Ukraine

nation state

Ukraine  link Sourcewatch Wikiquote
File:Europe-Ukraine (orthographic projection; disputed territory).png
Location	Europe
Leader	Ukraine/President
Type	nation state
The largest country entirely within Europe, a former part of the USSR

Ukraine was formerly a part of the Soviet Union. It holds the worlds most significant deposits of black soil (chernozems) for farming, as well as other resources.

History

"The Ukraine is a historically new construction. Until the late 19th century, the Ukraine was merely a region, and 100% of its inhabitants, the Ukrainians, or Rusyns (Ruthenians) as they were called in areas under Austria at that time, considered that their language, or whatever regional dialect they spoke, was Russian (“Russka mova”), and they had zero political awareness or identity separate from Russia [...] The concept of a “Ukrainian language” and the associated identity was constructed in areas under Austrian rule (parts of Galicia and Volhynia), with Austrian support and state financing, immediately after the local iteration of the 1848 revolutions, as a way to quell pro-Russian irredentism among landowners and the Russian Orthodox church in the region. From here on, the Galician literary dialect was also set as the “one and only” Ukrainian language, similar to how the dialect of Florence became “standard Italian.”

Due to Russia’s backwardness, the Russian Empire was unable to standardize its linguistic landscape in the same manner as the Germans and French had largely done by prior to World War 1, or World War 2 at the latest. That process requires compulsory schooling and mass literacy, which Russia did not have until Soviet days. Hence, by the time of the Russian Revolution, the Galician Ukrainist movement had been able to gain some marginal but elite following throughout all territories that spoke Ukrainian dialects rather than “Great Russian.”

This was subsequently channeled, with the Russian collapse of 1917-1918, into the formation of the Ukrainian breakaway state. After this was put down by the Bolsheviks (first and foremost, Ukrainian urban Bolsheviks from Kharkov and what’s today called Donetsk), it again came to life under German rule with the Galician-based Banderist movement.

Most Ukrainians did not vote for independence from the USSR in 1991, but the republic was abandoned by Yeltsin, and thus, had independence thrust upon it. There was a general lack of enthusiasm for the state, a lack of understanding as to its purpose, especially as by this time, almost all Ukrainian citizens spoke Russian as their language of work, at least, and among well over half of the population, of the home as well. In short, there was a near-total ideological vacuum."

Recent history

Full article: 2014 Ukraine coup

The Ukraine has been the victim of several regime changes, including the 2004 Orange Revolution and the very significant 2014 Ukraine coup.

Following weeks of protests as part of the Euromaidan movement (2013–2014), pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and the leaders of the Ukrainian parliamentary opposition on 21 February 2014 signed a settlement agreement that called for an early election. The following day, Yanukovych fled from Kyiv ahead of an impeachment vote that stripped him of his powers as president. Leaders of the Russian-speaking eastern regions of Ukraine declared continuing loyalty to Yanukovych, causing the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine. The unrest was followed by the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014 and the War in Donbass, which started in April 2014 with the creation of the Russia-backed quasi-states of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. An American advisor to the Ukrainian military remarked that: "Since the latter end of 2018, [...] the West seems to be paying more attention to the Ukrainian conflict."

Since 2022

File:Sergey Korotkikh-Petro Poroshenko-Ukrainian citizenship.jpg

Sergey Korotkikh was the first foreign fighter to receive Ukrainian citizenship for services rendered fighting with the Azov batallion; with which he was "from the very beginning". Here pictured with Petro Poroshenko during the ceremony. Korotkikh stands accused to have been participated in the killing and beheading of migrant workers in Russia in 2007.

Full article: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

File:Ukraine Separatists.jpg

Early in 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy received visits from world leaders Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Boris Johnson in an effort to prevent what NATO described as an imminent invasion by Russian troops massed on the border with Ukraine.

However, on 18 February 2022, Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) head Denis Pushilin and head of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), Leonid Pasechnik, told civilians in the two separatist states in Ukraine's Donbass Region to evacuate to Russia to avoid getting caught in the crossfire in case of an attack by Ukrainian government forces. Pushilin said Russian officials in the neighbouring Rostov Region expected an inflow of 700,000 evacuees. He urged people “to heed to the warning and take the right decision,” saying that the relocation would be temporary and would save lives.

War crimes

The Azov Battalion («Азов») is a right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi unit of the National Guard of Ukraine, based in Mariupol, in the Azov Sea coastal region. Local resident, reporter and former US Navy employee Patrick Lancaster has interviewed dozens of Ukrainian civilians accusing them of war crimes starting in 2014 until today, in particular in the Donbass region of Ukraine. A significant piece of the battalion was killed or captured in the siege of Mariupol in 2022.

Azov was reported by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to commit mass looting, unlawful detention, and torture in 2016. Several other reports tell stories of Azov soldiers raping men, waterboarding another, electrocuting another and raping women and girls, with several men being placed in psychiatric hospitals.

Patrick Lancaster remained as one of the only non Ukrainians still reporting from the war zones where Azov was active in 2022, continuing work from the 2014 Ukraine coup/Civil war. In particular, the bombing and killing of civilians by Azov inside the Donbass appeared to continue as Lancaster's videos have shown, although very unreported in western media.

Corruption

Gallup reported in 2019 that "Just 9% of Ukrainian residents have confidence in the national government, the lowest confidence level in the world for the second straight year".

Sex trafficking

Watch on YouTube

Human traffickers exploit desperation of Ukrainian refugees and their children - PBS Newshour - November 2022.

Refugee waves caused by the Russian invasion caused 8 million Ukrainians to flee, putting a strain on Ukraine's ability to get enough manpower. Several media outlets began to report human trafficking networks where girls and boys that fled were either kidnapped or bought to Mexico, Turkey or the UAE. Demand for Ukrainian women was reported by European Commissioner Ylva Johansson to be sky-high in 2022. According to the US government, several Ukrainian officials were abducting and selling children from Ukrainian orphanages, from a pool of at least 104000 children.

Military

Arms Production

Ukraine was the #9 nation worldwide as regards arms exports from 2012-2016.

Nuclear weapons

Full article: Ukraine/Nuclear weapons

Ukraine destroyed the nuclear weapons in it's arsenal following the Budapest Memorandum in 1994. The decision was called a historic mistake by some and there were clear statements to the effect more recently, that nuclear rearmament was thought of as a possible option.

NATO

The country is aspiring to become NATO member. At the beginning of 2015 the Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey said the Ukrainian armed forces were being funded, trained and equipped for eventual NATO membership. The process, NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), was first attempted 2008 and strongly pushed for by the Bush administration, which continued in the process for "distinctive partnership" in 2012, for which the integration of Ukraine's Special Forces into the NATO structure, NATO Response Force (NRF), is a stepping stone, which started 1 January 2014.

By 2017 the DRIVE remarked how Ukrainian special operations forces show a steady increase in Western influence through gear and weapons they carry. In June 2019 units from Ukraine reached the certification status and became qualified to be deployed and operate under the umbrella of NATO’s Response Force.

COVID

Full article: Covid-19

In 2021, Ukraine received 54,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine as "humanitarian" aid from the Government of Lithuania. The country plans to later provide Ukraine with another 77,000 doses of this vaccine.

Anti-vaxxers are allegedly paving the way for Russian invasion.

Media

In January 2025, Oksana Romaniuk, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Mass Information (IMI) said that nearly 90% of Ukrainian media survived thanks to grants. According to her information, 80%, and perhaps more, of Ukrainian media worked with USAID. For some, these grants amounted to 100% of their income and they could only survive thanks to grants. She added that the grants were not only from the USA, but also from the EU and the UN.