This analysis is coming from a systems perspective. Governments around the world are now engaged in systems analysis of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Many associate the systems approach with engineering of large complex systems. Examples of large complex systems engineering from the previous century are the US Space Program, Air Defense, Air Traffic Control, etc. However, systems analysis is performed and used when addressing any complex problem that needs an effective solution. The following is offered as a definition of Systems Engineering: [1]

In a systems analysis effort for a problem of this magnitude all alternatives are examined that may be able to address the need and provide a viable solution. This requires massive resources and in the past the US government and a handful of systems companies performed this type of systems analysis. This is called large complex systems analysis.

For the specialists that are working their respective areas, in a systems effort they are represented and sit at the systems engineering table. As they present their analysis findings their work informs other specialists in completely different analysis areas. It is this cross fertilization that allows all specialists to broaden their perspectives and enables them to detect new patterns in their own body of work, especially if they are stuck. Systems analysis is the mechanism that allows specialists to quickly and effectively communicate their findings to completely different areas and significantly shift the overall results in a positive direction. This systems analysis is offered in that spirit of an effective systems activity.

One of the key challenges in systems analysis is to determine the key needs, key analysis, key requirements, and key system architecture approaches that will solve the problem. This is very difficult because there is the important consideration to filter out the noise (irrelevant) while not losing what may be the answer. There is an old saying that practitioners use to communicate this challenge: We don't care about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and we can't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

One of the important elements that the systems perspective provides is that it includes the human condition in the system. The system solution must include the reality that people are part of the system and that they do not behave rationally. So the system must account for irrational human behavior otherwise it will fail or have very poor performance characteristics. Without the systems perspective this is always lost. The purpose of all the systems analysis is to enable the development of potential architectures and solutions. Eventually the architecture(s) and solution(s) must be selected.

We are all making a difference. This analysis had an impact with a website and formal media submissions. These are the areas where there was a direct correlation within 24 hours:

Would those items have surfaced anyway? The answer is no because toxic management talking points were starting in each of these areas. That is what motivated this systems analysis.

This is just like the claims in 2020 that Covid-19 was not airborne. A Covid-19 systems analysis was performed in 2020 that was impossible to deny or discredit, which clearly showed, using 5th grade math, that it is airborne and that the problem is massive in small indoor spaces, problematic in large indoor spaces, and extremely rare in outdoor spaces.

As the Ukrainians have said, there is a language of war that surfaces where all the vague statements disappear because there is no choice. There will be attempts to manage the story but the reality is too real in times of illness and war. Whole swaths of management are going to find their world views shattered and they will be replaced unless they adapt to this new world. If they are not replaced then get ready and hold on to you seats. A good example is what is about to happen to the Russian people.

At this point Russia went too far. I don’t know how all the worms can be put back in the can. Biden said a few weeks ago that Putin has to go - March 26, 2022 Biden says of Putin: "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power". I can’t help but think that a signal has been sent. The signal is NOT from internal plans yet to unfold. The signal is from the fact that we all live in a natural system and the natural system will follow its path to achieve stability. This is a signal from our natural system that we call our world.

As far as this war going on for years, that is incorrect because this is full out war. Resources will be exhausted very soon. The question is which side will lose the capacity to fight first. NATO thinks it can supply Ukraine for years but the Ukrainians may not have anything left to defend. Unless an offensive begins, this will end soon and that is probably the Russian view.

Background

Pays the price, works the seasons through
Frozen days, he thinks of you
Cold as ice but he burns for you
Mother Russia, can't you hear him too?

Mother's son, freedom's overdue
Lonely man, he thinks of you
He isn't done, only lives for you
Mother Russia, can't you hear him too?

Punished for his written thoughts
Starving for his fame
Working blindly, building blocks
Number for a name, his blood flows frozen to the snow

Red blood, white snow
He knows frozen rivers won't flow
So cold, so true
Mother Russia-he cries for you

Ooh ooh ...
Bah dah dah dah ...

