UKRAINE RUSSIA WAR HISTORY PART(1)

 

RUSSIA AND UKRAINE WAR HISTORY :

The ongoing Russia Ukraine conflict see the first thing that you have to understand is that the tension

between Russia and Ukraine is primarily because of two reasons one Ukraine is a matter of strategic

 importance to Russia look at the size of Ukraine it is a big the country that is right in between

 the European Union and Russia so this is very straightforward and I will tell you more about it in 

 while and the second reason is there is also a territorial conflict between Russia and Ukraine as you may

 know currently Russia is in control of Crimea and then there are two regions in eastern Ukraine which is

 called disks and Luhansk so these together combine to form Donbas region of eastern Ukraine so Ukraine

 was once part of the soviet union after 1991 Ukraine became a separate country and declared itself

 an independent country on 24th august 1991

. as you can see from this map Ukraine shares borders with both the European Union and Russia but as a

 former soviet republic, it has a deep social and cultural ties with Russia and Russian language is

 widely spoken there, especially on the eastern side of Ukraine now if you look at the eastern

 Ukrainian regions which are bordered with Russia it has more Russian-speaking people and that is

 very natural right if you go near the border areas of any country or state you will see that people from

 both sides of the border exist here also you will find both Ukrainian as well as Russian people but then as

 we know Ukraine was part of soviet union naturally after Ukrainian ethnicity Russian ethnic group is the

 largest and needless to say, there will be more Russian-speaking people on the eastern regions of

 Ukraine 

Now with that one more thing that is very common at border areas is that there will be groups

 who are both political as well as armed who will have their regional interests that means there are

 political as well as armed groups in eastern Ukraine who are pro-Russian naturally when politics is

 involved Russia will have its own interests secured now if you look at it from a geopolitics point of view

 one should not be surprised if Russian political fraternity in Moscow support these eastern Ukrainian-

Russian-speaking groups, it's normal in geopolitics similarly even Ukraine can do it but then compared to

 Russia Ukraine is comparatively a new country so it's difficult for Ukraine to counter the Russian culture

 that has a long history that is why western liberal democracy is doing that job for Ukraine and giving the

 ideological support to Ukraine in opposing the Russian culture there is an old saying you cannot defeat a

 culture takes hundreds and thousands of years to evolve it's practically not possible to change any culture

 overnight or in a few years so it is the same thing for Ukraine Ukraine comparatively is a young country

 in front of Russia there are subtle differences between the Russian and Ukrainian culture if one pays

 close attention otherwise at first sight you will not be able to figure out who is Russian or Ukrainian

 unless you start speaking about politics or carefully listen to their pronunciation or you see them wearing

their national clothes both the cultures are very close yet there are subtle differences that are difficult to

 spot for an outsider plus it takes hardly two hours to go by train from Kyiv capital of Ukraine to Moscow

 and 30 years ago it was all one the country so ethnically Ukrainians and Russians are very mixed there is

 hardly any difference in their cultures for Ukrainian people Ukraine is their own country there are no two

 thoughts in it of course any group or any section of the population that has pro-Russian sentiments inside

 Ukraine is not going to be acceptable to the Ukrainian political fraternity as well as the Ukrainian majority it

 is also seen as a threat against Ukraine's national sovereignty no country would like that so if you look at

 things from Ukrainian political perspective and national interest these eastern Ukrainian Russian-

speaking groups that support Russia is called a rebel and separatists now to understand this whole conflict

 we need to go back in time at least 10 to 15 years behind that is how we will get a perspective of this

 issue I'll give you a quick overview if you look at the current president of Ukraine is Vladimir

 Zelinsky, he became the president on 20th May 2019. 

before him from 2014 to 2019 the Ukrainian president was petro Poroshenko and if you go further behind

 from 2010 to 2014 the president of Ukraine was Viktor Yanukovych it is important to mention all

 these three presidents whose collective tenure spans over a decade in total there were seven presidents

 in Ukraine till now since 1991 but to understand the Russian and Ukrainian the conflict we only need to

 know the events that took place during these three presidential terms now let me quickly tell you about

 the political parties in Ukraine after that, i will categorize these three precedents as per their

 political affiliation so that you somewhat get a broad political picture of Ukraine so basically the politics

 of Ukraine is divided into three categories the major ones are two but there are political groups who are

 in between so together there are three  categories in which all the political parties in Ukraine irrespective

 of the ideology can be easily categorized the first category includes those political parties who are pro-

western they also support nato they are pro-European they believe in the liberal democracy of the western

 countries and they are also anti-Russian the second category includes all political parties that are pro-

Russia they like the old soviet culture they are eurosceptic meaning they criticize European union they are

 often anti-American and they are also not ver liberal the third category includes political parties that only

 focus on regional and local interests in political science, there is a term for is called the ideology

 of regionalism and almost all the political parties in this category are comparatively new they were

 formed in the last five-six years or so so basically you can think of them as new emerging political parties

 who are still figuring out the nerve of the .

The Ukrainian public trying to build their foundation and once they garner enough supporters it will be

 interesting to see which side will they choose because once you transition out of regional politics you

 then have to face national politics and national politics of any country has a direct correlation with

 international relations at the international level even if you don't like it you will be forced to take sides it's

not at all possible to be neutral you can try to be neutral on less important matters but then when it comes

 to strategic interests you will end up taking sides so these are the three categories or you can say political

 camps in which all the political parties in Ukraine fall into now I will categorize these three precedents as

 per their political affiliation the current president of Ukraine voladimir zelensky his political affiliation is

 with a servant of the people party which falls in the first category then former president petro

 Poroshenko belonged to the European solidarity party by the name European solidarity you can easily

 figure out that even this falls in the first category and finally, if you look at the former president Viktor

 yanukovych in 80s he was part of the communist party of soviet union once Ukraine got separated he

 joined a political party called party of regions in late 1997 which later on became the biggest party of

 Ukraine between 2006 and 2014. this political party in 2014 merged with another political party by the

 name opposition platform for life which is basically a pro-Russian anti-American and eurosceptic

 political party