The Ukraine crisis has emerged from a domestic conflict and developed into an international issue because of the Russian federation intervention. The evolution of the Ukrainian crisis demonstrated the inability of the international community to handle it in a timely manner and prevent conflict escalation and ultimate stalemate. Although Ukrainian separatists seek to follow the Crimean strategy, many Western countries are strongly opposing to the Russian annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts due to concerns of aggressive geostrategic objectives. U.S. and the European Union are still struggling to implement coordination and cooperation tactics to deal with the conflict. In addition, Russia’s position also contributed to the complexity of the situation because of its hasty decisions as the conflict evolved. Crisis Background For the past two decades, Ukraine has seen the progress of its neighboring countries, members of the EU, which developed into vital, prosperous democracies. Since its independence in 1991, Ukraine like many other former Soviet Union countries, is struggling with corruption, poverty and an incompetent government. To address these issues, in 2004 Ukrainians rose up and broke out the Orange Revolution (Satell 2014). Things got worse in 2009 when President Viktor Yanukovych was elected. He was known for criminal behavior, corruption and ineptitude. The new government aggravated country’s debt, lawlessness and social uprisings. The Ukraine crisis erupted
In 2014, Russia captured the Crimea and Sevastopol, and unfurled tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine border. This is where the conflict flashed between pro-Russian separatists and the new government in Kiev. Russia's actions, including reported military aid for separatist troops, mark a serious major threat to generally accepted principles of world order, such as, sovereignty and
There has been tons of contentions and conflicts in the second largest country in europe and while the news presents us all these ideas about what going there, the truth, as it always is, is much more complex. The recent turmoil in the Ukraine has brought up a lot of issues remembered in the cold war. Russia Annexing the crimean peninsula from the Ukraine scaring western powers, specifically the United States, into the old policy of Soviet containment and using any means to put negatives towards the “eastern block” preventing the spread of its influence. Although the United States and it NATO/European Union current policy’s towards the eastern block have attempted to contain this strong autocratic style of
George Soros, the multi-billionaire hedge fund manager and founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundations, sees a way to solve the crisis in the Ukraine. Soros, who fled his native Hungary with his family in 1947 because of the Soviet aggression and communist takeover of his country, can relate to what is happening to the Ukrainian people in their resistance to the Russian aggression in their country. Soros makes a couple of proposals that he feels will benefit Ukraine in his that was featured in The New York Review of Books titled “Ukraine & Europe: What Should Be Done?” This article can be found at www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/10/08/ukraine-europe-what-should-be-done/.
The US’s global influence and power place a broad range of intervention tools at its disposal. Even though tensions between Russia and Ukraine are lower than they were a couple of years ago, the impact of the US is visible. First, in the form of economic and political sanctions against Russia (Daiss, 2016). These penalties have proved costly to Russia and in some way have deterred further Russian aggression.
The two countries, Russia and Ukraine, had different reactions towards the armed violence and impeachment of the Ukrainian president. Although the majority of the Ukrainians opposed Viktor’s decision to procrastinate the signing the EU-Ukraine integration agreement, all the ex-presidents accused for its interference with the affairs of Crimean. The former presidents of Ukraine, including Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma described the present crisis as Russia’s political interventions designed to interfere with the internal affairs of Ukraine and its relationship with the European Union (Hanschke 1). The people of Crimea have not been seeking for secession from Ukraine, but their interest is to have extended autonomy and rights to govern the Crimean affairs with minimum involvement of the government of Ukraine. Russia, on the other hand, have dismissed the accusation and stated that it is pursuing the interest of the people of Crimea to join the Federation of Russia. Russia holds that the people of Crimea have the power to decide the future of their territory and Russia will be ready to respect their decision. Study shows that about 90
For a state to survive, it must pursue power. From Putin’s point of view, NATO’s expansion lessened Russia’s ability to influence its neighbors in terms of economic and foreign policy. For example, Putin offered to buy $15 billion dollars in Ukrainian government bonds in exchange for Ukraine buying gas from Russia instead of the European Union, a move that would keep Ukraine within its sphere of influence. When the protests erupted in Kiev after President Yanukovych accepted the deal and Ukraine became destabilized, Russia appeared to lose its ability to influence Eastern Europe’s largest state which was historically part of the Russia and still has a large Russian speaking population, Russia was perceived as to have lost the image of power
Background. Ukraine gained independence from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) August 24, 1991 (Mark, 2016). Slightly smaller in size than Texas, Ukraine is bordered by Poland, Romania, Moldova, the Russian Federation, and the Black Sea. With a population of 44.4 million people it is not a very diverse country with 77% identified as ethnic Ukrainians, 18% ethnic Russian, and 5% other (CIA, 2015). In the last 12 years a relatively young Ukrainian government has suffered from political turmoil and most recently violent instability.
