Crimean Crisis
As most of you probably know, there is an ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Before we come to the actual crisis let us look at some background story.
Backstory
From 1922 to 1991, Russia and Ukraine were parts of the Soviet Union. The Crimean peninsula belonged to the Russian part of the massive Soviet Union. The Soviet leaders decided to ‘’give’’ the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine. Crimea was still a part of the Soviet Union; however, the Ukrainian soviet republic was managing it. Ukraine and Crimea were still under the domain of Moskva, the capital in today’s Russia. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine was declared as an independent state after 90% of the people voted for independence. The leadership in Moskva accepted that the Crimean peninsula was going to be a part of the new independent Ukraine, even though the majority of Crimea’s citizens was so-called ethnic Russians.
Build up
Ukraine has borders to both Russia and the EU. Ukraine originally had interest for a good relationship with both parts. Still, different groups in Ukraine favoured a closer cooperation with just one of the parts. Identity plays a big part for what side you will favour. Most of the EU supporters live in the west, while most of the Russian supporters live in the east. They have the choice between a connection to the EU/west or Russia. Which created the Ukrainian crisis. The EU had offered Ukraine an association agreement. This agreement would bring Ukraine closer to the EU. The EU meanwhile insisted that a deal like this would exclude a future membership in a Russian led economic union. Russia has established an economic union with among others, Belarus and Kazakhstan and they planned to include Ukraine in this deal.
The actual crisis
The proposal EU made, forced Yanukovych[GML1] to pick sides. Yanukovych was originally positive to closer cooperation with the EU; however, Yanukovych did not want to make the gap between Russia and Ukraine any bigger. Because of this, he declined the proposal. The EU supporters in Ukraine didn't [GML2] like this at all. As following pro-Russian demonstrations took place in the capital of Ukraine Kiev where hundreds of thousands participated, from November 2013. The protests was[GML3] also aimed towards the government’s lack of management, because of corruption. The Ukrainian government’s harsh reaction on the demonstrations led to an escalation of violent clashes in Kiev. It ended with that the parliament deposed president Yanukovych in February 2014.
The act can be defined as a coup d’état because the elected didn’t follow the procedure and they didn’t have the ¾ majority that the constitution requires for such a decision. Despite this, a lot of people means[GML4] that this wasn’t a coup d’état, because after all the majority of the parliament voted for the disposal of Yanukovych. Even though the disposal of Yanukovych was based around illegal terms, the majority of western commentators and politicians viewed it as positive for the democracy of Ukraine. An interpretation like this emphasized that the disposed Ukrainian management was corrupt, among other things because of the violent treatment of the Ukrainian protesters and the introduction of the Anti-protest law. Russia had a very different view on the recent events: The west had been helping protesters, and later get an illegitimate, pro-western leadership, which signed the Association agreement with the EU.
Russia’s reaction was rather extreme as they proceeded to take control over the Crimean Peninsula with military forces. Russia had already a legal military base on Crimea, which made the operation fast, easy and no blood shed so far. Then there was held an election on Crimea, which evolved around joining Russia. Almost everyone who participated voted yes. The election was never recognized internationally. Thirteen of the fifteen members in UN’s Security Council considered the election not valid. A problem with the election was that the people of Crimea weren’t legally permitted to take such decision. The election choices were also problematic because the choices were between two kinds of secession from Ukraine .In March of 2014, Russia declared domain over Crimea, which means that Crimea was considered a part of Russia. Most other countries in the world do not consider Crimea a part of Russia.
Russia’s actions were partly motivated by fear of that the Crimean Peninsula could have been used as a NATO base under the new Ukrainian regime. Russia also gave support to pro-Russian in East-Ukraine. These pro-Russians were against authorities in Kiev and were inspired by Russia’s adoption of Crimea. This led to battles between the pro-Russian rebels on one side, and the Ukrainian army and para-millitary nationalists on the other, from April 2014. The battles went on primarily in the provinces Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. Russia’s actions on Crimea and Eastern Ukraine were considered as clear violations on the international law. This laid the foundation for the west to introduce sanctions against Russia, primarily economic sanctions. Russia reacted with equivalent sanctions, including no food imports from the west. In addition to being a reaction on the coup d’état and the deal with the EU, Russia’s actions on Crimea and Eastern Ukraine were related to Ukrainian domestic policies, including the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
The local conflict: Pro-Russian and anti-Russian
In Russia, about 17 percent of the population is ethnic Russians In addition, even more people speak Russian as their mother tongue. The authorities in Russia, with president Vladimir Putin at front, claims that Russia has a responsibility over ethnic Russians in Ukraine, where most of them lives in the eastern part. This is despite that they are Ukrainian citizens. One of the things that have created unrest between groupings in Ukraine has been the question of which status the Russian language would have in Ukraine. This part of the conflict raised when the Ukrainian parliament declared that they would deprive the regions on Ukraine the right to give Russian (among other minority languages) status as an official language. A lot of Russian speaking Ukrainian’s felt that Ukraine was about to become an anti-Russian place and feared raised Ukrainian nationalism. Ukrainian nationalism is looked upon as frightening, not just by Russians but also by other ethnic minorities.
On the 25th of May, there was a new presidential election in Ukraine. Businessman Petro Porosjenko won. Shortly after the election, the new Ukrainian government set the army in a major offensive against the rebel controlled areas in the east; Donetsk and Luhansk. Ukraine’s government and NATO accused Russia to have sent soldiers and military gear to support the rebellions in East-Ukraine. Russia later rejected this. Russia’s actions on Ukraine are not just related to the deposal of Yanukovych, the question about the EU and the treatment of the Ukrainian Russians. It is also a reaction of NATO’s eastern expansion since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia’s actions signals that Ukraine is a part of Russia’s security area. Ukraine works like a sort of border of how far Russia will allow NATO to expand eastward.
Summary
To sum it all up, this crisis has not only affected Russia and Ukraine, but rather the whole world. Many countries’ relationship with Russia has changed for the worse. This crisis in one way or another has affected most countries in the world. Attempts at peace have been made but not with much success. There was signed a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine on the 20th of September 2014. The peace agreement has been violated several times and does not seem to have any affect at all.
Sources:
http://www.globalis.no/Konflikter/Ukraina
http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/ukraina/dette-maa-du-vite-om-krim-konflikten/a/10137547/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28969784
http://www.summer.harvard.edu/blog-news-events/conflict-ukraine-historical-perspective
