Ukraine : The Longest Period Of Ukrainian Independence

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

Ukraine is granted a market economy status by the EU and USA. The sharp economic decline in the 90s resulted in deteriorating living standards for most citizens and widespread poverty. However, during the 21st century, there has been some positive economic growth in Ukraine, as well as Eastern Europe as a whole. Ukraine’s currency, the Hryvnia, was introduced in September 1996 and has remained relatively stable. The unstable political situation in Ukraine hardly influences its economic development. GDP has been growing steadily since 2005 at an average growth rate of 7% and industrial production has been expanding by 12%. The Ukrainian economy was hit by the harsh effects of the global financial crisis but managed to attain a 4.2%

Russia has built a strong, but stagnating economy on several natural resources to include the refinery and export of natural gas and oil. According to the Jim Picht (2014) exportation of natural gas and oil to Eastern Europe account for 70 percent of Russia’s exports and 53 percent of the government’s revenue. Along with exporting oil to Eastern Europe, Russia also exports too many countries to include China and Belarus. Europe fueled majority by Russian supplied natural gas and oil, the dependency of Europe’s need for this natural resource is the reason Russia’s economy is so strong. In 2014, when Russia decided to invade the neighboring country of Ukraine has led Europe to begin searching for other suppliers of their natural resources. If Europe finds other countries to supply the natural resources

Unfortunately, these were not Yuschenko’s only setbacks. Economic issues, such as rising debt, hurt the Ukraine, and Russia became angry as Ukraine strengthened its relationship with the European Union. In apparent retaliation (though Russia claims this incident to be economically rather than politically motivated), Russia cut off its supply of natural gas in 2006 for a brief period of time because of Ukraine’s “use of row over prices” (bbc). In the same year, changes in the constitution were made, taking some powers from the president and instead giving them to the parliament.

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

The elites did not want the Chernobyl explosion to be acknowledged (for fear their great nation would appear weak to the West, something that is still a part of the Russian identity). This allowed the Ukrainian identity to foster more of a nationalist identity, instead of being “Soviets” they were Ukrainians - a people all their own, separate from Big Brother Russia. The Soviet Union did not care for the Ukrainian people as it should have, and because of this their post-Soviet identity is built on independence and distaste for the Russification they were forced to endure. Even in the 80’s Ukrainians were still learning Russian as their primary language, so when the opportunity came they pursued their own national identity and found a pride in being

The reason why the crisis started, however, was how the Ukraine economy was set up in the first place. Their economy was heavily tied with their politics. Focusing on more so what happened in the country rather than why it happened leads us to see that Russia recently cut off the gas line between the two countries. (BBC, 2014) This was an important resource, not only for the Ukrainian people, but also for many Ukrainian businesses. Ukraine’s economy relies heavily on “Shipbuilding, steel and arms. However, because many industries are so energy-inefficient, they are highly dependent on imports of Russian gas, which have been heavily subsidized.” (BBC, 2014) When Russia cut off the gas line, Ukrainian businesses were hurt and forced to cut costs in order to make a profit. Many of their businesses ended up firing workers so their businesses were able move back to their individual equilibrium. Because this happened, Ukraine’s unemployment rate increased dramatically along with a decrease in real wages for employees. (BBC, 2014) “Traditionally, Ukraine has had a close economic relationship with Russia, with the two former Soviet republics having a

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.

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

According to Doran, the Kremlin’s motive is clearly to end the role that Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Moldova, currently plays in the transit of gas to the EU through the Brotherhood and the Trans-Balkan pipelines. The success of Nord Stream 2 could potentially result in the loss of billions of dollars in transit revenues for Ukraine and Moldova, as well as diminishing their geopolitical importance for Europe, while subsequently enabling Russia to reassert its old influence over them by exploiting their diminished energy security.

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 late 2013, an A.T.M. in Kiev started dispensing cash at seemingly random times of day. No one had put in a card or touched a button. Cameras showed that the piles of money had been swept up by customers who appeared lucky to be there at the right moment. When a Russian cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky Lab, was called to Ukraine to investigate, it discovered that the errant machine was the least of the bank’s problems.

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 International Monetary Fund or IMF’s primary mission is “to ensure the stability of the international monetary system” (www.imf.org). With 189 members within the IMF, countries worldwide strive to ensure financial stability and monetary cooperation is maintained. Recently, due to civil war, political unrest, and government corruption, Ukraine has struggled to maintain economic stability. As result, the IMF has provided much needed assistance to Ukraine to help the country regain stability. By understanding Ukraine’s political instability, analyzing the IMF’s recommended policies for stabilization, and identifying key actions needed to prevent future currency crisis, Ukraine’s economic tailspin can be diverted with the IMF’s