– Juanita Rose Thomas
What is happening to Ukraine?
On February 24, 2022, after months of military build-up on the border with Ukraine, the Russian forces invaded eastern Ukraine in what Putin acknowledged as ‘special military operations’. This was two days after his recognition of the independence of two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine- Donetsk and Luhansk. Since then, Russia has expanded the crisis by launching relentless attacks on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv as well as its second-largest city of Kharkiv. Just over a week since its beginning, the Russia-Ukraine war has inflicted severe civilian casualties and caused extensive displacement, with at least a million of its population turned into migrants across Europe. Even as undesired, what is happening to Ukraine was not something utterly unforeseen. it is futile to try and understand the ongoing crisis without identifying the decades or even centuries of geopolitical processes that accompanied it.
With a population of 43.7 million and a physical area of 603,550 sq km, Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe. It is located in eastern Europe, bounded by Russia to its east, northeast and Southeast and the Black Sea to its South. It also shares borders with countries including Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Belarus. The country is headed by the democratically elected President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It comprises two major ethnic groups- Ukrainians and Russians, with the latter making up around 17.3% of the population. Despite this, the Russian speakers comprise 29.6% of the population, with the rest being mostly but not only Ukrainian. This Russian presence in the country in terms of population and language is extremely significant to understanding the cause of the ongoing war, from Putin’s perspective. While his latest argument outlines Ukraine as a country with no ‘stable traditions of real statehood’, Putin’s 2021 controversial essay titled ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’ conveys his ultimate conviction- ‘true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia’. He states to believe that Russians and Ukrainians are one people sharing the same history and culture but divided by unfortunate borders. In other words, he considers Ukraine as very much part of the Russian Federation. The war, in his opinion, is a way to reclaim Ukraine, which ‘for the past eight years have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime’. He also intends to refine Ukraine of its unfortunate western elements that have only been deteriorating its relationship with Russia. The objective of the war is supposedly to demilitarise and ‘denazify’ a democratic country by ousting its Jewish President, who also has lost relatives in the original holocaust. Even as the rhetoric succeeds to persuade none, at least two of Putin’s arguments merit an in-depth analysis to identify the roots of the current escalation- the narrative of Ukraine as historically, a part of Russia and the western influence on Kyiv. The former, more significantly so, considering the repeated claims of Russia denying it a history of independent statehood and the grave consequences it might have on several other nations.
A millennium ago, what is known as Ukraine and Russia today were part of the Kyivan Rus. This was a federation of the East Slavic, Baltic, and Finnic peoples of eastern and northern Europe, with its capital in Kyiv. In the middle of the 13th century, the collapse of Byzantine and a subsequent attack of Mongols weakened the same. Much of the parts of the Kyivan Rus was later incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which in 1569 came together with the Kingdom of Poland to form the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1648, after revolting against the Poles, Hetman of Zaporizhian host- Bohdan Khmelnytsky founded the Ukrainian state of Cossack Hetmanate in the area that is today’s central Ukraine. The Hetmante lasted till 1764 when it was brought to an absolute end by Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, who invaded the entire Ukrainian territory and attached it to her own Russian empire. This was followed by intense Russification and oppression of the ethnic Ukrainians which included their programmed displacement by ethnic Russians. After the October revolution in 1917, Bolsheviks, despite their efforts, failed to expand their control to Kyiv. Pushing in the attempts of Ukrainian state-building, in 1918, Central Rada- the revolutionary Ukrainian Parliament under the leadership of Mykhailo Hrushevsky declared the independence of Ukraine. Bolsheviks retaliated soon enough by massacring hundreds in Kyiv and by capturing the city. However, within the same year, Rada came back to power with the help of Germany but was again drove out by the Bolsheviks. The constant quagmires in Ukraine forced Lenin to grant it with a certain degree of autonomy and status equal to Russia within the USSR, henceforth declaring the creation of the new state in 1922. Towards the disintegration of the Soviet empire, Ukraine renewed its attempt at regaining its original state of independence, as was evident with the Granite Revolution of 1990. As a result, on August 24, 1991, the Ukrainian Parliament elected its head Leonid Kravchuk Ukraine’s first President and adopted the country’s act of independence. Even though in December 1991, the leaders of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine formed the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, never ratified the accession. Thus, despite Putin’s claims, Ukraine does have stable traditions of real statehood and a rich history at that too.
This forces us to look into the nature of the other allegation made by Putin- the western presence in Ukraine. This antipathy of Putin against Ukraine’s increasing ties with the west was made evident with the 2014 Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, which was indeed the aftermath of the coup in Ukraine that ousted its then pro-Russian President Victor Yanukovych for a pro-western interim government. For context, upon being elected, Yanukovych had reiterated Ukraine’s decision to remain as a non-aligned European nation. He rejected the 2012 Ukrainian-EU association agreement that was proposed for at closer economic and political ties instead for a threeway tie between the European Union, Ukraine and Russia and possibly a $16 billion bailout from the latter. This went against the general consensus of the public as well as the former Ukrainian attempts in joining the EU. The public was sore at the stark difference between the development opportunities in older Soviet States that joined the EU and Ukraine. The anger translated into what became later known as the Euromaidan protests or the Revolution of Dignity and the subsequent coup. For Putin, this meant possible North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership for Ukraine and the ability of NATO to store weapons in Russia’s closest neighbourhood. He demanded not only that Ukraine never join NATO but insisted NATO reverse its eastward expansion to its status in 1997. NATO refused, as this meant giving up 14 of its members and going back on its open-door policy. Putin responded by annexing Crimea to its own and consequently, if not intentionally pushing Ukraine closer to the west. These conditions that made Putin invade Crimea in 2014 are still valid, if not more than ever. Thus, underneath his rhetoric of demilitarisation and denazification, the ongoing war might be Putin’s way of exerting influence over NATO’s expansions- but as someone said, it really is difficult to get into Putin’s head.
What one knows for sure is the drastic effect the war is going to have on the east and the west combined. Even as its impact on Putin’s decisions is uncertain, the sanctions imposed by the west on Russia are designed to harm the economy as well as its ordinary citizens. Notwithstanding the volatility surrounding global politics, the war has created an impression of togetherness, with NATO and most of the remaining world joining hands for a long time. This has effectively pushed Putin and his Russia to isolation. Even domestically, Putin is expected to face opposition, considering the growing number of protesters in Moscow. But everything is not as rosy as it seems. Putin’s subtle but repeated hints at using nuclear weapons and escalating the ongoing crisis at the slightest provocation from the west is deeply unsettling and has limited the west’s capacity to assist Ukraine. Also, the war has illustrated the conveniently sculpted morals and principles of most world leaders who have condemned the Russia-Ukraine conflict with all their might while at the same time turning a blind eye to the sufferings in Palestine, Syria, Yemen and many more. Yet, beyond all these assumptions and arguments, it seems that the kind of war this will turn out to be at the end needs to be seen with time.
Design by Rohit G.
Edited by Madhumitha R
Article 19 