Ukraine In Crisis

While chaos continued to spread across the country, Russia began to eye the territory of Crimea, one if Ukraine’s most southwestern territories and an area that used to belong to Russia until it was transferred to Ukraine in 1954. By the end of February, masked Russian troops without insignias took over the Supreme Council of Crimea and several strategic sites across Crimea. This event led to the installation of the pro-Russian Aksyonov government in Crimea and the declaration of Crimea 's independence. This spurred the Ukraine’s provisional government to request an emergency meeting with the U.N. Security Council in which they called on Russia to stop all military action in Crimea. By Mach 1st, Russia’s parliament approves President Putin 's request to use force

In the past several years, there have been many occurrences of conflict between different nations, about their nationality and being stripped of their own birth place. The United States has a tendency to associate themselves in the center of these foreign affairs. The United States, in order to maintain good economic relations and their super power status, feels the need to always get involved and provide support for the country they believe is receiving unjust treatment. Recently, Vladmir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, took over the formerly Russian region of Crimea. The Crimean people voted in a referendum to separate from Ukraine and for Russia to annex

Since then, the peninsula has been administered as two Russian federal subjects- the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol, which, until 2016, were grouped in the Crimean Federal District. The annexation was brought by a military intervention by Russia in Crimea, which took place in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and was part of wider unrest across southern and eastern Ukraine. On February 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin conducted an all-night meeting with security services chiefs to discuss elimination of the Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, and at the end of that meeting Putin had stated that, "We must start working on returning Crimea to Russia." On February 23, 2014, pro-Russian acts were held in the Crimean city of Sevastopol. On February 27 masked Russian troops without markings took over the Supreme Council of Crimea, and captured strategic sites across Crimea, which led to the installation of the pro-Russian Aksyonov government in Crimea, and making the Crimean status and the declaration of Crimea's independence on March 16, 2014. Then, only two days later, Russia claimed

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

Despite the annexation by Moscow, Crimea (linked to Russia by only an over-burdened ferry link) is reliant on Ukraine for most of its energy and food supplies. The region has been subjected to tough sanctions by the West that have seen it cut off from international banking systems and Western firms pull

On November of 2013 the citizens of Ukraine took to Kiev’s streets. Mass protests broke out in dispute of the governments plan to drop agreements with the European Union and instead seek closer economic ties with Russia. Since the protests broke out Ukraine has seen an ongoing conflict in the east of the country. In order to illustrate a clearer understanding of the current situation in Ukrainian I will first discuss a brief history of Ukraine and its relationship with Russian since the fall of the Soviet Union.

In March, Russia annexed Crimea by a referendum with an unrealistic 97% in favor, claiming that they were protecting ethnic Russians. This Russian move was criticized by the international community since Russia was violating its promise. In foreign policy, countries priorities are in order from security, economy, autonomy, environment, identity and then prestige. Russia knew by annexing Crimea, it would ensure the safety of Crimea’s ethnic Russians. However, Russia needs Crimea for potential long term economic gains and better security in the Black Sea. Russia is also being suspected of supplying weapons to separatist held territories through dubious aid trucks. Again, Russia is supplying so called aid in the name of protecting ethnic Russians, though it is clear he has other economic and security reasons in

    I am aware that on February 27, armed men from Russia seized your government buildings and Russian military men put Russian flags everywhere on barricades while disrupting innocent people’s homes. Crimeans protested these acts and shouted, “Ukraine is not Russia”, even though you are no longer part of Ukraine. Russia is trying to take over Ukraine by gaining

In 1944, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR, invaded the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine. Almost instantly, nearly all of the local the Crimean Tatars, Muslim Turkic people, were brutally murdered by the Red Army. Those who were not killed, were rounded up and deported to the brutal conditions of the Siberian forest. Over 40 percent of the Turkic people died enroute. Fast forward to modern day, Reshat Ametov, a Crimean Tatar, from the Simferopol region of Crimea, disappeared in March of 2014. Ametov was last seen during a protest in the center of Simferopol, where three unidentified men, presumably Russian forces, in military-style clothing, led him away. Ametov is one of the many examples of how Crimean citizens have been forced to endure unjust hardships from Kremlin takeover of Crimea. The Kremlin has violently attacked a sovereign nation and continuously violated basic human rights. However, as Russia continuous to viciously violate nearly every human right, the rest of the world just sits as watches. Better yet, most people do not even know that Russia is murdering innocent Crimeans. Though the US has introduced a few sanctions, political and economic tools that work to force

Since establishing independence from the Soviet Union, Ukraine has experienced its most prolonged and deadly crisis which has deconstructed government plans to create closer economic and trade ties with the European Union while also enticing a global impasse between Russia and the Western powers. The roots of the crisis stem from decades of inefficient and corrupt governance, an unbalanced economic system dominated by oligarchs, heavy reliance on Russia, and socioreligious differences between the Eastern and Western parts of Ukraine. Following the coup d’etat of President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, Russian operations to begin the take over of the Crimean Peninsula implied Russian intentions to expand its sphere of influence while

While the Crimean question remained subdued for a long time, in September 2008 it was brought back into the forefront of global politics when the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko accused Russia of giving out Russian passports to the population in the Crimea and described it as a "real problem" given Russia's declared policy of military intervention abroad to protect Russian citizens.

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).

Historically speaking, the 2013 EU talks echoed a pattern of recent Western encroachment threatening Russia 's security in Eastern Europe. In the early 2000s, NATO’s expansion to include Poland and The Baltic states made Russia uncomfortable, and in 2008 an attempt at Georgian membership ended with a regional war (Trenin, 2014). The most recent clash began in November when former President Yanukovych 's government was scheduled to sign an association agreement with the EU (BBC, 2014). Largely supported by young voters, primarily in Western Ukraine, the agreement would have pushed Ukraine away from the Russian-dominated Eurasian Economic Union (Trenin, 2014).

The conflict stems from the result of the Government’s decision to turn down the European Union proposed “association agreement” in 2013 and instead Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych accepted fifteen billion dollars in aid and other economic benefits from Russian President Vladimir Putin. For years Ukrainians have yearned for economic reform that would seek to open new trade and economic ties with Western European countries. President Yanukovych’s decision to reject the EU’s proposal ignored the feeling of the majority of Ukrainian citizens and further solidified the sentiment that their government was strengthening ties with Russia and not with the west.

In 1921, the Russian Red Army conquered the majority of the Ukraine, while the rest became part of Poland. For years, Russia was in control and caused many problems, including the deportation of thousands of Crimeans suspected of being involved with the Nazi party. In 1945, after having been victorious in World War II, the Soviet Union annexed the rest of the Ukraine, formerly occupied by Poland. In 1954, the Soviet government gave the Crimean peninsula to the Ukraine as a gesture, while still in control of the entire area (Mehrish 2014: 1). Following the post World War II period, there was a growing Ukrainian desire to break away from Russia. Finally, in 1991, the Ukraine declared it’s own independence, following the collapse of the Soviet Union (“Ukraine Profile”). Since then, the Ukraine has been an independent state with historical ties to Russia, but a growing desire to be more closely linked to the European Union. It is clear that the relationship between Russia and the Ukraine is both complicated and tense, as Russia feels, in a sense, robbed of a land that is rightfully theirs. On the other hand, the Ukraine declared its independence and some think that Russia has been encroaching on the sovereignty of this nation (Stanglin).