Skip to content

Understanding Ukraine: The Problems Today and Some Historical Context

2014-03-04 · explainer · John · 6:58 · watch on YouTube

Topic: World affairs · mode: News analysis · tags: timely hook, heavy topic, community lore

John traces Ukraine's history between Russia and Europe (Crimean War, Stalin, the 1954 Crimea transfer, independence, the Orange Revolution, the 2013-14 protests) up to Russia's move into Crimea, sets out two competing narratives, and argues Ukraine needs decades of stability.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting; Ukraine is complicated, apology in advance for errors and oversimplification

  • ★ John says Ukraine is extremely complicated and apologizes in advance for anything he gets wrong, leaves out or oversimplifies. — 00:00:01

00:00:09 — History: Crimean War, WWI and 1917-21 wars, Stalin's famine and Tatar deportation, Khrushchev's 1954 transfer of Crimea

  • ★★ John says Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe by area. — 00:00:09 · Europe
  • ★★ John says the Crimean Peninsula saw much of the fighting of the 1853-1856 Crimean War, 'sort of' Catholic versus Orthodox but mainly Europe fearing Russian expansion as the Ottoman Empire declined. (hedged) — 00:00:11 · Europe
  • ★★ John says Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire defeated Russia; 500,000 people died, and it resolved very little, since Europe had World War I sixty years later. — 00:00:25 · United Kingdom, Europe
  • ★★ John says that toward the end of WWI Russia had its communist revolution and Ukraine had a brief independence, but from 1917 to 1921 it was mired in wars among factions (Poland, the USSR, Ukrainian nationalists, anarchists); over 1.5 million died. — 00:00:37
  • ★★★ John says that after Ukraine joined the USSR, as many as 10 million Ukrainians starved in 1932-33 because of Stalin's 'stupid' and 'actively evil' agricultural policies, in what is now the world's third-largest grain exporter. — 00:01:10
    • a number in question (doubtful): "As many as 10 million" — check against the recording
  • ★★ John says that after World War II Stalin forcibly deported Crimea's entire indigenous population of ethnic Tatars to Central Asia. — 00:01:24
  • ★★ John says that if you want to point to one individual responsible for a lot of this, without calling anyone out: Stalin. (playful) — 00:01:31
  • ★★ John says Stalin also moved many ethnic Russians into Ukraine, especially Crimea and the part of the country he calls western, the industrial center. — 00:01:37
  • ★★★ John says Stalin's successor Khrushchev transferred the Crimean Peninsula from Russia to Ukraine in 1954. — 00:01:44
  • ★★ John explains the transfer: Khrushchev had ties to Ukraine, and Crimea is physically attached to Ukraine, not Russia, getting all its electricity and water from Ukraine. — 00:01:52
  • ★ John jokes that by the same logic Alaska should be part of Canada. (joke) — 00:02:08 · Canada

00:02:11 — Demographic snapshot: languages, ethnic Russians, Crimean Tatars

  • ★★★ John says about 67% of Ukraine's people speak Ukrainian as their first language and about 30% speak Russian, though only about 17% identify as ethnically Russian. — 00:02:11
  • ★★ Pointing at a map, John says Russian is mostly spoken in the West and in the Crimean Peninsula (the captioner notes he meant East). — 00:02:24
  • ★★ John says many Tatars have returned to Crimea since the breakup of the Soviet Union, but they make up only about 12% of its population today. — 00:02:27

00:02:33 — From the 1991 referendum through the Orange Revolution, Yushchenko, Tymoshenko and Yanukovych to the 2013-14 protests and Russia's move into Crimea

