A mess

Moved today by the article in the Financial Times at reference 1 to take a quick look at the Ukraine. A look which produced some maps of more or less unknown provenance but all telling a similar story and three more articles, references 2, 3 and 4. With Moldova, mainly vaguely Romanian but with a complicated history, tucked in at the bottom left, to the left of the pink, in the map above and at reference 5 below.

The next map is about voting in a Ukrainian election, with the Ukrainian flavoured candidate in yellow to the left and the Russian flavoured candidate in blue to the right. And with something odd going on in the middle where the yellow candidate gets well under half. But which fits well enough with the first map, with the recent additions to the east, including the heavy industry of the Donbas of reference 6. While the Don of the famous novel at reference 7, containing plenty of fights between Don Cossacks and Ukrainians is a bit further to the east.

This one is ethnicity.

And this one is language. Taking the legend literally, about whether people speak Russian at all, rather than whether they speak it as their mother tongue, or when going about their daily business. 

And here we are back on safer ground, with nature reserves and with Moldova tucked in bottom left.

All in all, just the sort of mess that we should understand, after our stint in the Indian subcontinent. Or Cyprus, or Ireland, or Iraq. To name just a few of the many places left with problems after the withdrawal of an imperial power.

One might think that the answer is to respect the boundaries agreed at the time of the dissolution of the USSR at the end of 1991 and to leave the Ukrainians to get on with it - all their problems with governance, corruption and so on and so forth notwithstanding.

This strikes me as a much better way forward than arguing about the complicated second millennium history of the region - as Putin and the others do. Who cares why the Tatars of the Crimea caved in to the Russians? Who cares what this or that saint got up to at about the time we were fighting the Battle of Hastings? And I forget why one of these saints - dressed more like a soldier than a saint - gets to get a statue in our own Holland Park. For which see reference 8.

One might add that the Moldovans have their problems too, with the people living on the left bank of the Dniester having gone for UDI. With about a quarter of the left-bankers beings Ukrainians and another quarter being Russians. And with the Dniester being visible in the last of the maps above.

References

Reference 1: UK warns Moscow is planning to install pro-Russian leader in Ukraine: London takes extraordinary step of naming Putin’s candidate for head of puppet government in Kyiv - Sebastian Payne, Ben Hall, Max Seddon, James Politi, Financial Times - 22 January 2022.

Reference 2a: An article by the Defence Secretary on the situation in Ukraine: Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace discusses NATO, Ukraine and Russia - Ben Wallace/MOD - 17 January 2022.

Reference 2b: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/an-article-by-the-defence-secretary-on-the-situation-in-ukraine.

Reference 3a: Russia and Ukraine: ‘One People’ as Putin Claims? - Andrew Wilson/RUSI - 23 December 2021.

Reference 3b: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russia-and-ukraine-one-people-putin-claims.

Reference 4a: Article by Vladimir Putin 'On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians' - Vladimir Putin - 11 July 2021.

Reference 4b: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldova.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donbas.

Reference 7: And Quiet Flows the Don - Mikhail Sholokhov - 1925-1940.

Reference 8: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/06/st-volodymyr.html.