Understanding the Russian - Ukrainian Conflict

By Sarah Nolan on July 26, 2014

Neither Russian or Ukrainian parties have claimed responsibility for the missile that shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over the Ukrainian country side last Thursday that claimed 298 lives. While the Ukrainian military points its fingers at the Russian government, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that “the state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this tragedy.”

I’m not proud to admit that it was not until last week’s somber occurrence that I finally turned my attention to the on-going conflict between Russia and Ukraine. However, I realized that many people my age aren’t up to date with international affairs. It’s not that we don’t care. That couldn’t be any further from the truth, but in the age of technology our attention span is geared towards instant gratification. Constantly scrolling, clicking, tweeting, vining, etc. When posts pop up in your news feed, would you rather take the Buzzfeed quiz or delve into a longer article about the latest in politics? To get a better grasp about the events that lead up to last week’s crash, I wanted to know what sparked the tension in the first place.

Ukraine first declared its independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. On February 14 of this year thousands of Ukrainians gathered in the country’s capitol, Kiev, to protest president Viktor Yanukovych for the country’s close ties with Russia and his rejection of the European Union.  Yanukovych fled the country and a new government was formed. Unfortunately tensions only escalated from there.

In March Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Crimea, a peninsula located south of the Ukrainian mainland. He claimed that pro-Russian separatists were a threat to the 60 percent of Russian people living in the area.  That same month citizens of Crimea voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia instead. Their attempt was strongly opposed by Ukraine and its allies, including the United States. The Ukrainian government rejected the votes and Russian military moved to the border. Pro- Russian separatists have since banded  together in the country to fight Ukrainian military. The majority of the fighting has taken place in eastern Ukraine.

Since then, both Russia and Ukraine have claimed Crimea as its own territory. In March President Obama announced that a 1 billion dollar loan was guaranteed to Ukraine to aid in their financial affairs. As of Wednesday the President also announced sanctions against Russian banks, energy firms and defense firms in the hopes of stopping pro-Russian separatists.

 

 Courtesy of Yahoo Images

Courtesy of the Associated Press

Sources:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/refresher-happening-ukraine-russia/story?id=24605042

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2014/07/17/mh17-inside-the-conflict-in-ukraine/?iref=allsearch

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