Punished for his written thoughts
Starving for his fame
Working blindly, building blocks
Number for a name his blood flows frozen to the snow

Red blood, white snow
He knows frozen rivers won't flow
So cold, so true
Mother Russia-he cries for you

Songwriters: Betty Mary Thatcher / Michael Dunford
Singer: Annie Haslam

The song is a tribute to Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who had been forced by the Communist regime to leave the Soviet Union earlier in 1974. The lyrics are based on Solzhenitsyn's famous novel about Soviet repression, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Because fans of the band were surprised at the move into topical songwriting, singer Annie Haslam has had often to point out to interviewers that "Mother Russia" really refers to Solzhenitsyn.

Musically, the full version of "Mother Russia" begins with a sparse, string-driven introduction marked by occasional piano crescendos. Around two minutes into the song, Haslam's voice enters, and the next three minutes of the song contain six verses in three pairs describing Solzhenitsyn's plight, in between which are short interludes of strings and acoustic guitar. The last five minutes of the full song consist of a three-minute instrumental interlude with the full band performing over wordless vocals by Haslam, followed by a repeat of the last two verses to finish. Recording engineer and co-producer Dick Plant stated: I think that the real thrust of the music came from John Tout's piano. I don't think Renaissance ever wanted to do anything that they couldn't reproduce on stage. The music to "Mother Russia" is credited to Michael Dunford, but the song is cited by Renaissance bassist Jon Camp as being a case where he made major composition contributions without being credited for them.

This song sums up the background of the current situation almost 40 years later. How sad.

Overview of Ukraine

Ukraine covers approximately 600,000 square kilometers (230,000 sq-mi). It is the eighth-most populous country in Europe, with a population of around 41 million people. It is bordered by Russia to the East; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and has a coastline along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to the south and southeast. Kyiv is the nation's capital and largest city. Ukraine's state language is Ukrainian. Russian was also widely spoken prior to the 2022 invasion, especially in the east and south. After the brutal 2022 Russian invasion the Russian language even by Russians in Ukraine is be abandoned in defiant protest.

During the Middle Ages, Ukraine was the site of early Slavic expansion and the area later became a key centre of East Slavic culture under the state of Kievan Rus, which emerged in the 9th century. The state eventually disintegrated into rival regional powers and was ultimately destroyed by the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. The area was then contested, divided, and ruled by a variety of external powers for the next 600 years, including the Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Austrian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Tsardom of Russia. The Cossack Hetmanate emerged in central Ukraine in the 17th century, but was partitioned between Russia and Poland, and ultimately absorbed by the Russian Empire. The source of the conflicts was the vast food resources of Ukraine. It was the breadbasket of Europe. Today it feeds 500 million people.

Ukrainian nationalism developed in the 20th century, and following the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Ukrainian People's Republic was formed. The Ukrainian People's Republic was removed by the Russian Bolsheviks who consolidated control over much of the former empire and established the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which became a republic of the Soviet Union in 1922. In the early 1930s, millions of Ukrainians died during the Communist Russian Holodomor, a man-made famine. During World War II, Ukraine was devastated by the Nazi German occupation.

Ukraine gained independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, and declared itself neutral. A new constitution was adopted in 1996. A series of mass demonstrations, known as the Euromaidan, led to the removal of Russian influenced politicians from the Ukrainian government. As a result Russia started a war with Ukraine and unilaterally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. Russia later launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since the outbreak of war with Russia in 2014, Ukraine has continued to seek closer ties with the European Union and NATO. Ukraine is a founding member of the United Nations, as well as a member of the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization, and the OSCE. It is in the process of joining the European Union and has submitted an application for NATO membership. In 2016 it updated its constitution with text that Ukraine join the European Union and in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Ukraine was the center of the first eastern Slavic state, Kyivan Rus, which during the 10th and 11th centuries was the largest and most powerful state in Europe. Weakened by internecine quarrels and Mongol invasions, Kyivan Rus was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and eventually into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The cultural and religious legacy of Kyivan Rus laid the foundation for Ukrainian nationalism through subsequent centuries. A new Ukrainian state, the Cossack Hetmanate, was established during the mid-17th century after an uprising against the Poles. Despite continuous Muscovite pressure, the Hetmanate managed to remain autonomous for well over 100 years. During the latter part of the 18th century, most Ukrainian ethnographic territory was absorbed by the Russian Empire. Following the collapse of czarist Russia in 1917, Ukraine achieved a short-lived period of independence (1917-20), but was reconquered and endured a brutal Soviet rule that engineered two forced famines (1921-22 and 1932-33) in which over 8 million died. In World War II, German and Soviet armies were responsible for 7 to 8 million more deaths. Although Ukraine achieved independence in 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR, democracy and prosperity remained elusive as the legacy of state control and endemic corruption stalled efforts at economic reform, privatization, and civil liberties.

