Monday, February 3, 2020

UKRAINE, As Novelist Daniel Silva Saw It and It's History With Russia

Nadene Goldfoot 
                                                                         
Eastern Europe, and as you can see, Russia is alongside Ukraine and offshore
Ukraine is Crimea, a peninsula.  It's a little over 10,000 sq miles in size.
That yellow spot above is about the same size as Israel,  and is 10,425 sq miles with a population of only 2,284 as of 2014.  The difference is that it's all one peninsula, not chopped up in segments like Israel.  
Ukraine, as mentioned in Daniel Silva's 2014 book, The Heist,page 331, was in a crisis.  He had Gabriel, the Israeli spy, having a conversation about Ukraine and Russia.  His friend had warned people about Russia and that their only interest in it was money.                   
                                                                         

Ukraine had been under successive domination by Poland-Lithuania, Russia, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S .R.).
When the Soviet Union began to unravel in 1990–91, the
 legislature of the Ukrainian S.S.R. declared sovereignty (July 16, 1990) and then outright independence (August 24, 1991),
During the Soviet period, rapid industrialization, intensive farming, and a lack of effective pollution controls combined to seriously degrade the environment in Ukraine.
Some of the most polluted areas in the world are now found there.

"The Crimean Peninsula was annexed by the Russian Federation between February and March 2014, and since then has been administered as two Russian federal subjects—the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol. ... On 23 February, pro-Russian demonstrations were held in the Crimean city of Sevastopol. 

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, the United States has supplied Kiev with $1.5 billion in security assistance, plus an average of $320 million a year in non-military aid.  The military aid Trump released amounted to  $391 million.  

 In 2016, UN General Assembly reaffirmed non-recognition of the annexation and condemned "the temporary occupation of part of the territory of Ukraine—the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol".                                    

Crimea became part of the Russian Empire in 1783, when the Crimean Khanate was annexed, then became part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic until 1954. During the first stages of the Russian Civil War there were a series of short-lived independent governments (Crimean People's RepublicCrimean Regional GovernmentCrimean SSR) but they were followed by White Russian governments.  


The February 2014 revolution that ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych sparked a political crisis in Crimea, which initially manifested as demonstrations against the new interim Ukrainian government, but rapidly escalated. In January 2014 the Sevastopol city council had already called for formation of "people's militia" units to "ensure firm defence" of the city from "extremism."

"On 22–23 February, Russian President Vladimir Putin convened an all-night meeting with security services chiefs to discuss extrication of the deposed Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, and at the end of that meeting Putin had remarked that "we must start working on returning Crimea to Russia." On 23 February pro-Russian demonstrations were held in the Crimean city of Sevastopol."

"Both Russia and Ukraine are signatories to the Charter of the United Nations. The ratification of said charter has several ramifications in terms of international law, particularly those that cover the subjects of declarations of independencesovereigntyself-determinationacts of aggression, and humanitarian emergencies

Vladimir Putin said that Russian troops in the Crimean peninsula were aimed "to ensure proper conditions for the people of Crimea to be able to freely express their will", whilst Ukraine and other nations argue that such intervention is a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty."
                                                  
Russian President Vladimir Putin signs the treaty of accession with Crimean leaders in Moscow, 18 March 2014
Putin had taken Crimea from Ukraine.

 

Now in 2020 we have had our President sued for impeachment over Ukraine needing arms quickly in their fight against Russia.

Evidently Trump held back monies for Ukraine until they did him the favor of investigating our former Vice President's role there, being his son was on the board of a natural gas company  It just so happens that Biden is running for president and may have already won the Iowa votes just now, though he's tied with Sanders. Trump's released military aide to Ukraine "is aimed at helping Ukrainian soldiers fight a years-long Russian-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine."
                                                                     
Ukrainian soldiers ride on top of a tank during military exercises in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine on December 3, 2018. Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
 It's a sticky situation, brought to us through a whistle-blower incognito.  The scene is a battleground of their own, the House Democrats fighting against the Republican Senators, causing the nation to be full of the same anger.  

The USA have had sanctions against Russia ever since their invasion into Ukraine's Crimea.  Since 2017, Congress and Trump's tightening of these sanctions has bothered the EU.  The EU is against the USA's secondary sanctions that are framed so as to curb Russia exporting  their energy pipelines to Europe, such as Nord Stream 2.  (B, which has been seeking to sell more of its own liquefied natural businesses involved in Nord Stream 2 have been sanctioned by the United States as (LNG) to EU states, with the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 on December 20, 2019).

Nord Stream is owned and operated by Nord Stream AG, whose majority shareholder is the Russian state company Gazprom, and Nord Stream 2 is owned and will be operated by Nord Stream 2 AG, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gazprom.  In other words, Russia owns these energy pipelines to Europe.  

                                                                      
Ukranian Marines, July 12, 2019
 Image: US Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class T. Logan Keown


Edited:  2/5/2020
Resource:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2016-04-18/why-russian-president-putin-took-crimea-from-ukraine
https://www.cfr.org/blog/top-conflicts-watch-2020-crisis-between-russia-and-ukraine
https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/Plant-and-animal-life
https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/oct/07/us-aid-ukraine-donald-trump-froze-one-chart/
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/27/783487901/the-hold-on-ukraine-aid-a-timeline-emerges-from-impeachment-probe
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R45415.pdf




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