For much of its recent history, [Ukraine] has been viewed as divided between two regions— one oriented toward Eurasia/USSR in the east and one toward Central Europe in the west (Sellar and Pickles, 2002). The geographic location of the Ukraine — nestled in between Russia and Europe — and the subsequent mix of cultures, languages and histories of the citizens of modern day Ukraine have been the source of political and social unrest nation-wide for many years. The European Union/Russian Federation fault line that has always split the Ukrainian population was in large part the reason the most recent protests began in November. On November 21, 2013 President Viktor Yanukovych's government announced it was abandoning an agreement to strengthen ties with the European Union and was instead seeking closer cooperation with Moscow. Protesters took to the streets (The Associated Press). With these protests the contested identity of the Ukrainian people could be in its most fragile state, and when the initially peaceful protests had a less than peaceful response from police, the movement only gained more momentum. On December 1, 2013 more than 300,000 protesters occupied Independence Square (50.4500° N, 30.5242° E), known as the Maidan, in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. That same day protesters also seized control of Kiev City Hall. Many of these protesters set up camp in the square and in city hall, and barricades were built by protesters around the perimeter of the square to demonstrate their determination. Ten days later Ukrainian police flexed their muscles by quickly and forcefully clearing out the square and city hall. This only added fuel to the fire though, as the next day protesters gathered in even larger numbers and rebuilt strong...
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...ral Geography Vol. 26, No. 3, October 2009, 327-348.
Sellar, Christian and John Pickles, “Where will Europe End? Ukraine and the Limits of European Integration,” Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 43, No. 2, 2002, 123-142.
Trenin, Dmitri. The End of EURASIA: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and Globalization. (Washington DC: Carnegie Moscow Center, 2002) 163-170.
State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, “All-Ukrainian Census 2001.” All-Ukrainian Population Census. http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua/rus/results/general/language/ (March 15, 2014).
Wolff, Larry. Inventing Eastern Europe: the map of civilization in the mind of the enlightenment. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.
The Associated Press, “Key Events In Ukraine's Political Crisis,” National Public Radio Online. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=285135410 (March 15, 2014)
John Merriman, A History of Modern Europe, Volume 1, (London, New York). Class Notes Class Documents HI 4712 Class Readings HI 4712
Western Europe was more concerned with their Maker and the redemption of their souls than with their individual lives on earth. This meant that the development of their own philosophies and schools of thought would occur later than many other postclassical civilizations. However, the time period was not without achievement. It laid the ground for discoveries of tremendous importance that would change the known world forever.
KyivPost, accessed March, 16, 2014, http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/nato-confirms-readiness-for-ukraines-joining-organ-63797.html. "NATO Launches 'Intensified Dialogue' with Ukraine." NATO, accessed March, 16, 2014, http://www.nato.int/docs/update/2005/04-april/e0421b.htm. Lowther, Adam and Casey Lucius. Identifying America's Vital Interests.
In 2012, the total population of Luhansk comprised approximately 426,000 people. The majority of city´s industrial companies have established connections with the Donbas coal and steel complex (Gentile, 2015). Generally, almost everyone in Ukraine is able to fluently speak and understand Russian, however, a vast number of people are not able to speak Ukrainian. They have an even problem to understand the language (Himka, 2015). In addition, the eastern part of Ukraine is largely urbanized and for this reason, the region more easily assimilated to use of Russian language (Himka, 2015). From the past, it is known that in the 1990s, approximately one-third of the population of Donetsk proclaimed not to support the addition of the Donbas to Ukraine (Shulman, 1998 as quoted in Gentile, 2015). Especially the Russian minority, people from the east, the retired and the poorest tend to be more pro-Russian oriented. They are even willing to follow stronger bonds with Russia (Kubicek, 2000 as quoted in Gentile, 2015). In one of his speeches, Putin mentioned the gone areas of “Novorossiya” including areas of Donbas and Luhansk, that were ceded to the Ukrainian SSR by the Soviet administration in the 1920s (Allison, 2014). This political situation resulted
middle of paper ... ... After everything was dying down, Russia invaded Ukraine, and they started to get Ukraine back on track to what Russia wants them to be. Everything then again gets way out of control, and Ukraine is still today very out of control, and all the people want Russia out of their country, but they do not want to attack because Russia is their main power source. Works Cited Crowley, Michael and Shuster, Simon.
