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For High School Students: More History That Connects to The Present War in Ukraine
At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union, led by Russia, controlled an enormous amount of land and was in charge of parts of Europe. It occupied or controlled Finland, East Germany, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Hungary and elsewhere. Gradually those nations shook off Soviet control, and the Soviet Union fell apart. Russia was left much diminished. Much of Europe became democratic. Nations in Europe united to form a European Union and the United States reinforced the military powers of Europe in an organization called NATO. Russian leaders, however, felt threatened by their diminished territory and the rising and unified powers around them on their western border. In 1999 Putin started committing crimes against humanity. He declared Chechnya had to be militarily occupied. It was a Muslim majority country. He reduced Chechnya cities to rubble, killing many civilians. He occupied it with Russian soldiers. In 2014 Putin declared a Ukrainian peninsula called Crimea was Russian. He ordered and carried out an invasion and occupation of Crimea. About the same time, pro- Russian separatists in Ukraine’s eastern provinces began an uprising, supported by Russian soldiers in unofficial uniforms, and battled Ukrainian forces.
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