Ukraine: Heroes and Threats – March 2022
The courage and commitment of the democratic ideals, shown by Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people is an inspiration and model to the entire world. The Ukrainian people have shown courage and sacrifice in the face of Putin’s invasion to suppress their desire for democracy and independence. But this is part of a long history.
Starting in the 9th Century, Kiev was the center of a powerful state, known as the Kievan Rus. It was a center of commerce, culture and religion; it was destroyed by Mongol invasions in the 13th Century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ukraine Poland, Lithuania, Austria Hungary, Russia, the Tatars, and the Ottoman Empire at various times and to varying degrees ruled different portions of the Ukrainian people and their land.
Ukraine (or parts of it) was an independent, democratic state or states during the 17th and 18th Century. https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-autonomous-hetman-state-and-Sloboda-Ukraine Russia, culminating with Catherine the Great, conquered and absorbed large portions of Ukraine into the Russian Empire in a series of battles fought throughout the 18th Century, starting with the defeat of the Ukrainians and Swedes (under Charles XII) by the Russian forces of Peter the Great at the battle of Poltava. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Poltava
The Russian Tsars led efforts to Russify Ukraine by forbidding the teaching of the Ukrainian language and literature. Russification meant one leader, the Tsar; one religion, the Russian Orthodox, and one language, Russian. This backfired, fueling interest in Ukrainian language, culture, and the rise of Ukrainian nationalism during the 19th Century. The rise in Ukrainian nationalism paralleled the rise of nationalism in Germany, Poland, the Balkans, Italy and elsewhere as the old Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian Empires ultimately collapsed during the enormous conflagration of the First World War.
As Tsarist Russia collapsed, Ukraine again became an independent, socialist, and democratic state towards the latter part of and for a few years after the First World War. After the Bolsheviks prevailed in the Russian Civil War between Ukraine and the Bolsheviks, Ukraine was absorbed into the USSR as an independent and autonomous socialist state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet–Ukrainian_War
USSR acknowledged the many differing nationalities by creating 15 independent, socialist republics comprising separate nationalities and ethnicities. Each republic had the right (in theory) to secede and shared borders with an independent nation. The USSR under Lenin and Stalin sought to Russify the Ukraine much as the Tsars had done. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification It maintained the one leader, the head of the Communist Party; one religion, Communism, but it initially allowed multiple languages to flourish.
During the Depression, Stalin starved five million Ukrainians to death as part of his collectivization of agricultural production – the Holdomor. https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor Small farmers and peasants revolted against the forced collectivization of their lands; they were killed, starved to death, or shipped to gulags in Siberia.
During the Second World War, Hitler invaded Ukraine and killed 5 million Ukrainians, including up to 1.6 million Jews. Over 4.5 million Ukrainians served in the Red Army, fighting Hitler.
Some right-wing Ukrainian nationalists, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), had welcomed the Germans as liberators and initially collaborated with the Germans during the war. https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Ukrainian_collaborationism_with_the_Axis_powers OUN had been founded in 1929 in Vienna to oppose Stalin and to support creation of an independent Ukraine; it opposed both Poland and the USSR who were in their view occupiers of their Ukrainian lands. Their political ideology was fascism. During WW II, OUN tried to create an independent state in Western Ukraine, an effort that was suppressed by Hitler and the Germans who rounded up the leaders and shot or jailed them; OUN then waged war on the German occupation for the remainder of WW II; this was known as the Ukrainian People’s Army (UPA); it fought both Hitler and Stalin during the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_Ukrainian_Nationalists
After the war, the Ukrainian People’s Army (UPA) continued to fight for Ukrainian freedom against the USSR and the Polish government. The USSR and Poland rounded up large populations of UPA/OUN sympathizers in Western Ukraine (500,000) and eastern Poland (115,000) and deported them to Siberia and to an under populated region of Poland respectively. Modern day, self-proclaimed “successor” organizations to the UPA, such as Right Sector, Svoboda, and Ukrainian National Self Defense, continue to this day; they have about 1% support in the Ukrainian Parliament (the Rada), so they have little popular support. They have played a role in fighting against the Russian military invasions in Georgia and the Donbas, which has brought them to Putin’s attention.
