Since the formal military conflict between Russia and Ukraine on February 24, Russia and Ukraine have always been the focus and hot spot in the international community.
How did Ukraine, which once inherited most of the Soviet military legacy and had a large amount of black land comparable to the northeast of the mainland, known as the granary of Europe, get to this situation step by step? Below, we cut into the following aspects and analyze with you.
1. Geography and humanities of Ukraine
2. Ukraine's position in the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union
3. Why Ukraine evolved from a military power to where it is today
Geography and humanities of Ukraine
- Location and features
Located in the eastern part of the Continental European Plate, Ukraine covers an area of 600,000 square kilometers and is the second largest country in Europe by area, after Russia.
Geographically located on the northern shore of the Black Sea, it is bordered by Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova.
Ukraine's location is at the intersection of the geopolitics of the European Union, NATO, Russia and other CIS and countries, and its geographical location is very important.
At the same time, two-thirds of Ukraine's land area is black, which accounts for 75% of the world's land area. This unique advantage has also made Ukraine gain the reputation of "the granary of Europe".
- Population culture
More than 44 million Ukrainians (2020 data). Ukraine attaches great importance to education, with a total of more than 1,000 higher education schools, more than 100 of the top universities in the world, more than 80% of people are highly educated, and the quality of the people is high. Ukrainians love life, and industry and agriculture are more developed.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine's position in the world
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine became independent, according to the principle of belonging to whomever owns what is in the family, Ukraine inherited 35% of the Soviet Union's military heritage, and the Soviet Union's 2700 nuclear warheads remained in Ukraine, making Ukraine become the world's third largest nuclear power as soon as it became independent, and the number of nuclear bombs at that time was second only to the United States and Russia.
In addition, 3 aircraft carriers under construction also remained in Ukraine, one of which is familiar to everyone, yes, the Vaglian, which the mainland bought in 1999 and transformed into the current Liaoning.
In addition, there are more than 3,600 military enterprises of various types and more than 2,000 aircraft, including more than 225,600 main battle tanks and more than 300 ships of various types that were destroyed in the World's largest transport aircraft, An-225,600, which was destroyed in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Such military strength ranked third in the world at that time.
Why Ukraine evolved from a military power to where it is today
1. Shock therapy
After Ukraine's independence in 1991, it chose the Western camp and listened to the prescription handed over by the West- shock therapy, allowing itself to directly transform itself from a socialist economic system to a capitalist economic system. The vigorous and rapid privatization of State-owned assets, the complete liberalization of the market, and the unrestricted trading and operation of the ultimate result is a soaring price, a devaluation of the currency, inflation reaching 2150 per cent in 1992 and a staggering 10,256 per cent in 1993, and the Ukrainian economy almost collapsing.
In this process, many oligarchs were born, controlling a large amount of property, and more than 40% of the wealth of the country was controlled by 100 oligarchs, who also controlled most of the country's minerals, energy, land and other resources. Because they have a lot of property, they even manipulate the government, elect people who are beneficial to themselves as presidents, it does not matter whether they have the ability or not, whether they are suitable or not, as long as they can ensure that their interests will not be damaged, there is really no candidate, and the oligarchs will also become presidents themselves.
2. Self-deprecating martial arts
Due to the poor economy, the vast arsenal of weapons inherited from the Soviet Union became a hot potato. In 1994, the United States, Russia and Ukraine signed a tripartite agreement in Moscow on the destruction of all nuclear weapons in Ukraine, according to the content, Ukraine will transport all nuclear weapons to Russia within 7 years for destruction.
Until the public destruction of the last Tu-22M3 long-range bomber in 2006, it marked the destruction of Ukraine's nuclear warheads, intercontinental missiles, and strategic bombers, and completely became a non-nuclear country. As for the reasons for the destruction, the first president, Kravchuk, once said:
"We have nuclear weapons, but we don't have a system for controlling, testing and reproducing them, so it's like monkeys with grenades."
3. The contradiction between East and West Uzbekistan
East and West Uzbekistan have been divided for a long time in history, and the division has led to differences in beliefs and ethnic differences among the people of East and West Uzbekistan, and the discord between East and West Uzbekistan has also caused serious internal friction, laying the groundwork for Ukraine's economic decline.
In 882 AD, in the eastern European plains, the Rus' founded Kievan Rus in the middle reaches of the Dnieper River. Kievan Rus' was then occupied by the Mongols in 1240 AD. During this period, the Rus' slowly split into three branches: Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. By the fourteenth century, the Mongols were in decline, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth took the opportunity to defeat the Mongols and occupy the Dnieper River Valley.
At that time, the Ukrainian people mainly believed in Orthodox Christianity, and during the rule of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the rulers mainly promoted Catholicism, and because the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was close to Western Ukraine, the people of Western Ukraine were more influenced by Catholicism. In 1645, Khmelnytsky, the Cossack leader in eastern Ukraine, signed the Pereyaslav Agreement with the Russian Tsar, and Ukraine east of the Dnieper River was annexed by Tsarist Russia, but retained its own army and autonomy. Under the rule of the Tsar, Eastern Ukraine believed in Orthodox Christianity, and the differences in The beliefs of Western and Eastern Ukrainians were one of the reasons for the contradictions between the two sides.
From the perspective of ethnic distribution, Ukraine is mainly Ukrainian and Russian. Ethnic Ukrainians are the largest, accounting for about 80% of the country's total population, mainly in the central and western regions of Ukraine, with ethnic Russians accounting for 17% and most of them in southeastern Ukraine.
The historical contradiction between East And West Ukraine continues to the present, evolving into the status quo of Pro-European and Pro-Russian in East Ukraine. The long-term scuffle between the two sides has led to a poor domestic economic investment environment, and no capital dares to invest, which has led to the gradual decline of the Ukrainian economy.
summary
All in all, Ukraine, the "second generation of the rich," has fallen into such a lonely situation entirely because under the "careful guidance" of Western countries and under its own "unremitting efforts," it has gradually reduced itself to such a status quo. In this round of Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Ukraine has become an outcast of Western countries, and the next step, Ukraine should consider how to maintain neutrality between major powers and how to survive in the cracks.