Opinion by Ken HerronMost of us knew very little about the nation of Ukraine until the news media started to talk about them in the past few months. The first time that I remember the nation of Ukraine in the news was the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster when the nuclear power plant had a melt down and created a catastrophe that was the worst in nuclear history.

Ukraine has been one of the most modern and progressive countries in the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In fact they were one of the founding countries and one of the countries that voted to abolish the USSR when all of the member countries voted and were given their autonomy and release from the USSR. As a nation they are just a little smaller in area than the state of Texas with about twice the population of Texas. Ukraine was the second largest country in the USSR with Russia being the largest. Russia borders Ukraine on the East and Northeast. Belarus is on the North. Poland is to the West along with Slovakia and Hungary. On the south is Romania and Muldova and the Black Sea.

In earlier years, Ukraine had an extremely successful agricultural program and supplied much of the food to the entire Soviet area. They have a successful technological program evidenced by the fact that their power was being supplied by nuclear energy. They have an advanced industrial area which has supplied much of the arms for the Soviet Union. Historically horses were first domesticated in Ukraine to be used for transportation and agriculture.

The country is evenly divided between people that speak the native Ukraine language and those that speak Russian. The western half that speak Ukraine want the country to ally itself with the European community while the eastern half that speaks Russian want a closer alliance with Russia. The current President comes from the Russian side of the country. In 2004 Ukraine finally gained total independence and organized their government with a new constitution and an election. The top vote getters for President had a very close election. First one man was declared the winner and then the other gained control. At the next election President Yanukovych became the President with accusations of fraud in the election. He left the country in 2013 and Petro O. Poroshenko became the President. It is very important to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine not become associated with the European Union.

There have been armed dissidents in the country for several years. On July 17 some group yet to be named shot down a commercial passenger plane from Malaysian Air Lines over Ukraine. This drew the world’s attention to Ukraine and its problems. It was reported that 298 people died in the crash.

There is a peninsula on the southern side of Ukraine that is called Crimea. It has a land connection to Ukraine on the north side of Crimea and a bridge connection to Russia on the east side of the peninsula. A majority of the people in Crimea are Russian. Ukraine included Crimea in its country as an autonomous state which allowed it to self-govern on all local issues. With all of the problems in Ukraine a group of dissidents in Crimea began to protest and demand total independence. When Ukraine did not respond to the protestors, President Putin from Russia sent in the Russian army to bring peace to the area and set up a vote about whether the people of the nation wished to secede from Ukraine. The people voted in favor of withdrawing from Ukraine but there were no observers and no one knows whether voters were forced to vote for withdrawing. President Putin immediately annexed Crimea into the nation of Russia. At this time Crimea is under the control of Russia.

The Eastern half of Ukraine has a large group of dissident that have been fighting against the Ukraine army. Russia claims that they have not been supporting them and supplying them with weapons but the rest of the world does not believe the Russians and economic penalties have been raised against Russia by the United States and members of the European Union. Russia sent troops into Ukraine reportedly to protect the Russian people living in Eastern Ukraine. The world powers interpreted this as the prelude to a Russian takeover of the nation of Ukraine. Because of the pressure from the other nations of the world, President Putin agreed to a cease fire and Russian troops were moving back across the border into Russia.

Russia has improved their economy by becoming a world supplier of oil, gasoline and natural gas. They are the biggest supplier of these commodities to the European Common Market Countries. Whatever action the European Countries take must take this into consideration. The United States has much more crude oil in the ground than does Russia and opening up our oil fields to development would also open our economy. If oil leases were given for drilling on government land, the fees paid for the oil pumped could go a long way toward balancing our budget. It also could give us a stronger influence in the world with the countries that might purchase oil products from us.