Zbornik Janković, Vol. VII No. 8-9, 2024.
Review article
https://doi.org/10.47325/zj.7.8-9.5
THE ORIGIN OF PRESENT MILITARY CONFLICT BETWEEN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA UKRAINE AND RUSSIA DURING WORLD WAR ONE AND IMMEDIATE POST-WAR PERIOD
Filip Katanić
; doktorand Fakulteta hrvatskih studija u Zagrebu
Abstract
The paper examines the relationship between Ukraine and Russia during the first quarter of the 20th century as a source of contemporary armed conflict between the two aforementioned states. Ukraine and Russia, both as a part of Tsarist Russia, share a common history and heritage since 1654 when the union between the two political entites had been established on the basis of alliance agreement until 1991 when the dissolution of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics occured. Nevertheless, the first dissolution of the bond between two states took place in 1917 and 1918 during the First World War. At that time, Ukrainian national claims emerged and independent Republic of Ukraine had been proclaimed on the princple of national self-determination. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed by the Central Powers on the one side and Ukraine on the other, recognized the independent Ukraine. However, Ukrainian claims for the separate Slavic state on the former territory of the Russian Empire were in collision with the Bolschevik principle of nationhood. Therefore, the Ukrainian question, in the turmoil of the Russian Civil War, due to its outcome in favour of the Bolschewiks, remained strongly intermingled within the Russian political sphere of influence until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. Unresolved disputes over Ukrainian territory and supreme authority from 1917 and 1918 between Moscow and Kiev, once again emerged during the latest crisis in Ukrainian-Russian relations from 2014, escalated into open armed conflict in February 2022. In conclusion, as in 1918 when Ukraine found herslef in the centre of the world politics, today the question of Ukraine and her foreign relations with Russia, represents the centre question of international relations.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
320313
URI
Publication date:
29.8.2024.
Visits: 0 *