relations between ukraine and russia have been strained since the collapse of the

soviet union in 1991. ukraine was known as the breadbasket of soviet russia and
has remained politically militarily and economically important to russia ever
since precisely why there is a dispute over the sovereignty or otherwise of
ukraine is a complex question rooted in the region's history it's a story more
than a thousand years in the making for much of the story ukraine did not exist
at least not as an independent sovereign state so the name ukraine will be used
here to help identify the region around kiev that was so central to the story
crimea is an important part of the story too and its history forms part of the
story of the relationship between russia and ukraine [Applause] today kiev is
the capital city of ukraine a millennium ago it was the heart of what is known
as the kievan rus state between the 8th and 11th centuries norse traders sailed
the river routes from the baltic to the black sea predominantly swedish in origin
they found their way to the byzantine empire and even attacked persia from the
caspian sea in the 10th century around what is now kiev these traders began to
settle they were referred to as the ruse which seems to have its origins in the
word for men who row since they were so closely associated with the rivers and
their ships merging with slavic baltic and finnic tribes they became known as the
kievan rus [Applause] the roost tribes are the ancestors of those who still
bear their name today the russian and bella russian people as well as those of
ukraine kiev was referred to by the 12th century as the mother of roost cities
effectively denoting it as the capital of the kievan rus state the rulers of the
region were styled grand princes of kiev the association of kiev with the early
heritage of the ruse as the root of the russian people mean the city has a hold
over the collective imaginations of those beyond modern ukraine it was important
to the birth of russia but now lies beyond its borders this thousand-year-old
connection is the beginning of an explanation of the present tensions people are
always willing to fight over places that exert a pull on them [Applause] in 1223
the irresistible expansion of the mongol horde reached the kievan ruse state on
the 31st of may the battle of the kolka river was fought resulting in a decisive
mongol victory although the horde left the region after the battle the damage had
been done and they would return in 1237 to complete the conquering of kievan rus
this began the breakup of the roost states and left the region under the dominion
of the golden horde in some places for centuries more it was during this period
that the grand duchy of moscow began to rise eventually becoming the heart of
what is now russia and providing a new focal point for the ruse people as the
control of the golden horde slipped ukraine was absorbed into the grand duchy of
lithuania and then the polish lithuanian commonwealth for a time [Music]
cossacks who were most closely linked with kiev and ukraine began to resist the
control of the polish lithuanian commonwealth and rebelled in favour of joining
russia under the grand princes of moscow since 1371 russia had been slowly
forming from disparate states the process was completed in the 1520s under
vasily the third a russian state appealed to the ruse peoples of ukraine and
exerted a pull on their allegiance in 1654 the cossacks signed the treaty of
pereaslav with tsar alexis the second tsar of the romanov dynasty this saw the
cossacks break with the polish lithuanian commonwealth and formally offer their
allegiance to the russian tsar the ussr would later style this as an act that
reunified ukraine with russia bringing all of the ruse people together under azar
crimea which had been a carnate had been part of the ottoman empire but following
war between the ottoman and russian empires crimea had been briefly independent
before being annexed by russia on the orders of catherine the great in 1783 a
move that was not resisted by the tartars of the crimea and which was recognized
formally by the ottoman empire during the 19th century a ukrainian identity
began to emerge more fully closely linked to the region's cossack heritage by
this stage russians considered ukrainians as well as belarusians as ethnically
russian but referred to both groups as little russians in 1804 the growing
separatist movement in ukraine led to a ban on teaching the ukrainian language in
schools in an effort to eradicate the threat of a breakup of the russian empire
from october 1853 to february 1856 the region was rocked by the crimean war the
russian empire fought a coalition of the ottoman empire france and the united
kingdom the conflict saw the battles of alma and balaclava the charge of the
light brigade and florence nightingale's experiences that led to the
professionalisation of nursing before being resolved by the siege of sevastopol a
critically important naval base on the black sea the russian empire lost the
crimean war and the treaty of paris signed on the 30th of march 1856 saw russia
forbidden from basing naval forces in the black sea the embarrassment felt by the
russian empire led to internal reforms and modernisation in an effort not to be
left behind are the european powers ukraine remained unsettled too and in 1876
the ban on teaching the ukrainian language put in place in 1804 was extended to
prohibit the publication or importation of books performances of plays and the
delivery of lectures in the ukrainian language in 1917 in the wake of the russian
revolution ukraine was briefly an independent nation but was soon to become part
of the union of soviet socialist republics the ussr that would be a dominant
force in world politics for most of the rest of the 20th century was about to be
born [Applause] in 1922 russia and ukraine were two of the signatories to the
founding document of the ussr with its wide sweeping fertile plains it would
become known as the breadbasket of the soviet union providing grain and food that
made it an invaluable part of the ussr that fact only made what happened next
all the more shocking the holodomor was a state-sponsored famine created by
stalin's government in the ukraine as an act of genocide crops were seized and
sold to overseas markets to fund stalin's plans animals including pets were
removed soviet soldiers ensured whatever remained was kept from the population
resulting in the deliberate starvation and deaths of up to four million
ukrainians during the second world war germany invaded ukraine moving across the
border on the 22nd of june 1941 and completing their takeover by november four
million ukrainians were evacuated east the nazis encouraged collaboration by
appearing to back an independent ukrainian state only to renege on that promise
once in control between 1941 and 1944 around 1.5 million jews living in ukraine
were killed by nazi forces after the ussr was victorious at the battle of
