The history of Ukraine is more than complex and deserves some attention to better understand the situation and the issues today.
It is not a question of being in a partisan logic, but rather of being aware of the cultural, ethnic, and political evolution of this region, so that tomorrow peace could prevail.
From the 14th century, Ukraine was already the object of all desires.
Its geographical location is one of the main reasons. Ukraine was the link between a central Europe marked by the seal of orthodoxy, “The Lithuanian, Polish Commonwealth” and an Ottoman Empire which wanted to control the Black Sea, from North to South.
It was only at the end of the 17th century, after the revolution of the Cossacks, that Poland agreed to sell for 146,000 rubles “The Right Bank Ukraine”.
The 18th century witnessed the Swedish capitulation, which could not extend its territory to the shores of the Black Sea, the partition of Poland thus designated the Russian Empire and the Habsburgs, as undisputed masters of this region for more than a century.
It is then that nationalism was born in the shadow of its two empires. The Russian Revolution in 1917 put an end to this configuration, and the Habsburgs disappeared from the landscape after World War I.
During World War II, the Soviet Union and Germany clashed. A major curve that had put the USSR back in the first row.
The Ukrainian Insurgent Army fought both Germany and the Soviet Union, while Nazi Germany benefited from the support of a part of the population who wished to contribute to the expansion of the Holocaust on its territory.
It is somewhat ironic that the February 11, 1945 meeting between Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill took place in Yalta, in Crimea. That day the victors of World War II decided the fate of Europe and divided it methodically without scruples.
The transfer of the Crimean Oblast from the RSFSR to the RSSU in 1954 took place under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. The content transferring the sovereignty of the Crimean Oblast from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) is thus intended to be fair, but will quickly be a source of discussion and misunderstandings that two republics no longer being of the same family will quarrel.
In 1991, Crimea obtained the status of an autonomous republic. In March 2014, the Crimean Parliament organized a referendum under the supervision of Russia. The Kremlin didn’t recognize the Kyiv government, which didn’t validate the referendum. A vote which paradoxically proclaimed the integration of Crimea into the Russian Federation. A legal and geopolitical imbroglio emerged, although the international community did not recognize the process. For Vladimir Putin, Zelenskyy’s intention to appropriate Crimea and the military base of Sevastopol, Russia’s third largest city, is unacceptable. The Kremlin remains on these positions and will thus keep this coveted access to the Black Sea.
The gift made to Ukraine by Khrushchev would be justified among other things by his attachment to this province. Moreover, in 1954 no one imagined that in 1991 this decision would be the starting point of a fratricidal war when we know that there are three Russian inhabitants for every Ukrainian in the east of the country.
A more than ambiguous situation that the pro-Europeans and the US will not have failed to exploit for other purposes and will have led today to a conflict ready to ignite Europe.
On August 13, 1961, the Berlin Wall was built. The Cold War had only just begun. It took almost thirty years for the West and the East to come together. An airlift was organized, and JFK went to Berlin on June 26, 1963, to make a late but historic speech punctuated by solidaire: “Ich Bin Ein Berliner”.
In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and Russia was bloodless. A serious historical curve.
On September 2, 1991, George Bush Sr., despite promises of non-interference, took advantage of Russia, which was biting the dust, to demand the independence of the Baltic countries: Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. An excess of gluttony that Putin will not digest and will become the breeding ground for a fierce desire to revive Russian imperialism from its ashes.
Ukraine, then pushed by the West, asked for it in turn, which got the effect of plunging it into recession for eight long years.
In the Summer of 1999, NATO gave the green light to US forces to bomb Serbia, which was not part of this organization, this in order to free it from the Serbian yoke. The name of the operation given to this attack was “Operation Allied Force”. Isn’t it legitimate to ask the question: why is it that this time in Ukraine the West would be so hesitant when the situation is identical? According to the Alliance, this country is attacked by Russia and is still not part of NATO. So, what are they waiting for? Could it be because this time it would have to face Russia, which was not yet the case at the end of the 90s?
On November 21, 2013, Ukrainian President Yanukovych refused to sign “The European Union-Ukraine Association Agreement” in favor of a deal with Russia, which led to the departure of the President, following clashes that killed 80 people, which became known as “The Revolution of Dignity”.
The majority Russophile presence gave victory to the referendum for a Russian Crimea and thereby guaranteed control of the wealth of this highly strategic region.
Thus was born in 2014, the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and the Donbass War.
The election of Zelenskyy in 2019 is a game-changer and will open a path leading to tensions whose importance can be measured today.
The clash in the Donbass broke out and pushed the Kremlin to intervene on February 24, 2022, to protect its Russian-speaking population from the offensive of pro-Ukrainians.
For Putin, it is obvious that the West seeks to dismantle Russia. The Baltic countries were the last provinces to pass to the West.
Since his election in 2000, Putin had every intention of stopping the bleeding and facing a new force, the WEF, which to impose a New World Order must conquer Russia.
Ukraine, therefore, became the Trojan horse of the West and a trap, according to NATO, which should have closed in on Russia, one of the essential partners of BRICS.
The crisis and all the evils from which Europe suffers were then attributed to the Kremlin, such as rising electricity and gas bills, as well as grain shortages. Russia became the black sheep, and Putin was the man to be slaughtered. A media war got launched and the Alliance supplied arms to the Ukrainians to win a war which could only be a success if, and only if, NATO would fully commit itself to it.
The economic agreements between Russia and China had a completely opposite effect on the plans made by the West.
The arrest warrant issued by the ICC against Putin and the economic sanctions did not affect Russia in any way.
On the contrary, there are now nearly 40 countries wishing to join BRICS, including the geopolitical and strategic Turkey.
The brief incursions of the US after 1989 did not have the expected effects. History shows that Russia knows all the intricacies of a region that has weathered all storms, leaving behind those who wanted to invade or make it disappear for more than half a millennium.
If Europe continues its infernal race towards nothingness, it will then disintegrate, leaving the field open to whoever will have pushed it towards these bottomless abysses.
A Borgian tragedy where all shots are allowed, and where yesterday’s enemies could well be tomorrow’s partners.
A game where the mouse could well become the cat, a flavor of deja vu where Europe once found itself divided, separated by a wall between two giants. A world where today these two giants have given way to a third: China. A world where Europe must regain its senses, and its independence if it still wants to be part of it under the watchful eye of a Union Jack floating alone in the European sky, so invisibly present in the shadow of the meanders of power.
More than 500 years of history, soiled land dripping with blood for a conquest, which is still unfinished today.
The armies followed one another and coveted again and again, unsuccessfully, this country in the middle of nowhere but in the center of everything. A land so close to Asia Minor and the Orient, but also from the steppes of Central Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea.
Perhaps it is at the heart of history that we must go to find out why, after so many centuries, Ukraine is still today plagued by ambitions of armies from the end of the world to strip it and make it theirs for the time of an empire.
Maybe we have to immerse ourselves in it to know what humanity is. A timeless magma filled with violence, cries, and suffering. A decivilized civilization made to tear itself apart until the end of time.
