FAILURE TO SUPPORT: REPERCUSSIONS OF (IN)ACTION ON UKRAINE.

• Author: Koshulko, Oksana

INTRODUCTION

The Russian war in Ukraine did not really begin in February 2022: rather, it began in 2014, with the Russian annexation of the Crimea peninsula and has continued for almost ten years throughout Ukrainian territory. In that time, Russia has been recognized as a "state sponsor of terrorism" (1) while asserting that Ukraine was part of Russia and refusing to recognize Ukraine as an independent country. Because of that, Ukraine has been struggling to maintain its independence rightfully gained from the occupational regime of the former USSR. Moreover, the former Soviet government instigated the "red terror" in Ukraine in 1932-1933, also called Holodomor, or Terror-Famine, in which millions of Ukrainians were killed by artificial famine. (2) It took place only because of orders from Joseph Stalin remove grain from Ukraine, which at the time and to this day has been a granary not just for itself or for the Soviet Union, but for much of the world.

On the Crimea context, Stalin in 1944 recognized Crimean Tatars as traitors and deported them from Crimea to Uzbekistan. (3) In 1954, ten years after deportation, Crimea was joined to Ukraine. In different sources, it is possible to read that Soviet leadership had "presented" the peninsula to Ukraine. However, it was rather due to economic reasons, as Crimea received freshwater to develop gardening, vegetable growing, and viticulture. Therefore, this was done to answer was an economic question and ensure food security, not to offer a gift. (4) 40 years later, throughout the 1990s, Crimean Tatars began returning to the peninsula, yet they received only persecution, harassment, and humiliation from authorities, comprised largely of former Soviet elites, despite the fact that since 1991, Crimea had been joined with the mainland in the independent state of Ukraine.

In this period, Ukraine, with its rich soil and hardworking peoples, has been an "exchangeable coin" for global policy. This precarity has been exacerbated by strategic mistakes in foreign policy and international response. For example, during the last year of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian state was informed by certain international politicians, who previously had forced Ukraine to sign the Memorandum on Security Assurances or the Budapest Memorandum, (5) that the result of the war was somehow inevitable and that Ukraine would be quickly overwhelmed. Yet, Ukrainians have fought and resisted, providing the civilized world a model against imperial aggression in the 21st century.

The question is: why has support to Ukraine, in this struggle against expansion, been limited among certain actors in the "civilized" world? Partly, it is free-flowing Russian money and cheap Russian natural gas. For others, there is genuine fear of Russia and concern for its military capabilities. Yet for others still, it is the fact that Ukraine simply has not been a full-fledged or equal player in its 30 years of independence from the USSR. Admittedly, this is due in part to the fact that the state has had and still has problems inside the country and on the international stage. Among those internal problems are significant corruption at all the levels of government management (despite the war effort and the need for resourcefulness), a lack of conviction among some in the government as well as at the level of ordinary people, the lingering presence of agents of Russia inside of certain state institutions, and the Russian church of Moscow's patriarchate in the heart of Ukraine. Among those external problems, at the international level, the country suffers from a lack of qualified Ukrainian professionals and experts in different spheres of activities of the state, who can both stand up for the interests of Ukraine at the international level as well as prove the worthiness of Ukraine within international organizations and multilateral institutions. These professionals primarily include diplomats, economists, and politicians.

Why is the lack of professionals so important for the state? Currently, it is a question of national security, because even previous heads of state have not had the best interests of Ukraine in mind during their rules. For example, former president Viktor Yanukovych, a member of the so-called "Donetsk mafia," became president due in part to manipulations during elections. He also sustained direct curators from the Kremlin, who directed activity to his post. First, there was the continuation of a policy to deny Ukraine application for membership in the European Union. Second, when students and ordinary people took to the streets to protest, leading to the "Revolution of Dignity" or Euromaidan of 2013-2014, Yanukovych ordered the police to attack unarmed protesters, leading to many deaths. The world knows these murdered heroes as "Heaven's Hundred Heroes." (6) Third, Yanukovych ultimately left Ukraine and fled to Russia with millions of dollars gained during his presidency. His foil, the counterexample of Vyacheslav Chornovil, had been killed in 1999 near the international airport of Kyiv in a reported car accident. (7) With Chornovil as president, the story of the state may have turned out very different.

Strategic miscounts concerning the Ukrainian Army and the people in general include discounting their resilience and professionalism. More than a year after the invasion, the counteroffensive of summer 2023 continues apace. In the future, it is likely that international military experts will study and use the experience of the Ukrainian military. Already it has been acknowledged that the experience of Ukraine's forces against Russia would supply NATO with invaluable military knowledge. (8) Previously, British, Polish, American, and Norwegian military instructors for the Ukrainian Army declared that the soldiers in the military studied quickly and effectively how to manage Western samples of weapons. (9) This has accelerated the uptake of munitions and weapons from friendly countries and will hasten the end of the war.

Beyond the repelling of enemy forces beyond internationally-agreed-upon borders, what then is the use of this war? At this point, it is to justify the membership of the state of Ukraine in institutions outside of its historical relationships: namely, the European Union and NATO. This is to move beyond the past of an imperial Russia and the former USSR. In battling an expansionist Russia, Ukraine is also demonstrating the resilience of the democratic world and the importance of maintaining a rules-based international order.

THE ORIGINS OF THE WAR

From the time of the Cossacks, imperial Russia has been unaccommodating of Ukrainian language, culture, religion, philosophy, and education. Most critically, the Ukrainian language was prohibited in Ukraine under Russian and later Soviet occupation. This has complicated the linguistic legacy of the USSR in Ukraine, and a significant Russian "sphere of influence" remains through this language relationship, particularly in the...