The region mostly consistent with present-day Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of Russia, was ruled by Grand Prince Volodimer. In Russian, it was Vladimir. In Ukrainian, it was called Volodymyr. See the coincidental cast from past more than a millennium later. These are the names of Russian and Ukrainian leaders at present.
For most of these centuries until 20th century — except for a brief period in 16th century and pre-first world war years — Ukraine remained mostly within Moscow’s territorial sphere of influence.
In the 17th century, the Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, shipped Russians to Ukraine to populate the region with ethnic Russians. The Ukrainian language was banned from schools and official dispatches. In 1930, Russian leader Joseph Stalin facilitated a famine in Ukraine in which millions of Ukrainians were killed in Ukraine’s east. The East of Ukraine was then populated with ethnic Russians.
The east of Ukraine, which now forms internationally-unrecognised states of Donetsk and Luhansk (Donbas), at different points of time in history was consciously populated with ethnic Russians at Moscow’s command. As ethnic Russians scattered across Ukraine from the country’s East, they took with them the ‘shared Russian heritage’ as well as pro-Moscow sentiment.
After Moscow, Kyiv was the most powerful capital among all 15 Soviet Republics in the 20th century. It had a flourishing defence industry, productive farmlands and hosted significant chunk of Soviet nuclear arsenal.
Ukraine became independent in 1991 and so did Russia with the collapse of Soviet Union. Ukraine, in 1994, gave up the nuclear warheads it inherited from Soviet Union. In exchange, Russia promised to respect Ukrainian sovereignty under Budapest Agreement signed in December 1994.
President Yanukovych, deemed a pro-Russian Ukrainian leader, rejected a trade deal with the European Union which would have brought Ukraine quite within the EU umbrella. Instead, Yanukovych took a $15 billion economic bailout from Russia.
In February 2014, Yanukovych fled to Russia. Petro Poroshenko became president in elections held in May 2014. But many in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east, in the Donbas region, wanted Yanukovych to hold on to power in Kyiv.
In Feb-March 2014, Russia annexed Crimea. In March 2014, a Moscow-led referendum declared Crimea as part of Russia. Historically, the region of Crimea, in 1954, was transferred by Moscow to the erstwhile Ukrainian Soviet Republic to ‘strengthen Soviet brotherhood’. Crimea chose to stay with Ukraine even after the USSR’s dissolution. Many in Russia wanted Crimea to join Russia instead.
The region mostly consistent with present-day Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of Russia, was ruled by Grand Prince Volodimer. In Russian, it was Vladimir. In Ukrainian, it was called Volodymyr. See the coincidental cast from past more than a millennium later. These are the names of Russian and Ukrainian leaders at present.
As Kyiv began its all-out operations to eliminate the separatists from Donbas region in the second half of 2014, Russian military intervened. Later, after many rounds of talks between Russia, Ukraine and the West, Minsk Agreements were signed late in September 2014.
Under Minsk Agreements, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire, withdrawal of their troops and elections in the separatist-held Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The Minsk Agreements remain unimplemented since 2014. Moscow justifies war in Ukraine partly because Minsk agreements were never implemented by Kyiv.
Putin wants US-led NATO to stop expanding and opposes any signs of Ukraine joining the US-led military alliance saying it will bring the NATO to Russian borders. Ukraine wants to join NATO but Putin wants NATO to exclude each of the former Soviet states from its expansionist radar.
Putin announced a ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine in February 2022, and invaded the region for Ukraine’s purported ‘demilitarisation and denazification’. More than 18 months on, the war continues with no signs of cessation of violence from either side.