At the heart of the crisis in the Ukraine is the question of whether that country would be better off forging a future with the European Union or with Russia. The answer is very complex as the Ukraine and Russia have a long history together with many citizens of the Ukraine having very close ties to Russia. But there is also a strong desire by many Ukrainians to build a future that has a more open political system, more promising economic opportunities, and a less oppressive and corrupt government with a better track record on human rights. Many believe Russia’s intention is to reassemble those Eastern European countries into a 2014 version of the Iron Curtain. The Ukraine is very important to Russia economically, militarily and historically. In recent months, Russia has gone to extreme measures to protect its interests, whether it is persuasion or brute force. Despite Russia’s aggression, the Ukraine should resist moving backward into a murky alliance with Russia and strike out in a new, freer direction by building a stronger alliance with the Europe Union. Before the Ukraine crisis even started, Russia and Ukraine have had an on-going history for over 1000 years. The relationship between these two countries has had its ups and downs including the recent bloodshed where several pro-Russian militants were killed by Ukrainian military forces. Clearly, the crisis is reaching a level of tension and violence it hasn't experienced in decades. As the world debates the fate of the Ukraine, one of the central questions seems to be, “While the Ukraine has had close ties to Russia for centuries, why does Russia now feel justified in taking over entire sections of the Ukraine, like Crimea?” Again, it starts with the fact that these two co... ... middle of paper ... ...icularly important to Russia’s navy and merchant fleets. Russia today is using military force, putting tanks and troops ready for invasion at any moment on the outsides of Ukrainian territory, to try and “persuade” Ukraine into joining them. Russia is also using its Air Force to patrol overhead and support the ground troops when needed. This is how tense the situation Ukraine is in at the moment (“Russia Battles”). It was even proven that the Crimea vote to join Russia, which was currently the first to take a ballot in joining Russia, was a forced ballot that contained fake ballots and many duplicated votes. A reporter even said they saw Russian troops patrolling around the ballot area as well as some voters dropping three or more ballots into the box (Smith, 1). That is clearly a fraudulent voting system and should be investigated by non-partisan or UN officials.
Vladimir Putin is the elected president of the Russian Federation. The former member of the KGB is known to some as a torturer, a tyrant, and a murderer and is known to have plans to recreate the Soviet Union. While saying that letting Crimea become a part of Russia is giving in to Putin’s communist ideals, Crimea is largely Russian, and is not strategically important to the European Union’s goals. Yanukovich’s (The former Prime Minister of Ukraine) security forces fired upon and killed dozens of protestors. He was ousted ...
Russian agression in Crimea and East Ukraine so far has been unpunished by America and her European allies, even though Russian “President” Vladimir Putin’s regime is so similar to the dictators of the past. So, does the aggressive behavior visible today warrant any action? It seems that the answer of America is no. While there is a good argument for diplomacy in this situation, it is still necessary to have some kind of intervention in Ukraine due to the danger of history repeating itself, to prevent Putin and by extension Russia from getting too much power, and to save Ukraine and democracy. Although the United States is taking steps towards a global (USA and Europe) involvement in Ukraine through more sanctions on Russia. Even though many people disagree with foreign intervention, the Ukraine crisis is just too urgent and important to ignore.
has been aiming to demolish the Ukrainian nation and devour the country to rebuild the USSR
The big crisis in Ukraine is starting to get out of hand. The government cannot even figure out what to do, and is getting kicked out of office. There are street protests happening all over Ukraine especially at Kyiv’s Independence Square. There is civil unrest against Yanukovych because he did not do what the people wanted to have. After everything is starting to cool down, Russian troops start to enter the country. The crisis was getting so far out of hand that the US and the EU had to figure out how to help, so they got involved in the crisis. The Ukraine conflict was triggered by Yanukovych declining the EU deal, and when everything was getting settled down in Ukraine, Russia invades Ukraine.
...eved this state of mind through the geography, history and traditions of the nation. Russia, although having geography, history and traditional values standing against it, has made a significant effort to preserve strong features of democracy through recent decades. Bibliography Grudzinska-Gross, Irena. The Scar of Revolution: Custine, Tocqueville, and the Romantic Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Gustafson, Thane, and Daniel Yergin. Russia 2010. New York: Random, 1993. Heywood, Andrew. Political Ideas and Concepts. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994. McDaniel, Tim. The Agony of the Russian Idea. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Melvin, Neil. Russians Beyond Russians. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995. Rzhevsky, Nicholas. Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
It has been weeks since the crisis in Ukraine begun. Every nation pledged their support for Ukraine in their own ways to help Ukraine and its people out of this crisis that begun after a massive protest toppled the pro-Russian president out of Kiev. The pledged help is meant to help Ukraine out of the crisis and build a democratic, stable Ukraine in the near future. But throughout the support for help, not every nation has the same idea how to help to overcome the problem that the country is facing. Most notably, the European Union, Russia, and the United States are very involved in Ukraine’s matter from the beginning. The Russians already deployed their troops in Crimea to protect the ethnic Russian people live in the region. The United States and European Union, however, are totally against Russian involvement in Ukraine’s matter and threatened to impose sanctions on Russia. Recently, the United States moved its war ship to black sea peninsula which raised an important question: should America ever involved militarily to help the Kiev’s government push the Russian troops out of Crimea? Many critics have voiced their opposition of any kinds of military interference by the United States. Even the GOP, who are close to taking military action for any threat against America’s interest, or its allies are not as supportive this time even though there still are some hard line republicans who will support a military involvement. I believe any kind of military intervention would be a costly move for America as it could cause to long term war, economic damage, and loss of life.
