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ukraine and russian conflict
ukraine revolution causes and outcomes
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Ukraine: A War Between a Liberal and Illiberal Democracy
The current crisis in Ukraine can simply be coined as a war between the citizens wanting their country to be a liberal or an illiberal democracy. The Eastern Ukrainians, who have substantial amounts of influence from Russia, wish to support Russia and it’s illiberal democracy, it’s competitive authoritarian regime. The Western Ukrainians wish to join the European Union and their liberal democracies based on the foundation that the rights of the people will be preserved and that the citizens has influence in the government. The Western Ukrainians understand what it means to be part of Russia, history stemming back all the way to 1600s, and understand that it comes at the cost of Ukraine losing its identity. To understand the mindset of Western Ukrainians, one must first understand the history.
In 1654, Ukraine was at war with Poland, Russia, and Tatar (what is known today as Turkey). The leader at the time, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, signed the Treaty of Pereyaslav with Russia, signed the treaty with only good intentions, to gain the support of a strong ally, however, his intentions were not met. The Russian leaders at the time had a very different idea of the meaning of the treaty, which led to the beginnings of Russian control of Ukraine (Raikhel, “They Did Something They Did Not Desire). In 1876, Tsar Alexander II of Russia banned the printing of Ukrainian language, as well as Ukrainian language stage performances, and only allowed printing in Russian, as well as Russian only stage performances (“Ems Ukaz”). In 1888, Alexander III banned the use of Ukrainian language in government institutions as well as baptizing children with Ukrainian names. These blatant acts were attempt...
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...ent out of the country during his rule. (Zinets and Heritage, “Ukraine PM Says $37 Billion Went Missing Under Yanukovich”). Yanukovich’s $75 million home, the missing $37 billion, and the way Russia has been lying about and slandering the protestors has convinced the former pro-Russian Eastern Ukraine that joining the European Union is the best possible decision.
The people of Ukraine see how the Russian media is controlled, how the Russian competitive authoritarian regime works, and they wish to have no part of it. The people in Ukraine want a fair and just government, they want to join the European Union where the rights of the citizens are preserved, where the President doesn’t control the entire country and the citizens have a voice, where the media and people have freedom of speech, and to finally become completely independent from Russia and its influence.
...h case the government will be more inclined to respond to it because of this (Robinson 1-2). With Crimea now part of Russia, perhaps the people of Ukraine can have some self-determined actions.
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 ...
Wikipedia contributors. "Donetsk People's Republic." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 11 May. 2014. Web. 11 May. 2014.
With the fall of the pro-Russian government Russia had lost basically a very important ally to the European Union and NATO. President Vladimir Putin took a great risk and invaded Crimea that resulted in strong reactions from the West. Even Russia’s closest allies supported the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
has been aiming to demolish the Ukrainian nation and devour the country to rebuild the USSR
...cism of the Russian government, though a lot of the Russian political dissent is silenced. Despite this, the citizen’s dissatisfaction with the government has grown and has culminated into a series of protests in the past few years, which includes a reaction to rigged elections and to Putin’s policies in the Ukraine.
During the 1800s, Ukraine was under the powerful rule of Russian tsars who dictated over the entire Russian empire. The Ukrainians were used to being held under a heavy hand though, and at this point in time, groups of men call Cossacks were gathering in numbers to fight against the outside authority over their homeland and to once and for all bring freedom to Ukraine. Nostalgia of the original Cossacks and “national revival among the Ukrainians since around 1840” became fused with “ideas of Enlightenment in the works of people like Taras Shevchenko (1814-61) and Myhailo Drahomanov (1841-95) among others” (Pavlychko Page 6).
Why though? Russia and Ukraine had always disliked each other, says “The New American”. And at some point the Soviets forced the Ukranians to become a country with them, but after a while Ukraine had enough. But Stalin did not want a revolt against him, so he started a famine against Ukraine so they could not revolt against him, explains “The Ukrainian Genocide”.
Shortly after the decline of the agreement, Yanukovych accepted a “new deal from Russia in the form of $15 billion in aid and other economic benefits (Curran). This led to a massive protest in the once beautiful city of Kiev, which is now a battlefield of government officials versus citizens who disagree with the president's decision to side with Russia, a country who has a vivid histor...
Although everything seemed to be all right, they did dispute some matters, they originally only wanted to have one military between all republics but it was changed and each had its own, Russia and Ukraine argued over who owned the Black Sea Fleet, another problem was that most of the members wanted to change the currency from the Ruble so each had to create its own.
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...
In 1917, Czar Nicholas II abdicated the throne and was replaced by a provisional government. Ukraine decided to take advantage of the new government's weakness by demanding its freedom, and temporarily obtained it.
NATO's presence in the Europe has been touted as a measure to counter Soviet Union and later Russia. Russia is surrounded by multiple military bases in eastern European sector. Ukraine was the primary forward base for Soviet union during the cold war. So a hostile governent in one of it's forwards bases poses a subtle strategic threat for Russia. In order to counterweight the regime backed by west Russia may support the favourable group.
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 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).