By This post is also available in: ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ (GREEK) TÜRKÇE (TURKISH)
Half a century after the Turkish invasion, Russia’s attack on Ukraine has awakened in Nicosia the nightmare of the consequences stemming from unresolved conflicts. Following Trump’s business-like initiatives to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, the question arises whether international law retains any power and whether the UN has any role left to play.
Cyprus expects the personal envoy of António Guterres, María Ángela Holguín, to arrive in early September to discuss the prospects for a solution based on UN resolutions (at least from the Greek Cypriot perspective). Last week, the Ukrainian issue rapidly entered negotiations, though without serious indications yet of any conclusion, with participation from the US and EU and Donald Trump in a negotiating role. The discussion proceeds based on facts on the ground and primarily on the interests involved. Can there be a comparison between the Ukrainian and Cypriot issues, and what would that be?
Parallel paths
The Turkish invasion of Cyprus in the summer of 1974 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 are separated by nearly half a century. However, for some in Nicosia, the two cases are disturbingly similar. Both involved flagrant violations of the territorial integrity of independent states, with the invasions accompanied by arguments of “protecting minorities” and the international community proving unable to reverse the resulting occupation.
In Cyprus, Turkey, as a guarantor power, took advantage of the coup by the Athens junta and invaded on 20 July 1974, proceeding in two military phases that led to the capture of 37% of the island. Ankara invoked the need to protect Turkish Cypriots, presenting the invasion as a “peacekeeping operation”. Despite successive UN condemnations, It became clear, after the second invasion, that Turkey was not functioning as a guarantor of constitutional order but as an invader. The occupation remains to this day, with partition deepening year by year.
Russia attacked Ukraine on 24 February 2022, launching a generalised war aimed at overthrowing the government in Kyiv and redrawing borders. Vladimir Putin spoke of “denazification” and protecting Russian-speaking populations in eastern Ukraine. Simultaneously, he announced the annexation of Crimea (since 2014) and four additional regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia—although Moscow does not fully control them militarily even to this day.
Similarities and differences
The two invasions share a common denominator: the imposition of a new territorial reality by force. In Cyprus, the Cyprus problem is now recognised as a “frozen conflict”, with its occupied territories under the administrative control of a Turkish puppet state. In Ukraine, the war continues, with battles ongoing and the balance constantly shifting, unless Trump’s initiative yields results in the coming weeks. In statements on Thursday, Donald Trump expressed his disappointment with the results of talks, noting that Ukraine should also proceed with an offensive war against Russia.
Critical differences exist between Cyprus and Ukraine. Cyprus, a small island state with limited military capabilities, failed to mount substantial resistance in 1974. By contrast, Ukraine, though it risked losing its capital Kyiv in the first days, recouped with decisive Western support and managed to prevent the complete occupation of the country.
In both cases, the international environment played an essential role. In 1974, amid the Cold War, the US and Britain prioritised their strategic interests in the Mediterranean and avoided confrontation with Turkey, a NATO member, whilst sidelining Greece, also a NATO member, which was forced to temporarily withdraw from the alliance. The US confined itself in 1974 to imposing sanctions on arms sales against Turkey, which were lifted in 1978.
Conversely, in 2022 Russia found itself in direct confrontation with the West, resulting in heavy sanctions, economic isolation and military resistance through Ukrainian armed forces. Today, Greek Cypriots speak of double standards; however, there is a colossal difference regarding the geopolitical approach to the two problems. Russia is an enemy threatening Western interests. The Cyprus issue in 1974 was treated as a dispute between Western countries that should have not, amid the Cold War, provoked a greater crisis.
There is one more very significant difference. Cyprus has two different communities with different ethnic origins, different languages and religions. These differences, beyond the opposition of certain elites (e.g. Church vs Evkaf and some governors), did not create particular problems during Ottoman rule (1571-1878) and British rule (1878-1960), with the two communities living in mixed towns and villages. Problems arose from the first moment of the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus: they led to the country’s first partition in 1963, through the withdrawal of Turkish Cypriots from the government and their enclosure in enclaves, to be completed de facto through the Turkish invasion and capture of 36% of the Republic of Cyprus’s territory in 1974.
Ukraine, conversely, until the early 1990s was considered an inseparable part of Russia. Same language, same religion, same culture. To the extent that today’s war between Moscow and Kyiv is considered by many a civil war. Nevertheless, Ukraine, like Belarus, is an independent UN member state, so its borders must be respected.
