STANDING WITH UKRAINE

Today is the 31st anniversary of the Ukraine’s independence from the former Soviet Union, an empire by any other name. The independence of Ukraine followed the collapse of the Soviet Union following the hardliners failed coup attempt on 24th August 1991. 

The Ukrainian’s with their land split between Imperial Russia and Austria-Hungry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, stood little chance, of achieving statehood or independence. The chaotic end of the First World War saw at one point at least two Ukrainian governments in existence, during the existence of the Soviet Union the possibilities of Ukrainian becoming independent were minimal. 

The horrors of the famine, collectivisation, and the Second World War inflicted horrendous casualties on Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. The emergence of the Soviet Union, under Stalin, emerging as one of the worlds two new post war superpowers and the start of the Cold War confrontation effectively locked the Ukraine into the USSR. 

For all the fiction that surrounded the myth that that the Soviet Union was a socialist republican paradise it was and behaved liked an Empire, with the Russians on top and the Ukrainians somewhat lower in the pecking order, not at the bottom of the heap, but, not quite at the top. 

The collapse of the coup attempt by communist hardliners 24th August 1991 was the final straw that broke the camels back, partially free elections in 1990 had seriously weakened Communist control in the Baltic Republics, Georgia and Armenia. The Russian Federation under its newly elected President Boris Yeltsin reached out to take power. 

At the same time, on the 24th August 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Ukraine passed a resolution calling for a national referendum on the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union. Russia effectively became independent and the USSR began to collapse.

The Ukrainian independence vote took place on December 1st 1991, worth 28,804,071 ( 93.3 p% ) voting for independence, and 2,427,554 ( 7.7% ) voting against independence ( with 670,117 invalid of blank votes. 31,891,742 electors ( 84% of the electorate voted ) out of an electorate of 37,885,555. 

Interestingly enough when you drill down through the votes by region in Lughansk on a 68% turnout 83.86% of the people voted for independence, in Donetsk on a 64% turnout 83.90% voted for independence. On December 2nd 1991 much of the rest of the world recognised the independence of the Ukraine. 

Achieving actual independence was only half of the struggle. The transition towards a non Soviet economy was economically and socially grim, eight years of recession followed independence. And just as the Ukraine emerged into more prosperous times in ended up being enveloped, along with everyone else in the banking crash of 2008 and its consequences. 

Aside from economic turmoil there has been a long struggle to create a stable representative non corrupt democratic state. The Euromaidan Revolution of February 2013 saw the overthrow of pro Russian oligarchs, within days Russian stoked unrest began in the Crimea and in Donetsk and Luhansk - and the rest as they say is history. 

Today is also the sixth monthly anniversary of the unprovoked Russian attack on the Ukraine. For years before the Russian attack the Ukrainian government had been asking for assistance and defensive weapons to protect their state people and their state from Russian attack, although to no avail. 

The Wests support moral and material to the Ukraine during the current war is vital and our support in every possible way is important. This is going to be a long war, and simply forcing the Ukraine to compromise its sovereignty and independence is completely unacceptable.