Absent from the CIA Factbook on Ukraine is the most significant event in human history. In 1994 the country of Ukraine had the world's third largest nuclear weapons stockpile. They gave up their nuclear weapons between 1994 and 1996 as part of an agreement that would ensure that its territorial integrity would be preserved. The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances is an agreement signed at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Budapest, Hungary on December 5, 1994. The agreement was signed by three nuclear powers, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. At the heart of this current war is the fact that this guarantee for security and territorial integrity was broken by Russia in 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea and occupied eastern Ukraine. It is unclear how such a significant event and agreement could be missing from the CIA Factbook on Ukraine. [1]

Ukraine is not Russia or Russian as claimed by Russian propoganda. Russia traces its roots to the 12th century with the founding of the Principality of Muscovy. This is 200 years after Kyivan Rus. In many ways the Russians are the lost tribe of Ukraine. Unlike Ukraine they were heavily influenced by Mongol domination, which started in the 13th century. It changed Russian culture to this day.

The Mongol Empire invaded and conquered Kievan Rus in the 13th century, destroying numerous southern cities, including the largest cities, Kiev and Chernihiv, with the only major cities escaping destruction being Novgorod and Pskov, located in the north. The campaign started with Battle of the Kalka River in May 1223, which resulted in a Mongol victory over the forces of several Kyivan Rus' principalities as well as the remnants of the Cumans under Köten. The Mongols retreated, having gathered their intelligence, which was the purpose of the reconnaissance in force. A full scale invasion of Kyivan Rus' by Batu Khan followed, from 1237 to 1242. The invasion was ended by the Mongol succession process upon the death of Ögedei Khan. All Kyivan Rus' principalities were forced to submit to Mongol rule and became vassals of the Golden Horde, some of which lasted until 1480. The invasion started the breakup of Kievan Rus' in the 13th century and had profound ramifications on the history of Eastern Europe, including the division of the East Slavic people into three distinct separate nations:

Moscow started its independence struggle from the Mongols in the 14th century, ending the Mongol rule (Mongol yoke) in 1480, and eventually growing into the Tsardom of Russia.

Giovanni de Plano Carpini, the pope's envoy to the Mongol great khan, traveled through Kiev in February 1246 and wrote:

Historians have debated the long term influence of Mongol rule on Kievan Rus' society. The Mongols have been blamed for the destruction of Kievan Rus', the breakup of the ancient Kievan Rus' nationality into three components and the introduction of the concept of Oriental Despotism into Russia. Centers such as Kiev took centuries to rebuild and recover from the devastation of the initial attack. The city of Muscovite (to become Moscow) began to flourish under the Mongols. Muscovite (Moscow's) eventual dominance of northern and eastern Kievan Rus' was in large part attributed to the Mongols.

As stated at the start of this section, in many ways the Russians are the lost tribe of Ukraine. Unlike Ukraine, Russia was heavily influenced by Mongol domination. It changed Muscovite (Russian) culture because they benefited significantly from the Mongol rule. Unfortunately, they accepted the brutality associated with the Mongol invasions and subjugation. Muscovite (Moscow) never experienced the Mongol brutality like Kiev. These toxic cultural elements never left the Russian world view of power and how to deal with people. This toxic brutal world view was part of communist Russia and is still part of modern Russia in 2022. It is unclear what it will take to change this world view of brutality and subjugation to achieve nation state goals. This is at the heart of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine has extensive fertile land and Ukraine is one of the largest grain exporters in the world. Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea has gas and oil resources in the Baltic Sea, Sea of AzovIt, and on Crimean land. These oil and gas resources were taken by Russia in 2014 and the money flows into Russia as part of the spoils of war. In 2022 Russia engaged in stealing 600,000 tons of Ukrainian grain and selling it as the spoils of war. On the surface the Russian conquest is not unlike the other conquests that Ukraine has endured, however the differences are significant. Russia keeps threatening the world with Nuclear war and Russia does not need Ukrainian food or energy resources for survival. This war is not about surrival or even quality of life. Instead this war is an ideological war between the remnants of the Mongol invasions with resulting brutal dictatorships of subjugation and modern democracy, which threatens internal stability in Russia.

