During March and April, Russia accumulated at least 90 thousand troops on Ukraine’s border, masking it as a “military exercise”. Ukraine and its international partners, however, saw it as a threat of full-fledged military aggression. Despite Russia’s announcement that it is ending its “exercises”, the risk of military escalation remains high. - What is happening, and what can we expect? UkraineWorld speaks toto Maria Zolkina, a Senior Fellow at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in Kyiv and a Ukrainian analyst of the developments around the war in Eastern Ukraine and the peace process.