Looking at current events, I realized I knew pretty much nothing about the situation in Ukraine and Crimea, so I did a little research and created this short breakdown of events.
Crimea is an autonomous republic within the Ukraine. They elect their own parliament and have their own prime minister, which has to be approved by the Ukrainian government. Crimea is a peninsula that juts out from the southern part of the Ukraine into the Black Sea, and the majority of people there speak Russian and identify themselves as Russians. In the 2010 presidential election, the vast majority of voters from Crimea voted to elect the pro-Russian candidate, who was far less favored among the Ukrainians.
Though Russia signed a memorandum in 1994 upholding the territorial integrity of the Ukraine, the Russians have gotten increasingly more involved there. Russian forces have begun to take control of the peninsula, calling themselves Crimean self-defense forces (sounds a bit like the "advisers" in Vietnam). The Crimean parliament voted to dismiss the Crimean government and call a referendum. In this referendum, over 96% of voters wanted to join Russia. Russian forces have started distributing fake Russian passports to citizens Crimea, for Russia's defense system allows forces to go overseas in order to protect Russian citizens.
On March 17th the Crimeans declared their independence from Ukraine, and on March 18th they signed a treaty with Russia signifying that Crimea had now joined the Russian Federation. On March 27th, the UN General Assembly stated that Crimea’s referendum with Russia was invalid, and, in a similar manner, the Ukrainian government declared that Crimea was a region only temporarily occupied by Russia. As a result, Crimea’s vote to join Russia by popular sovereignty was illegitimized, and yet, the Ukrainian government has imposed travel restrictions between Ukraine and Crimea because of Russian “occupation.”
Crimean rebellion was spurred on by the Euromaidan, a series of protests that occurred in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, starting in November of 2013. Though the general public wanted to join the European Union, the Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych had only been offered 610 million euros in loans from the EU while Russia had offered 15 billion euros in addition to reduced gas prices to the Ukraine. As a result, though Crimea remained ethnically and culturally Russian, much of the Ukrainian public engaged in pro-European Union demonstrations and deeply resented Russia. This increased Crimean feelings of detachment from the rest of Ukraine and thus increased desire for independence.
Also, here’s a pretty cool map I found that shows you sort of where Crimea is in relation to Ukraine and where all the important cities in Crimea are:
http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2014/crimea/
It actually seems kind of weird why nobody is stepping in since Russia and Ukraine had a memorandum in 1994 which would respect the territorial rights of Ukraine but 20 years later the situation has changed completely. But with nobody stepping in, in my opinion I think nobody has fully interfered because of the wealth of natural resources in Russia. Russia has the most proven reserves out of all the world. It was recently said that Russia has just entered an agreement with China for 400 billion dollars worth of natural gas energy. Midst the Ukraine Crimea crisis, it seems that big powers such as China aren't willing enough to stop Russia from their attempt at Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to put the source but here it is
Deletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/china-russia-sign-400-billion-gas-deal/2014/05/21/364e9e74-e0de-11e3-8dcc-d6b7fede081a_story.html
Awesome post Anneliese! This issue is really complex one, rooted in vast cultural disparities between Ukrainians and Russians in the region of Crimea. Russian nationalists make the claim that Ukraine was part of the Russian empire for hundreds of years and is technically Russian. By modern standards, of course, this is preposterous... surely empires don't have claims to lands they lost (especially if the empire doesn't exist anymore.) Hopefully the situation dies down... time will only tell if this skirmish erupts into a larger conflict.
ReplyDeleteThis post was super informative! I too had little knowledge of the conflict in Ukraine despite hearing about it several times. I agree with Michael on how it is weird that nobody is stepping in due to the memorandum issue. I think that everyone is afraid that this will further erupt into a greater conflict that could spiral out of control very quickly. I will certainly stay tuned for further updates on the subject.
ReplyDelete