The Ukrainian climate is temperate continental; Mediterranean only on the southern Crimean coast; precipitation disproportionately distributed, highest in west and north, lesser in east and southeast; winters vary from cool along the Black Sea to cold farther inland; warm summers across the greater part of the country, hot in the south.

The terrain is mostly fertile plains (steppes) and plateaus, with mountains found only in the west (the Carpathians) or in the extreme south of the Crimean Peninsula. The Natural resources are iron ore, coal, manganese, natural gas, oil, salt, sulfur, graphite, titanium, magnesium, kaolin, nickel, mercury, timber, arable land. The land use is agricultural land: 71.2%, arable land: 56.1%, permanent crops: 1.5%, permanent pasture: 13.6% , forest: 16.8% , other: 12%. back to TOC

The population is 44 million with Ethnic groups of Ukrainian 77.8%, Russian 17.3%, Belarusian 0.6%, Moldovan 0.5%, Crimean Tatar 0.5%, Bulgarian 0.4%, Hungarian 0.3%, Romanian 0.3%, Polish 0.3%, Jewish 0.2%, other 1.8%. The languages are Ukrainian (official) 67.5%, Russian (regional language) 29.6%, other (includes small Crimean Tatar, Moldovan/Romanian, and Hungarian speaking minorities) 2.9% (2001 est.); In February 2018, the Constitutional Court ruled that 2012 language legislation entitling a language spoken by at least 10% of an oblast's population to be given the status of regional language allowing for its use in courts, schools, and other government institutions was unconstitutional, thus making the law invalid; Ukrainian remains the country's only official nationwide language. back to TOC

The religions are Orthodox (includes the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), and the Ukrainian Orthodox - Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP)), Ukrainian Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish. Ukraine's population is overwhelmingly Christian; the vast majority, up to two thirds, identify themselves as Orthodox, but many do not specify a particular branch; the OCU and the UOC-MP each represent less than a quarter of the country's population, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church accounts for 8-10%, and the UAOC accounts for 1-2%; Muslim and Jewish adherents each compose less than 1% of the total population.

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, also called Ukrainian Catholic Church, largest of the Eastern Catholic (also known as Eastern rite or Greek Catholic) churches, in communion with Rome since the Union of Brest-Lytovsk (1596). Byzantine Christianity was established among the Ukrainians in 988 by St. Volodymyr) and followed Constantinople in the Great Schism of 1054. Temporary reunion with Rome was effected in the mid-15th century, and a definitive union was achieved at Brest-Lytovsk in 1596, when Metropolitan Michael Ragoza of Kyiv and the bishops of Volodymyr, Lutsk, Polotsk, Pinsk, and Kholm agreed to join the Roman communion, on condition that their traditional rites be preserved intact. The Orthodox did not accept the union peaceably; and the bishops of Lviv and Przemysl, as well as the Orthodox Zaporozhian Cossacks, opposed the re-union. In 1633, the Metropolia of Kyiv returned to Orthodoxy, while Lviv joined the union in 1702, and by Przemysl in 1692.

The partition of Poland at the end of the 18th century brought all Ukrainians, except those in the province of Galicia, under Russian control; and by 1839 the tsarist government had forcibly returned the Ukrainian Catholics to Orthodoxy. Galicia meanwhile came under the domination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and in 1807 it was organized into the Metropolia of Lviv. With the occupation of Galicia by Soviet army in 1939, all church activity was suppressed, and the hierarchy was interned. In 1944 the Soviet authorities began to put pressure on the Ukrainian bishops to dissolve the Union of Brest-Lytovsk. On their refusal, they were arrested and imprisoned or deported. A spurious synod in 1946 broke the union with Rome and “united” the Ukrainian Catholics with the Russian Orthodox. Not until December 1989, during the general liberalization of Soviet life, was the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church again made legal.

