Previous Subchapter → 1.7 Maidan - The 5th Column
Following this request Russian troops crossed the Ukrainian border and entered the peninsula of Crimea, but not to restore law and order and Yanukovytch’s position as the President of Ukraine, but rather to claim Ukrainian territory for themselves, surrounding and taking over Military bases and crimean government buildings with support from Pro-Russian activists. At first the Russians played dumb, explaining these events with the baffling excuse that these troops weren’t Russian soldiers at all, but rather spontaneously formed “Self-Defence Groups” made up of local Crimeans, the fact that their uniforms happened to be identical to that of Russian soldiers, only with the unit patches ripped off, was conveniently explained away as the “Self-Defence Groups” having equipped themselves from “army surplus shops”, later the Russians dropped the act and admitted that the soldiers who looked and were equipped exactly like Russian troops were, in fact, Russian troops, funny that.
A month after Russian forces deployed to Crimea the Crimean Parliament, under Russian occupation, issued a declaration of independence proclaiming Crimea to be independent from Ukraine, shortly after a referendum was held in Crimea on joining Russia, with an official result of over 95% in favour, over 80% turnout, but there were a few obvious problems with this referendum:
Firstly, there was no option to preserve the status quo, the only choices were joining Russia or returning to the 1992 Crimean constitution, in other words move further away from Ukraine or leave it entirely.
Second, status referendums in Ukraine have to be called by the Ukrainian Presidency or Parliament and be open to participation from the whole Ukrainian electorate, not just the territory which would change status, the Crimean referendum was organised by Crimeans acting under duress, and neither President Yanukovytch, the “Interim” President Oleksandr Turchynov, or the Ukrainian parliament approved the referendum.
Third, the status referendums have to be “All-Ukrainian Referendums” where citizens from across the country can take part, the Crimean referendum only allowed local Crimeans to take part, these factors made the referendum illegal under Ukrainian law.
Legal issues aside, what matters most is whether the referendum represented the will of the people, when judging this the first factor is impossible to look past, a “yes” or “no” referendum without a genuine “no” option can hardly claim to be a genuine consultation.
But regardless of these issues, which prevented the referendum from being recognised internationally, the territory was promptly annexed into the Russian Federation, leaving Yanukovytch bitter and regretful for allowing Russian troops into Ukraine, shortly after he faded from the political scene and his claim to Ukraine’s presidency was mostly forgotten, the crisis was no longer between his government and the “interim” government, but between the “interim” government and Russia.
Emboldened by the takeover of Crimea, the Anti Maidan movement in mainland Ukraine turned to using the same tactics the Maidan had: Rioting and occupying government buildings.
The Eastern regions of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk came under occupation from the Anti-Maidan, and with the changeover of power from Yanukovytch to the new government the political situation had taken a 180 degree turn, the Anti-Maidan were now the separatists.
Unable to advance westward due to the strength of the Maidan there, these forces later declared the areas they controlled, portions of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, to be 3 new countries, the Kharkiv People’s Republic, Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, independent from Ukraine, the activists in Kharkiv were pushed back shortly after and the region remained under Ukrainian control, but Donetsk and Luhansk became split between Pro-Separatist and Pro-Ukrainian forces.
To prevent the Western authorities from further retaking territory, some of the Anti-Maidan activists formed their own vigilante paramilitaries, like the Maidan’s groups there was a distinct ideological split in these paramilitaries, some of them were associated with the Far Left, some with the Far Right, and they were also split in origin, some groups were local, others were connected to political groups inside Russia itself, such as the Russian National Unity, which had figures that had passed through its ranks leading the charge for the separatists, and the Russian Imperial Movement which organised training for separatist forces.
Following their declarations of independence, the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk held referendums in their regions to validate the decisions, similar to the Crimea referendum. And like the Crimea referendum, the referendums in Donbas proved to be extremely divisive, and were viewed internationally more as power plays than real expressions of opinion, no country gave them recognition, not even Russia. The result was a crisis of legitimacy and a land split between 2 rival centres of power, a government and a separatist bloc that had both taken power by illegal means.
The Ukrainian security forces were utterly shattered by the takeover of Crimea and the uprising in Donbas, as most them weren’t combat ready and many of those who were chose to defect to the separatists:
According to a US scholar, the total number of usable troops and equipment in the ground forces amounted nominally to 80,000 personnel, 775 tanks, 51 helicopters, fewer than 1,000 artillery pieces and 2,280 armoured personnel carriers. In fact, due to a combination of lack of training and inadequate and poorly maintained equipment, the size of the combat-ready force was only 6,000 troops. Ministry of Interior (MoI) special forces, like the Berkut, were dissolved after the shootings in Maidan. Between 25 and 30 percent of police and security forces in the Donbas region had defected to the separatist side, according to a MoI estimate.
