Simple Explanation Of The Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Hello friends, now that you have seen the media constantly reporting on the tension between Russia and Ukraine. Worried about this situation, US President Joe Biden even brought back a plane carrying US embassy staff in Ukraine, which proves that war is near. But why do Russia and Ukraine have such a bad relationship? What happened to the point of having to pull troops to skewer each other? In today's video I will explain to you in the easiest way to understand, let's get started together.

As you know, Ukraine and many other countries in Europe were once members of the Soviet Union, at that time Russia and Ukraine were close like blood or they could be understood as brothers. Thousands of years before that, the land of present-day Ukraine was inhabited by the Russ family, who are the ancestors of today's Ukrainians and Russians, so it can be said that Russia and Ukraine have shared a culture for thousands of years.

 

However, things were not as smooth as romance novels, in 1991, the Soviet Union State officially collapsed, Ukraine and other countries split up to declare independence. And after independence, Ukraine is the second strongest country in the Soviet bloc after Russia, it both holds a strategic position and has a thriving economy, when separated, Ukraine took away two things from Russia.

 

The first one is the Crimean peninsula, this is the land that used to belong to Russia, but in 1954, the supreme leader of the Soviet Union decided to give it to Ukraine as a gift to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Ukraine belonging to the Russian Empire. The peninsula doesn't have many minerals, but it does have a deep-sea port and Russia's key is the port of Sevastopol, which is Russia's only deep-water port that doesn't freeze in winter. Therefore, if the port of Sevastopol is lost, both economic trade and naval activities of Russia will be greatly restricted.

 

The second thing that Russia lost from Ukraine is the safety of the country, Ukraine is located close to Russia, and is a buffer separating Russia and NATO countries, if Ukraine tilts towards Russia, this buffer zone will be a shield to protect Russia against rival NATO. But on the contrary, if Ukraine leans towards NATO, letting NATO troops station on this buffer zone will be a fatal weakness for Russia, Russia will not be able to sleep well when the neighbor's house puts a gun barrel, but always loaded bullets pointed directly at his house.

 

Therefore, Russia is always looking for ways to keep Ukraine, but Nato led by the US is not willing to let it go. So which side does Ukraine end up on? then at first the Ukrainian leaders were very clever, they followed both sides because each side tried to seduce them by giving a lot of benefits, so Ukraine just sat and accepted gifts from both sides without blaming either side.

 

However, it did not last long, internally the Ukrainian people were divided into two factions, one was pro-Russian, the other was pro-Western. At the end of 2013, Ukraine's president, then a little closer to Russia, rejected an important deal to integrate the economy and move closer to the European Union, to the anger of pro-Western relatives.

 

In 2014, they protested violently, overthrowing the government, and the president had to flee. They set up a new government that is pro-Western, Russia realized that the situation was very bad, so they quickly sent troops to occupy Crimea to keep the port of Sevastopol. To legitimize, Russia holds a referendum to see if the people on this peninsula want to follow Russia or not? Of course, 97% agreed because the people on this peninsula were all of Russian origin and so Russia openly annexed Crimea to its territory, even though the United Nations disagreed with the vote. On the mainland, pro-Russians also rebelled against the newly established government, they are called the separatists, Russia is behind them, backing, funding and supplying weapons, the separatists and the government are still smoldering against each other. So far, about 10,300 people have been killed by separatists, including the downing of a Malaysian commercial airliner, killing 298 people.

 

In economic terms, Russia has cut off cooperation with Ukraine, forcing its economy to plummet, but the US and the European Union also implemented sanctions by embargoing Russia, causing the Russian economy to also decline serious. Fortunately, with an abundant supply of black gold, Russia survived, the war between the separatists and Ukraine continued, while the Ukrainian economy was increasingly exhausted.

 

So in 2015, a peace deal that Russia offered was reluctantly accepted by Ukraine to save the economy, the gunfire stopped and the people were able to live in peace. However, tensions have continued to increase as Ukraine has gradually stabilized in recent years, withits economy relying on the West. In addition, the US has sold hundreds of missiles to Ukraine, aided the country with $25 million and armored patrol submarines, Turkey also supplies armed drones, and Britain has signed treaties to sell missiles and warships.

 

All of this makes Russia fear that Ukraine is implicitly becoming an ally of Nato and that Russia's safety is at stake. Therefore, they have sent 100,000 troops equipped with modern weapons to the border and are ready to attack the capital of Ukraine. Putin sent a message to US President Joe Biden that the US must ensure Ukraine would not join Nato, but Joe Biden refused.

 

Currently, the situation is very tense, according to experts, if war breaks out, Nato will not participate in the defense of Ukraine, because a clash with a country possessing nuclear weapons is a global war, and Ukraine is not close enough to have to support like that. Instead, the US and the European Union will apply more sanctions and embargoes against Russia, being a smart man Mr. Putin will surely know how to calculate very carefully before taking military actions, as in a video about why Putin won't invade Ukraine shared by Interesting Knowledge, which you can review in the description.