Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wzw2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-02T21:41:43.442Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Ukraine’s Struggle for Independence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2020

Chaim Shinar*
Affiliation:
Hazamir St. 22/23, Kiryat Ono, 5550722, Israel. Email: chaimshinar7@gmail.com

Abstract

In this article, I summarize the justification for Ukrainian state sovereignty, in spite of Russia’s claim of the non-existence of such sovereignty. The Russians invaded Ukraine claiming their right to justify their interests. The occupation of Crimea by Russian forces and their declaration of its annexation to Russia was an act of aggression disapproved of by the United Nations (2014). I also outline the nature of the limited war between Ukraine and Russia that is managed by ethnic Russians living in the Donbas region and Russian emissaries.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© 2020 Academia Europaea

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aslund, A (2014) Oligarchs, corruption, and European integration. Journal of Democracy 25(3), 6473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Auer, S (2015) Carl Schmitt in the Kremlin: the Ukraine Crisis and the return of geopolitics. International Affairs 91(5) 953968.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartles, CK and McDermott, RN (2014) Russia’s military operation in Crimea: road-testing rapid reaction capabilities. Problems of Post-Communism 61(6), 4663.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W (1996 [1921]) Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 1: 1913–1926. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 236252.Google Scholar
Cornell, SE (2016) The fallacy of ‘compartmentalisation’: the West and Russia from Ukraine to Syria. European View 15, 97109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demokratychna Ukraina (1991) 5 December 1991.Google Scholar
Diuk, N (2014) Euromaidan: Ukraine’s self-organizing revolution. World Affairs 176(6), 916.Google Scholar
Dragneva, R and Wolczuk, K (2016) Between dependence and integration: Ukraine’s relations with Russia. Europe–Asia Studies 68(4), 678698.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzpatrick, S (1979) Stalin and the making of the new elite, 1928–1939. Slavic Review 38(3), 377402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freedman, L (2014) Ukraine and the art of crisis management. Survival 56(3), 742, doi: 10.1080/00396338.2014.920143.Google Scholar
Friedman, G (2016) Why Putin went into Syria. Euractiv Newsletter 15 March 2016. https://geopoliticalfutures.com/why-putin-went-into-syria/ (accessed 26 April 2016).Google Scholar
Hosika, S (2018) The Kremlin’s ‘active measures’ failed in 2013: that’s when Russia remembered its last resort – Crimea. Democratizatsya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 26(3), 321364.Google Scholar
Kofman, M, Migacheva, K, Nichiporuk, P, Radin, A, Tkacheva, O and Oberholtzer, J (2017) Lessons from Russia’s Operations in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, eBook.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kravtsova, Y (2017) Observers say Russia had Crimea plan for years, Moscow Times, 27 March 2014. In Kofman M, Migacheva K, Nichiporuk B, Radin A, Tkacheva O and Oberholtzer J (2017) Lessons from Russia’s Operation in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation), eBook.Google Scholar
Kuzio, T (2015a) Rise and fall of the party of regions political machine. Problems of Post-Communism 62(3), 174186, 179–180, doi: 10.1080/10758216.2015.1020127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuzio, T (2015b) Competing nationalisms, Euromaidan, and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 15(1), 157169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loshkariov, ID and Sushentsov, AA (2016) Radicalization of Russians in Ukraine: from ‘accidental’ diaspora to rebel movement. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16(1), 7190, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2016.1149349 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machnikowski, RM (2017) Russian-Ukrainian conflict revisited: towards regime change in Russia? Europolity 11(2), 169186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mearsheimer, JJ (2014) Why the Ukraine crisis is the West’s fault: the liberal delusions that provoked Putin. Foreign Affairs 93(5), 7789.Google Scholar
Memorandum on Security Assurances in Connection with Ukraine’s Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1994) 5 December 1994. (UN Doc. A/49/765, S/1994/1399), 13 December 1994.Google Scholar
Menon, R and Rumer, E (2015) Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, eBookGoogle Scholar
Motyl, AJ (2014) Putin’s Zugzwang: the Russian–Ukraine standoff. World Affairs 177(2), 5865.Google Scholar
Mykola, R (1988) Ukrainskaya literatura i malorossiiskii ‘imidg’. Druzhba narodov 5.Google Scholar
Power, S (2014) 3 March 2014, http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/222799.htm (accessed 22 October 2014).Google Scholar
Pravda Ukrainy (1992) 7 April 1992.Google Scholar
Putin, V (2015) Putin vystupil s rechyu na kontserte v chest godovshchiny prisoedineniya Kryma. Retrieved November 19, 2015, from http://www.interfax.ru/russia/430798, in Kiryukhin D (2016) Russia and Ukraine: the clash of conservative projects. European Politics and Society 17(4), 438–452. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2016.1154130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reznik, O (2016) From the Orange Revolution to the Revolution of Dignity: dynamics of the protest actions in Ukraine. East European Politics and Societies and Cultures 30(4) 750765.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, C (2014) Lead from the front. Hoover Digest 3 (9 July), 17207. http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest.Google Scholar
Saakashvili, M (2014) The West must not appease Putin. The Washington Post, 6 March 2014.Google Scholar
Shevtsova, L (2014) The Maidan and beyond: the Russia factor. Journal of Democracy 25(3), 7482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shinar, C (2012) How Russia’s bureaucracy hindered its economic development. European Review 20(3), 438453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shinar, C (2017) Vladimir Putin’s aspiration to restore the lost Russian Empire. European Review 25(4), 642654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shulman, S (1998) Competing versus complementary identities: Ukrainian-Russian relations and the loyalties of Russians in Ukraine. National Papers 26(4), 620.Google Scholar
Shveda, Y (2015) Ukraine’s revolution of dignity: the dynamics of Euromaidan. Journal of Eurasian Studies 7(1), 8591.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, RN (2017) Time for fresh ideas in Ukraine’s democratisation efforts. New Eastern Europe 23(5), 6571.Google Scholar
Solchanyk, R (1994) The politics of state building: centre-periphery relations in post-Soviet Ukraine. Europe–Asia Studies 46(1), 4768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solzhenitsyn, A (1991) Obrashchenie k referendumu 1 dekabrya 1991 god. Trud, 8 October 1991.Google Scholar
Strasheim, J (2016) Power-sharing, commitment problems, and armed conflict in Ukraine. Civil Wars 18(1), 2544, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2016.1144494 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Transparency International (2012) Ukraine. http://ti-ukraine.org/cpi Google Scholar
Tsereteli, M (2018) Can Russia’s quest for the new international order succeed? Orbis 62(2), 204219, doi: 10.1016/j.orbis.2018.02.003 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Umland, A (2017) The six futures of Ukraine: competing scenarios for a European pivot state. Brown Journal of World Affairs WWIV.I, 261278.Google Scholar
United Nations (2014) United Nations A/RES/68/262 General Assembly. United Nations, 1 April 2014 (retrieved 24 April 2014).Google Scholar
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (2014) Ukraine: Situation Report No. 15 as of 10 October 2014, http://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/ukraine-situation-report-no-15-10-october-2014.Google Scholar
UN Security Council (2014a) 7124th meeting, 1 March 2014, http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un-documents/document/spv7124.php (accessed 18 October 2014).Google Scholar
UN Security Council (2014b) 7125th meeting, 3 March 2014, http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2014/sc11305.doc.htm (accessed 18 October 2014).Google Scholar
Wilson, A (2015) Can Ukraine save its revolution? Current History 114(774), 259265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WTO Statistics on Ukraine (2015) September 2015, available at: http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountry%20PFView.aspx?Country=UA (accessed 9 March 2016).Google Scholar