Ukraine, Russia, Crimea, and the Problematic Ethnic Russian Question
Ukraine and Russia have had an interesting history of co-existing within the Russian Empire and the USSR, and then the days following the fall of the Soviet Union. In the past decade alone, the Russo-Ukrainian friendship/partnership of the past has had it’s ups and downs, especially when the President of Ukraine was overthrown two years ago and then Russia *technically* invaded a part of Ukraine, Crimea, to protect ‘ethnic Russians’ while the country was in chaos.
It is also worth mentioning, that on April 7th, 2014, the annexation of Crimea led to protests in Eastern Ukraine, with pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk declaring independence from Ukraine, so there is that to consider, as well.
I guess that Russia figured that the rest of the international community wouldn’t notice the invasion, because who pays attention to Ukraine, anyway? Most people don’t even know where it is, or that it is now a part of Russia and that it actually didn’t used to be.
But now, Ukraine is once again back in the spotlight because Russia accused Ukraine of carrying out a terrorist attack against them in the beginning of August 2016 in Crimea. In order to understand the complete unraveling of the two countries relationship, we need to look back to how Ukraine got Crimea and why Russia wanted all of its ethnic Russians in Crimea back.
According to the Ukrainian constitution, Crimea is actually it’s on autonomous republic with a parliament, but they are (were) still a part of Ukraine, similarly to how Puerto Rico is a part of the United States, yet separate at the same time. The history of Crimea is complicated, though.
Originally, it was gifted by the USSR to Ukraine in 1954 , but no one is actually certain why Khrushchev did this. There are two possible theories,according to Joshua Keating in his article about Crimea and the Ukrainian conflict, of why Khrushchev decided to gift Crimea to Ukraine.
One theory is that Khrushchev wanted to reward Crimean peasants with access to land in Ukraine. The other theory is that Khrushchev wanted to repay the Ukrainian Communist Party, whose ranks he rose in even though he was from a small town in what is now a part of Russia, by giving the land in Crimea, that was left due to the deportation of the ethnic Tatar people who lived there originally, to Ukrainian peasants who had been devastated by WWII.
On August 10th, 2016, Russia accused Ukraine of carrying out a terrorist attack in the disputed, now Russian, state of Crimea. Crimea was in the news about two years ago after the Ukrainian president was overthrown during protests against the government, which was followed by unmarked (Russian, as it was later confirmed) military trucks and personnel coming into Crimea. Then two checkpoints at Armyansk and Chongar were set up between mainland Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula on February 28, 2014. Who was running these checkpoints? Men dressed in Ukrainian police and army uniforms, as well as unmarked uniforms.
This called an international outrage, with people at first not knowing who invaded Crimea. The Ukrainian government said that it was Russia. Russia denied the fact that they had *technically*, if you choose to look at it that way, invaded a sovereign nation, Ukraine.
In the days following the invasion of February 2014, Russia claimed that it was Ukrainian pro-Russia separatists who took over municipal buildings and army bases, even though some of the soldiers were wearing unmarked uniforms.
Russia, finally kind of owning up to the fact that they had invaded a sovereign nation, accepted the Ukrainian state of Crimea’s referendum to separate itself from Ukraine on March 14th, 2014.
After Crimeans voted for a referendum which allowed them to become an independent state of Russia, the international community really took notice. The vote in favor of joining Russia was a whopping 90% with an 83% voter turnout. There were issues with the turnout numbers reported by the Russian government, with outside agencies finding vastly different numbers about how many people actually turned out to vote. Ukraine denounced this referendum as illegal and refused to recognize it.
In a speech addressed to the Kremlin on March 18th, 2014, President Putin chose to quote the UN Charter, when he said “declarations of independence may, and often do, violate domestic legislation. However, this does not make them violations of international law”, in order to invalidate Ukraine’s outrage over Crimea and justify the referendum with President Putin saying, what can be viewed as problematic, that Russia “…will always defend their [(ethnic Russians)] interests using political, diplomatic and legal means”.
But what does that mean? The issue that arises is the question of Putin’s jurisdiction over ‘ethnic Russians’. Putin has left people asking themselves, what, and who are ethnic Russians?
The Russian government has never really taken a definite stance on defining what an ethnic Russian is, exactly. They have said that it can be considered Russian speakers, but a potential issue with that is the sheer amount of people who speak Russian throughout the world, due to immigration and how the USSR was broken up into various nations. Also, there’s a new Russian citizenship law that says if your grandparents were from Russia and Russian is your native language, then you can be a citizen.
So, if anyone of Russian descent who still speaks Russian in or around Brighton Beach feels like your interests as ethnic Russians are not being protected by Mayor de Blasio, Governor Cuomo, or President Obama, don’t worry, Putin has your back. You just have to wait for the Russian government to call you and your neighbors, asking if you’d like to be a citizen of Russia.
Due to the large geographic area that the old USSR and the Russian Empire encompassed, there are still large Russian speaking populations throughout the world. About 277,000,000 people are estimated to speak Russian worldwide, which includes people that speak it as a second language.
A second language, according to the site referenced for the number of Russians speakers worldwide, can mean that the language is used for business, aviation, technology and other uses. In New York City alone, about 186,000 people speak Russian at home. This is due to the immigration of many former citizens who left after the fall of the Soviet Union during the 90s, and then started families and raised them outside of Russian borders.
So, with all these ethnic Russians throughout the world, that raises the question of where does Putin’s jurisdiction end? Under the guise of protecting the interests of ethnic Russians, Putin has annexed Crimea, rather than saying that it was for the interests of Russia.
Although Ukraine is not mentioned today in the news as much as it was two years ago, there are still problems there.
The Tatars, an ethnic group within Crimea are losing their voices. Originally, the Tatars were deported from Crimea when it was given to Ukraine, but since 1989 have been allowed to return to their homeland. The Tatars are being silenced by the Russian government through having media outlets shut down, and even being prohibited from entering and leaving Crimea because they opposed the annexation.
Ukraine is still a relevant issue that needs more public discussion. The fact that the news cycle forgot about the Ukrainian Conflict, even though nearly 8,000 people died, is horrendous. We need to stop focusing on what is the best way to take a selfie, and rather to figuring out a potential solution to what is going on in Ukraine.
