Hello, hello YouTube! What is happening with Russia and Ukraine? I know, we've talked a lot about Russia, I even interviewed a Russian who lives in Brazil.
But with tensions rising and a threat of war, it can't be ignored. If you think the Cold War is over and now the concern is with China growing, North Korea with missiles, Iran with the idea of having nuclear weapons, father Putin wants to make it clear that they are not history. But what's all the fuss about?
Why is there threat of Russian invasion in Ukraine? What happened? Let's find out!
To better understand what's happening now, it's important to understand what happened before. Like we said in other videos, Russia and Ukraine share a history from the beginning with the Slavic peoples and later with Kievan Rus. Eventually, the Mongols came, but even so, each region began to gain a little more unique identity and autonomy.
The Russian empire expelled the Mongols and grew a lot, including what is now Ukraine Basically they were born and raised together, but the Moscow region became more influential than the Ukraine region. When the Russian Empire fell, Ukraine became independent and formed a republic. Soon after it became a Soviet Republic and merged with others like the Russian Soviet Republic.
Together they formed the Soviet Union. After years, the USSR fell and Ukraine again achieved independence, this time divorcing Russia for good, more or less. Why more or less?
Russia never liked this "divorce", why? One of the reasons, because of centuries of intertwined history, many Russians see Ukraine as a part of Russia more or less like some Brazilians who think that Cisplatin, that is, Uruguay should be part of Brazil, only the case of Ukraine it's more current they only gained independence in 1991. Another reason Russia is well involved with Ukraine is for security.
Remember the video about why is Russia huge? If you haven't seen it, click on the button here to see it later or now, also subscribe to the channel, give the thumbs up and activate the notification, if you like this type of video, you'll like the channel In that video, we talk about the trauma that Russians had with the Mongol rule that lasted more than a century. Russia has adopted a culture of preventing history from repeating itself by protecting the center of the nation, especially Moscow.
The capital was a little vulnerable, in the middle of an area without many natural protections it it was easy to invade, so much so that the Mongols did it. They have for centuries made a strategy of expanding as much as possible to keep away the distance of other countries from Moscow. In the east, it didn't take long for them to reach the other side of Asia, as far as Alaska.
But on the west side it was harder, there were other powers that didn't let the Russians expand across Europe So plan B: "Ok, it's hard to conquer Europe without them being annoying, so I'll control the neighboring countries behind the scenes without them knowing," They created satellite or puppet states, where, despite having their own government, the Russians practically rule from behind the scenes. The USSR did this a lot, especially with the Warsaw Pact, their version of NATO, a union between states to protect themselves primarily against the expansion of another enemy: If any alliance member is invaded by another state, the entire alliance will retaliate the invader. In this way, Moscow added a layer of protection at the border, we call it a "buffer state.
" Many experts say that the Russians basically ran these countries. With the fall of the USSR also came the end of the Pact. Russia lost a lot of strength, not only because the Pact ended, but also because many Soviet Republics declaried independence from the Union and one of those was Ukraine.
Russia says the Ukrainians took land that Russians believed it was theirs Furthermore, most of the population is ethnically Russian and speak Russian. These lands include Crimea and eastern Ukraine, part of the region known as the Donbas. These 2 regions is where it's happening the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
At the time of the USSR's dissolution, Ukraine had Soviet-era nuclear weapons so they made an agreement in 1994 in which Russia promised to recognize Ukraine's independence if they returned all the nuclear weapons that were on Ukrainian territory, and that's what happened. Ukraine finally became 100% independent, recognized even by Russia. But especially because of the end of the Soviet era, the west took advantage of that power vacuum to gain more support from countries that were once a part of the Warsaw Pact or even countries that were republics of the USSR.
NATO and the European Union grew closer and closer to Moscow, with the Russians not liking it. For a while Russia was not very aggressive, but when some ex-Soviet countries that neighbor Russia, especially Ukraine, started with the idea of joining NATO, the Russians said enough! For years, there was a competition in which of the 2 sides Ukraine would come closer one side closer to the European Union and NATO.
so much so that in 2007 the EU proposed a free trade agreement with Ukraine. And on the other side, Russia also proposed its own trade treaty. Both treaties were exclusive, you could only participate in 1.
