I want to talk about Ukraine and Russia. Why? Because both countries have been making the news for the wrong reasons. Tensions still exist between these neighbouring countries, so I thought it would be a nice time to relax and try unravel the inter-connected histories of Ukraine and Russia. It’s time for a geo-political lesson!

Ukraine is located in Eastern Europe and it shares borders with Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova and of course, Russia. Ukraine also borders the Black Sea to the south, though we will come back to that later. It also has the Dniper River running through the country from north to south.

Image by Kratochvil from PublicDomianPictures

Ukraine has a population of 43.5 million people¹; Ukrainian is the official language; the capital city is Kyiv ²; and this is quite important, the major ethnic group is Ukrainians at 77.8% and the minor ethnic group is Russians at 17.3% These last two figures are from the 2001 Ukrainian census, however there was a 2020 census planned, but it was postponed to 2023, because of…you guessed it, COVID-19. It’s also a gateway between Europe and Asia.

Now with Russia, it’s the largest country in the world. It actually spans across Europe and Asia! It’s so large, it has 11 time zones. Seriously, 11. And I thought adjusting to Daylight Savings was difficult! Anyway, Russia shares borders with sixteen other countries, but also with the Black Sea and Caspian Sea among other bodies of water.

Russia has a population of 146.7 million people, including the Crimea in 2020; funnily enough, Russian is the official language; the capital city is Moscow or Moskva if you prefer; and to contrast with Ukraine, the major ethnic group is Russians with 80.9%, with Ukrainians making up 1.4% of the population.

So, we now know the layout of the two countries…but what is the issue between them? That’s a good question, but a difficult one to answer. I’ll do my best, but I’m sorry if I leave anything important out or get anything wrong. Alright, let’s do it.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Ukraine has a long, beautiful and proud history, so I don’t want to skip this; but in context of this blog and for time’s sake, I have to. We need to jump into our TARDIS and travel back to the Crimea War of 1853-1856.

This was a pointless war involving Russia against a British/French/Ottoman coalition. Among other things the war was fought over, one was access to the Black Sea and surprise, surprise, the conflict was fought on the Crimean Peninsula. This brought the geo-political importance of Crimea to the world’s attention.

We can now move onto 1917, at the start of the Ukrainian War of Independence from the Russian Empire. This was kicked off from the start of the Russian Civil War, which was preceded by the Russian Revolution.

The Ukrainian People’s Republic struggled from 1917-1921 against the might of Russia, which was going through political and social unrest. The consequence of this, was that Ukraine failed to gain independence and was absorbed into the new formed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR.

Under control of the Soviet Union and through Joseph Stalin’s agricultural policies, 3.5 million Ukrainians died of starvation during 1932-1933, known as the Great Famine or as the Holodomor. Later on through World War II, involving the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941; and also the Holocaust, over 5 million Ukrainians were killed. I also need to state that the Soviet Union lost over 20 million people in World War II.

Stalin also did two things that are key to the problems of today. First he authorised the deportation of the Ethnic Tatar people out of Crimea and into Central Asia. The other key point is that Stalin replaced these people with ethnic Russians, back into the Crimean Peninsula.

The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic; as Ukraine was known as, recovered over the years to become a leader in grain, industry and production. On 24th April 1986, a reactor exploded at a nuclear power plant, near the city of Chernobyl. The accident was the worst nuclear disaster in human history and the result I’m mentioning this, is because the accident occurred in Northern Ukraine. Yes, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster actually happened in Ukraine.

Fast forward to 1990, where the Ukrainian government voted to break away from the USSR, with over 90% of the vote, from an independence referendum; which the USSR then dissolved in 1991. The USSR was then reorganised back into the Russia Federation, or the country simply known as Russia.

Now, I don’t mean to skip over some events here, but I need to focus and keep going, other wise I will never finish!

In 2004, Ukraine went through the Orange Revolution, which produced large civil unrest and claims of Russian inference. This brings us to late 2013 to early 2014, and a low point in Ukrainian-Russian relations. To set the stage for this, two things need to be understood.

The first thing is the demographic of the Ukrainian population. Western and Central Ukraine is mainly populated by ethnic Ukrainians, so this is where the Ukrainian language is mainly spoken. As you move east and south from the centre, you start to see more Russian culture in these regions, along with the Russian language. This is highlighted within…surprise, surprise, the Crimean Peninsula.