A great number of Ukrainian Catholics immigrated to the Americas and western Europe between 1880 and 1914 and again after World War II. They are organized into the Metropolia of Canada, with the sees of Winnipeg (metropolitan see), Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Toronto, and the Metropolia of the United States, with the metropolitan see in Philadelphia and the eparchies of Stamford, Connecticut, and St. Nicholas of Chicago. Also, there are eparchies in Argentina (Buenos Aires), Australia (Melbourne), Brazil (Curitiba), France (Paris), England (London), and Germany (Munich).

Major urban area population levels are 3.010 million KYIV (capital), 1.423 million Kharkiv, 1.008 million Odesa, 952,000 Dnipropetrovsk, 893,000 Donetsk (2022).The life expectancy at birth total population: 73.18 years, male: 68.51 years, female: 78.15 years (2021 est.)

After Russia, the Ukrainian Republic was the most important economic component of the former Soviet Union, producing about four times the output of the next ranking republic. Its fertile black soil accounted for more than one fourth of Soviet agricultural output, and its farms provided substantial quantities of meat, milk, grain, and vegetables to other republics. Likewise, its diversified heavy industry supplied unique equipment such as large diameter pipes and vertical drilling apparatus, and raw materials to industrial and mining sites in other regions of the former USSR.

After independence in August 1991, the Ukrainian Government liberalized most prices and erected a legal framework for privatization, but widespread resistance to reform within the government and the legislature soon stalled reform efforts and led to some backtracking. Output by 1999 had fallen to less than 40% of the 1991 level. Outside institutions, particularly the IMF encouraged Ukraine to quicken the pace and scope of reforms to foster economic growth. Ukrainian Government officials eliminated most tax and customs privileges in a March 2005 budget law, bringing more economic activity out of Ukraine's large shadow economy. From 2000 until mid-2008, Ukraine's economy was buoyant despite political turmoil between the prime minister and president. The economy contracted nearly 15% in 2009, among the worst economic performances in the world. In April 2010, Ukraine negotiated a price discount on Russian gas imports in exchange for extending Russia's lease on its naval base in Crimea.

Ukraine’s oligarch dominated economy grew slowly from 2010 to 2013 but remained behind peers in the region and among Europe’s poorest. After former President YANUKOVYCH fled the country during the Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine’s economy fell into crisis because of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, military conflict in the eastern part of the country, and a trade war with Russia, resulting in a 17% decline in GDP, inflation at nearly 60%, and dwindling foreign currency reserves. The international community began efforts to stabilize the Ukrainian economy, including a March 2014 IMF assistance package of $17.5 billion, of which Ukraine has received four disbursements, most recently in April 2017, bringing the total disbursed as of that date to approximately $8.4 billion. Ukraine has made progress on reforms designed to make the country prosperous, democratic, and transparent, including creation of a national anti-corruption agency, overhaul of the banking sector, establishment of a transparent VAT refund system, and increased transparency in government procurement. But more improvements are needed, including fighting corruption, developing capital markets, improving the business environment to attract foreign investment, privatizing state-owned enterprises, and land reform. The fifth tranche of the IMF program, valued at $1.9 billion, was delayed in mid-2017 due to lack of progress on outstanding reforms, including adjustment of gas tariffs to import parity levels and adoption of legislation establishing an independent anti-corruption court.

A peaceful mass protest referred to as the "Orange Revolution" in the closing months of 2004 forced the authorities to overturn a rigged presidential election and to allow a new internationally monitored vote that swept into power a reformist slate under Viktor YUSHCHENKO. Subsequent internal squabbles in the YUSHCHENKO camp allowed his rival Viktor YANUKOVYCH to stage a comeback in parliamentary (Rada) elections, become prime minister in August 2006, and be elected president in February 2010. In October 2012, Ukraine held Rada elections, widely criticized by Western observers as flawed due to use of government resources to favor ruling party candidates, interference with media access, and harassment of opposition candidates. President YANUKOVYCH's backtracking on a trade and cooperation agreement with the EU in November 2013 - in favor of closer economic ties with Russia - and subsequent use of force against students, civil society activists, and other civilians in favor of the agreement led to a three-month protest occupation of Kyiv's central square. The government's use of violence to break up the protest camp in February 2014 led to all out pitched battles, scores of deaths, international condemnation, a failed political deal, and the president's abrupt departure for Russia. New elections in the spring allowed pro-West president Petro POROSHENKO to assume office in June 2014; he was succeeded by Volodymyr ZELENSKY in May 2019. Pixabay Image [12]