One of the things that prevented Ukraine from joining the EU mainly was internal corruption, but everything indicated that they wanted and working towards it, it seemed that they were going to choose the agreement with the EU But in 2013 the Ukrainian president said he wasn't going to sign it, he also didn't commit to Russia's treaty, at the same time, the country received a loan of $15 billion from the Russians many began to think that they were getting closer to Russia The Ukrainian population protested, especially in Kiev. The protests were large, known as the “Euromaidan” later also called the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, many of the protests grew more intense, making the President of Ukraine to flee to Russia. Russia took advantage of this chaos and, “BAM!
” Annexed Crimea, the southern region of Ukraine. It started with Russian soldiers who were in Crimea and strategically took control of some places on the Peninsula despite Putin saying they were not Russian soldiers, they had nothing to do with it. To the Russians, it looked like the Crimean people were revolting, wanting to secede country.
Soldiers took over the parliament and the parliament passed a resolution saying that Crimea would become part of Russia. The Russians accepted and sent their troops. One of their claims is that they were protecting the local Russian population against the protests and anti-Russian sentiment that was growing in Ukraine.
Putin also believes that the collapse of the USSR should not mean the collapse of historic Russia, that is, the territories that Ukraine took, for many Russians, were not Soviet territories but Russia's since ancient times. Historical Russia. Ukrainians say this violated the treaty they made when they returned the nuclear weapons 1 month later, pro-Russian separatists in the Russian border region, Donbas, revolted and took 2 cities: Luhansk and Donetsk each declaring independence from Ukraine.
Ukraine sent armies to put an end to it, but the rebels fought back and received support and weapons from the Russians, starting a civil war in the region that continues to this day and has caused thousands of deaths and injuries. Instead of bringing Ukraine to the Russian side, the effect was the opposite, the Ukrainians increased the desire to get away from Russia and anti-Russian sentiment also increased, wanting to get closer to Europe which started sending supplies to help in Donbas. After the president's flight, they elected a president more favorable to the EU who even signed that trade treaty, making Russia send even more support to the separatists in Donbas.
With an increase Russian support, the conflict seemed far from over. Ukraine started trying to negotiate a ceasefire leading to 2 agreements known as Minsk 1 and 2. The 1st agreement Ukraine agreed to give autonomy to the rebels in Donbas, but even then the conflict didn't stop.
They made a 2nd agreement where Ukraine gived even more autonomy to the separatists, they could even make their own laws and have their own police and army. It basically formed a tiny Russian state within Ukraine. The treaty also legitimized all Russian interference in these regions to defend separatists.
Many say these agreements ensured political instability in the country, making it even more difficult for Ukraine's future enter to the EU, which is why Ukraine's current president doesn't want to recognize this agreement. Late last year, many Russian troops were moved close to the Ukrainian border indicating a possible Russian invasion. In December 2021, Russia published 2 documents, one for the US and one for NATO basically telling the US to remove military support in Europe or places that Russia deems a threat and that NATO can no longer grow and do operations in countries that were once Soviet.
This includes: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, all countries that are now NATO members. These and more demands seem unlikely to happen making many believe that Russia made these high demands on purpose in order to be able to negotiate something close to that, like that seller who puts a high price and lowers it a little to give the impression that he was nice and made cheaper just for you. Other more suspicious experts say that it was a strategy to legitimize a future invasion of Ukraine.
They could claim that they tried to negotiate, diplomacy but they didn't listen, so it's the West's fault. As a response, since the annexation of Crimea, the West has imposed many sanctions against Russia, and if they invade Ukraine, they threatened to impose even tougher sanctions. So far they are trying to negotiate; the Europeans, the Americans, the Ukrainians with the Russians, but so far no one has come to an agreement.
So nobody, except maybe Putin, knows if Russia is going to invade Ukraine. There are 3 arguments that point to a possible invasion and 3 others that show that they will not invade. But for the video not take foreve, I'll talk about these reasons in part 2 Again, subscribe and press the bell button to know when the next video will come.
That's all, see you next time!
