Russia's War Against Ukraine
OP-ED
Steven Pifer: Kremlin is dissolving Ukraine’s east-west divide
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he speaks during a meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations and the Council for the Russian Language at the Kremlin in Moscow on May 19, 2015.
In her latest Brookings essay, journalist Chrystia Freeland relates a personal narrative of the last 25 years in Ukraine. It makes for a very interesting read. One issue that Freeland's essay highlights is how the Kremlin has tried to twist the issue of ethnic and regional divides in Ukraine for its own purposes. This type of effort to manipulate identity has echoes in numerous conflicts around the world. In the Ukrainian case, Freeland writes about the division between "the mainly Russian-speaking majority in the eastern and southern regions of the country, and the mainly Ukrainian-speaking majority in the west and center."
