Introduction
A war rages in Europe between two East Slavic nations who centuries ago spoke the same language, who for centuries occupied a single geopolitical space called Kievan Rus, but who became separated by history (Mongol invasion, Mongol-Tatar yoke, Occupation by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and subjugation by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) long enough for separate identities to emerge among these East Slavic peoples otherwise called the people of the former Kievan Rus, as they came to identify themselves in the modern era as Byelorussians, Russians, Rusyns, and Ukrainians.
The reunification of the East Slavs through diplomacy (The 1654 Treaty of Pereyaslav where the Zaporozhian Cossacks pledged their allegiance to the Russian Czar, thereby bringing together Russia and much of Eastern Ukraine and a substantial part of Central Ukraine) and war (the victories of the Russian Empire over the Crimean Khanate, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Kingdom of Sweden, and recently Nazi Germany, thereby recovering more former lands of Kievan Rus that constitute parts of eastern, southern, central, and western Ukraine, as well as Belarus today), did not bring them together forever, as the leaders of the three East Slavic nations (Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine) decided to bring an end to the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), the successor of the Russian Empire, and the country that they were constituent republics of, together with twelve other non-Slavic states or republics. Their amicable dissolution of the USSR in 1991 was supposed to lead to better relations between the supposedly three brotherly East-Slavic states where populations of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians formed substantial minorities in each of the countries.
But all did not go as well as the majority of different East Slav populations had anticipated back in 1991. They became the victims of Divide-and-rule, and Ukraine, with its evenly divided population of native Russian speakers who are pro-Russian and native Ukrainian speakers who are pro-West, and a large proportion of ethnic minorities of mostly ethnic Russians and Belarusians, became the arena for those forces bent on separating the East Slavs forever, using the many schisms in Ukrainian society.
Many unbiased critical analysts hold that the schisms in themselves could not have led to the current Ukrainian conflict, which became an armed conflict between a new regime in Kyiv of mostly native Ukrainian-speakers that came to power through a coup, and the people of the Donbas who rejected the new pro-Western regime that overthrew their democratically-elected but flawed native son. These analysts hold that it was outside support from the West to the anti-Russian forces, based on a game plan to bring resources rich and strategically-located Ukraine to the Western orbit that caused the start of the Donbas War (otherwise called Ukrainian Civil war) in 2014.
The civil war in Ukraine lasted for eight years until the Russo-Ukrainian War subsumed it when Russia openly intervened by invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022, occupied a quarter of Ukraine, and asked for peace talks days after, claiming that it sent its troops in to bring an end to the Ukrainian Civil War. The Peace Agreement that would have brought an end to the war in early 2022 was never signed as Ukraine's Western patrons convinced the Ukrainian leadership to abandon the deal, promising them weapons and other support that would help Ukraine defeat Russia. It is almost three years now and the war is ongoing, with close to a million casualties and Ukraine losing ground.
Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States of America ran his campaign to become the 47th US. President promising to bring an end to the Ukraine Conflict. How is that possible? On what grounds would his initiative be based on? Would his calculations be based more on American interest, the collective Ukrainian interest, the interest of the East Slavs, the interest of humanity or a combination of most or all of those interests?
It is against this backdrop of conflicting narratives, contradictory interests, muddled intentions, solemn dreams, and broken promises that we are presented with this humble but insightful fact-based account that is educative in a peculiar way. This book is an eye-opening and fascinating journey involving research and analysis of a complex problem blighting the European landscape, a crisis in itself that risks plunging the world into World War Three and Nuclear Armageddon.
