Ukraine has been coveted, contested, fought over, and controlled, by outside empires for well over a millennium. As a place of importance it has existed since before the Russian empire came into being.
Among the outside empires that have had some interest in having control of Ukraine or have occupied Ukraine are: the Vikings, the Mongols, Lithuanians, Poles, Imperial Russia, the Ottoman Empire the Austro-Hungarian dynasty, Cossacks, Swedes, French, Austrians, Germans, Romanians and Czechoslovakians.
Joseph Stalin, who led the Soviet States from 1924 until his death in 1953, paid particular attention to Ukraine and was responsible for the death of more than seven million Ukrainians including more than a million Jews. Relations between Russia and Ukraine from after the death of Stalin up until the time of the Orange Revolution in 2004 were not bloody and imperialistic until Putin started his full scale war on Ukraine in 2022.
There has been a long history of Ukraine being tossed back and forth between large, aggressive and powerful forces that wanted it for themselves. But the fact is that Ukraine has a population of 44.13 million (2020). Even though they are a slavic people, Ukrainians speak Ukrainian and have a culture and traditions that set them apart from Russia and other slavic nations. Putin can dismiss Ukrainians and claim that there is no such thing as Ukrainian and that the are really just Russians and are not a distinct branch of the slavic tree as he does. But that doesn’t make it true.
Ukrainians have been independent of Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. They are a sovereign nation. They have their own distinctive slavic culture and language. They are not Russian or Russians. They are Ukrainian.
Collectively, Ukrainians want to ally and align with Europe and the rest of the world. This does not exclude Russia. But they do not want the same pre-independence relationship that they had with Russia before the fall of the Soviet Union. They do not consider themselves to be a vassal state to Russia. So, if Russia wants to live peaceably with Ukraine and the rest of its neighbors and drop its imperialistic drives which are the fantasy of Putin and his close circle, there could be peace and both Ukraine and Russia could join the rest of the world and become part of the world community.
I am attaching a link to a very good, very brief synopsis of the history of the conflict that has been a presence in Ukraine for well over a millennium. It’s a quick, very condensed read that outlines the major shifts that have been the history of Ukraine for the last one thousand plus years. The last thing I will say is that Ukraine, I believe, just wants to be free to live independently, make its own laws, be responsible for taking care of itself, without outside interference. That is all most nations want for themselves. Ukraine is no exception to this.
Ukraine Has Seen Centuries of Conflict – HISTORYhttps://www.history.com › ukraine-timeline-invasions
PS. If this link doesn’t open to the article, you can copy and paste it to access the link to click into the article.
thoughtprivacyandliberty.com 