International Court of Justice

      Ukraine has been divided into two ideological sides for years because it is located right between Russia and the western European countries. The eastern side of Ukraine is culturally closer to Russia, which leads many people on this side of the country to want to be annexed by Russia. The cultural make-up of Eastern Ukraine comes from the fact that the country was part of the USSR before the cold war ended. Ukraine got its official independence from Russia in 1991, so it makes sense that many Ukranians are strongly bonded with Russian culture and language. The western side of Ukraine, on the other side, identifies as purely Ukranian and is closer geographically, economically, and ideologically to the europeans. When Ukraine was still part of the USSR, Russia had placed several of their nuclear weapons in Ukrainian land, and they kept the weapons after their independence. However, Ukraine gave Russia their nuclear weapons. They asked for the Russians to respect their sovereignty. To make it official, Russia signed a treaty with the UN in 2000 to reaffirm Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty. 

     The 2014 democratically elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych announced that Ukraine was not going to be signing a UN treaty ensuring financial and political support to the country. He wanted Ukraine to have a Russia-focused Eurasian Economic Union. Many Ukranians in the capital protested this decision and their president ended up fleeing the country. Some rebel groups were formed in the eastern side of Ukraine that were opposing the current government and were in favor of Russia annexing Ukraine. Russia had been allegedly funding these terrorist groups with the purpose of annexing parts or all of Ukraine. When Vladimir Putin ran as a candidate for Russia for the first time, part of his campaign proposal was committing to annexing Crimea into Russia. The russian voters really appreciated the idea of annexing Crimea because of the benefits it would bring to them. 

     Crimea is the main fighting land for Ukranians and Russians because it is located on an oil and gas bed. Owning Crimea would mean having the economic benefits of the oil and gas in the land, so both countries fight endlessly for that piece of land. On top of that, 77% of the people in Crimea speak Russian and 46% of the people in all of Ukraine speak russian. This means that Crimea is a Russian dominated culture, which adds to the reasons why the Russians want to annex Crimea and why rebel groups who support the annexation are formed. When the Russians entered Crimea and Ukranian soldiers were dispatched as well, the Crimean officials allegedly put a separation between them and Ukraine so that a vote could take place for Crimeans to decide whether they wanted to be a part of Ukraine or Russia. According to Crimean officials, 90% of the people voted for Crimea to become part of Russia. Russia took that as in Crimea was now part of their country, but the international community did not agree with that message and thought that the result was coerced and that Russia was not respecting the treaties for Ukraine’s geographical integrity and political sovereignty that they had previously signed. Several rebel groups took control of government buildings in East Ukraine, and the government was forced to fight back for control.