What do you know about the Russia Ukraine tensions?
How did Russia and Ukraine go from being close allies to bitter rivals? It’s a complicated question, with roots that go back centuries. But at the heart of the current tensions is a struggle for control over Ukraine’s future—a struggle between those who want Ukraine to maintain close ties with Russia and those who want it to move closer to the West. The roots of the conflict can be traced back to the early days of the Russian Empire, when Ukrainian territory was divided between two rival powers: the Russian Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The division created deep resentment among Ukrainians, who longed for a unified Ukrainian state. This desire for independence was further fueled by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s decision to force collectivization on Ukrainian peasants in the 1930s, which led to widespread famine known as the Holodomor. After World War II, Ukraine became a republic within the Soviet Union, but it maintained its own cultural and linguistic identity. When ...