  • ★★★ John says that in a December 1991 referendum after the Soviet breakup, 90% of Ukrainians, including a majority in Crimea, voted for independence from Russia. — 00:02:33
  • ★★ John says Ukraine stayed much more closely aligned with Russia than many former Soviet republics, such as Estonia, now in the European Union. — 00:02:46
  • ★★ John says the 2004 election, amid widespread reports of vote-rigging, was won by the Russian-friendly Viktor Yanukovych. — 00:02:54
  • ★★ John says opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko led massive street protests in Kiev, the Orange Revolution, and was disfigured and almost died from a mysterious poisoning. — 00:03:01
  • ★★ John says the number of 'mysterious poisonings' in Russia and Eastern Europe has skyrocketed since Putin came to power. — 00:03:14 · Europe
  • ★★ John sarcastically says the rise in poisonings under Putin is surely a coincidence, implying it is not. (satire) — 00:03:18
  • ★★ John says the Orange Revolution protests led to a second election, which the poisoned Yushchenko won, though it did not bring lasting friendliness toward Europe. — 00:03:22 · Europe
  • ★★ John says Yushchenko struggled: many Ukrainians wanted closer ties with Russia, and despite being an economist he ran the economy badly and couldn't push through austerity to deal with rising debt. — 00:03:35
  • ★★ John says Yushchenko's friendliness toward Europe infuriated Russia, which briefly but disastrously cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in 2006. — 00:03:49 · Europe
  • ★★ John says that by 2010 Ukraine was led by the Europe-friendly, somewhat corrupt Yulia Tymoshenko, and the presidential election, declared free and fair by observers, was won by Yanukovych. — 00:03:57 · Europe
  • ★★★ John says that in November 2013 Yanukovych abandoned an agreement to strengthen EU ties in favor of Russia, and protests began in Kiev's Independence Square. — 00:04:13
  • ★★★ John says the protests grew until February 20th, when dozens of protesters were killed by military and police; Yanukovych left Kiev the next day and protesters installed a temporary government ahead of new elections. — 00:04:27
  • ★★★ John says the Putin regime then marched into the Crimean Peninsula, ostensibly to protect ethnic Russians and Russian military installations there. — 00:04:38
  • ★★★ John says this violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity is, as diplomats would put it, 'a big effing deal'. (playful) — 00:04:47
  • ★★ John says Crimea, already an autonomous province, would find independence hard, since its electricity and water come through Ukraine, and rejoining Russia impossible without Ukrainian cooperation, which seems inconceivable. (hedged) — 00:04:56

00:05:16 — Two narratives of the events: a mob ousting an elected leader vs a tyrant chased out and Russia invading

  • ★★★ John gives one narrative: an unpopular but democratically elected leader was ousted by a mob; an unelected parliament briefly made Ukrainian the only official language; an EU turn might bring NATO missiles to Russia's border. — 00:05:16
  • ★★ John notes that as an American, his country has had very ineffective and unpopular leaders and simply waited for them to stop being president. (playful) — 00:05:41
  • ★★★ John gives the other narrative: a tyrannical leader who ordered the murder of peaceful protesters was chased out and replaced by a government heading toward free elections, and Russia responded by invading Ukraine. — 00:05:49

00:06:03 — Understand both narratives; the pull between West and East is old ('borderland'); Ukraine needs decades of stability; reasons for hope; sign-off

  • ★★★ John says he is not making a false equivalence but thinks it is really important to understand both narratives. (hedged) — 00:06:03
  • ★★★ John says he gave more historical context than the news because it shows that the pull between Western Europe and Russia in Ukraine is not new. — 00:06:08 · Europe
  • ★★ John says the word 'Ukraine' means 'borderland', and the country has for centuries functioned as the border between West and East. — 00:06:16
  • ★★★ John says Ukraine needs decades of stability to grow its own identity and have relationships with both Europe and Russia without being controlled by either. — 00:06:25 · Europe
  • ★★ John says that dream seems far away, but 60 years ago Japan was in ruins, 25 years ago Germany was divided, and 12 years ago Sierra Leone was in civil war; now it is the second-fastest-growing economy. — 00:06:35 · Sierra Leone
  • ★★ John closes that the arc of history is long and hopes it bends toward peace. (hedged) — 00:06:53

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Crimea · Joseph Stalin · Russia · Russian military move into Crimea (2014) · Ukraine · Viktor Yanukovych

Also: People: Nikita Khrushchev · Viktor Yushchenko · Vladimir Putin · Yulia Tymoshenko

Organizations: European Union · NATO

Groups: Crimean Tatars

Concepts: electoral fraud · political corruption · Russian language · territorial integrity · Ukrainian language

Places: Alaska · Canada · Central Asia · Eastern Europe · Estonia · Europe · France · Germany · Japan · Kyiv · Maidan Nezalezhnosti · Ottoman Empire · Poland · Sierra Leone · Soviet Union · United Kingdom · Western Europe

Events: 1954 transfer of Crimea · 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum · 2004 Ukrainian presidential election · 2010 Ukrainian presidential election · Crimean War · Deportation of the Crimean Tatars · dissolution of the Soviet Union · Euromaidan · Holodomor · Orange Revolution · Russia-Ukraine gas disputes · Russian Revolution · Sierra Leone Civil War · Ukrainian War of Independence · World War I · World War II

Policies: European Union-Ukraine Association Agreement

Only in the description or credits: BBC · Four-minute rule · Rosianna Halse Rojas · The World Factbook · Wikipedia

Also centred on Russia: PEANUT BUTTER FACE (while discussing the Georgia-Russia War) · Syria in Five Minutes · Trump and Russia: An Introduction to What We Know (and What We Don't)

Also centred on Ukraine: Ukraine and Russia: What Caused the War?

Later videos replying to this one