Dmytro Polovynka

What war in Ukraine compares to?

I often get questions from foreigners, who try to understand what the situation in Ukraine actually is. How does it compare with other conflicts over the world and in history? What is so special about Russian language and Russian minority in Ukraine?

Since for most of my life I lived in Ukraine, situation here looks very obvious to me. But after thinking about it for a longer time I understood that it’s indeed pretty unique and thus may be difficult for foreigners to understand. Here I will try to give some analogies but also I will show things which are definitely unique. I will shortly talk about the current war, the history, the language and ethnic situation.

Russian-Ukrainian war compares to…

…nothing. And what makes Russian-Ukrainian war unique are nukes.

Ukraine had nukes left from USSR times and gave it to Russia under the promises that Ukraine borders will be respected. 20 years later Russia invaded Ukraine. West did not really react (I’m talking about 2014 invasion to Crimea and Donbas). It seems to me people underestimate the consequences of this for the future generations. I discuss it in more details in the article on the Nuclear War.

But to summarise:

In total there are only 4 countries in the world which gave up nukes. And nowhere else in the world there is a situation where a country A which gave its nukes to a country B was attacked by that same country B. And at the same time other countries are afraid of the country B precisely because of the nukes it has. This situation compares to nothing existing in the world right now. This is a dangerous precedent. You won’t find analogies for this.

There is another moment, rarely discussed nowadays, not related to nukes, but interesting nevertheless: it’s that Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 with the use of its military base in Ukrainian territory, which Ukraine agreed to host. I don’t know of any other time when a country A is allowed to have its military base in a country B and then invades a country B from that same base.

But if to disregard nukes and this strange invasion from the guest military base, can this war be compared to something?

Disregarding nukes this war compares to…

…any previously held genocidal war of conquest.

Russian-Ukrainian war is not a territorial dispute. This is not fighting for some border-lands. It’s not two superpowers fighting over another territory. Sidenote: for those who think it’s a NATO-Russian war — that would be the case if NATO invaded Ukraine from West, Russia from East and now they would fight for Kyiv.

This is a pure invasion of one country to conquer lands and assimilate people. I’m not aware of any wars right now which look similar. It’s as if China invaded Mongolia. Or Brazil invaded Paraguay. With intent to force people on the newly conquered lands speak Chinese or Portuguese respectively. Unfortunately it’s not about civilians simply starting paying taxes to another authority.

Closest known example is a World War II where Germany and USSR invaded Poland. Or how Japan invaded China. Or how USSR invaded Finland during the Winter War.

It’s such a clear case of an invasion, I wonder how people can see anything different in it. Probably people forgot that wars of conquest were very common for most of the human history. And this war is one of them.

However not all wars of conquest wanted to wipe out the culture of the invaded state. But in Russian invasion to Ukraine — that’s the case. Which brings us to the point of the complex history. Russia claims that Ukrainian lands and people historically belong to Russia. And they start with Kyivan Rus.

And Kyivan Rus compares to…

…a Carolingian Empire.

Russia loves telling that it is the descendant of Kyivan Rus and usually foreigners buy this. I describe the different paths of Russia and Ukraine in the article about Russian and Ukrainian historical differences if you are interested. But in short — Russia is not a direct descendant of Kyivan Rus, and if it is a descendant, then not the only one (ever wondered why it was called Kyivan Rus, not Moscovian Rus?). Kyivan Rus is a rough equivalent to a Carolingian Empire, which later gave rise to France, Germany, Italy and other states. Wouldn’t it be crazy if Italy decided to invade France because of the Carolingian Empire heritage?

But the name “Carolingian Empire” has nothing to do with the name “Italy”. With Russia and Rus that’s different. Isn’t Russia a clear descendant of Rus? Names are similar, no?

Russia and Rus naming confusion compares to…

…Roman Empire and modern state of Romania.

How Russians named their country: “Russia” adds lots to the confusion to the already complex history. We, Ukrainians, refer to this as a stolen name. Because Ukrainians used to call themselves “Rusyns”, “Ruthenians” which may be translated to English as “Russians”. Ruska street in my hometown is named like that because Ukrainians lived there. Russians were referred to as “Muscovites”. That would not be a problem by itself, but Russia decided to invade Ukraine, because they claimed Ukraine was its historical lands.

There are some analogies in the history with stolen or partially stolen names. This could compare if Northern Macedonia decided to invade Greece, because there is a Macedonia region in Greece. Or if Romania decided to invade Italy, because Rome and surrounding lands should stay in Romania (Romania name comes from the name Rome in case you did not know).

