Ukraine’s internal crisis has now become international, with Russia sending its troops into the eastern and southern parts of the country in support of its majority Russian-speaking people. The question is: how did all this come about? To answer this we need to go back to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, of which Ukraine was a constituent part. The collapse led to Ukraine emerging as an independent country. The Soviet Union lost the Cold War, but its legacy is now being played out in Ukraine between the US/Europe and Russia. The trigger for the crisis in Ukraine arose when President Viktor Yanukovych baulked at signing a deal for association with the European Union (EU). He did not partly because the proposed association was only part of a process for formal membership over time, with no concrete immediate relief for the Ukrainian economy. Ukraine’s economy is in free fall with some of its debts needing immediate servicing. Ukraine is said to need a cash injection of $ 35 billion just to survive. The EU integration proposal did not have any financial teeth. The most Ukraine could hope for was an International Monetary Fund/EU economic restructuring package requiring a severe austerity regime. However, for many people in Ukraine, the very idea of integrating with Europe was rejuvenating and they did not want to go into the nitty-gritty. President Yanukovych, though, needed instant cash to stop the forthcoming economic crash. Russia was more than willing to help. It offered a credit line of $ 15 billion and went ahead to buy three billion dollars worth of Ukrainian bonds. The Russian deal also included subsidised gas prices. All in all, it amounted to about a $ 30 billion aid package but many Ukrainians, particularly in the country’s western region, hated Russia as part of their collective memory of having been part of the Soviet Union. They simply wanted their government to integrate with the European Union, and become part of the European experience and its imagined prosperity. The EU and the US only fed this image and supported Ukraine on this path, with large-scale protests in the capital, Kiev, and some other places. This, in turn, fed Russian paranoia of European/US machinations, which was not entirely unfounded. Putin had called the collapse of the Soviet Union the biggest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. In its immediate aftermath, Russia lay helpless while the west continued to expand its geopolitical gains. For instance, while NATO expanded as the premium defence organisation for the west, its Soviet counterpart, the Warsaw Pact of the Cold War era, collapsed with the Soviet Union. Besides, some of the eastern European countries that were once part of the Soviet communist bloc, like Poland and the Czech Republic, were admitted into NATO. They also became sites for the US’s missile defence system, supposedly against a future threat from Iran. Russia views this as a direct security threat, and the US is trying to fine-tune it but without much success. The developments in Ukraine, with the overthrow of President Yanukovych, are also viewed in Russia as a western-inspired threat to that country. At the height of the internal crisis in Ukraine, Russia was involved with the EU to create a transitional system of government until new presidential elections in December. Moscow, though, was not keen to put its signature to that arrangement. In any case, the proposed interim system became a casualty of Ukraine’s parliament taking over the country’s affairs, proceeding to appoint an interim president and dismissing Viktor Yanukovych. He was to be hunted down for the murder of over 80 protestors by his security services and referred to the International Criminal Court for trial. Yanukovych, though, still claims to be the legitimate president of Ukraine, forced to take asylum in Russia fearing threats to his life from the ‘fascist’ coup. Ukraine is now polarised along regional and ethnic lines; its largely Russian-speaking eastern and southern parts, including Crimea with a large Russian naval base, eager to join Russia. Moscow has made it clear that it will protect the Russian-speaking population. Indeed, the Russian parliament has authorised the use of its armed forces in Ukraine to protect Russian interests. In other words, the mandate is quite sweeping. Russian intervention was expected. For instance, only a few days ago, Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev reportedly questioned the legitimacy of a government in Ukraine created by an “armed mutiny”. He added, “If you consider Kalashnikov-toting people in black masks who are roaming Kiev to be the government, then it will be hard for us to deal with that government.” Earlier, he had said that the turmoil in Ukraine posed “a real threat to our interests and to our citizens’ lives and health”. Here, it is necessary to put things in perspective. It was not long ago, in 2004 in fact, that the country went through the Orange Revolution, which brought down Viktor Yanukovych’s then-government on charges of election fraud and corruption. The Orange Revolution, which carried the hopes and aspirations of the people for a new Ukraine, was a popular movement enjoying western support. Unfortunately, those hopes never materialised as the country hurtled into disunity and political infighting. There were similar stories at that time of large-scale corruption among the new leaders, causing popular revulsion at the state of affairs from a failed revolution, enabling Viktor Yanukovych, who was a political casualty of the Orange Revolution, to win back the country’s presidency in the 2010 elections. The situation now, with Yanukovych deposed, replaced by an interim political order dominated by Ukraine’s western region, is ominous for reinforcing the country’s polarisation between its Ukranian-speaking western region and Russian-speaking eastern and southern parts. With Russian troops already in Crimea and many of the Russian-speaking people in these regions wanting closer ties with Russia, at the very least, the country is in real danger of splitting up. In some ways, it has the makings of what happened in Georgia in 2008 when its government sent troops to occupy the separatist region of South Ossetia. Russia took matters into its own hands, deploying troops and making South Ossetia into its virtual protectorate. Georgia had high hopes of US and European intervention but that did not eventuate. President Obama has warned Russia that its military intervention in Ukraine would have “costs”. There is talk of some sort of sanctions against Russia. The US and Europe are putting into motion all the wheels of international diplomacy, like the summoning of the UN Security Council, but Russia is likely to get away with it. And Ukraine might end up being the new frontier of an old Cold War, which has simmered on in one form or the other. The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at sushilpseth@yahoo.co.au