Explaining Ukraine

Elections are frequently more than just left and right, liberal and conservative. Take South Korea: the elections are really a generational battle, with the younger generations voting for the Uri Party and President Park and the older generations backing the old school conservatives. Now in Ukraine, the pro-Moscow candidate Yanukovich has apparently defeated the Western-leaning Yushenko by just a few percentage points. Compare the bios of the two men:

Viktor Yanukovich (54)
Imprisoned twice in his youth, he was the former governor of the industrial Donetsk region, raised pensions and public sector pay before election, and would make Russian the second official language and allow dual citizenship.

Viktor Yushchenko (50)
An economist and former central banker, he has an American wife and promises to fight corruption, pursue free market reforms, and seek deeper relations with Europe and the West.

Ukraine, like many of the Soviet Republics, has fictitious borders: the east has a Russian majority, the island of Crimea is primarily Turkic Tatar, and everything to the west is Ukraine Proper. Check out the map to the right: darker shades of green indicate a larger concentration of ethnic Ukrainians, and the lighter shades indicate, by and large, a larger Russian population, except in the island of Crimea. Great article on this topic from the BBC available here, or exerpted in brief below.

The collapse of communism triggered the collapse of the [Soviet] empire. Since then, the European Union and Nato have enlarged right up to Russia’s borders, taking in even former Soviet states like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. One of Russia’s other neighbours, Georgia, now has a pro-American government. Kyrgyzstan, another ex-Soviet state, hosts a US military base.

Russia feels vulnerable. Many here are still struggling to come to terms with the loss of empire. But President Putin is determined to restore Russia’s sphere of influence. This is why Ukraine is so important: a country at the crossroads of Europe, bigger than France, and right on Russia’s doorstep. Moscow is keen to keep Ukraine looking east.

Ukraine is ethnically 77.8% Ukrainian and just 17.3% Russian, with the remainder Belarusian, Moldovan, Tatar, Bulgarian, Hungarian, etc etc. Yet the pro-Moscow candidate could hope of winning because plenty of non-Russians lean towards their northern neighbor for pan-Slavic reasons. They fondly remember the good ol’ days of the USSR. Ukraine is at a turning point: lean towards the EU and the West or return to Russia. The endorsements were clear: the EU and the US wanted Yushenko, Putin backed Yanukovich. And with the victory of the pro-Russia Yanukovich, there are protests in the streets and threats of violence. The final outcome of the election will be pivotal for Ukraine’s future.

Younghusband, do you think Ukraine belongs in the “Christendom” or “Muscovy” category? Just a thought.