Crimea, Ukraine and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The current crisis in Ukraine can easily be explained with historical maps

The pro European area was part of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. Basically that's all the old Russians (now referred to as Ukrainians) who got conquered by the Poles.

The bits that Poland owned speak Ukrainian, the other bits speak Russian. Ukrainian and Russian were once the same language. They diverged mainly because the people lived in different political entities.

All the protests and pro-EU stuff is from the part of the Country Poland used to own. Next look at the 2010 presidential election results. Yanukovych, pro-Russian president who had to flee for his life during the protests won the bits that speak Russian...

Ukranian land outside of the Polish borders was conquered & settled by Russia from the Ottoman Turks and their Crimean Tatar vassals. 

You get the gist

Ukrainian protests - Russia vs West

The main cause of the conflict in the Ukraine is a choice it has to make, does it join the European Union, or the Eurasian Union (Russian led customs union). The European union has declared that the Ukraine cannot join both. The protestors on the street want the Ukraine to join the European union.

Russia is worried about the integration of Ukraine into the European union for two reasons:

1) It would effectively kill its Eurasian Union, the Ukraine's membership is pivotal.

2) It could lead to Ukrainian membership in NATO. The US has been pushing for this. This would threaten Russia's security.


For most of its history, the Ukraine was not a country. It was divided among the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, Austrio-Hungarian Empire, Ottomans and Russians.


Crimea, a province of the Ukraine where ousted president, Viktor Yanukovych has fled to, contains a majority Russian population, and was gifted to the Ukraine in 1954. Remember the Ukraine was part of the USSR so this was more of a transfer of territory within sub-states, and no one ever conceived that the USSR would eventually break up, otherwise it would never have been gifted!