On February 21, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin threw a bombshell in front of the world, and Russia announced the recognition of the independence of the two regions!
Then, the situation further escalated, on the 24th, the Russian and Ukrainian armies officially began to fight!
Putin's decision was so quick that the whole world was in an uproar, and the Ukrainian president, EvenSky, did not expect Putin to give him a sudden blow. Like successive leaders in Ukrainian history, the six-god-less Zelensky can only hope for the help of other countries.
The two sides exchanged fire, and only innocent people and soldiers fighting for the country and the people suffered, and for a time, Ukraine fell into a huge panic.
On the 28th, the two sides finally ushered in the first round of negotiations, but the results of the negotiations did not meet expectations, and the next situation is still unclear...
Many people may wonder, what is the deep hatred between Ukraine and Russia, which can be regarded as the same origin? Why have the two countries always been in conflict? To investigate the reasons behind this, it may be from more than 360 years ago.
Great Cossack Uprising
Before the 8th century of the park, Russians and Ukrainians had a common name - The Ancient Rus.
The Ancient Rus' were once distributed in various parts of the Eastern European continent and established two powerful kingdoms, the Kingdom of Kievan Rus' and the Duchy of Moscow. With the establishment of the two countries, the Ancient Rus have been divided since this time, but not to the point of mutual hatred and intolerance.
In the 13th century, the Mongols rose and established a powerful Golden Horde, and the Mongol army was not satisfied with the original territory and sent troops to the west. The Mongol army actually crushed the Muscovite Principality, and then defeated Kievan Rus' and the two states became vassals of the Mongol Golden Horde.
The people of the Muscovite Principality endured humiliation under Mongol rule, and a century later, the people of the mighty Muscovite Principality finally rose up in revolt and drove out the Mongols. But Kievan Rus' was not so lucky, because the western part of Kievan Rus' and the western part of what is now Ukraine had fallen into Polish hands.
In the eastern region, because of the long period of Mongol rule, the two peoples in the process of long-term integration produced a new national Cossack, the cultural tradition of the Cossacks is very close to that of the Russians.
Thus there are great differences between the east and the west of Ukraine in terms of ethnicity, religion, language and living customs.
Although, after the Mongol army was driven out, Ukraine achieved a superficial unification.
But out of hatred of the Mongol army and different religious beliefs, western Ukraine was full of rejection of the Cossacks, a people whose bodies were both Mongol and Rus' blood.
In the eyes of the western Ukrainians, they are the inheritors of Roman orthodoxy, while the Cossacks are barbarians like the Russians! This deep-rooted discrimination brought about a relentless repression of the Cossacks.
Where there is oppression, there is resistance! Unwilling to endure discrimination and oppression by the peoples of western Ukraine, the Cossacks launched an uprising in 1648, known as the Great Cossack Revolt!
People at that time did not know that this great uprising directly changed the fate of various countries in Eastern Europe, and the strength of each country also changed with the arrival of this uprising, and also laid a big foreshadowing for the future Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
The Cossack army was invincible in Ukraine and soon occupied most of the country, and the Poles who occupied western Ukraine were almost completely driven out.
The leader of the Cossack uprising was named Khmelnytsky, who was very prestigious among the rebel army. After the uprising broke out, he ordered his troops to take the Zapolo tribe.
Because of his good lobbying skills, Khmelnytsky encouraged the equally oppressed Ruthenians to join the rebel army.
As the rebel army won one victory after another, more and more Orthodox Christians joined the ranks of the rebel army, and the rebel ranks grew rapidly.
The Cossack uprising was initially invincible, but after a rapid adjustment, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth suppressed the rebels by force.
In 1651, the rebel army led by Khmelnytsky encountered the Polish army at Berestečko, and because of improper command, the rebel army was defeated, and the once mighty leader of the rebel army, Khmelnitz, was frightened.
He was anxious to find a strong backer. And claimed that the rebellious Cossack did not want to become an independent state, but only wanted to be treated equally, and if there was a country willing to accept Cossacks, then he was willing to be loyal forever.
Whether it was the king of Poland, the Ottoman sultan, or the tsar of Russia, if they could do this, they would lead the Cossack rebel army to the annexation.
At this moment, the Russian Tsar, who had been watching the fire from the other side, saw that the time was ripe and threw an olive branch to the Cossacks. In 1654 Khmelnytsky signed the Treaty of Pereyaslav with the Russian Tsar.
In fact, Khmelnytsky had an army of 120,000 men at the time, and most of the battles were won, except for those who suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Belestečko.
If Khmelnytsky can have a more independent spirit than rush to seek asylum from a great power, Ukraine's history is likely to be rewritten.
However, Khmelnytsky, who was slightly naïve in his political thinking, did not expect that this treaty would put the Cossacks in another difficult situation.
Khmelnytsky signed the treaty in order to be an ally of Russia, but Russia played a word game to interpret the treaty as the merger of Ukraine and Russia.
This caused resentment among some of the rebels, and some rebel leaders even raised troops against the Russians. Anti-Russian forces in Ukraine were thus formed.
For a time, three incompatible forces within Ukraine coexisted at the same time. The three forces do whatever it takes to strike at each other. They even used their hatred of Russia and Poland to encourage the people to kill each other.
Although Khmelnytsky later tried to salvage this situation, it did not help, and the differences within Ukraine and the different attitudes toward Poland and Russia laid the hidden danger for the future Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is constant
After 1654, a fierce civil war broke out within the Cossack rebel army, known in history as the "Great Collapse of twenty years". The end result of the civil war was that Ukraine was divided into east and west, bounded by the Dnieper River.
The forces on the left bank of the Dnieper evolved from initially opposed to Poland to pro-Russian, while the forces on the right became pro-Western. The struggle between the two factions has never stopped ever since.