The second point is our old friend, politics. You see, there are was a growing movement in Ukraine to create stronger ties with the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO); basically Pro-EU supporters. However, to keep things balanced, there was a counter movement to strengthen ties to Russia and it’s influence; basically Pro-Russian supporters.

Ok, this is where it goes off the rails. In November 2013, the Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych; who was a Pro-Russian supporter, backed away from an agreement that would bring Ukraine closer to the EU and strengthen their ties, with financial and political support. Now hold on to your seat, but Yanukovych wanted to go with financial and political support from Russia instead. To say this reversal of policy, did not go down well, was like when Eddie Brock was fired from the Daily Bugle; and named Peter Parker as the reason.

There were large protests against Yanukovych, by the Pro-European movement. This of course led to the Pro-Russian movement taking to the streets in support of Yanukovych. Having massive demonstrations to remove Yanukovych and support him at the same time, created civil unrest, which brought about violence and death. This became known as the Euromaiden Revolution and not a death metal band from Austria.

On 21st February 2014, Yanukovych fled the country, with the Ukrainian parliament voting to remove him from office, on the 22nd. So tensions are very high in Ukraine at this point. They were about to get a lot worse.

When Yanukovych had fled, the Russian President Vladimir Putin, began discussing invading South East Ukraine, especially the region of Crimea. This was because of three reasons: to protect the large number of ethnic Russians living there³; to protect the Russian Naval Fleet docked at the Crimean city of Sevastopol’s Naval Base; and to resist the new Ukrainian government, because to the Russians, the Ukrainians had ousted the legal head of state in Yanukovych, so the new government was “illegal”.

The Russian military entered the Crimean Peninsula and took over Ukrainian bases, while also seizing control of the region. Unmarked Russian troops started creating checkpoints across the region, as well as supporting Pro-Russian militia within Crimea. Because of this, the autonomous Crimean government, issued the 2014 Crimean status referendum; which basically asked if the Crimean people would like to join Russia.⁴

The result was that over 95% of the vote, agreed to joining Russia, which led to Russia annexing the Crimean Peninsula.

Annexing. In the 21st century, the annexation of another sovereign nation is still happening. How is that possible?!

Image by Channel 4 News

Anyway, because of this insanity, armed conflict had began between Ukrainian and Russian forces, with militia groups being involved. The fighting has mainly been in Crimea and Donbas (Eastern Ukraine) regions. The conflict soon grabbed international attention went Pro-Russian troops shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on 17th July 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members.

Ukraine blamed Russia for shooting down the plane, while Russia blamed Ukraine for allowing civilian flights into the area. 143 victims were from the Netherlands and in 2020, the Dutch government took Russia to the European Court of Human Rights, because of this incident.

What has been dubbed the Russo-Ukrainian War, is still active today. Over 13,000 people have been killed and over 29,000 people have been wounded. In late 2014, fighting increased and in 2018, there was the Kerch Strait incident involving the Russian and Ukrainian navies.

In March-April 2021, Russia began a massive build up of troops, weapons and vehicles; along the Ukrainian border. The Russian government said the build up was just a training exercise, with thousands of troops been sent home. However, many thousands of Russian troops are still stationed along the border.

There has been international criticism of Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, with NATO condemning the invasion and various economic sanctions have been placed on Russia; whom have been imposing their own counter sanctions.

After seven years of fighting, there appears to be no end in sight. To me, it just seems a like lose-lose situation for everybody involved; especially for the dispossessed and homeless. I have no idea what it would take to end the conflict, I am not smart enough to see it.

However, I honestly hope there can be a peaceful and quick resolution to this insanity, otherwise other countries could be dragged into the war to stop it; which may or may not make it worse.

What I do know is that we, as a collective society, can not allow the annexation of another sovereign nation to continue in the 21st century. I feel that part of our global history, must remain in the past, if we have any chance of moving forward and working together as a species. Annexation is wrong and does not work, but diplomacy does.

Anyway, that’s it. I’ll get off my soap box now. In a lighter note, we are currently slowly marching towards the cold, dark maw of winter, so working on this blog will keep me entertained during the long nights. Winter is coming, so hopefully House Stark would approve.

Thank you so much for reading and see you in a fortnight!

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¹ The official population is closer to 41.5 million people, not including the Russian annexed areas of Crimea and Sevastopol.

² There are two ways to write Kyiv. One is the Russian based “Kiev”, while the other is the Ukrainian based “Kyiv”. I have obviously selected to promote Kyiv.

³ Thanks, Stalin.

⁴ This referendum was illegal under the Ukrainian and Crimean constitutions.