The crisis in Ukraine and Crimea’s recent accession to Russia are events that clearly highlight the underlying sources of conflict in global politics. While Russia sees its actions in Crimea as a “reunification” and the respect for the right of self-determination, the West views it as a threat to European security and a violation of territorial integrity. Crimea has been a debatable topic from the time it came under the control of the Russian Empire in 1783 during the reign of Catherine the Great. The justification then was similar to the reasoning being used by Vladimir Putin today. Catherine declared that she was protecting ethnic Russians in the region from the Ottoman Empire, much as Putin is claiming to protect Russians from Ukrainian
While the Ukraine crisis possesses every characteristic of a Cold War, it is important to stress the fact that it is far from one. The Cold War was a period of global assertion between two almost equal powers – an Eastern blockade (led by Russia and her allies) and the western blockade (led by the United States and her allies). The rest of the world was divided along these two blockades based on individual countries’ inclinations. However, none of these events is true today with regard to the Ukraine crisis (Smale, 2015). While Russia and the United States may appear to have ideological differences over the plight of the Crimea, it is important to note that Russia seems to be all alone against the rest of the world in asserting for the annexation of the Crimea (Urban, 2014). Still, President Putin and Russia have been acting as if this were a true Cold War. Besides attacking Georgia, a former member of the Soviet Union, in 2006, Putin has also established a Eurasian trade union, ostensibly to rival the European Union. Consequently, the desire by the pro-West Ukrainian government to join the EU in 2008 sparked off the current crisis and amid all this chaos, Russia is seen to have escalated the conflict as a way of re-asserting its influence as a global power once more, as well as a legitimate competitor to the West. However, the present competition is nowhere near that of the former Soviet Union and the United States and her
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).
In early 2014, Russia made the decision to conduct an illegal military intervention into Ukraine. It all began when there was a dispute over whether Ukraine should accept financial help from Russia or Europe, which then ascended into the ousting of the Ukrainian president and then invasion of Ukraine. More specifically, Russia began to taking over the Ukraine territory of the Crimean Peninsula through illegal use of force (Global Security, 2016). During that time, the Russian government voted to place Crimean’s into the Russian Federation, which had been rapidly accepted by the President of Russia himself, Vladimir Putin. Most of the Crimean population is ethnic Russians, although there are also the pro-Ukraine Tatar minorities that make
Early last year, riots and protests broke out across Ukraine, calling for a complete government overhaul due to the rampant corruption and ineffectiveness of their politicians. To many citizens’ surprise, it was successful, and all corrupt politicians were either removed from office or arrested in
For example, nearly 80% of all gas exports from Russia to Europe cross Ukraine. On numerous occasions, Russia has shut off energy supplies to Europe, which often pass by way of Ukraine. For the EU, the conflict showed that Ukraine is perhaps more strate-gically located than was thought before. The EU is also interested in stabilising the wider region which is plagued by many problems: the breakaway republic of Transnistria, the tension between Georgia and Russia, but also more di-rectly relevant issues such as organised crime, illegal migration and the environment.
The political relations between Ukraine and Russia as the two independent subjects of international relations were established in 1991 after the eighth December of the same year signed the Belavezha agreement between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, which marked the end of the existence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as " subject of international law and geopolitical reality "and the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States. From that moment we can talk about the beginning of the existence of full political relations between Russia and Ukraine.
The breadbasket of Eastern Europe is having a problem with militants who have killed and have tortured hundreds of people in the name of freedom. The militants, Pro-Russian rebels native to Ukraine, believe that their actions against the government are just. Those who believe that the Pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels are fighting against a corrupt, ultranationalist government are right. The Ukrainian citizens need to understand, however, that the government of Ukraine is the lesser of two evils; the rebels have committed many more heinous crimes than the government has. The rebels are also against policies that can benefit all of Europe and Ukraine. Currently, the Ukrainian people seek to have a stable nation with a self-sufficient government