Russia-Ukraine crisis: What is the Warsaw Pact?

On Day 3 of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, Kyiv officials on Saturday have warned residents that street fighting is underway against Russian forces. They urged people to seek shelter  to avoid going near windows or on balconies, and to take precautions against being hit by debris or bullets.

The Ukrainian military said a battle was underway near a military unit to the west of the city centre.

Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said new explosions shook the area near a major power plant that the Russians were trying to attack.

NATO and Warsaw Pact

The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955 and represented a Soviet counterweight to NATO, composed of the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in a Cold War after World War II. 

NATO currently recognizes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine as aspiring members. Although, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, wants NATO to promise never to accept Ukraine. Ukraine wants to be a member of NATO and if this happens, the US will have access to the Russian border that Vladimir Putin would never want.

The Warsaw Treaty Organization, commonly known as the Warsaw Pact, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War. 

Read | What is NATO and why Ukraine's decision to join the group forced Russia to attack?

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, NATO promised Russia that if it terminates the Warsaw Pact, NATO, at any time in the future, will not include those countries of Eastern Europe in its military organization which were previously part of the Soviet Union.

The Warsaw Pact, like NATO, was a military alliance of the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe. Russia ended this pact after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 in the hope that NATO would also fulfill its promise, but NATO did not fulfill its promise. Rather, it included countries like Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Romania as a member of NATO, which were once part of the Soviet Union under the Warsaw Pact.