February 2nd, 2022

Large-scale Russian troop movements along the Ukrainian border have dramatically escalated fears of a new war, directing world attention not only to Russia but to its threatened neighbor, a country of 44 million people at the geographic center of Europe. This would not be the first hot war between Russia and Ukraine. The two countries have been engaged in a largely unrecognized, low-intensity hot war for several years now. In 2014, the Euromaidan Revolution (referred to locally as the “Revolution of Dignity”) culminated in violence, and swept away unpopular pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. In reaction, Russia seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and militarily supported insurgencies in parts of the Donbas eastern border region. Two self-proclaimed “republics” – the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR) and “Luhansk People’s Republic” (LNR) were formed on territories that Russia-backed separatists wrested from Ukrainian government control during the deadliest war in twenty-first-century Europe.

How should we make sense of all this? Who are the Ukrainians and where did they and their country come from? Russian President Vladimir Putin, who infamously told U.S. President George W. Bush that he should not worry about Ukraine because it is “not even a country,” has opined that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people,” and the Kremlin has repeatedly claimed it as a sphere of rightful Russian influence where many are “Russian-speakers.”

Ukraine’s leadership vehemently disputes this and has expressed a willingness to fight to the end if necessary. Why does Ukraine’s leadership resist Russian dominance and membership in Russian-led structures, and how united are Ukrainians on these questions? Does the widespread use of the Russian language facilitate pro-Russian viewpoints, and has this been changing? What were some of the main effects of the Euromaidan Revolution? How should we understand the war that has already claimed over 14,000 lives in Ukraine’s Donbas territory, and who exactly  is doing the fighting and the dying?

Nationalities Papers is an excellent source of answers to these questions and others, with articles based not on punditry or political spin, but on in-depth social science and historical studies, using the best research and tools of the trade available. For those seeking a new depth of understanding in light of ongoing events, we have compiled the following syllabus (broken down by theme) of some of the most relevant articles on the subject

- Dominique Arel, Henry E. Hale, and Oxana Shevel.