9 Things You Need to Know to Understand Russia & Ukraine
Headlines and news stories are breaking every minute about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Here’s some context.
Things are changing in Ukraine at such a fast pace, so I won’t try to cover current events here. Instead, the following article aims to give you a bit of context about Russia and Ukraine and their intertwined histories.
This will be done by giving you key information about Terms you will often see in news stories, People involved, historical Events that are relevant.
Terms
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is what modern day Russia used to be. This was a Socialist State led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The other thing to know about the USSR is that Ukraine was part of this collection of “Socialist Republics.”
NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Formed after World War II ended in 1945, this is a group of 28 European countries and 2 North American ones who have agreed to protect one another in cases of conflict and war. If you look at what happened in the Cold War (see below), it makes sense that Putin doesn’t want countries that used to be part of the USSR (see above) to join a Western force. He claims his fear of Ukraine joining NATO is part of why he invaded it, but NATO had not agreed to let Ukraine join yet. The issue seems to be that Ukraine is interested in joining at all.
People
Vladimir Putin is the President of Russia.
Putin has held positions of political power in Russia since 1999, starting as Prime Minister. Most of the time since 1999 he has been President, with a short break as Prime Minister again from 2008–2012. Before becoming a politician, Putin was a KGB agent for 16 years, which is similar to being a CIA agent in the USA or MI6 agent in the UK.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the President of Ukraine.
His story is one you won’t forget — after attending Law School, Zelenskyy started his own production company to pursue work in comedy. In a show produced by his company Zelenskyy played, wait for it, the President of Ukraine. The show aired from 2015–2019, ending the year that Zelenskyy turned his TV identity into his real one. Though his story is funny, he does not make a joke of being a politician. Since the start of the war Zelenskyy has repeatedly made the choice to stay in Ukraine to defend his country alongside the Ukrainian people. He is considered “anti-establishment” and “anti-corruption” in his politics.
Alexei Navalny is a political rival to Putin.
Navalny comes from a Ukranian & Russian background, as many Russians do. He is a lawyer, an anti-corruption activist, and the leader of a political party. He also started an organization called the Anti-Corruption Foundation and used Youtube as a way to expose corruption in the Russian government.
Early in his political career, he was accused of several crimes. This appeared to be a strategic way to prevent him from success as a politician. For example, he ran for President against Putin in the 2018 election but was eliminated based on these accusations. To make things worse, in 2020 Navalny was poisoned with a chemical weapon known as Novichok, which was traced back to Russian officials during an investigation. Navalny returned to Russia after being poisoned and was arrested for “missing his parole” while recovering from a near-death experience that was seemingly caused by the Russian government.
His life is an example of the ways Putin causes corruption to keep power, and his arrest has inspired many Russians to protest against their government.
This is relevant to what’s going on now because many Russians are protesting the decision to invade Ukraine. These protesters are being met with arrests and violence, but many remains inspired to fight back against government decision to invade Ukraine, a country beloved by many Russians.
Events
Holodomor, or the Great Famine in Ukraine was a man-made period of starvation lasting from 1932 to 1933. Nearly 4 million Ukrainians are estimated to have died of starvation during this time. It’s considered “man-made” because it was Joseph Stalin (the leader of the USSR at the time) who made a policy that demanded people give up their farms for “collective agriculture,” or government-owned and led farms. This led to massive disorganization which then led to a massive reduction in crops produced, and therefore food available for people to eat.
The Cold War lasted approximately from 1947 to 1991, so the end of World War II until the collapse of the Soviet Union (see below). This is called the “Cold War” because the United States and Russia never directly fought with each other. Instead, they fueled wars in each others’ neighboring nations, called proxy-wars, and threatened each other with nuclear weapons. This time is what fueled what you now see phrased as Putin’s “War on the West,” because this time was characterized by East (Russia & allies) vs. West (USA & allies).
The Collapse of the Soviet Union happened over several years, with the USSR (see above) officially coming to an end in 1991. This is when Ukraine became an independent nation, along with 10 other former Soviet Republics. Imagine if the USA dissolved because of some major event, and states like Texas or California became nations of their own. While this helps us imagine what it was like, that’s an oversimplified comparison. Ukraine has its own history, culture, politics, and language that has developed over hundreds of years which complicates its story.
The Annexation of Crimea is about a piece of land that used to be the South-East of Ukraine. In 2014, Putin annexed this entire peninsula, meaning he added it to Russian territory. This was done by sending the Russian military in, forcefully taking over local political offices and inserting Russian politicians, and threatening the use of nuclear weapons.
I hope this is a useful toolkit for understanding some of Ukraine and Russia’s long history.
I haven’t tried to answer WHY this is happening, so if you’re interested in learning more I suggest you check out this video:
Leave a comment below if there’s anything you want to know that wasn’t mentioned here.
This post is meant to give an overview but does not do justice to the complexities of Ukraine’s history, culture, and current fight with Russia.