As a result, the Pro Ukraine side came to be led not by its army or its police forces, but by paramilitaries known as the “volunteer battalions”, many of which were successors of “Self Defence Battalions” that had refused to disarm after the overthrow of Yanukovytch, the Right Sector formed a group called the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, Svoboda formed a unit known as the “Sich Battalion”, one of the constituent groups of Right Sector, Patriot of Ukraine, formed a militia known as the Black Corps, the growth of this militia movement increased the perception among Eastern Ukrainians that the country had been captured by the “Banderites”, while the emergence of Russian citizens in the Pro Russian forces led those in the Westerners to believe they were fighting a kind of hybrid war with Russia itself, the vigilantes controlling the streets became the soldiers controlling the front lines.
To resolve the ongoing constitutional crisis Presidential elections were held in Ukraine by the so-called “interim government” in May 2014, followed by parliamentary elections in October, which resulted in a win for Pro-EU liberal leader Petro Poroshenko and his political group, the Petro Poroshenko bloc, which formed a new government that was recognised internationally, including by Russia.
The far right badly lost out, with Svoboda losing 31 seats and the Right Sector gaining only 1, their only seat in the parliament, this led to them losing their places in Ukraine’s leadership, but by this point it was too late for a smooth resolution to the crisis and the far right still held a disproportionate amount of influence through their sway over many of the volunteer battalions, these battalions were then given legal power and status by being formally incorporated into the Ukrainian government under newly created units of the Ukrainian military and police, the “National Guard”, “Territorial Defence Battalions”, and “Special Tasks Patrol Police”.
Following the elections Pro Russia separatists refused to recognise the new government’s mandate and had established control over large parts of the Donbas region (made up of Donetsk and Luhansk) for their republics, they too formalised the vigilantes that had backed their side, organising them into what was called the Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Militias”, the separatists’ national armies.
These two sides were in a state of war as they each tried to take over the Donbas region, after it was discovered that the Russian government was giving military aid to the separatists the conflict commonly became grouped together with Russia’s annexation of Crimea under one name, the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The war continued for 3 months until September 2014, when the Russian, Ukrainian and Separatist leaders signed an agreement called the Minsk Protocol, where it was agreed that there would be a ceasefire, followed by a political solution: Separatist regions would be given autonomy and separatist fighters would be given immunity from prosecution, in exchange the separatists would agree to reintegrate into Ukraine.
But the agreement fell through as the ceasefire was periodically broken, with combat continuing across Donbas, the political process was also stalled as the separatists showed no genuine interest in any reintegration with Ukraine and Ukrainian politicians were unwilling to support the proposed amnesty for the separatists, following this lack of progress the separatists ended up holding their own elections in November 2014, with wins for the Russian nationalist “Donetsk Republic” and “Peace for Luhansk” parties, creating a parallel set of parliaments, one in Kyiv and 2 more in Donbas.
In February 2015 an attempt to revive the diplomatic process was made and a new agreement known as Minsk 2 was signed, based on the same idea of a ceasefire, autonomy in exchange for reintegration, but once again it failed to be seriously implemented, immediately after the deal was settled the separatists vowed not to follow the ceasefire in a major area of fighting, the city of Debaltseve, and some Ukrainian volunteer units openly refused to follow the ceasefire at all, the result was a complete failure to achieve any political progress and a stalemate on the battlefield, the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics remained separated from Ukraine, in control of about a third of the Donbas region.
The Ukrainians were determined to lick their wounds and recover from these losses, and to help achieve that end the Ukrainian government invited NATO troops into the country to train its army as it attempted to rebuild its conventional forces, the work Yanukovych had put into compromising with Ukraine’s two split camps progressively went out the window over time, his moves towards neutrality were ditched as the country made a Pro-Western, Pro-NATO pivot, now firmly aligned against Russia and wary of further Russian encroachment.
In 2019 Ukraine’s next round of Presidential elections saw the end of Petro Poroshenko’s term in power, bringing in new President Volodymyr Zelensky, who brought new hope for Ukraine, he was Pro European, but a Russian speaker, a campaigner against corruption and a far cry from the far right, having Jewish lineage, with family members that fought for the Red Army and fell victim to the Holocaust, he had the potential to be the unifier his predecessors weren’t, and had an ambition to resolve the Donbas conflict through diplomacy with Russia rather than force.
But one thing he was not willing to compromise on was guaranteeing Ukraine’s security against further Russian land grabbing, and for him that meant seeking membership in the NATO alliance, a red line for Russia, the tug of war between Russia and Ukraine over this issue continued until 2022, when Russia directly demanded that Western nations agree to keep Ukraine out of NATO, and invaded Ukraine when they refused.
And here we have reached the point where the war we know of began, and our first Ukraine documentary began its coverage. We can see that Ukraine is a very complicated country, compared to most European nations it’s very young, but it has also seen a great amount of history:
From the very beginning in 1918 and 1919 Ukraine was split between dozens of different factions with different ideas of how it should be run and how close it should be with neighbours like Russia, struggling countless times for independence against multiple Empires and rival nationalists, during the Second World War these issues resurfaced as Ukraine was fought over by the Soviets and Germans, and now it seems this new war is bringing these divisions to the surface all over again.
Ukraine watched as the biggest nation on Earth collapsed, and then they watched it happen again in the same century, each time it came out of that experience looking very different, the question now is, what will Ukraine look like after watching what happens to Russia this time around?