After YANUKOVYCH's departure in late February 2014, Russian President PUTIN ordered the invasion of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula falsely claiming the action was to protect ethnic Russians living there. Two weeks later, a "referendum" was held regarding the integration of Crimea into the Russian Federation. The "referendum" was condemned as illegitimate by the Ukrainian Government, the EU, the US, and the UN General Assembly (UNGA). In response to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea, 100 members of the UN passed UNGA resolution 68/262, rejecting the "referendum" as baseless and invalid and confirming the sovereignty, political independence, unity, and territorial integrity of Ukraine. In mid-2014, Russia began supplying proxies in two of Ukraine's eastern provinces with manpower, funding, and materiel driving an armed conflict with the Ukrainian Government that continues to this day. Representatives from Ukraine, Russia, and the unrecognized Russian proxy republics signed the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum in September 2014 to end the conflict. However, this agreement failed to stop the fighting or find a political solution. In a renewed attempt to alleviate ongoing clashes, leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany negotiated a follow-on Package of Measures in February 2015 to implement the Minsk agreements. Representatives from Ukraine, Russia, the unrecognized Russian proxy republics, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe also meet regularly to facilitate implementation of the peace deal. More than 14,000 civilians have been killed or wounded as a result of the Russian intervention in eastern Ukraine.

Russia’s occupation of Crimea in March 2014 and ongoing Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine have hurt economic growth. With the loss of a major portion of Ukraine’s heavy industry in Donbas and ongoing violence, the economy contracted by 6.6% in 2014 and by 9.8% in 2015, but it returned to low growth in in 2016 and 2017, reaching 2.3% and 2.0%, respectively, as key reforms took hold. Ukraine also redirected trade activity towards the EU following the implementation of a bilateral Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, displacing Russia as its largest trading partner. A prohibition on commercial trade with separatist-controlled territories in early 2017 has not impacted Ukraine’s key industrial sectors as much as expected, largely because of favorable external conditions. Ukraine returned to international debt markets in September 2017, issuing a $3 billion sovereign bond.

The map shows Ukraine and surrounding countries with international borders, major rivers and lakes, the highest mountains, the national capital Kyiv (Kiev), oblast centers, major cities, main roads, railroads, and major airports. The map also shows the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula and the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, the former occupied by Russia and the latter controlled by pro-Russian militants.

Ukraine is the largest country in Eastern Europe (including Crimea). It is the second-largest country in Europe after European Russia. It is twice the size of Italy and slightly smaller than the US state of Texas. Ukraine borders Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Slovakia.

About 95% of the country is flat, because it is located on the territory of the East European Plain. Ukraine's fertile land was known as the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. It has become the breadbasket of Europe. There are only two regions in the country where there are mountains: in the western part of Ukraine are the Eastern Carpathians, part of the Carpathian Mountains, a mountain range that spans Central and Eastern Europe. There is the highest mountain in Ukraine, Mount Hoverla, at 2061 meters. In the southern part of the Crimean Peninsula are the Crimean Mountains, which stretch along the southeast coast of the Black Sea for a length of about 150 km. Roman-Kosh is the highest elevation of the Crimean Mountains with 1545 m. Ukraine's major rivers are the Dniester, the Southern Bug (Pivdennyi Buh), the Desna, the Donets, and the Dnieper (Dnipro), a vital waterway and the longest river in Ukraine with its large water reservoirs, the Kremenchuk Reservoir and the Kakhovka Reservoir.

The Ukrainian flag is shown below. The colors represent the Blue sky and the color of the Wheat fields.

The Ukrainian Coat Of Arms is shown below and is called Tryzub. It represents the Ukrainian country, people, and their roots going back to 980 with Kievan Rus.

The Ukrainian Coat Of Arms is a blue shield with what many think is a gold trident, however the symbol is most likely intended to represent the Holy Trinity and a stylized falcon when it was first created. This observation is based on the fact that the Tryzub is the same as the emblem of the Royal State of Wolodymyr the Great who brought Christianity to Ukraine. Depictions of a flying Falcon with a Christian cross above its head have been found in Old Ladoga, the first seat of the Kievan Rurik dynasty of Scandinavian lineage. Such a falcon, along with a cross are also featured on the coins of Olaf Guthfrithsson, a Viking king of Dublin and Northumbria. It has a long history and is embedded in the culture. Archaeologists find its image on coins, seals, utensils, bricks, murals, essentially everywhere.

