Greater Slavia and The West’s war on Russia- part 2

Ukraine- A Historical Analysis

Poland and Ukraine have always had this bizarre alliance of convenience that in most cases consisted from Ukrainian Cossacks invading Poland and Poland trying to use Ukraine to take revenge on Russia.

Since about 1990 however, something intriguing has been happening to Ukraine.

Namely, they had a bizarre rise in nationalism and anti Russian sentiment. So far nothing new, you see it pretty much everywhere in the ex soviet countries.
However, Ukraine is different.

First and foremost, in its current form, Ukraine is a historical abomination. It’s comprised from lands that were traditionally Ukrainian, basically the middle part, a VERY large Russian minority on traditionally Russian lands and a bunch of western areas that it holds illegally.

Illegally? What’s that about?

Well, for that we need to go back in time. To 1940, when Hitler and Stalin decided that the best possible way to deal with the upcoming war was to make an alliance against their common enemies and, well, screw the small and powerless countries in between.  This act was the Ribbentropp Molotov Pakt.

One of the countries in between was Romania, who found itself torn apart at the Vienna Diktat meeting, where the east of the country, which is now the Republic of Moldova and Bukovina, the area north of that, were basically given to the Soviets.

Romania also lost its north eastern part to Hungary and its south eastern part- the Cadrilater- to Bulgaria, both at the time Nazi allies.

Which incidentally so was Romania, if by alliance you mean “de facto occupation and destruction”.

The part of Moldova between the rivers Prut and Dniester became the Soviet Republic of Moldova, today the Republic of Moldova.  Except for the area just north of the mouth of the Danube, which was taken from Moldova and made part of Ukraine’s Odessa Oblast to give a “safe” soviet republic like Ukraine access and partial control over the very important naval route into Central Europe that is the river Danube.

Bukovina, an area with a Romanian majority, was incorporated into Ukraine as well.  Part of the Polish region of Volhynia and Pokuttya were also given to the Soviets by Hitler

After WW2 as the Soviets were strengthening their grip on Eastern Europe, several other regions were incorporated into Ukraine. Transcarpathia was taken from the Czech republic and given to Ukraine.  Snakes’ Island in the Black Sea, a Romanian holding, was given to Ukraine with a signature of some bureaucrat.

To the East, many traditionally Russian territories were made part of the Soviet Republic of Ukraine for ease of administration.
This meant absolutely nothing since the Soviet Ukraine was just a part of the USSR.  It was a purely bureaucratic reorganization, which also including making the very strategic Crimea peninsula part of Ukraine as well for administrative reasons.
After 1990 and the fall of the Soviets, Ukraine found itself not just having a hell of a lot of land of people than it should, people who really did not in any way shape or form even WANT to be part of Ukraine, but also in possession of a sizable part of the Soviet’s nuclear arsenal.  This have Ukraine, a country that was literally born in the 90s ( will get back to this later) a very serious bargaining chip at the international table.

Ukraine eventually agreed to  give up said arsenal in exchange for international guarantees for its territorial integrity. This was the Budapest memorandum in 1994. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan received security assurances in return for them giving up their arsenal of Soviet nukes.

DO you notice something funny here? Nobody even asked the various minorities of Ukraine as to whether or not they wanted to be part of it.

After the Ukrainian independence, Crimea  decided in 1992 that it would rather be independent from Ukraine. There was a vote in the Crimean Parliament on 5 may 1992 for independence and they declared that there would be a referendum to see what the Crimean people wanted.
 However when the Crimean Parliament discussed the issues, something funny happened:  in the motion they had voted on that there would be a referendum in Crimea? A phrase that the Crimean Parliament didn’t agree on appeared, saying that Crimea would remain part of Ukraine.
magical.

That referendum never happened. However after the Budapest memorandum, Ukraine unilaterally removed the president of autonomous Crimea and changed the Crimean constitution. Crimea was granted pretty large powers of autonomous home rule by the Ukrainian Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.

In the 20 years since, Crimea has enjoyed autonomy under the guarantee of the Russian troops presence, which worked for them since the majority of Crimeans are Russian ethnics.

But why were there Russian troops in Crimea? Because Russia had a military understanding with Ukraine that let them use the fortress-harbour of Sevastopol for their Black Sea military fleet.

The eastern and southern part of Ukraine as it stands today,  are part of something known as Novorussia- new Russia. These lands are basically historical Russian lands, with a majority Russian ethnic population. Odessa is a historically Russian city at the Black Sea. The Eastern part of Ukraine, the areas in the basin of River Donetsk are traditionally Russian especially in the heavy industrialised centres like Harkov, renamed Kharkiv by the Ukrainians who are incredibly eager to prove they aren’t Russian.

Russian is the lingua franca in that area and in the South, areas who incidentally are also the richest and most industrialised in Ukraine before the 2014 Coup.  There are about 30% Russian ethnics in Ukraine, and most of the presidents who won fair elections in Ukraine since 1991 are the ones who are supported by this very large Russian minority.

After the Ukrainian independence, Russia and Ukraine maintained very close political and economical links.  Most of Ukraine’s industrial output is bought by Russia, many Ukrainians work in Russia and even the Ukrainian language is basically Russian with a funny accent because Ukrainians are a branch of the Russians. Ukraine was where the Russian Empire first started, its first capital being today’s Kiev, 1200 or so years ago. It was even called the Kievan Rus.