On March 18, 2014, Russian President Valdimir Putin announced the annexation of Crimea, two days after voters in this semi-autonomous territory approved a referendum on separating from Ukraine. Crimea is an eastern Ukrainian peninsula located on the Black Sea. It’s connected to the rest of the Ukraine by a small strip of land. “Ukraine screams ‘robbery’ while Russians and Russian Crimeans feel Crimea is ‘coming back home’,” (Hodgman, 3/28/2014). Cremia was absorbed into the Russian empire along with most of ethnic Ukrainian territory by Catherine the Great in the 18th century. In 1921, the peninsula became part of the Soviet Union. Crimea only became part of the Ukraine when Soviet leader Njkita Khruschchev gave the peninsula to his native country in 1954. However, in 1991, the Soviet Union broke up and Crimea ended up in an independent Ukraine. Sixty percent of Crimea’s population of two million identify themselves as Russians. Today, Crimea’s population is divided on the issue of being annexed to Russia. Geographically, Crimea is an extension of Ukraine; however, demographically and politically, it had become Russian. Ethnic Russians in Crimea support the annexation while the Crimean Tatars, originally a Mongol-led ethnic group who also claims Crimea as home, and Ukrainians express pro-Ukrainian sentiments.
...the task of the US and their European allies to bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights; the charge, a violation of its international treaty rights. Russia should also be required to conduct peace negotiations with the Chechens under the guidance of the various European Groups with a vested interest in the preservation of the borders of the surrounding countries. Threats of this can be conveyed to Russia, but this action, and anything that may come of it will not necessarily by abided by Russia. Russia has already shown that it will do what it wants concerning this issue. The US and its European allies are in apposition where threatening Russia with action is the only thing that they can do. Russia will not respond to these threats and will best only give them lip service. That this conflict be resolved in a manner favourable to Russia is essential. Russia cannot permit the secession of any part of its territory because it will lead to actions by other regions and the access to Caucasus oil fields cannot be lost. Any other action taken by a third party will only result in destabilization of Russia and termination of diplomatic relations between Russia and the west.
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...
...o similar to Russia is Ukraine’s intellectuals are similar to Russian intelligentsia. If one recalls, in Chekhov’s play Trofimov talks that certain intellectuals speak only about science instead of figuring to use it to benefit the average Russian. Similarly reflected in The Cherry Orchard, “we can see that one of Ukraine's key problems is that the thinkers who dream of a brave new life--in their case, a destiny for their country as part of Europe--don't actually know how to make it happen” (De Waal). Like the thinkers who only spoke of science instead of applying it in 20th century Russia, similar thinkers in Ukraine today struggle to act on their dreams of creating a new Ukraine.
It is clear that Russia’s actions in Crimea strongly demonstrate the sharp limits of soft power, especially one which again shows the use of soft power when it clashes with hard power. Russia’s forceful military intervention into Ukraine was preceded by a tug of war of sorts between Moscow and the West over Ukraine’s integration with two competing soft-power vehicles—the EU and the Moscow-led Eurasian Union. In the end, Crimea was forcibly seized by men with guns, that is, through the use of hard power. Hence, the events in Ukraine have exposed the stark limits of soft power. In such cases, it has become evident overtime that soft power may be less an instrument to wield, and more of a favourable wind on a country’s side. Moreover, the Ukraine crisis has shown that Europe’s self-perception as a growing economic power that does not need hard power is badly flawed. The past months have seen a change in the Euro-Atlantic community’s relations with Russia- the introduction of economic and financial sanctions, visa bans on Russian companies, along with the arms embargo with the country, all show that soft power was not sufficient in dealing with
The conflict between the Russia and Ukraine has created a lot of damage. It has been developing day by day. The main reason of conflict is Ukraine’s political landscape and the rejection of single economic deal with European Union regarding an association agreement by Ukraine president. In the 18th century, Crimea was engaged into the Russian empire along with most of ethnic Ukrainian territory. Russians are fighting over Crimea which is the part of Ukraine. According to 2001, among 2 million populations there were 54 percent Russian, 24 percent Ukrainian, and 12 percent Tatars. This conflict started at the end of November 2013 and escalated in 2014 which resulted in the death of many people. Today, the conflict is still going on between those countries. I didn’t see the mistake of Ukraine government. The decision made by Russia is undesirable. Russia is just trying to capture the Ukraine’s land and increase their economic growth. Most of the countries (including USA) are giving full support to the Ukraine and have threatened the economic sanctions against Russia. This is the interesting part for me. I chose this conflict because I want to share this info...
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...
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.
Furthermore, the Ukraine and Russia have always shared a history; as both states are embodiments of the process of transformation, that have risen from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War. The Ukraine’s material legacy is demographically and territorially close to Russia, thereby, tying the Ukraine to Russia.