Social media has made a lot of people feel like political science and statesmanship experts, I claim to be neither but I am a lover of history. I also have an emotional stake in this since my bloodline traces to this region, my ethnicity is 29% Eastern European.
Here's what we think we know, Russia is the aggressor and unfairly invaded the country of Ukraine three years ago, and since that time America has incrementally backed and supported the Ukrainians with funding and military aid.
Here's what we don't know, where has the money gone, what benefits have resulted from our US assistance, and what does the future hold or what is the best path forward to resolving this? Who is the real villain in this, is it Putin, Trump, or Zelensky?
If that question upsets you or offends you, who is the villain, then your bias has overruled your rational thought and critical thinking abilities.
Now, why does history matter in this war? In 1795 Imperial Russia began to rule in Ukraine and from 1917 to around 1990-91 Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, in other words it wasn't Russia but it was under the Russian umbrella. Ukraine was not an independent country after 1795 and for the greater part of a century and the people we under communism.
More accurately, when the Russian empire fell in 1917, Ukraine fell into civil war in 1918 and becomes part of the Soviet Union after the Red army invades, somewhere around 1921-22. Germany invades the Ukraine in WW2 and slaughters around five million Ukrainians and then after WW2 The Soviets reestablish order in the Ukraine.
The Soviets saved the Ukrainian people twice, in 1921 they suffered from a drought and famine, with a population made up of 90% peasantry they submitted to the demands of Moscow and by 1937 they were well organized began to recover just in time for WW2 to devastate them, offering the Soviets a second chance to save them.
Ukraine has always been the "bread basket" of that region and yes history judges the Soviets for high taxes and grain quotas. There are many atrocities that took place from confiscations, restrictions, and uprisings. Stalin was undoubtably a ruthless dictator who mistreated all of the countries in the region.
What most of us in the West fail to realize is that after Stalin devastated the Ukrainians, he relocated or emigrated a large Russian population into the Ukraine in 1933. In other words a huge effort was made and resulted in massive Russification of the region. About 80% of the elite, educated, and influential Ukrainians were either killed, they killed themselves, or they were deported in the early 1930's.
The composition and character of the Ukrainians was forcefully altered by Stalin. This matters today, how? Ethnically, culturally and civically, the region became for all practical purposes more aligned with Russia. Ideologically, linguistically, and culturally, many people in the region were essentially Russians. Right or wrong, you decide, they were converted by the sword so to say.
In 1954 Ukraine celebrated their 300th year, read that again 300th year anniversary of reunification with Russia. If we think we can grasp the situation of the last 3 years of Putin's invasion without acknowledging the Russian ties and the cultural assimilation of the Ukrainians, then we are foolish and shortsighted.
For nearly 400 years Ukrainian sovereignty has been under the thumb of Moscow, and today roughly 40% of their people speak Russian as their first language. If you think that all of Ukraine loves the west, remember throughout the cold war they were the 3rd largest nuclear warhead superpower, and they weren't aiming their missiles at Moscow.
Here's a piece of forgotten American Ukrainian history that is relevant for today. In 1991 after the collapse of the USSR, Pres Bush visited Ukraine and begged them to remain part of Russia, he told them it would be suicidal on their part to seek independence from Moscow... for more perspective, America refused to assist the Ukrainians after the collapse of the USSR until they agreed to our terms on nuclear disarmament.
So, in summary, the US Ukrainian relationships have not always been stable, the Ukrainians after the collapse of the Soviet Union became a central hub for drug trafficking and organized crime, and a large portion of the people living there are Russophiles. I have no idea what the solution is to the current crisis, but I have fairly good grasp on what has shaped the region over the last 400 years and what I glean is that the situation is not so cut and dry as we might think.
