The world is arguably a mess nowadays, with death and destruction seemingly plaguing just about every corner of the earth. Whether it’s organized military action or every kind of terrorism imaginable, man’s inhumanity to man seems to be on vivid display most everywhere one looks. And here in America, it’s hard to properly rank what we should be most concerned about, China invading Taiwan, Korea sending more rockets into the Sea of Japan, or the terrorism that ISIS and other such despicable groups still desperately want to spread to our shores. Or maybe it is the never-ending Israeli/Palestinian conflict that should worry us the most, or the fact that much of the continent of Africa is in utter chaos, or that Iran might get the nuclear bomb, or that Syria will never be stabilized, or that India and Pakistan could be back at each other’s throats at any minute? Well, for my money, I worry most about what is going on in Ukraine.
Ukraine, long considered the breadbasket of that part of the world because of its extensive fertile farmlands which export much of the world’s grain, basically finds itself bordered by Russia on the east and Europe on the west, while struggling to live in both worlds without being militarily pulled apart in the process. Although national polls have found that almost 90% of Ukrainians want to continue westernizing and further strengthen their ties with Europe (including majorities in the far eastern parts of the country believed to be mostly under Russian influence), Ukraine has already had the Crimea annexed by Russia and the fears of a widening conflict continue to increase.
As I write this, more than 125,000 Russian soldiers are on the eastern border of Ukraine, not to mention all the tanks and other war materials necessary to invade Ukraine at a moment’s notice. There are also heavily armed Russian-sponsored rebels, many of them in the eastern regions, where lots of deadly fighting has taken place in the past, with many thousands of Ukrainians having already perished in what must seem like an endless struggle to them. And now there is fear that war could quickly spread to such heavily populated areas as Kiev, the ancient but still very modern capital of Ukraine, where its citizens are very concerned and frightened.
So, to help myself better understand what is really going on in Ukraine and why it is so important to those of us living in faraway America, I decided to ask someone who is actually living through the whole tragedy.
Svitlana was born in Kiev and although she has traveled extensively and lived in such places as Germany and Poland, she has always been drawn back to the city of her birth. She is well-educated and after working many years in the field of finance, has opened her own small business in downtown Kiev.
“I live in an old, beautiful part of Kiev,” explained Svitlana, “and Ukraine is a wonderful place to call home. We are a good, patient, hard-working, strong-willed and creative people who just want to be allowed to prosper and live in peace with all of our neighbors. But our former president was so corrupt and such a puppet of Moscow that he was finally overthrown, and our new political leaders want closer ties to Europe, which of course goes against Putin’s plan of keeping Ukraine closely allied with Russia, and that is why we now have this ongoing war on our soil.”
It turns out that you can’t fully understand what is going on in Ukraine without understanding Vladimir Putin.
“Putin lives in fear of Ukraine becoming a part of the European Union and NATO,” explained Svitlana. “He also cannot accept the fact that the old Soviet Union is no more, and he wants to return things to the way they once were under communism, with him totally in charge of course. He is a very ambitious man and he lives in a utopian world, where everything is just as he wants it. But Russia now lives off of its natural resources, especially oil and gas, and Ukraine wants a more modern economy, with all the individual freedoms and financial rewards that go with it. Anyway, if Putin’s aggressiveness is not stopped in Ukraine, it will only spread, and it will end up engulfing much if not all of the Baltic States and Eastern Europe, and who knows what will happen from there.”
Without saying it, Svitlana was hinting at the possibility of a third world war, starting once again in Europe, and that in many ways, her beloved country is ground zero.
“Many regions of Russia are very poor, including many of its citizens,” explained Svitlana, “and war is not a big deal to people with so little to lose. Putin has more than a hundred thousand Russian soldiers on our borders right this very minute, waiting for his orders. And the so-called rebels in our country could not exist without Russian advisers, soldiers and heavy weapons. So I know America and its European allies have many things to worry about other than Ukraine. But they better not turn their back on us, because Putin is very dedicated to getting what he wants, and there could be a terrible price to pay in the future for the whole world if he is allowed to do what he wishes in Ukraine. Anyway, all is quiet in Kiev for now, but we are no longer sure what to expect, and bombs could be falling here tomorrow for all we know. And I just hope the rest of the world, especially America, is watching and won’t forget about us.”