ktzenz
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The short answer to your question is no.
The long answer to your question is a bit more complicated. The origins of the Russian state are in Kiev, in what is now the capital of the Ukraine, during the 10th and 11th centuries. In the 13th century the Tatars invaded and permanently ended Kiev’s central role. A few years later, the Russian principality of Moscow was able to increase its own power an influence (slowly), until two hundred years later it stopped paying tribute to the Tatars entirely and began offensive efforts to expand its control.
Following the Tatar withdrawal, what is now Ukraine was ruled mostly by Polish and Lithuanian leaders (while the Ottomans controlled the Southern areas on and near the Black Sea), with Russia expanding slowly on the Eastern side until the 17th century, when a Cossack uprising was crushed by Polish-Russian forces and the territory was split between them. Russian military successes against Ottoman forces in other parts of what is now the Ukraine extended Russian control of the region, although the Poles, and later the Austrian Empire (also called the Holy Roman and Austro-Hungarian Empire during different times) controlled some territory as well.
During WWI, the Austrian parts of the Ukraine sympathized mostly with the Russians, and were oppressed for it by the Austrian Empire. This only further increased their pro-Russian sympathies, and after the revolutions in Russia ended the Empire and gave rise to the Soviet Union and the Austrian Empire disintegrated into many smaller countries, almost all of the Ukraine joined the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialists Republics) as a Soviet Republic.
The problems began fairly quickly, however. The civil war that tore the USSR apart was terrible in the Ukraine as in many other places. Force collectivization (forcing farmers to join collective farms and taking their lands and animals) caused further deaths, either through opposition to the measure, state attacks on kulaks, or relatively wealthy peasants, and by starvation as the farming system tried to adjust. A famine in the 1930s was most likely made much worse by Stalin’s decision to deny food aid and possibly export food already in the Ukraine to weaken the people, and millions died. Religious Ukrainians objected to the Soviet opposition to religion. When the Nazis came to the Ukraine, some saw them a liberators, but others joined the resistance and engaged in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war. Again, millions died. All of this weakened Ukrainian allegiance to Russia, particularly in the Western sections that did not have the long history of Russian rule like the East (even in the last elections, Western Ukraine supported the pro-Europe candidate Yushenko, while the East supported Russia’s preferred candidate Yanukovich).
When the Soviet Union disintegrated, the Ukraine became its own country, something it hadn’t been for centuries. There are still some areas that are heavily Russian and many others where ethnic Ukrainians speak Russian as their first language (especially in the Eastern, industrial half of the country).
During the Soviet time there was movement between the peoples, however. Ukrainians moved to other republics, members of other Republics moved to the Ukraine. There are still close to three million Ukrainians living in Russia, while 18% of the population in the Ukraine is Russian. The Soviet era (and Russian rule before that) heavily promoted Russian language and culture, and required it for many leadership positions. Therefore, even ethnic Ukrainians living the Ukraine acquired some characteristics as the Russians that their shared history and similar cultures did not already bestow.
So although the Ukraine is definitely its own, independent county, it is still not possible to say that it is not Russian. The entwined history and influences mean that it is still somewhat Russian, if not entirely. The shared history, influences, similar culture, mixed peoples, geography and politics all mean that both countries are a bit of each other. |
a_bc249
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No, Ukraine is a separate state from Russia, both used to be in the USSR, but as USSR does not exist, they are now two different country after 1991, when the USSR official cease to exist. Even the language is different for the two, although most Ukrainian knows Russian. |
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