The Ukraine. From Wikipaedia - Ukraine first became independent with the Ukrainian War of Independence of 1917 to 1921, but the resulting Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (in 1919 merged from the Ukrainian Peoples Republic and West Ukrainian Peoples Republic) was quickly subsumed in the Soviet Union. Apart from Ukraine proper (Little Russia), the Soviet republic also comprised a vast Russophone area formerly known as New Russia. Galicia, South Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and Carpathian Ruthenia were added as a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the Second World War. The Soviet famine of 1932–33 or Holodomor killed an estimated 6 to 8 million people in the Soviet Union, the majority of them in the Ukraine. Nazi Germany with its allies invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Many Ukrainians initially regarded the Wehrmacht soldiers as liberators from Soviet rule, while others formed a partisan movement. Some elements of the Ukrainian nationalist underground formed a Ukrainian Insurgent Army that fought both Soviet and Nazi forces During the military occupation of Ukraine by Nazi Germany, a number of Ukrainians chose to cooperate with the Nazis. Reasons for collaboration generally included resurgent Ukrainian nationalism and aspirations for independence, these however were coupled with rampant racism towards other ethnic groups (such as Tatars, Roma peoples and Poles) as well as a prevailing sentiment of antisemitism. However, the absence of Ukrainian autonomy under the Nazis, mistreatment by the occupiers, and the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians as slave laborers, soon led to a rapid change in the attitude among the collaborators. By the time the Red Army returned to Ukraine, a significant number of the population welcomed the soldiers as liberators. At the same time, more than 4.5 million Ukrainians had joined the Red Army to combat Nazi Germany and more than 250,000 served as Soviet partisan paramilitary units. After World War II some amendments to the Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR were accepted, which allowed it to act as a separate subject of international law in some cases and to a certain extent, remaining a part of the Soviet Union at the same time. In particular, these amendments allowed the Ukrainian SSR to become one of the founding members of the United Nations (UN) together with the Soviet Union and the Byelorussian SSR. This was part of a deal with the United States to ensure a degree of balance in the General Assembly, which, the USSR opined, was unbalanced in favor of the Western Bloc. In its capacity as a member of the UN, the Ukrainian SSR was an elected member of the United Nations Security Council in 1948–1949 and 1984–1985. The Crimean Oblast was transferred from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954. The USSRs insistence on Ukraine being a separate and independent voter as a stand alone member of the U.N. has now backfired. There is grave danger in this situation.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 13:40:21 +0000
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