Internal divisions give the opportunity for other countries on the outside to invade. As a result, foreign forces such as Poland, Russia, and Sweden continue to infiltrate Ukraine and become the driving force behind Ukraine's internal conflict.
Years of war have plunged Ukraine's population into a long depression. By the 17th century, two powerful states, Poland and Russia, were engaged in a long struggle for supremacy on Ukrainian soil.
Until the 18th century, Poland's national strength was gradually weakening, and it was no longer able to continue to fight with Russia. So it slipped out of Ukraine, and Ukraine became part of Russia.
For two centuries, the Russians had already considered Ukraine part of their territory. When the once glorious Russia collapsed in 1917, the Ukrainian nation began a national independence movement.
The Ukrainian people finally got their wish and established an independent State. Yet Ukraine, the country, seems destined to be a fateful character.
Shortly after Ukraine's independence, Poland, once in decline, was once again revived in blood after two centuries of development. Polish troops marched into Ukraine aggressively, and this time Poland's target was more than just small Ukraine.
Poland also set its sights on Belarusian land, which stimulated the Russian Red Army and White Guards, who were engaged in civil war. The three forces are engaged in a fierce battle in Ukraine.
The inability of a humble and weak Ukraine to take charge of its own destiny, coupled with the constant civil war between pro-Russian and pro-Western factions, has made Ukraine a fish to be slaughtered.
The Su-Po War lasted for nearly four years, and although both sides suffered damage, they did not move. The innocent and weak Ukraine was divided in two, with the east being given to the Soviet Union and the west becoming the spoils of war for Poland.
In the nearly 20 years since, the people of western Ukraine have rebelled against Polish rule several times, and their hatred of Poland has become increasingly intense. In 1939, the Soviet Union recaptured the territory of western Ukraine from the Poles.
This made Ukrainians think that they could finally become independent. However, the Soviet Union was not a philanthropist, and seized the territory of western Ukraine only to incorporate it into its own territory.
Ukrainians, seeing no hope of independence, clashed with Soviet troops. During the German offensive against the Soviet Union, some anti-Soviet Ukrainians volunteered to be guides for the German army.
And organized a team to attack the Soviet Union with the German army, and the Ukrainians wanted to take the opportunity to curry favor with Germany and achieve national independence through German power.
But in this world of the jungle, no one is reliable, and Germany is no exception. With the end of the Soviet-German war, the Ukrainian war against the Soviet Union also came to an end.
Immediately after, in order to develop its own industry, the Soviet Union built a large number of factories in the Ukrainian region, and a large number of Russians also migrated in.
This part of the Russians became a thorn in the side of Ukrainians, especially the Ukrainian nation in the west.
In 1991, the mighty Soviet Union collapsed, and Ukraine, which had been enslaved and oppressed for nearly three centuries, finally broke free of its shackles and declared its independence.
But the hatred that had penetrated deep into the marrow did not disappear with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the people of western Ukraine hated the Soviet Union and hated the countries that had enslaved them.
After coming to power in the west of Ukraine, it was extremely oppressive to the eastern population close to the Soviet Union. Not only that, but the Ukrainians seemed to be carried away by hatred, and they began to remove everything related to the Soviet Union, including industries that were already very advanced at the time.
In order to win the favor and recognition of the EUROPEAN Union countries, Ukraine launched a deindustrialization movement at home with great fanfare, transforming itself from an industrial powerhouse into a small agricultural country subject to people.
Ukraine's domestic economy has been rapidly declining. At the same time, the Ukrainian government, seeing the population of the eastern region as the greatest destabilizing factor, began to increase its repression and military control of the population of eastern Ukraine.
This made the already precarious domestic situation even more dangerous, and soon after, the population of eastern Ukraine erupted into a huge conflict with the Ukrainian government.
As the conflict intensifies, eastern Ukraine hopes Russia will step up and help itself. Then, Russia intervened in Ukraine's internal conflict.
Russia's move is considered a military invasion by the Ukrainian government, and in order to resist the attack on Russia, the Ukrainian government is willing to ally with it at any cost, no matter which country it can support against Russia.
Just as it is so-called easy to ask God to send God, it is difficult to send God, and the Western countries that are worried that they will not find an opportunity to attack Russia can finally strike at and sanction Russia in an open and just manner!
Ukraine is riding a tiger
Doesn't the Ukrainian government know the careful thinking of Western countries? Obviously, the Ukrainian government is not stupid enough to go so far. It's just that the centuries-old national sentiment has made Ukrainians willing to be pawns in the game between the West and Russia.
However, this is destined to be a vicious circle, and Russia has established an alliance with THE EU countries and will not hesitate to let the West get involved in domestic affairs, which makes Russia feel full of malice.
Ukraine's move poses a huge threat to Russia's strategic environment, and russia must intervene in Ukraine's internal conflict for its own interests and national security.
As a result, Ukraine has once again become a pawn in the game between Russia and European and American countries, in order to support the Ukrainian government army to suppress the East Ukrainian militia organization, Europe and the United States and other countries continue to send batches of weapons and equipment and military materials, and in times of crisis, they will not hesitate to send troops to help.
For its own strategic security, Russia also had to support the East Ukrainian militia to confront it, and even eventually launched a war.
The big powers fight the small countries. Especially at this time, Ukraine, pulled and contained by the two major forces of Russia and the West, may become a victim of this endless struggle.
In fact, Ukraine's geographical location is still very superior, if there is no war, if Ukraine can put aside hatred, he can use the advantages of its own agriculture and industry, with Russia and other neighboring countries to trade in exchanges for Russian oil and gas and other resources, so that itself continues to develop and grow.
However, all this can only be imagined as an outsider, and we still need to wait quietly where Ukraine will go.