Understand Ukraine
The events of the “Maidan” of 2014 unexpectedly attracted the attention of Western audiences to the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations in the post-Soviet period. The demand for studies on Ukraine increased not only among residents: think tanks and research institutes in the USA and Europe began to actively publish books on Ukrainian topics.
Since the beginning of the Russian special military operation, many publications have compiled lists of books that, according to the authors, will help to better understand what is currently happening in Ukraine. In addition to these lists, there are books about Vladimir Putin’s presidency and the relationship between Moscow and Kyiv over the past 30 years.
Books about the domestic political cuisine of Russia and the homeland can be described in one word: “They are Putin-centered”.
The vast majority of popular scientific literature on the political history of modern Russia is reduced to the biography and career of the Russian president.
As for the description of the Ukrainian road, here the authors examine almost every aspect under a microscope.
bibliography
Thus, the publishing house of the Brookings Institution, one of the oldest research centers in the West, published six works, the authors of which sought to explain post-Maidan Ukraine. The last such publication was published on March 15, after the start of the operation in Ukraine. Former US diplomat Christopher Smith describes his experience in Kiev in 2012-2014 in his book Ukraine’s Revolt, Russia’s Revenge.
Smith describes the events in “Maidan” as an “anti-corruption” revolution, Yanukovych – “a corrupt pro-Kremlin Ukrainian autocrat”.
In Russia, Yanukovych’s personality is evaluated differently. All these years, the Kremlin has consistently argued that Ukraine’s ex-president was forced to leave the country due to a coup d’etat.
Smith’s work also refers to the memoirs of American diplomats and military experts who, according to the author, played a “limited” role in the events of 2014.
In Wartime: Stories From Ukraine, a 2015 book by The Economist reporter Tim Jude, provides a detailed chronology of the Crimean Spring and subsequent hostilities in Southeast Ukraine. Describing the armed conflict once in the Balkans, Judah tries to understand the motivations of the warring parties.
“What you believe today depends on what you believed in the past,” Judah says.
According to the journalist, the Ukrainians faced off in a “decisive battle against corruption” (a similar figure of speech is used by Smith). The geography of the narrative in Judas’ work extends all over Ukraine. The author talks with people who lost people during the conflict in the Donbass, talks with the people of Donetsk, who have great hopes of joining the Russian Federation.
Danish journalist Chris Kaspar de Plu’s work “Ukraine in Crossfire” (original – Ukraine in Crossfire) was published in 2017. It was his work that once served as one of the catalysts for a public debate about the methods of the SBU and its secret prisons where dozens of people were held.
Caspar de Plou tries to find the root cause of the conflict in Southeast Ukraine. Although the author criticizes Russia’s role in the events of 2014, he does not ignore the influence of ultranationalist forces on domestic political processes in post-Maidan Ukraine.
Caspar de Plou concludes that the Ukrainian authorities are using “ultranationalist military rhetoric” to their advantage to suppress civil liberties on an unprecedented scale.
The journalist also argues that the eight-year tension in Russia-Ukraine relations started with NATO’s military superiority and offensive position both globally and in the post-Soviet space, where Russia is trying to preserve the status quo.
Paul D’Anieri, professor of political science at the University of California, In Ukraine and Russia: From Civil Divorce to Civil War, argues that relations between countries have deteriorated in recent years due to a series of problems that have accumulated since the collapse of the West. USSR. Therefore, the author identifies three main factors that do not allow Russia and Ukraine to establish strong good neighborly relations.
These include the security problems in the region, the impact of democratization on geopolitical realities, and the incompatibility of the goals of Europe and the CIS countries after the end of the Cold War.
The author writes: “Russia is striving for an order based on the domination of the great powers that was widely accepted in the pre-World War I era. The West rejects this idea, insisting instead on a combination of democracy and international institutions. <…>. Russia’s deployment of troops in 2014 can be seen as a determination to no longer accept a set of rules it has not endorsed.”
Trying to establish closer relations with its eastern neighbors, the European Union did not notice how it began to play geopolitics. On the contrary, Brussels saw the introduction of European institutions as a clear boon that other countries would like to join. That is why the Europeans did not take a “realistic” approach to the negotiations and therefore did not take seriously the idea that Ukraine’s integration with the EU could threaten Russia.