Ukraine

Geography

     Located in southeast Europe, the country consists largely of fertile black soil steppes. Mountainous areas include the Carpathians in the southwest and the Crimean chain in the south. Ukraine is bordered by Belarus on the north, by Russia on the north and east, by the Black Sea on the south, by Moldova and Romania on the southwest, and by Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland on the west.

Government

Constitutional republic.

History

     Ukraine was known as “Kievan Rus” (from which Russia is a derivative) up until the 16th century. In the 9th century, Kiev was the major political and cultural center in eastern Europe. Kievan Rus reached the height of its power in the 10th century and adopted Byzantine Christianity. The Mongol conquest in 1240 ended Kievan power. From the 13th to the 16th century, Kiev was under the influence of Poland and western Europe. The negotiation of the Union of Brest-Litovsk in 1596 divided the Ukrainians into Orthodox and Ukrainian Catholic faithful. In 1654, Ukraine asked the czar of Moscovy for protection against Poland, and the Treaty of Pereyasav signed that year recognized the suzerainty of Moscow. The agreement was interpreted by Moscow as an invitation to take over Kiev, and the Ukrainian state was eventually absorbed into the Russian Empire.

  

      After the Russian Revolution, Ukraine declared its independence from Russia on Jan. 28, 1918, and several years of warfare ensued with several groups. The Red Army finally was victorious over Kiev, and in 1920 Ukraine became a Soviet republic. In 1922, Ukraine became one of the founders of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In the 1930s, the Soviet government's enforcement of collectivization met with peasant resistance, which in turn prompted the confiscation of grain from Ukrainian farmers by Soviet authorities; the resulting famine took an estimated 5 million lives. Ukraine was one of the most devastated Soviet republics after World War II. (For details on World War II, see Headline History, World War II.) On April 26, 1986, the nation's nuclear power plant at Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear accident. On Oct. 29, 1991, the Ukrainian parliament voted to shut down the reactor within two years' time and asked for international assistance in dismantling it.

An Independent Nation

     When President Leonid Kravchuk was elected by the Ukrainian parliament in 1990, he vowed to seek Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine declared its independence on Aug. 24, 1991. In Dec. 1991, Ukrainian, Russian, and Belorussian leaders cofounded a new Commonwealth of Independent States with the capital to be situated in Minsk, Belarus. The new country's government was slow to reform the Soviet-era state-run economy, which was plagued by declining production, rising inflation, and widespread unemployment in the years following independence. The U.S. announced in Jan. 1994 that an agreement had been reached with Russia and Ukraine for the destruction of Ukraine's entire nuclear arsenal. In Oct. 1994, Ukraine began a program of economic liberalization and moved to reestablish central authority over Crimea. In 1995, Crimea's separatist leader was removed and the Crimean constitution revoked.

     In June 1996, the last strategic nuclear warhead was removed to Russia. Also that month parliament approved a new constitution that allowed for private ownership of land. An agreement was signed in May 1997 on the future of the Black Sea fleet, by which Ukrainian and Russian ships will share the port of Sevastopol for 20 years.

Pro-Western Parties Dominate Parliamentary Elections

     In October 2014, Human Rights Watch said it had evidence that the Ukrainian army attacked civilian-populated areas of rebel-held Donetsk with cluster bombs on twice occasions. The bombs, which scatter dozens or more bomblets, are banned by may countries. Ukraine denied the accusation, which if proves correct, could discourage the population in the east from engaging with the government.

     Parliamentary elections were held in late October. As expected, the pro-Western parties of President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk dominated, but neither won an outright majority. In an upset, Yatsenyuk's Peoples Front party defeated Bloc Petro Poroshenko by a slim margin: 22.2% to 21.8%. They will likely form a coalition government. Crimea did not participate in the election, nor the rebel-held areas, which said they would hold their own elections. The Opposition Bloc, made up of loyalists of former President Yanukovych, garnered 9%, enough to take seats in parliament. The new government will have to carry out reforms, including scaling back the size of government and rooting out corruption, to receive aid from the International Monetary Fund. Fiscally strapped, the country also needs find the funds to make a $1.5 billion debt payment to Russia, else jeopardize future oil deliveries.

     Elections were in fact held in Luhansk and Donetsk, separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, in early November 2014, in violation of the cease-fire agreement signed in Minsk in September. The the Ukrainian government, U.S., and EU said they would not recognize the results of the election. Russia declared the results as binding.

Cease-fire in Tatters Amid Resurgence of Fighting

     The elections in Luhansk and Donetsk in November 2014 were hardly the only violations of the cease-fire. Violence was rampant almost since the agreement was signed, with both the separatists and the Ukrainian military accusing each other of attacks. Between the signing of the cease-fire and early December, about 1,000 civilians and soldiers were killed—about 25% of the total 4,300 military and civilian fatalities. In addition, NATO reported that Russia has continued to supply the rebels with combat troops, vehicles, backing up claims by the Ukrainian government. The cease-fire was all but shattered in January 2015 when the fighting between separatists and the government intensified in eastern Ukraine, rebels took over the Donetsk airport, and evidence mounted that Russia was supplying the rebels with increasingly sophisticated weapons. President Poroshenko said as many as 9,000 Russian soldiers were taking part in the fighting in Luhansk and Donetsk, a claim Russia denied.

Expectations Low for Renewed Truce Agreement; Economy in Tatter

     Amid the crisis, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France met in February 2015 to try to resurrect the peace agreement signed in September 2014 in Minsk, called the Minsk Protocol. On Feb. 12 after 16 hours of negotiations, the parties agreed to a cease-fire, which would go into effect on Feb. 14, and to end the war in eastern Ukraine. However, some terms of the agreement left many skeptical that the cease-fire would hold. For example, the location of the truce line was not defined. They did agree that both sides would remove heavy weapons and release prisoners, the constitution would be amended, the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk would be given "special status," and foreign troops and weapons will be withdrawn.

     Between the signing of the accord and its implementation, shelling continued in Debaltseve, a contested town that's the site of a railroad hub that links Donetsk and Luhansk, rebel strongholds. Some 8,000 troops had been under seige in the town since the fall of 2014. Rebel leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko said the cease-fire did not apply to the town. On Feb. 16, rebels took control of Debaltseve and Ukrainian troops withdrew from the town. It was considered one of the worst defeats for the military.

     The war in eastern Ukraine took its toll on the country's economy. Facing bankruptcy, Ukraine appealed to the International Monetary Fund. In February 2015, the IMF pledged $17.5 billion and potentially $40 billion over four years if Ukraine complied with economic reforms that will promote economic growth. At a summit meeting with the European Union in April 2015, Ukraine requested additional military aid and a peacekeeping force for the Donbas region. The EU, however, said that further aid is contingent upon Ukraine implementing further reforms.