Ukraine conflict - Short history of Ukraine

Background

It is perhaps best to begin with some history of Ukraine and clear up the biggest misconceptions that unsophisticated observers have. 

Perhaps the biggest mistake made by Westerners is assuming that Ukraine is a Nation State, which means that the community living in the political state is a "nation" whereby language, ethnicity, religion is mechanically related. Take for example England ("Angle-land"), the home state of the Angles, speaking English ("Anglish") and practising the Anglican religion. Ukraine is a state which could easily be split into 2 or more nation-states due to its unique historical circumstances.

See below for a language map:

See below for an ethnic map:

See below for a religious map:

Lastly, a map of Ukraine highlighting the path of the main river, the Dnieper:

Some key observations, not only is Ukraine divided ethnically, linguistically, and religiously, but those divides themselves do not correspond to easily identifiable nation statelets, since the south and east of Ukraine has Russian-speaking ethnic Ukranians, Ukranin-speaking ethnic Ukranians; there is a religious divided amongst the Orthodox Christian majority in Ukraine, along ethnic lines between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ukranian Orthodox Church; and there is a religious divide in the west of Ukraine, where a sizeable Greek Catholic and Protestant minority exists (20%). As a last bit of cruel irony, the main geographical feature of Ukraine, the Dnieper River, has a toilet-bend S shape, further dividing Ukraine along the Left Bank and the Right Bank. 

On top of these divides, there are an additional layer of divides with respect to relative wealth per region and electoral preferences.

The image below shows share discrepancies in GDP per capita by region, with eastern, southern regions and the Kiev area being much wealthier than the west of the country.

The electoral divide tells a similar picture, with the 2010 presidential election exhibiting a stark split between north and south Ukraine. What makes the below image so interesting as well is just how strongly it correlates to the historical boundaries of Novorossiya.

How did this situation arise?

Mostly due to the way Ukraine was put together:

What stands out immediately observing the above chart is that the blue zone added by Lenin in 1922 corresponds closely to current electoral and economic divides in Ukraine. This is because Ukraine's boundaries have swelled over time as a result of Imperial Russian and Soviet military conquests. Furthermore, Lenin added heavy the industrial regions of the east to Ukraine in order to increase the number of factory workers susceptible to messaging about "seizing the means of production". Finally, the Soviet Premier Krushchev, himself from Ukranian origin, added Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, with the majority of local inhabitants always having considered that illegitimate. However, it should be noted that most Russian speaking Ukranians, with the exception of Crimeans, were loyal to the Ukranian state until the civil war of 2014.

Impacts on current conflict

With respect to the current conflict in Ukraine, the locus of Ukranian nationalism has been Lviv in the far west of Ukraine. This area has seen frequent conflicts in WW1 and WW2 amongst Ukranian nationalists and Poles fighting over the contested regions of Galicia and pogroms in WW2 against the Jewish population. The locus of pro-Russian sentiment has been the far eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which were added to Ukraine in 1922. Finally, the economic divide is starkest at these two poles, with Ukranian nationalism drawing support from the poorest regions in the west (and Kiev) and Russian nationalism drawing support from the wealthiest, industrial regions of the east. Hence, the current conflict in Ukraine, from a purely internal perspective, is a multi-layered economic and ethnic conflict. My sense, as I will articulate further, is that the most important part of this conflict has been economic, with ethnic identification being a method for factions to "mobilise" support for their respective agendas.