The Political Angle of the Russia-Ukraine War (Episodes 9 & 10)

The first major event in modern Ukrainian history is the founding of Kievan Rus - the state that would eventually morph into Russia and Ukraine. Kievan Rus was founded by the Vangarian ruler of Novgorod in the 9th century. By the 11th century, Kyiv - then part of Kievan Rus - had become the main center of culture and politics in Eastern Europe. Over the next few centuries, modern-day Ukraine would be conquered and dominated by various foreign powers. In the 1200s, the Mongols established an empire known as the Golden Horde in Ukraine, while in the mid-14th century, Poland and the Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth annexed the majority of western and northern Ukraine. Under Polish rule, western Ukraine would become Greek-Catholic instead of Eastern Orthodox. In the mid-15th century, southern Ukraine was dominated by the Crimean Khanate, though in 1648, at the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War, Ukraine became Hetmanate. Six years later, the Treaty of Pereyaslavl begins to make Hetmanate into a Russian vassal state. Over the next few centuries, Ukraine would remain under Russian rule and was often used as a battleground in various Russian wars. In the 19th century, especially under Tsar Alexander III, Russification threatened to erase the distinct cultural identities of the various ethnic groups - including Ukrainians - living under the Russian Empire. Russification was a reaction to the nationalism sweeping Europe in the 1800s following the end of the French Revolution in 1815.

Moving into the twentieth century, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was created in 1921 after ⅔ of Ukraine was sacked by the Red Army, a mere three years after Ukraine declared independence in 1918. As part of the USSR, Ukraine suffered greatly when millions died during the 1932 Holodomor, a famine created by Stalin as a result of his collectivization campaign. However, Ukraine came under Nazi occupation from 1941-1944, during WWII. Around 5 million Ukrainians died fighting the Nazis, and an additional one and a half million Ukrainian Jews died as part of Hitler’s “Final Solution.” After the defeat of Nazi Germany, Stalin regained control over Ukraine, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians joined the millions of Soviets that were sent to Stalin’s gulags. Then, in 1954, Nikita Kruschev transferred the Crimean peninsula to Ukrainian control. This move proved incredibly important in 2014, when Putin invaded the Crimea and successfully brought it back under Russian control. However, in 1954, Ukraine was Russia’s closest ally, and the two nations basically acted as one. The same year, the last of Ukrainian resistance to Soviet rule went completely underground. In 1991, Ukraine declared independence as the Soviet Union collapsed.

In the post-Soviet era, Ukrainian politics have been driven by one question: Should Ukraine ally with Russia, or the West? For the first decade, Ukraine focused on rebuilding and maintained close ties to Moscow. Its first president was Leonid Kravchuk, who signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and transferred all of Ukraine’s strategic nuclear weapons to Russia. In 1994, Ukraine and Russia joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace, an effort for collaboration and allyship between NATO members and non-NATO countries. In July of that year, the former Prime Minister, Leonid Kuchma, defeated Kravchuk in the presidential elections and ushered in an era of unchecked corruption. Under Kuchma, the Ukrainian parliament ratified a new constitution in 1996 that added guaranteed civil liberties, such as freedom of speech and private property ownership. However, it also compromised Ukraine’s system of checks and balances by giving the president substantial power over the other branches of government. In 2000, Kuchma’s government was rocked by the “Gongadze Scandal,” which led to mass protests when recordings surfaced that implicated Kuchma in the murder of Ukrainian journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, who was investigating corruption in the presidential administration. Then, in 2001, Prime Minister Victor Yuschenko was forced to step down. In a bewildering move, Kuchma had nominated him in 1999, despite obvious differences in policy. The corruption in the Ukrainian government came to a head in the 2004 presidential race, when pro-Western candidate and former Prime Minister Victor Yuschenko ran against Victor Yanukovych, the candidate supported by Kuchma and the Kremlin. During his campaign, Yuschenko was poisoned and survived with facial disfigurement. Then, in a case of obvious voter fraud, Yanukovych won the election, prompting Yuschenko’s supporters to stage mass protests known as the “Orange Revolution,” since Yuschenko’s campaign color was orange. A revote in December declared Yuschenko the winner, alarming Putin. Four years later, in 2008, Putin allegedly told U.S. President George Bush that Ukraine is “not even a real nation-state.” Then, in August, Putin invaded Georgia and left Russian troops in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Yuschenko backed Georgia and in September began talks of an “association agreement” with the EU. Such agreements are considered stepping stones to EU membership. However, Yuschenko’s popularity in Ukraine had been dropping due to the economic downturn, and in 2010, Yanukovych won the presidency. Yanukovych had rebranded himself with the help of American political consultants and was now more open to working with the West. After years of talks with the EU, Yanukovych decided not to sign the association agreement in 2013 under immense pressure from the Kremlin. Instead, he pivoted to Russia and its Eurasion Customs Union, prompting immediate protests in Kiev. After two months of peaceful opposition, known as the Euromaidan protests, the government killed one hundred protestors. Soon after, Yanukovych arranges for new presidential elections and flees to Russia. Shortly after, in early 2014, Russia annexed the Crimea, leading to a wave of international backlash and prompting NATO to officially cut all ties. In April 2014, roughly a month later, Russia started and backed an ongoing separatist war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. According to PBS, “By early 2022, fighting has resulted in more than fourteen thousand deaths, a quarter of them civilians, and two million internally displaced Ukrainians.” In September of 2014, the first Minsk Agreement was signed by then-Ukrainian president Poroshenko and Putin in order to end the war. Unfortunately, it was not implemented, and the second Minsk Agreement, in 2015, also failed to end the fighting. In 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump approved lethal arms sales to Ukraine, taking a step beyond the non-lethal assistance provided by the Obama administration. In 2019, the current Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, was elected. Two years later, in 2021, Russia began moving troops and weaponry to the Ukrainian border. The alarm was raised by Ukraine’s western allies as early as April of 2021. On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine.