Ukraine

Upon declaring independence in 1991, Ukraine was home to a number of ethnic minorities. The most prominent of which were Russians. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea was the only part of Ukraine with an ethnic Russian majority. However, there were a significant number of Russians in Donetsk, Luhansk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Kharkiv, and other regions mainly in eastern Ukraine. Part of the fighting in Ukraine can be attributed to a political divide between a predominantly Ukrainian-speaking population in the west and north and a predominantly Russian-speaking population in the east and south. While maintaining that it is difficult to make sweeping assertions about the political divide, it could perhaps be asserted that western Ukraine is predominantly pro-European while eastern Ukraine maintains closer ties with Russia. This can particularly be seen through the educational system which propagates very different historical narratives depending on the region analyzed.

In the 1930s, particularly during WWII there was a rise of nationalism in Ukraine which led to the formation of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalist (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). In western-Ukraine, these groups are often associated with independence and freedom from the Soviet Union and Russian Federation while other narratives, particularly in eastern-Ukraine, associate them not only with anti-Soviet rhetoric but pro-Nazi and anti-semitic propaganda. For example, in 2010, The Wiesenthal Center condemned Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko for awarding Stephan Bandera the “Hero of Ukraine” award. Stating that Bandera was a Ukrainian nationalist leader whose followers killed thousands of people of Jewish and other descent during WWII. Other narratives have justified these killings by characterizing them as self-defense against historical Polish oppression of Ukrainian peasants.

A dual narrative has defined the past decade of conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Some observers highlight a rise in neo-Nazi nationalism in Kiev, while others warn that such statements are often used for Putin propaganda. In 2018, a joint was sent to Ukrainian authorities from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Front Line Defenders, and Freedom House urging the prosecution of radical hate groups which have committed violent attacks against Roma people, LGBTI groups, feminists, and rights activists in the region. Adding that the current government has done very little to investigate or address these attacks. Western media, nervous about adding fuel to the Russian propaganda machine, sometimes fails to address the far-right presence in the Ukrainian conflict. In 2014, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko granted a Ukrainian passport to Sergei Korotkykh. A Belarusian militant in the Azov Battalion, he is often regarded as a neo-Nazi by human rights activist groups. Poroshenko also thanked Korotkykh for his service fighting the Russian-separatist groups in Mariupol. The Azov Battalion that Korotkykh is a member of is one of the far-right militia groups Kiev has utilized in the fight against pro-Russian separatist. The leader of the Azov, Andriy Biletsky, once wrote that Ukraine’s mission was to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade…against the Semite-led Untermenschen.” This group, which has been accused by both Human Rights Watch and the UN of human rights abuses, was incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard in the fall of 2014.

While it’s important to provide a voice to the side of the conflict often forgotten by western media, the UN and Human Rights Watch reports maintain that Russia-backed separatists have committed serious human rights violations. Additionally, while there are still serious concerns about right-wing extremism in Ukraine, there have been actions taken to mitigate this threat. What is known though is that the Ukrainian crisis has become a devastatingly brutal conflict caused by a prominent political divide. As in all conflicts, the most severely impacted remain the citizens on the ground torn between two histories, two regions, and two ideologies/agendas.

Parties Involved