The lesson for Cyprus
For Nicosia, the comparison is of vital importance. If the international community ultimately accepts border changes in Ukraine, it will create a dangerous precedent for Cyprus, where occupation has already lasted fifty years. The Cypriot government reminds every international forum that the two issues are interconnected: respect for territorial integrity must be non-negotiable and military occupation cannot be legitimised.
Reality, however, shows that international law often yields to geopolitical power. Just as Cyprus in 1974 found itself trapped between Cold War antagonisms, so Ukraine, today, is the battlefield of a new global confrontation. The question remains the same: whether the international community will remain consistent with the principles it invokes or whether these principles will remain, once again, a dead letter.
The manner in which the international community is handling the Ukrainian issue today, with American President Donald Trump at the helm, shows that principles and law are not the main concern at the negotiating table. The deal being sought today in a win-win logic is far more practical. The US and Russia will share Ukraine’s mines, which will not join NATO but will have security guarantees and perhaps eventually join the EU. Russia will keep Crimea and some Russian-speaking Ukrainian provinces but will not manage to control the country, as it wanted when it invaded in 2022. Ukraine will remain under Western control and gradually transform into a state that Russia will consider a threat, as the Baltic Republics and Finland have become.
If this management—realistic for some, cynical for others—is not accepted, what will happen in the region? For how many more years will Ukrainian and Russian blood stain the banks of the Dnieper? Ukraine will likely become the EU’s Vietnam.
Cyprus
In Cyprus, fifty years later, there is no war or even skirmishes. Two generations of Cypriots since then have had no contact with the events of 1974. The timing of active diplomacy that Ukraine experiences today has passed irreversibly for Cyprus. In 1978, the American-Canadian solution plan might have helped resolve the Cyprus issue three years after the ceasefire. More sober approaches but with genuine interest from the international community in 2004 and 2017 were rejected, the first clearly with Greek Cypriot responsibility. Meanwhile, principles and law are fading. Even under the European Court of Human Rights, the Greek Cypriot refugee has property rights in the occupied areas, but rights also belong to the Turkish Cypriot or settler who was born and has lived there for the past fifty years.
What remains?
Trump claims he solved the Armenia-Azerbaijan problem, drove a wedge into the Iran problem and made Tehran fall silent through force. He also claims to have limited Houthi activities, is attempting to resolve the Gaza issue, stopped the India-Pakistan war, resolved Rwanda-Congo and Cambodia-Thailand differences, and so forth. Many question his claims, but what is certain is that in all cases both sides came together and discussed in a give-and-take logic.
This is what some in Cyprus fear. They dread the give-and-take logic, refusing to accept that fifty years later, the UN resolutions that were established months after the invasion are (unfortunately) not taken into account by anyone.
Today, it is the UN itself that faces questioning, not just Resolution 3212 of 1974 concerning Cyprus, which we invoke in any case. Trump and most countries who contribute financially to the organisation, consider (unfortunately) that the UN is ineffective and that it spends several billion on diplomats’ salaries to holiday in various troubled regions of the world. At best, peacekeeping forces are deployed, problems freeze and life continues but with crises always simmering. This was recently demonstrated by the crises in Gaza and Nagorno-Karabakh. Due to this ineffectiveness, both the US and other countries want to limit their contributions, to the point where the UN risks shutting down.
Time
In conclusion, whether there are big or small similarities between the Cyprus and Ukrainian issues, one basic conclusion that governs and judges the approach to both, is the passage of time.
If there is a swift solution to the Ukrainian issue, Kyiv will certainly not be fully satisfied, unless the West decides to proceed with an all-out war against Russia that proves victorious. Otherwise, Ukraine will lose both territories and part of its sovereignty, with the Ukrainian issue remaining a frozen problem that will always harbour dangers for the entire EU.
The Cyprus issue also requires a major compromise that will certainly not satisfy Greek Cypriots since it will not be governed exactly by international law and the UN Charter. The minimum required here is for Turkey to allow Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots to find amongst themselves a decent solution within the EU. Otherwise, time will provide the solution, which amounts to nothing other than the functioning of two states on its territory. One is already recognised. The recognition of the second is merely a matter of time.
This article was first published on 24.08.2025
Source: From Cyprus to Ukraine: Parallel invasions, same fears