Wolodymyr I Sviatoslavych (Wolodymyr the Great), was Prince of Novgorod, Grand Prince of Kiev, and ruler of Kievan Rus from 980 to 1015. Originally a follower of Slavic paganism, Wolodymyr converted to Christianity in 988 and Christianized Kievan Rus (early Ukraine). Wolodymyr was declared a saint in both the Western Christian and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Wolodymyr is also known as Saint Wolodymyr or Saint Vladimir.

In 1918, just after the Russian empire collapsed, upon the recommendation of historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Ukraine’s first president, the Ukrainian government approved the Tryzub as the state coat of arms. A commission empowered to choose a new state symbol considered several alternatives: a golden lion (the symbol of the Halychyna region, which was the centre of the Ukrainian national movement for independence in the 19th century), a cossack with his musket (respectively, the sign of Zaporizhzhia cossacks), an image of St. Michael the Archangel (the patron of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital), and others. The ancient symbol of Kyivan Rus was chosen to symbolise Ukraine’s state and national unity. The symbol connects past and present from the Kyivan Rus times, where Ukraine has its roots, to the current modern Ukraine nation state today. The design of the Tryzub contains the letters (vólja) pronounced as VOLYA and means WILL or DETERMINATION, force of character/mind, resolution, resolve, guts, freedom, desire, will (for freedom and independence, or self-determination).

In Ukraine today there are many hand carved versions of the flying Falcon that are part of everyday normal decorations.

Gyrfalcon, Falco rusticolus
Hand-colored engraving
1827 and 1838, Birds of America, John James Audubon

The Tryzub was banned by the communists during the Soviet Union time frame (70 years) and is problematic for modern Russian nationalists who are reminded that before there was Russia, there was Ukraine. The first known reference to Moscow dates to 1147 as a meeting place of Yuri Dolgoruky and Sviatoslav Olgovich. This is over 150 years after Kievan Rus. Scholars continue to debate when Kyiv was founded. The traditional founding date is 482 CE, so the city celebrated its 1,500th anniversary in 1982. Archaeological data indicates a founding in the sixth or seventh centuries, with some researchers dating the founding as late as the late 9th century. Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine and Moscow is the capital of Russia. While Ukrainian nationalists acknowledge Russia, modern Russian nationalists will not acknowledge Ukraine because it does not fit into the modern Russian Empire mental model. The following is the Tryzub as it existed through the centuries across 1000+ years.

Year Circa 970
Era of
Sviatoslav I of Kyiv

Year 980
Era of
Wolodymyr The Great

Year 1019
Era of
Yaroslav The Wise

Year 1918
Era of
Ukrainian Peoples Republic

Year 1964
Era of
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

Year 1992
Modern Era of
Ukraine

Today the Tryzub represents freedom, independence, self-determination. During Soviet rule the Tryzub was called nationalistic and banned. The Tryzub is an important symbol to the people of Ukraine and is worn to respect those who fought for Ukraine’s independence 100 years ago and those who protect it now. President Wolodymyr Zelensky wears the Tryzub during many important public engagements and wore it when speaking to the United States Congress on December 21, 2022.

Ukrainian Oblasts Regions and Republic of Crimea

Ukraine consists of Oblasts known as States or Provinces in other countries and one Republic - Crimea. The US Government does not recognize Russia's illegal annexation of Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the municipality of Sevastopol, nor their redesignation as the Republic of Crimea and the Federal City of Sevastopol. From the Ukranian constitution Article 133: The system of the administrative and territorial structure of Ukraine is composed of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, oblasts, districts, cities, city districts, settlements and villages. The Oblasts derive their names from the major city in the Oblast.

