Ukraine: A Fight for Freedom and Sovereignty

Russia's obsession with Ukraine did not begin on February 24, 2022, when Vladimir Putin's army invaded Ukrainian territory. The intent of pulverizing the notion of Ukraine as a separate and unique cultural, historical, and anthropological entity by Russia goes as far back as to when Novgorod (part of Russia) broke away from the Kyivan Rus' in 1136.

Upon the Bolshevik's usurpation of power in 1917, Communism's war against Ukraine exhibited greater brutality. Acts of genocide quickly followed which included politically induced famines such as the Holodomor (1929-1933), claiming the lives of 5 to 10 million Ukrainian natives. Together with Poles, Ukrainians fought the Bolsheviks bravely and attempted to keep their nations from succumbing to communist rule. Collectivization measures and the task of implementing socialism by force was imposed with more emphasis in Ukraine than in the rest of the USSR, including Russia itself.

The fall of Soviet communism did not translate into a successful transitioning to democracy for the USSR or all the former socialist bloc. Consensual government was short-lived in Russia. Since 1999, Putin has controlled political power over the Eurasian country and developed a distinct brand of kleptocracy, where former Soviet communist intelligence, military, and state enterprise managerial personnel took possession of Russia's wealth and the state. Ukraine followed the same spurious liberalization course.

The formality of Ukrainian independence in 1991, which officially granted statehood and independence to the nation of Ukraine, initiated another phase of the survival saga. From the 2004 Orange Revolution which rejected Russia's election interference, including the assassination attempt on Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition candidate who challenged Viktor Yanukovych, a Putin crony, Ukrainians fought to remain free and independent.

Yanukovych reneged on his EU commitment, instead charting Ukraine on a path closer to Putin's Russia, introduced authoritarian measures, and began clamping down on the opposition. Exercising the democratic principle of the right of rebellion, Ukrainians resisted and a sequel of mass demonstrations began in November 2013 and called the Maidan Uprising. The culmination was the Revolution of Dignity (or Maidan Revolution) in February 2014. The autocratic government of Putin's man in Kyiv was toppled. A process of decommunization and the dismantling of Kremlin-regime connected Ukrainian oligarchs began.

Putin's reaction was the illegitimate invasion and subsequent annexation of Crimea (Ukrainian territory) and the fomenting of pro-Russian rebellions in Donetsk and Luhansk in March 2014, a month after the Maidan Revolution. The incursions into this Eastern region of Ukraine, ultimately rendered the territory into a full-blown war upon the illegitimate declaration of the self-styled "Donetsk People's Republic" and the "Luhansk People's Republic". The war to recuperate this attack on Ukrainian sovereignty has been ongoing since 2014. The 2022 full-scale invasion was just a broader and bloodier operation aimed at decapitating Ukraine's state and bringing the nation back into captivity.

This book chronicles the first year of Russia's war on Ukraine through essays and articles. Ukrainian resistance has been epic. This battle between tyranny and freedom must be examined comprehensively. The West has reluctantly aided Ukraine. The Free World's help, however, appears to be targeted enough for the Ukrainian forces not to collapse but not sufficient to defeat the Russian invaders. The fact that Ukraine is still free and independent is of enormous importance. It is seminal that this heroic story be told and remembered.