt party fled, fearing safety, and the party lost majority. The new majority officially ousted the governing regime but the problem now being that Russia doesn’t recognize this new government as legitimate.

The conflict has recently become a standoff located in Crimea, a historically disputed territory on the black sea currently owned by Ukraine. As troops move in, tensions are rising but should the west care in particular what transpires between Russia and the Ukraine?

Because of the tensions, world stocks have dropped and the US has even pulled out of trade talks with Russia. However, the problems run deeper than economic casualties. According to the StarTribune, “The U.S. has an interest in a wider, stable, secure Europe,” says Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who’s now at the Brookings Institution. “If Ukraine goes into chaos, that’s likely to pull those European countries in — and we may get involved later on, too.”

The possible involvement is concerning especially since the Ukrainian Ambassador claims, according to CNN, that Russia is trying to re-Annex the Ukraine through false motive and legal biases. “There is no evidence that the Russian ethnic population or Russian-speaking population is under threat,” Sergeyev told CNN.