But still, Russian Empire existed for some time, but there was no Ukraine up until 1991, no? Isn’t Russia just taking its lands back? First of all: this statment ignores the whole post-WWII world order and UN charter. Second: it’s a lie that there was no Ukrainian state before 1991, for example check the short-lived Ukraine People’s Republic from 1918 among others. But even if to take 1991 year as a starting point and disregard the UN Charter, this does not mean Ukrainians did not exist.

Lack of continuous statehood compares to…

…Kurds or Slovaks.

Ukrainians for centuries were split between other countries around (most notably — Poland, Muscovy and Austria) often without their own statehood. This however does not mean Ukrainians did not exist. It may compare to how Kurds are now split between Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq. They have no statehood. But no one would say Kurds are not a valid ethnicity(or a nation — depending on the “nation” definition you use).

Also Slovakia is a modern creation, but Czechs or Hungarians do not deny Slovaks existence.

Russians however deny us, Ukrainians, a right to call ourselves a separate nation, giving the lack of statehood as a reason.

What brings the most confusion is ethnic and linguistic situation, which Russia uses as an excuse for the war (protection of Russians and Russian speakers).

Russian minority in Ukraine compares to…

…descendants of Germans, Dutch or Irish in USA.

Russian minority does not live in isolated areas, and I describe it into details in the article “Russians don’t live in siloed ghettoes”. It’s not like Scotts in UK, where there is a clear border between Scotland and England. Ethnic Russians are really integrated into Ukrainian nation and most of them are not Russian sympathisers (even though there is some non-zero correlation between the two factors).

Ethnicity in Ukraine is a very personal thing — you won’t find “ethnicity” field in your ID card and in general it’s not that important. But sharing Ukrainian values — such as love for freedom — is.

Language situation in Ukraine compares to…

…Ireland or Paraguay.

Because of complicated history, Ukrainians currently are technically a bilingual nation and all of the population understands both Ukrainian and Russian and most can speak both languages to some degree. Ukrainian and Russian are similar enough, so that people can hold a conversation in these two languages simultaneously without any issues (true only if you live in Ukraine though, because Russians from Russia have big difficulties understanding Ukrainian).

I could not find a good analogy to these two factors: bilinguality and a larger minority, in other parts of the world. Especially when correlation between spoken language and ethnicity is not that strong.

Russian is spoken not only by Russians. And Ukrainian is spoken not only by Ukrainians. Actually there are enough of ethnic Russians in Ukraine who speak Ukrainian better than some ethnic Ukrainians. This situation is understandable for Ukrainians. But to my knowledge it compares to nothing in the world.

It’s not like Belgian, Swiss or Canadian situation where there are designated areas where different languages are spoken and one can draw a clear line. I’m not sure it compares to a situation in Paraguay, where people speak both Guarani and Spanish, because in Ukraine there is a gradual change for the predominantly used language from West to East. Maybe it compares to Ireland — where the former colonial language is widespread, but then there is no noticeable English minority in Ireland. And I’m not sure that most of Irish could easily switch from one language to another depending on the context.

There is a great disparity between the languages: Russian language is one of the official languages in UN and was never oppressed. Ukrainian language on the other hand was often forbidden. For most of Ukrainian independent history (since 1991) Russian language was a dominant one in cultural space. (Now it’s finally not the case.)

And even now some Russian imperialist say that Ukrainian language does not exist, or that it is a funny dialect of Russian. It’s as if Spain considered Portuguese be a funny version of Spanish and invaded Portugal to persuade Portuguese that those are actually Spanish. And kill those who disagree. And yes — I’m aware that there are many jokes about a neighbouring language being a strange version of own language, like maybe Danes make fun of Swedish and vice versa, but these jokes do not get to the official level and do not lead to wars.

Conclusion

If to think about it — Russia is a pretty unique country. It is an empire, which tries to get its colonies back. It’s very resource rich and its people are poor. It’s a largest country in the world. It has nukes and world-wide influence. And Ukraine being an eternal arch-enemy of such a unique country is also in a pretty unique position. And I’m saying that without feeling of pride. I’d rather live in an ordinary country without a uniquely crazy neighbour nearby.

If these thoughts sound too abstract for you, please stick to the more exact takeaways from this article:

Picture taken from: https://www.slovoidilo.ua/2022/05/05/novyna/suspilstvo/mariupoli-zminyuyut-dorozhni-znaky-pidpysuyuchy-rosijskoyu-movoyu