is extremely complicated and I just want to apologize in advance for anything that I get

wrong / leave out / over-simplify. Okay? Okay!

So this is Ukraine, the second largest country in Europe by area. And this is the Crimean

Peninsula, which saw much of the fighting in the Crimean War that lasted from 1853 to

1856.

It was sort of a 'Catholic versus Orthodox' thing, but the larger cause was Europe fearing

that Russia's power would expand as the Ottoman empire declined.

So Britain, France, and the kinda-still-a-thing Ottoman Empire teamed up to eventually defeat

Russia and five hundred thousand people died, and it was generally pretty awful, and obviously

resolved very little since Europe - just sixty years later - would go ahead and have World

War I. Then towards the end of World War I, Russia had its famous communist revolution

and Ukraine enjoyed a brief period of independence. Although 'enjoyed' may not be quite the right

verb. In fact from 1917 to 1921 Ukraine was mired in endless wars among competing factions

including Poland and the USSR and Ukrainian Nationalists, even some real live anarchists.

It was all very complicated. It was also extremely violent.

More than 1.5 million people died. And then finally Ukraine became part of the USSR, and

things became more stable for a while, but then... Stalin.

As many as 10 million Ukrainians starved to death in 1932 and 1933 thanks to Stalin's

agricultural policies, which were not just stupid but also actively evil. I mean, there

was widespread starvation in a country that is now the world's third largest exporter

of grain. Then following World War II, Stalin forcibly deported the Crimean peninsula's

entire indigenous population of ethnic Tatars to central Asia. So if you wanna point to

one individual who's responsible for a lot of this, I don't wanna, you know, call anyone

out, but STALIN. Stalin also moved many ethnic Russians into Ukraine, especially into the

Crimean peninsula in the western part of the country, which is the industrial center. And

then Stalin's successor, Khrushchev, decided to transfer the Crimean peninsula from Russia

to Ukraine in 1954. Why? Well, Khrushchev had lots of ties to Ukraine, but also the

Crimean peninsula is not actually physically attached to Russia.

As you can see here, it is physically attached to Ukraine and it gets all of its electricity

and water from Ukraine, and it's easier to administer places you are physically connected

to. Which is why Alaska should be part of Canada, but that is a different story. Okay,

so quick contemporary demographic snapshot: today, about 67% of people living in Ukraine

speak Ukrainian as their first language. About 30% speak Russian, although only about 17%

of the population identify as ethnically Russian. And as you can see here Russian is mostly

spoken in the West (he meant East) and in the Crimean peninsula. Many Tatars have returned

to Crimea since the breakup of the Soviet Union, but today they only make up about 12%

of the population.

Okay, so flash forward to December of 1991 after the Soviet Union has broken up: Ukraine

has had a nationwide referendum and 90% of people, including a majority of those living

in the Crimean peninsula, voted for independence from Russia. But Ukraine remained much more

closely aligned with Russia than many other former Soviet Republics did like, for instance,

Estonia, which is now part of the European Union. In 2004 there was an election and there

were widespread reports of vote-rigging, but the Russian-friendly Viktor Yanukovych was

elected. The opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko, lead massive street protests in Kiev that

came to be known as the Orange Revolution. That opposition leader, Yushchenko, was disfigured

and almost died as a result of mysterious poisoning. Side note, but the number of "mysterious

poisonings" in Russia and Eastern Europe has absolutely skyrocketed since Putin came to

power in Russia, which I'm sure is a coincidence.

Anyway, the Orange Revolution protests led to a second election, and the poisoned opposition

leader, Yushchenko, won, and yay, everything would be made of puppies and freedom and rainbows

and friendliness toward Europe forever, except NO.

For one thing, a lot of people in Ukraine, especially in the western part, want to be

more closely allied with Russia, and also (despite being an economist) Yushchenko wasn't

very good at running the Ukrainian economy. Also, Yushchenko couldn't push through austerity

measures needed to deal with Ukraine's rising debt, and his friendliness towards Europe

infuriated Russia, which cut off gas supplies briefly (but disastrously) to Ukraine in 2006.

So, by 2010, Ukraine was being led by the Europe friendly, and somewhat corrupt, Yulia

Tymoshenko and then there were elections. And the presidential election, declared free

and fair by international observers, was won by the aforementioned, Russian-friendly, Viktor

Yanukovych. In November 2013, Yanukovych announced that Ukraine would abandon an agreement to

strengthen ties with the EU and would instead become a closer ally of Russia.

And that is when the protests began in Kiev's Independence Square. Those protests grew and

grew until February 20th when dozens of protesters were killed by military and police and the

next day Yanukovych disappeared from Kiev. The protesters had won. They installed a new

temporary government to prepare for new elections... and then the Putin regime marched into the

Crimean Peninsula, ostensibly to protect ethnic Russians there and Russian military installations,

but this violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity is known in diplomatic circles as,

like, "a big 'effing deal."

Crimea is already an autonomous province with its own government, so what does it want?

Does it want independence? That would be hard, all of their electricity and water has to

come through Ukraine. Does it want to be part of Russia again? That would be impossible,

without Ukrainian co-operation, which right now seems inconceivable, so that's where we

are right now. I mean, unless something has happened in the last 30 minutes. So here's

one narrative of these events: an unpopular and ineffective, but democratically elected

politician was removed from power by a mob of protesters, and the new, unelected parliament

briefly passed a law saying that only Ukrainian can be the official language of the country,

even though many people in the country speak Russian. Furthermore, this new government

wants to become part of the EU which might bring NATO missiles to Russia's border and

that is unacceptable to Russia. I mean, I'm American. We've had some very infective and

unpopular leaders, and what we've done is just waited for them not to be president anymore.

But here's another narrative: a tyrannical leader who ordered the murder of peaceful

protesters was chased from power and replaced by a government that will transition Ukraine

toward free and fair elections and Russia responded to that by invading Ukraine.

Hank, I'm not trying to make a false equivalence here, but I think it's really important to

understand both of these narratives. And I wanted to give a little more historical context

than we've been seeing on the news because it helps us to understand that the pull between

Western Europe and Russia in Ukraine is not new. I mean, the word "Ukraine" itself means

"borderland". It has for centuries functioned as the border between West and East. What

Ukraine needs is stability... decades of stability, so it can grow to have its own identity to

have relationships with both Europe and Russia without being controlled by either. Right

now that dream seems really far away but 60 years ago Japan was in ruins. 25 years ago

Germany was divided into two countries. 12 years ago Sierra Leone was mired in a horrific

and seemingly endless civil war but today it's the second fastest growing economy in

the world. The arc of history is long, Hank, let's hope that it bends towards peace. Hank,

I'll see you on Friday.