stalingrad in early 1943 the counter-offensive moved across ukraine retaking kiev
in november that year the fight for western ukraine was hard and bloody until
nazi germany was driven out altogether by the end of october 1944. ukraine lost
between five and seven million lives during world war ii a famine in 1946-7
claimed around a million more lives and pre-war levels of food production would
not be restored until the 1960s in 1954 the ussr transferred control of crimea to
soviet ukraine there was perhaps a feeling that with the ussr strong it made
little difference which soviet state administered the territory but the move
stored up problems for a future in which the soviet union no longer existed on
the 26th of april 1986 the chernobyl nuclear disaster took place in ukraine
during a test procedure on reactor number four a power decrease made the reactor
unstable the core went into meltdown the subsequent explosion destroying the
building chernobyl remains one of only two nuclear disasters to be rated at the
highest level alongside the 2011 fukushima disaster the explosion at chernobyl
caused ongoing health issues for the surrounding area and the chernobyl
exclusion zone covered more than two and a half thousand square kilometers
chernobyl has been pointed to as one of the contributing causes of the collapse
of the ussr it shook faith in the soviet government and mikhail gorbachev the
last secretary general of the soviet union said it was a turning point that
opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression to the point that
the system as we knew it could no longer continue [Applause] five years later
in 1991 the soviet union collapsed ukraine was one of the signatories of the
document disbanding the union which meant that it was at least on the surface
being recognized as an independent state in the same year a referendum and
election were held the referendum question was do you support an act of
declaration of independence of ukraine over 84 per cent of the population took
part almost 32 million people voting 92.3 in favor of an independent ukraine in
the presidential election six candidates ran all backing the yes campaign and
leonid kravchuk was elected the first president of ukraine after the collapse of
the soviet union ukraine became the third largest holder of nuclear weapons in
the world although it possessed the warheads and the capacity to make more the
software that controlled them was in russian hands russia and western states
agreed to recognise and respect ukraine's independent sovereign status in return
for handing most of its nuclear capacity over to russia in 1994 the budapest
memorandum on security assurances provided for the destruction of the remaining
warheads [Applause] [Music] in 2004 the orange revolution took place amid
protests about a corrupt presidential election protests in kiev and general
strikes across the country eventually saw the election result overturned and
victor yanukovych was replaced by viktor yoshenko the kiev appellate court gave
a decision on the 13th of january 2010 that posthumously convicted stalin
ganovich molotov and ukrainian leaders kozier and chubar as well as others of
genocide against the ukrainian people during the holodomor of the 1930s the
decision served to reinforce a sense of ukrainian identity and distance the
country further from russia 2014 saw a great deal of unrest in ukraine the
revolution of dignity also known as the maidan revolution erupted as a result of
president yanukovych's refusal to sign a document that would create a political
association and free trade agreement with the eu 130 people were killed including
18 police officers and the revolution led to early presidential elections in the
same year a pro-russian uprising in eastern ukraine which russia is suspected of
sponsoring and which has been termed as an invasion saw fighting begin in the
donbass region which continues at present the move served to solidify the sense
of ukrainian national identity and independence from moscow also in 2014 russia
annexed crimea which had been part of ukraine since 1954. the reasons for this
are complex crimea remains militarily and strategically important with ports on
the black sea it's also a place regarded with fondness dating back to the soviet
era when it was a holiday destination today russia remains in control of crimea
but that control is not recognized by the international community [Applause]
ukraine remains in a state of unrest that dates back to 2014. it was exacerbated
in 2019 by a change to the constitution of ukraine that enshrined closer links
with both nato and the eu this step confirmed russian fears about the influence
of the u.s and western european states on its borders increasing tensions in the
region on the 1st of july 2021 the law was changed in ukraine to allow the sale
of farmland for the first time in 20 years the original ban had been put in place
to prevent the same sort of takeover by an oligarchy that russia had seen in the
wake of the collapse of the soviet union for ukraine and ukrainians it created a
huge opportunity to fill a gap in global food supply chains caused by the kovid
19 pandemic at the beginning of 2022 ukraine was the biggest exporter of
sunflower oil in the world the fourth largest shipper of corn delivering grain to
countries from morocco to bangladesh and indonesia corn yields were a third lower
than the u.s and a quarter below eu levels leaving room for improvement rich
gulf states were showing particular interest in supplies of food from ukraine
all of this meant that the former breadbasket of the soviet union saw its stock
rise sharply bringing with it unwelcome consequences [Applause] the relationship
between russia and ukraine has always been complex and rooted in an often shared
history russia has long viewed ukraine as a russian province rather than a
sovereign state to counterbalance this perceived attack on its independence
ukraine has sought closer ties with the west both with nato and the eu which
russia in turn viewed as a threat to its own security beyond a shared heritage a
sentimental connection to the ruse states that once centered on kiev ukraine
remains important to russia it's been a buffer between russia and western states
and fears that it will join nato and the eu are perceived as a threat to russia
as a country with an economy based on food production it remains economically as
well as strategically important russia's concerns about who is in control of
ukraine often leave little room in its thinking for an independent sovereign
state to some extent ukraine in 2022 became to russia what cuba was to the u.s in
the 1960s the cuban missile crisis of 1962 saw global nuclear war narrowly
averted a sustainable long-term solution to the relationship between ukraine and
russia that all parties can live with may be hard to find but it's required to
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