From 1989 to 1991, the USSR collapsed, and each of its 15 separate republics declared their independence as sovereign nations and recognized each other’s independence. Several, such as the Baltics and most of the Eastern European nations who had been a part of the Warsaw Pact, quickly aligned themselves with NATO and the EU. Others, including Ukraine, affiliated with the new nation of Russia as a part of the Commonwealth of Independent States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union Ninety percent of Ukrainians voted for independence from Russia and the USSR.
As a new nation, Ukraine began a process of Ukrainization, reviving and teaching the Ukrainian language and culture, and restoring freedom of religion -- the two most dominant religions are the Ukrainian Orthodox and Russian Orthodox churches. It also disarmed – eliminating all nuclear weapons in an agreement with the US, UK and Russia signing as guarantors of Ukrainian sovereignty in 1994. Ukraine adopted a new constitution with a strong presidency, strong legislature, and prime minister. It has had a series of hotly contested elections. https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/Parliamentary-democracy It has had two revolutions, the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Maidan Revolution in 2014 to oust local political leadership allied and aligned with Putin. Some of the key issues in these elections have been development of its economy, its relations with Europe, the EU and NATO, and its relations with its giant northern neighbor, Russia. The nation has at times been divided politically between the majorities in Eastern regions wanting stronger ties to Russia, while by contrast the majorities in the Central and Western regions wanted to improve its economic and security relations with the EU and the European nations to the West, such as Poland and Germany. Putin’s invasions in 2014 and 2022 backfired politically, uniting the nation in defense of its independence.
Economically, the west and central regions of Ukraine are rich agricultural lands, among the most fertile and productive in the world, and as a result Ukraine plays a major role in feeding the nations of the world. The eastern region has extensive coal and iron deposits and is historically the strongest region for heavy manufacturing industry. The Southern region fronts on the Black Sea, and it has the seaports, like Odessa and Mariupol. It serves as the exporting and importing hub of the nation’s production via the world’s oceans.
Ukraine has a declining, impoverished, and aging population with lots of chronic disease and alcohol abuse. It has a low fertility rate, high death rate, high rates of smoking and alcoholism and major environmental degradation, led of course by the nuclear devastation around Chernobyl. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine Ukraine is trying to increase its birthrate by the adoption of policies designed to support families and young children.
Russia has a comparable demographic with high rates of obesity, smoking, alcohol abuse, suicides, and heart diseases. It too has had a low fertility rate and a declining and aging population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia Russia is countering its population decline by encouraging immigration from Russian speakers in other ex-Soviet states.
Russia has a very robust oil and gas industry and is very rich in natural resources, ranging from coal and iron to extensive forests. https://www.britannica.com/place/Russia/Economy Its pipelines to Europe transit Ukraine. Its northern regions are not climatologically conducive to agriculture, but it has extensive wheat and grain production in the southern steppes and regions adjacent to Ukraine. The sanctions imposed after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, slowed the growth of the Russian economy to a crawl. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/the-impact-of-western-sanctions-on-russia/ How much of the slowdown was caused by the sanctions and how much by the decline in oil and gas prices is still a matter of debate.
The much tougher sanctions imposed by NATO and the EU after the 2022 invasion are expected to severely reduce Russian GDP and to increase oil and gas prices in Europe and the US and thus increase already high rates of inflation. The West’s sanctions combined with the steadfast defense of their nation by the people of Ukraine have the potential to defeat Putin with incalculable and hopefully beneficial consequences for the future of the region and the European continent. If, on the other hand, Putin prevails, the impacts on democratic freedoms and nations are likewise incalculable, but likely profoundly dangerous.
Putin has suggested that nuclear war is not off the table, and Biden has suggested that the use of biological and chemical weapons may be Putin’s next escalation. While this may be loose talk, posturing and hyperbole, we might be on the verge of WW III and the rise of autocratic regimes globally, or of successfully preventing it and expanding democratic freedoms in a very large and important part of the globe. The Russian/Ukrainian struggle is no longer simply about Putin’s efforts to bully his near neighbors into compliance with his wishes and kill and imprison those who oppose him; far more is at stake, and we need to recognize, understand, and act upon it.