To hopefully put things back in track, I dug up an old map I made a year ago. Most of the things in this map have since changed, however the concept remains the same. This map exists in the same universe as with the maps I posted
before.
Following the Second Soviet War and the civil war that came after that, the lands east of the UVR have been embroiled in a series of sporadic conflicts known as the East European Conflicts, from the Caucasus to the Arctic. The Ruthenian Republic would join the UVR fearing an invasion from still-communist Ukraine. As for the Ukrainian People's Republic, their situation rapidly degraded as the Eastern European Military and Economic Pact sanctioned the remaining communist nations in the former USSR following a series of attacks across the border. Democratic protests engulfed the nation in mid-2002, calling for another election after the re-election of the current Premier since many suspected that the votes were rigged. The military suppressed many of these riots, but a few of the leaders of the riots managed to leave the nation before they got caught.
The Ukrainian government demanded that the nations who accepted them (UVR, Crimea, and Russia), return the leaders to be tried in Ukrainian courts. The three nations responded with harsher sanctions and granted the protest leaders asylum, ensuring their safety. In the heat of the moment, Ukrainian soldiers unknowingly crossed the Crimean border in search of one the protest leaders and got into an incident with a Crimean border patrol resulting in casualties from both sides. Seen as a declaration of war, the EEMEP nations (of which Crimea was a member of) invaded Ukraine. Long story short, the democratic protesters united under the Ukrainian Democratic Army and occupied large portions of the countryside. A splinter faction of the Workers' Party of Ukraine rebelled against the government, with the backing of decent portions of the Red Army. Russians in the Donbass region, supported by the Tsardom, managed to break away and form their own state.
After a few months of conflict, representatives of all concerned parties met at Zaporizhia to end the conflict. The treaty was signed on November 17, with small chunks of Ukrainian border territory ceded to neighboring nations, and the Donbass remaining independent. The Ukrainian Confederation succeeded the former government, with the oblasts divided between the Democratic Army and the Workers' Party. Kiev was occupied by International Alliance soldiers, although the city remained in Ukrainian hands. The treaty also saw an end to the sanctions, beginning an era of peace to Eastern Europe.