II. The History of Russia and Ukraine
Russians and Ukrainians used to be brother nations from the same ancestor. During the first millennium, some Slavs tribes settled in the East European Plain from Black Sea to
the Baltic Sea. In the 8th Century, the migrants from Scandinavia, also known as Varangians or Vikings, expanded their settlement to Eastern Europe and formed the medieval federation of Kievan Rus. Its original capital was settled at Novgorod, and then moved to Kiev in 882 AD. It became the common ancestor of modern day Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
In the 10th Century, Vladimir the Great took power and formed an alliance with the Byzantine Empire. He also led Kievan Rus to convert to Christianity, and introduced the Byzantine culture to Kievan Rus. The synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures led to the cultural and economic Golden Age for Kievan
Rus.
In the 13th Century, the Mongol army invaded and conquered Kievan Rus, and destroyed many cities in Kievan Rus, especially its capital, Kiev, was completely destroyed in 1240. The rest of Kievan Rus submitted to the Mongol Empire, the Khanate of the Golden Horde (1240–1480).
In the 15th Century, the Grand Duchy of Moscow grew stronger from a Vassal State of the Golden Horde Khanate (1263-1480) to a Sovereign State of Muscovy with its capital at Moscow (1480-1547). In the 15th-17th century, most of the current Ukraine, including Kiev, became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, except Crimea and the southeast coast of Ukraine belonging to the Khanate of the Crimea.
In the 16th-17th Century, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth occupied the large territory covering the current Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus and Western/Central Ukraine, while the Crimean Khanate occupied Southern/ Eastern Ukraine, including Crimea.
In 1648, the Cossack of Ukraine rebelled against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. With the help from Russia, they took Eastern Ukraine to join Russia in 1686. During the 17th-18th century, the Russian Empire defeated the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and gradually acquired large territory in Eastern Europe, from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea. By the end of the 18th century, most of Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire, except the west corner of Ukraine under the control of Austria.
After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and the Russian Ukraine Civil War between 1918 and 1922, Ukraine became a part of the Soviet Union. In World War II, Russians and Ukrainians fought together to defeat Nazi Germany and built a strong
brotherhood between the two nations. Many members of the Soviet leadership came from Ukraine, most notably Nikita Khrushchev as the leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and Leonid Brezhnev as the Soviet leader from 1964 to 1982. During the Soviet Union period, Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev merged some Soviet territories into Ukraine with the latest gift of Crimea given by Khrushchev to Ukraine in 1954.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine became an independent state, formalized with a referendum in December 1991, but it still maintained a good relationship with Russia. Ukraine allowed the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet to remain in the Crimean Peninsula and gave up its own nuclear weapon program by signing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurance. With the security assurance from Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, China and France, Ukraine sent all its nuclear warheads to Russia for dismantling, leaving itself as a non-nuclear nation.
Until Ukraine gave up the Soviet nuclear weapons stationed on its soil, it had the world's third-largest nuclear weapons stockpile. If Ukraine kept some of its nuclear warheads, Russia would not be able to invade Ukraine like what Putin did in February 2022. If the five nuclear countries who signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurance could keep their promise to protect Ukraine from foreign aggression, this war in Ukraine would not happen.
After the Independence of Ukraine, most government officials became corrupted and plunged Ukraine into economic stagnancy, which led to the Euromaidan Revolution in 2014.
In November 2013, Ukrainians started the Euromaidan Protests against its government after the President backed out of a deal with the European Union. In February 2014, Ukrainians started the Revolution of Dignity, also called Maidan or Euromaidan Revolution, to oust the Pro-Russia President Yanukovych, and Yanukovych fled to Russia after the Euromaidan Revolution.
The Euromaidan Revolution has caused the
split between Pro-West Ukrainians and Pro-Russia Russian ethnics, which led to
Russia's Annexation of Crimea and the separation of Donetsk and Luhansk in the
Eastern Ukraine.
III. The Causes of Conflicts between Russia and Ukraine
I | II
| III | IV
The Divine Revelation on the Peaceful Solution to End the War in the Middle East
God Bless!
