Today's News, Tomorrow's Lesson - March 5, 2014

By Richard Vaughan

With the eyes of the world on the escalating tension in Ukraine,
Share My Lesson attempts to put the crisis in context for you and your
students.

Q: Why has Russia sent troops into Ukraine?

A: The Russian president Vladimir Putin last week won approval from
his parliament to deploy troops across Ukraine “until the normalization
of the political situation in the country,” after months of civil
unrest culminated in the Ukrainian government being overthrown. Russian
armed forces are now massing in Ukraine’s semi-autonomous region of
Crimea.

Q: Does Russia have international support in its decision to
send its army into Ukraine?

A: Pretty much, no. The decision is being opposed by most of the
rest of the world, particularly countries in the West, which have
condemned it as a threat to Ukrainian sovereignty. The US described it
as an invasion and said that Russia has violated the United Nations
charter. NATO has also called for Russia to stand its troops down and
is calling emergency meetings.

Q: When and why did this conflict start?

A: The tensions between Russia and Ukraine arose when the latter’s
government was overthrown last month in a civil uprising. This was
caused when the now-ousted government decided in November to abandon
tighter trade links with the European Union and create closer ties with
Russia, which included the Russian government buying $15 billion of
Ukrainian debt. This led to increasingly violent protests in the
largely Ukrainian-speaking west of the country, which eventually
resulted in the deposing of the country’s president Viktor Yanukovych,
who was most popular in the Russian-speaking east.

Q: Who is Viktor Yanukovych?

A: He is a Ukrainian politician who became president in 2010. His
main political rival was the country’s then prime minister Yulia
Tymoshenko, who backed better relations with the west After Mr.
Yanukovych’s election, she was arrested and imprisoned in what many
believe was a politically motivated move. Mr. Yanukovych quickly came
to be seen as “Russia’s man” in Ukraine, suspicions that were
strengthened when at the end of last year he cancelled closer links
with the west in favor of Russia. After being deposed, he fled the
Ukrainian capital, Kiev, with an arrest warrant on his head. He is now
believed to be in Moscow.

Q: Who are the protesters?

A: Most of the protesters involved in the civil uprising came from
the west of the country, which sees itself as being more European and
wants to be closer to the EU and other Western democracies. Among the
ranks of those who rejected stronger relations with Russia, however,
were groups of nationalists with links to the political Far Right.

Q: Why would closer links to Russia be a problem for the
Ukrainian people?

A: Ukraine used to be a part of the Soviet Union. The current
tension with its Russian neighbor is an aftershock from the dissolution
of the Soviet Union in 1991 when 90 percent of Ukrainians voted in
favor of independence. And although the west of the country is eager to
be more European, the east is more closely aligned with Russia, with
many identifying themselves as “ethnically Russian”, thus creating a
friction within the country itself.

Q: Have there been similar “aftershocks” from the fall of
the Soviet Union?

A: Yes. In 2008, Russia effectively invaded Georgia when it annexed
the country’s South Ossetia region. This military action left scores of
people dead and tensions between the two countries remain high.
However, nothing has been seen on the scale of that between Ukraine and
Russia.

Q: Will there be all-out war?

A: It is very difficult to say. Mr. Putin showed in the case of
Georgia that he was capable of taking military action. However, Crimea
is already semi-autonomous: it has its own parliament and very close
links to Russia. The situation would be likely to escalate only if
Russian troops moved into other regions of Ukraine.

Q: Will countries like the US and UK take up arms?

A: It is unlikely. The West will most probably opt to impose
financial sanctions on Russia to try to isolate it. Russia has already
been warned that it will be thrown out of the G8 group of leading
industrialized democracies if it continues to flex its military muscles.

Q: Will this put Russia off?

A: Again, it is very difficult to say. Russia could turn off its gas
pipeline, which feeds a great deal of Europe. It may be too big and too
powerful to try to hurt financially.

Resources:

Ukraine

Learn more about the Ukraine by reading about a Peace Corps volunteer’s
first day working in the country.

Ukrainian
alphabet

This educational toolkit is designed by teachers for teachers, and
allows you to feel comfortable teaching about Syria without having to
feel like you are an expert.

Chernobyl

Learn more about the Chernobyl disaster, another incident which deeply
affected the Ukraine in the 1980s.