That evening (December 25, 1991) at 7:32pm, the Soviet red banner was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and was replaced by the Russian tricolor flag.”
The New York Times. 26 December 1991. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
It is impossible, in my opinion to approach any issue with a neutral stance, least of all a sociopolitical issue such as the one I am going to try to talk about in today’s essay. Since no human can summarize justly the rich history of the great Russian people, I shall not even make an attempt to do that. This post is to try to approach the issue of the Russia-Ukraine crisis and discuss the causes and a few horizontal extensions of the case in point.
Before going any further and I do want to inform my readers that I was considering the name “A Washington Playground” for this essay. However, I have tried to be as neutral as I possibly could.
The story begins with the culturally rich yet financially poor people of the Russian Empire. Russia, for centuries, till the early 20th century was a monarchy, with the last failed king called Nicholas. The people of Russia under the leadership of revolutionaries like V.I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin overthrew the monarchy in the October Revolution of 1917 where Lenin became the premier of Soviet Russia, and later, in 1922 – of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a union of 15 republics, each of which swore loyalty to the Kremlin. Their ideology was the exact opposite of capitalism and believed in the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ which translates to the working class being at the helm of making all important decisions as they were the ones who suffered the consequences of those decisions, especially when made by the bourgeoisie. The United States of America (hereafter referred to as Uncle Sam) diplomatically accepted the creation of a new superpower and even called them allies, but that was not to last owing to the ideological difference of the USSR and Uncle Sam. This fear was so evident that the latter even started a policy of containment and spent billions of dollars to make sure smaller states don’t break away from the West and join the newly formed socialist USSR.
Cut 40 years and the USSR and Uncle Sam were fighting a cold war of their own. The two superpowers of the world hated each other, and the countries that did not side with them had to pay a ‘tax’ imposed by the other, until the NAM began. But that is beyond the topic.
After the USSR broke down, partly due to American economic intervention and partly because of systematic problems, every political commentator in the world was amazed at how smoothly can borders be built – something which was observed to be violent and cruel, in the past, of which Germany and India were prime examples. However, one border that did not go well for this spotless record was the Ukrainian border, but that is not all there is to it. There is a western fuel that fires the already lit conflict.
Cultural and Geographical issues
The nation of Ukraine as shown in the map, is like a jigsaw puzzle that fits partly in Europe and partly in Russian Asia. It is only natural to understand that the western portion of the country relates more to western, therefore European, methods and tastes and preferences. The Eastern population is majorly Russian speaking. Many of them are ethnic Russians, too. This difference can be further confirmed by the fact that the Russian speaking population which is concentrated towards the Eastern half of the country denounces Uncle Sam and it’s allies. Majority of them voted in a survey conducted by the International Republican Institute in favor of Ukraine being economic allies with the Custom Unions of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, whereas the Ukrainian speaking population concentrated towards the West, voted in the same survey, in favor of joining Uncle Sam and allies at the European Union. This demographic clash is enough to pick up that a significant portion of the country of Ukraine wishes to join hands with Russia economically and politically. However, this is where things get interesting.
The people of Ukraine in the Russian speaking majority have a community of people residing in the region of Donbas, where two separatist groups have emerged. These groups can be thought of as those operating in Kashmir, in the Indian subcontinent, where certain people, sometimes on both sides of the border think that the other country is their homeland. Russian speaking majority in the Donbas region, although not outrightly pro Russia, has been reported to be getting help Russia to keep situations feeble in the region. Some sources argue they seek independence from Ukraine and have no plan to join the Russian Federation.
Enter Uncle Sam
Uncle Sam and subsidiaries(EU) have always maintained a pro Ukraine stand, to oppose any and all claims of Russia in the picture. Apart from the usual profiting from war through sale of war machinery, Uncle Sam is hungry for gold and oil. Ukraine is extremely rich in oil resources and has significant gold reserves. The quote given below will summarize the entire position of the West quite aptly.
The aim of the United States and its European Allies is to peel Ukraine away from the Soviet Orbit and incorporate it into the West. Their basic goal has been to been to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border, and Russia says, “This ain’t happening! We will do everything we can to make sure it does not happen.”
John Mearsheimer, Professor of International Relations and UChicago.
Not just that, Prof. Mearsheimer also says that the orange revolution fostered by Uncle Sam, globally, has had negative impacts and helped further deepen this crisis. It is no news that any and all claims made by the American leaders in favor of democracy have been to establish pro American leaderships. Venezuela, Cuba and Iraq are significant examples in recent international political history.
What Uncle Sam really wants?
This header, unironically, is the title of a very important book written by Prof. Noam Chomsky. The answer to this question in the book, the answer to this question in this context and in the context of countless other global activities of Uncle Sam, in Libya, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Nicaragua, Venezuela and countless others is the same – oil.
The Ukrainian region of Crimea is heavily oil rich. Although all of Ukraine has rich reserves of oil, Crimea controls significant resources. This oil pipe line that runs from the small piece of land goes all the way to Germany of the western front and, literally, fuels a major portion of Europe. It is only natural that Uncle Sam and subsidiaries would want to have the oil for themselves. However, for that they would strategically need to incorporate Ukraine into EU, for which they negotiated deals that could later lead to the union. They made a welcome offer to the Ukranian government, but no loan was extended. In a counter deal, Yanukovych then accepted 15 billion dollars as a loan from Vladmir Putin, which lead to mass protests in the country, by the pro-European belt. The Ukranian government dealt with the protestors with an iron fist and many died during the protests. February 24th, 2014 marked the date when leaders from Germany and France flew to Kiev to have the President of Ukraine removed and have fresh elections. The French and German governments asked for fresh elections — in Ukraine — a nation which had rejected their deal and joined hands with Putin 6 months ago.
As a result, Yanukovych fled the country and went to Russia. Immediately after, the Ukranian parliament voted to repeal minority language laws, targeting the pro-Russian Russian speaking belt. This attracted ‘tourists’ from Russia into Crimea. The Crimean parliament swore allegiance to Russia yet again, and Putin, in March 2014 officially incorporated the oil rich Crimea into the Russia.
In the year 2015, Prof. Mearsheimer also said “There is no way Putin is trying to either reestablish the Soviet Union or build a greater Russia by capturing Ukraine. All he is saying is that the West should back off from Ukraine and let it be a buffer state, or we will wreck the country.”. I agree with this statement 100%, as Putin denounced the idea of Lenin and the Soviet Union and is actively trying to ‘decommunize’ Ukraine in the process of evacuating the West.
Aftermath
After the protests and the annexation of Crimea, Ukraine witnessed a lot of conflicts along its western border. These conflicts were sponsored by Russia and the United States, allegedly. The pro Russian people acquired arms from the Russian Federation while the other made active purchases of war machinery from Uncle Sam.
Despite Putin’s call for peace and saying that the West and allies should forgo their interests in the region, the West did not back down and supported a war that was not theirs to fight, over, yet again oil and gold.
Sadly what is happening today is a direct result of some politicians across the world thinking that they can privately own, and therefore , benefit from natural resources. Personally, it then becomes hard to disagree with Lenin’s idea that the earth belongs to the people, and therefore, regardless of political boundaries, the earth’s resources belong to the people, and the people alone.
YOUTH VETO 
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