Ukraine in Crisis, Part I: The New World Order

Part I | Part II | Part III

Background

The Ukraine situation is continuing and could possibly to degenerate into civil war. Now, I usually love to write about things like this. I do my research and take the time to write an article that explains everything. But, Ukraine? Well, that situation changes so rapidly that any article I write is out of date by the time I post it.

Two of the characters in this story have very similar names so I will give them middle names so you can tell them apart.

Enough with the perfectionism I will just have to write it anyway. Ukrainian politics has been quite tempestuous over the past two decades after breaking away from the USSR in 1991. In Ukraine there seems to be two forces at play one pulling them towards the Russian Federation and another pulling them towards the west. There appears to be animosity between Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine and Ukrainian speakers in the west.

The roots of this crisis began in September 2004 when Viktor "Uki" Yushchenko was nearly killed by dioxin poisoning possibly given to him by Russian agents. In November that year the pro-Russian Viktor "Rusky" Yanukovych won the election. The result was disputed by the opposition candidates, the scarred but alive Viktor “Uki” Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko. There were large protests that finally resulted in the Ukrainian Supreme Court annulling the November election results - an event now called the orange revolution. After a second poll in December a coalition of Viktor “Uki” Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko was victorious.

There was a falling out between Viktor "Uki" Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko splitting their coalition. This resulted in Viktor "Rusky" Yanukovych winning the 2010 election - Yulia Tymoshenko was sent to jail soon after.

With such brutal political scheming it is no surprise that everything fell apart in November 2013. The Ukrainian government still refused to release Yulia Tymoshenko. The Ukrainian cabinet also ditched a trade agreement with the EU. This outraged many in western Ukraine provoking very large protests. The pro-Russian Ukrainian cabinet made the stupid decision to use extreme violence against the protesters.

This only generated more outrage and pretty soon Viktor "Rusky" Yanukovych disappeared only to reappear in Russia a couple of days later.

Part I | Part II | Part III