The Ukrainian border and Russia 

On a warm day on August 24, 1991, the former soviet country of the Ukraine officially declared itself an independent nation, this news came after more than seventy years of suffering over communism and a power struggle between itself and the empire that was Soviet Russia. The Ukraine has been fighting for their independence for years, from 1919-1921 they fought against the Soviet Russia in the Ukrainian war of independence, which they lost. The 24th of August has represented a day of hope and freedom for the people of Ukraine since 1991, but now 30 years later some feel that freedom is being jeopardized by Russia.  

Russia has been one of the largest and most powerful countries for centuries. For 300 years Russian nobles were living in wealth, while the peasant class spent their days starving. By 1917 the people revolted and formed a new Russia. This new Russia, sometimes called the Soviet Union or USSR, followed the economic structure of communism, and took over most of Eastern Europe, including the Ukraine. The Soviet Union fell in 1989 after years of tension with the west. Now in 2022, Russia is still a large and powerful country, and tensions with the west are still high. 

The western world hasn’t really trusted Russia since the Cold War beginning in the 1950s, Russia and communism have left a bad taste in the mouths of the western people. From the early 1950s through the late 1980s the West and the USSR were engaged in a cold war and even in the years scene the ending of the Cold War the west is still untrusting of Russia. Russia has a reputation of being secretive with their policies on many things which leaves the rest of the world questing its next move. Russia claims to have at least 6,000 nuclear weapons compared to the second leading country, the USA with 5,000, this makes Russia less approachable in the west’s fight. The west was so fearful of Russia that during the Cold War they established NATO, which stands for North Atlantic Thready Organization, which is basically a document that says if anyone attacks the nations that singed it then the other nations that signed it will attack too. The countries that have singed this include the USA, UK, Canada, France, and Italy to name a few.  

On November 10th, 2021, the United States reported an unusual amount of movement by the Russian-Ukrainian border, at first this news was not raising too many alarms, but just eighteen days later Ukraine reported that there were an estimated 92,000 Russian troops at their borders. There were starting to be suspicions that this was not normal troop movement, this was setting up for an evasion! The western leaders started to panic; this was not good at all. The Ukraine has been trying to join NATO for years now and they were close, but Russia seemed to have other plans. On December 7th US president Joe Biden gives an empty threat of “economic concussing” to Russian president Vladimir Putin, but Putin responded with demands that the Ukraine does join NATO.  

Just over a month later, on January 17th , it was discovered that Russia had put 200 million dollars in military funding at the Ukrainian border. After this news broke NATO put their troops on standby and sent aid to their eastern European allies. At this point in time the Russian government was saying that they are not planning an invasion of Ukraine simply “testing military equipment” but as an anonymous source says, “Of course they are not going to tell us their true motives.”   

In February of 2022, the Russian troops slow advanced closer to the Ukrainian border and sent for another 40,000 troops to add to their already substantial number of 110,000. The USA declared that all US citizens living in Ukraine should evacuate as soon as possible. On February 22, 2022, NATO declared that Russia was in fact now officially invading the Ukraine. None of this comes as a surprise an anonymous source says, “Putin is known for trying to restore Russia to its soviet state.”   

 As this situation unfolds it leaves questions for the rest of the world. Jokes have been circling online about Russia starting the third world war. People are beginning to worry about a third world war and that is not so farfetched from what might happen. “I don’t think it will be cool, but I think it will be inevitable,” says Gray Lampkin, a sophomore at HVHS. The motions of the past few weeks feel all too familiar to the motions of a hundred years ago. The motions feel like something that would happen in the years of the Cold War. Between Russia and Ukraine, China and Taiwan, and the Taliban and Afghanistan, these feeling do not seem so far out. As of the writing of this article, US president Joe Biden says that the US “will not be sending troops to the Ukraine.”  

The people of Ukraine are living in fear of life going back to how it was thirty years ago. They were just given their freedom and now the rest of the world is watching as they get it stripped away by the same country they escaped from.