The U.S. and Russia have cold war history and ideology still strong among their constituents. The Cold War was also never really over, hence why assuming geopolitics were no longer relevant was a mistake on behalf of Fukuyama’s The End of History. The history of the U.S. and the Soviet Union are described through international proxy wars heavily relying on strategic locations, geopolitics is imbedded in their relationship. They both are always competing for spheres of influence, now not only in regards to Crimea in Ukraine, but also in Syria. Russia will not forget the financial build up of Western states after WW II, the integration of Warsaw Pact states and the Baltic Republics into NATO (Mead, 2), and the containment policy of states around the world that lead to the dissembling of the Soviet
International politics as one may imagine includes foreign affairs. This is why the topic and focus of this paper revolves around the current event within Eastern Europe. It will focus on both Russia, Ukraine, and the world, and from it, it will be analyzed by using the resources provided within class. After all it is a International Politics course, and one of the best ways to effectively put the skills and knowledge to use is to focus on an event or current event. The paper will attempt to go over in a chronological order of the events that has happened, and what is happening currently over in Ukraine. Afterwards, an analyzed input will be implemented providing reasoning behind Russia's actions, and actions of the world, and potentially some solutions.
[2] Weaver, Matthew. "Ukraine Crisis." The Guardian. N.p., 20 Feb. 2014. Web. 7 Mar. 2014. .
Hobson, J. M., 2004. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 57
Kidner, Frank L. Making Europe: People, Politics and Culture. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. Print.
Crimea’s history with Russia begins in 1783, when it became an annexed state (Taylor). However, to most of those within the western sphere of schooling most commonly learn about Crimea from the Crimean war. It occurred from 1853 to 1856 and involved Russia, Sardinia, France, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire. After three years of arduous fighting Russia eventually lost the war, but it did manage the keep the treasured peninsula. After the fall of the Russian Empire, in 1921 Crimea became “ The Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic” and unquestionably part of the Soviet Union. In the following decades, Crimea much like the rest of Europe endured the strain of the Second World War, but surprisingly in 1945 it was gifted from Russia to the Ukraine. According to Taylor, there are a couple of possi...
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe, that borders Russia north and northeast. Lately Ukraine has been making international headlines; the country is in complete and total turmoil or for lack of better words a crisis. What started as a request from the Ukrainian citizens for a change in government, limit the powers of the president, restore the country constitution back to its original form from 2004-2010, and get closer ties to the EU. Peaceful protesting turned in to a nightmare, when the then president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych failed to make good on his word. Instead, he made a deal with Russian president and late sought refuge in Russia. A few weeks later, he was ousted from this prompted the Ukraine revolution and the annexation of Crimea also known as the Crimean crisis. A revolution in Ukraine took place in February 2014 for a period of 5 days in Kiev the capital of Ukraine, after a series of violent events in the capital culminated with the ousting of the then-President of Ukraine. Immediately following the ousting of Yanukovych, immediate changes took place in Ukraine’s sociopolitical system. Starting with the a new interim government being installed and the constitution was restored to its original state, and plans to hold impromptu presidential elections in the months to follow. Before the revolution, Ukraine had been sunken by years of corruption, mismanagement, lack of growth economically , their currency value had dropped , and they had the inability to secure funding from public markets. Because of this, president Yanukovych wanted to establish closer relationship with the European Union (EU) and Russia in order to attract the money necessary to maintain Ukraine's standard of living without a...
Murphy, A.B. 2006. ‘The May 2004 Enlargement of the European Union: View from Two Years Out’. Eurasian Geography and Economics. Vol. 47 (6). Pp 635-646.
The Ukrainian crisis was a result of social upheaval against the former president, Mr. Yanukovich, who decided to pull out of the association with the European Union (BBC News, 2014). The upheaval that lasted for about two months resulted in more than 100 people killed (NY Times, 2014). In February 22 Mr. Yanukovich disappears and the opposition takes control over the government in Ukraine (BBC News, 2014). Upon learning that Mr. Yanukovich is currently residing in Kazakhstan, the new government of Ukraine requests from Kazakhstan the extradition of the overthrown president, who is accused of crime against the Ukrainian citizenry.
The conflict between the Ukraine and Russia is the Ukraine's most long-standing and deadly crisis; since its post-Soviet independence began as a protest against the government dropping plans to forge closer trade ties with the European Union. The conflict between Russia and the Ukraine stems from more than twenty years of weak governance, the government’s inability to promote a coherent executive branch policy, an economy dominated by oligarchs and rife with corruption, heavy reliance on Russia, and distinct differences between Ukraine's population from both Eastern and Western regions in terms of linguistics, religion and ethnicity (Lucas 2009).