The curious case of Ukraine

Ukraine, the country which gained sovereignty from the Soviet Union in the year 1991 and which has its capital in Kiev has been in news quiet for a while. And the recent reason that has made headlines is the declaration of Russian govt. to send troops to Ukraine.

But where did it all start from? What happened in Ukraine that led to the current crisis? Let’s have a look.

Well, the whole story started with European Union and Ukraine’s relationship regarding a trade agreement. In 2012, EU signed deals on free trade and political association with Ukraine but the leaders of EU put forth certain conditions for the treaty to be ratified. It demanded that Ukraine must address the issue of deterioration of democracy and rule of law including release and treatment of two imprisoned leaders of Ukraine who fought against human rights violation in the country. The twist in the whole EU Ukraine saga is as follows:-

The govt. of Ukraine was asking for an aid of 20 billion$ from EU but EU was willing to give 838 million dollars plus the conditions for Ukraine whereas Russia was willing to offer 15 billion USD in loans. Russia also offered the Ukraine cheaper gas prices and did not put any conditions. Ukrainian govt. wanted to cancel the EU treaty for closer relation with Russia. The people of Ukraine were opposed to this policy.

The Ukrainian parliament could not fulfill the required conditions and thus the treaty with EU couldn’t be ratified.

This step by the govt. led to huge scale protests in the country from 21 November 2013. The protests became violent and caused huge civil unrest in the nation with people protesting against the widespread corruption, abuse of power and human rights violations in Ukraine.

The protestors were attacked by the police and riots also took place when peaceful protestors were brutally assaulted by the govt. The President had to resign when the protests scaled to a very high level, also termed as Ukraine’s biggest protests ever.

With all the political turmoil, Oliksandr Turchinov was made the new President. The ousted President fled to Russia and appealed for military intervention by the Russian govt. in Ukraine.

Mean while, here in Ukraine the President denied the appointment of Sergey Aksonov who is considered as Pro-Russia. The protests spread in the region of Crimea as well. This region of Crimea was included in Ukraine in 1991 and it earlier used to be a part of Soviet Union. The PM Aksonov whose appointment was opposed by the President and who is considered as Pro Russia appealed Russian President Vladimir Putin to interfere with military invasion in Crimea and in March the Russian govt. seized the area with its military presence.

As of now, there is a risk of separation of the country as Russia’s army intervention is largely seen as its strategy to annex the area of Crimea and that is why it was soft on Ukraine to provide it financial assistance.

The US is opposed to Russia’s military intervention as is EU because the west was in favor of providing financial aid to the troubled economy of Ukraine only when it accepts the condition of establishing rule of law and act against the human rights violations.

With the new twist of Russian intervention in the whole story, let’s see what further turns up in the curious case of Ukraine.