Learning about Ukraine’s Recent Historical Context – Part III
When Putin made the decision to annex Crimea by making it a part of the Russian Federation and to support the pro-Russian forces in Donbas as well as other parts of Ukraine, the lack of response from western democracies made it clear to the Ukrainians that they had to do more to defend themselves. Civil society in Ukraine experienced a huge burst of energy when thousands of Ukrainians, many of whom participated in the Maidan protests in 2004 and then again in 2014, joined the Ukrainian army and various volunteer groups and joined the fight against the separatists in the East who were allied to Russia. Ukrainian citizens took action because they realized their government was not making a strong enough effort to handle these challenges. The desire for independence had grown, and by mid-2014, 90% of the people shared this conviction.
On July 17, 2014, a Malaysian Airlines flight with 298 people on board was hit by a missile and all its passengers and crew were killed. Since many of the passengers were from Asia and Europe, this murdering of innocent people by Russian-supported soldiers was viewed as a global act of terrorism. Western leaders immediately began to support Ukraine and sanction Russian government officials and related businesses.
The battle between Russian forces, supported by their separatist allies in Donbas, and Ukrainian forces grew with intensity in 2014. Two cease fire negotiations were held, with German and French participation, in September 2014 and February 2015. The documents, known as Minsk I and Minsk II (where the talks took place), did little to resolve the conflict. Ukraine refused to accept any loss of territory or end its efforts to integrate with the West, and Putin’s national security team showed no signs of ending their intervention in Ukraine, especially in Donbas and southern regions on the Black Sea and Sea of Azov coasts.
The startling resistance of the Ukrainians and the growing support from their European neighbors set the stage for the signing of an association agreement with the European Union which, among other things, created a free trade zone that changed Ukraine’s political and economic relationships. Between 2013 and 2018, Ukraine’s exports to Russia were significantly reduced and trade with European countries almost doubled. Visa-free travel to the EU also resulted in millions of Ukrainians traveling to Europe.
Ukrainians were determined to reform their government by decentralizing political governance and making it less authoritarian, redistributing financial decision-making, and empowering local authorities to engage more citizens in the country’s national life – significant changes from when they were a part of the Soviet Union. The importance of Ukraine’s national culture was also increasingly recognized; ironically, Putin’s derogatory comments about the country’s history and traditions turned him into a significant motivator for this cultural emphasis. Down came 1,300 Lenin monuments and up went the drive to build a Ukrainian fighting force, one much less dependent on outside assistance. In 2016, 63,500 officers and soldiers joined the country’s armed forces, which grew from 140,000 to 250,000 men and women (unlike Russia’s men-only military).
The two revolutions in 2004 and 2014 convinced western democracies that the Ukrainians needed their partnership, and that Russia’s brutal aggression and egregious violation of international law and Europe’s security system had to be stopped. U.S. and NATO countries offered security assistance between 2014 and 2018, and American and Canadian officers began to train Ukrainian officers. Close relationships were formed that bore significant results after February 2022.
In the presidential election in the spring of 2019, Ukraine was struggling to defend itself from Russian attacks while trying to reform its political system. With a quarter of the population living at or below the subsistence level, and corruption scandals plaguing Ukraine’s leadership, the population protested by electing a political outsider who was a comedian and businessman with a law degree. At the age of 41, Volodymyr Zelensky became the youngest president in the country’s history and its first Jewish president.
Zelensky was a superb communicator, and he spoke from the heart. He connected to the average citizen, and he told the truth – beginning with the start of the war. Even the presidential dress code changed: gone was the coat and tie, replaced by the dark green T-shirt and zip-up fleece jacket of a Ukrainian volunteer. It was a powerful message from the president to his people: I am an ordinary citizen, an anti-tsar. The contrast with Putin could not be greater and Zelensky’s message was clear: We will win this war.
In the months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Zelensky became the most popular political leader in the modern world. Putin had no idea what an incredible challenge he faced in Zelensky – to think the Ukrainians would welcome Russian troops into their country proves how disillusioned Putin and his national security council were. A British columnist, Jonathan Freedland, described Zelensky as “Winston Churchill with an iPhone.” Putin was no match for Ukraine’s president!
For further reading:
Luke Harding, Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival (New York: Vintage Books, 2022)
Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (Revised Edition, New York: Basic Books, 2021).