The following table shows the Oblasts sorted by population and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

Oblast	Region	HASC	Area (km2)	Population (2022)	Pop. Density	Administrative Center (Capital)	Raions / Districts	Key Cities
Donetsk Oblast	Eastern	DT	26,505.7	4,157,000	167.81	Donetsk (Kramatorsk)	8	28
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast	Southern	DP	31,900.5	3,214,000	104.83	Dnipro	7	13
Kharkiv Oblast	Eastern	KK	31,401.6	2,683,000	87.74	Kharkiv	7	7
Lviv Oblast	Western	LV	21,823.7	2,515,000	116.65	Lviv	7	9
Odesa Oblast	Southern	OD	33,295.9	2,395,000	71.71	Odesa	7	7
Luhansk Oblast	Eastern	LH	26,672.5	2,145,000	86.25	Luhansk (Sieverodonetsk)	8	14
Kyiv Oblast	Central	KV	28,118.9	1,775,000	61.15	Kyiv	7	13
Zaporizhzhia Oblast	Southern	ZP	27,168.5	1,699,000	66.45	Zaporizhzhia	5	5
Vinnytsia Oblast	Central	VI	26,501.6	1,566,000	62.12	Vinnytsia	6	6
Poltava Oblast	Central	PL	28,735.8	1,392,000	51.98	Poltava	4	5
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast	Western	IF	13,894.0	1,382,000	99.38	Ivano-Frankivsk	6	5
Khmelnytskyi Oblast	Western	KM	20,636.2	1,274,000	64.52	Khmelnytskyi	3	6
Zakarpattia Oblast	Western	ZK	12,771.5	1,247,000	97.59	Uzhhorod	6	5
Zhytomyr Oblast	Central	ZT	29,819.2	1,213,000	43.03	Zhytomyr	4	5
Cherkasy Oblast	Central	CK	20,891	1,198,000	61.80	Cherkasy	4	6
Rivne Oblast	Western	RV	20,038.5	1,146,000	57.52	Rivne	4	4
Mykolaiv Oblast	Southern	MY	24,587.4	1,126,000	48.25	Mykolaiv	4	5
Sumy Oblast	Central	SM	23,823.9	1,094,000	48.97	Sumy	5	7
Volyn Oblast	Western	VO	20,135.3	1,046,000	51.56	Lutsk	4	4
Ternopil Oblast	Western	TP	13,817.1	1,035,000	78.65	Ternopil	3	1
Kherson Oblast	Southern	KS	28,449	1,026,000	38.35	Kherson	5	3
Chernihiv Oblast	Central	CH	31,851.3	994,000	34.67	Chernihiv	5	3
Kirovohrad Oblast	Central	KH	24,577.5	958,000	41.29	Kropyvnytskyi	4	4
Chernivtsi Oblast	Western	CV	8,093.6	897,000	111.67	Chernivtsi	3	2
Autonomous Republic of Crimea	Southern		26,100	2,033,700	77.9	Simferopol	14	10

The following is a map of Ukraine showing the Oblasts, special cities, Crimea, and modern regions.

Eastern Region

Donetsk Oblast
Kharkiv Oblast
Luhansk Oblast

Central Region

1. Cherkasy Oblast
2. Chernihiv Oblast
3. Kirovohrad Oblast

4. Kyiv Oblast
5. Poltava Oblast
6. Sumy Oblast

7. Vinnytsia Oblast
8. Zhytomyr Oblast
9. Special City of Kyiv

Southern Region

1. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast
2. Kherson Oblast
3. Mykolayiv Oblast

4. Odesa Oblast
5. Zaporizhia Oblast

6. Autonomous Republic of Crimea
7. Special City of Sevastopol

See sections Territorial Structure of Ukraine and Maps Of Ukrainian Lands.

Western Region

Chernivtsi Oblast
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast
Khmelnytskyi Oblast
Lviv Oblast
Rivne Oblast
Ternopil Oblast
Volyn Oblast
Zakarpattia Oblast

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Location: Western Region 48.28°N 26.01°E
Size: 8,100 sq-km
Founding: 10th century, it became a part of the Kievan Rus
Established: August 7, 1940

Population: 896,566 as of 2020.

Ethnic Groups: Ukrainians 75%, Romanians 12.5%, Moldovans 7.3%, Russians 4.1% Other nationalities 1.2% (such as Poles, Belarusians, and Jews).

Terrain: Carpathian Mountains and hills at the foot of the mountains gradually change to a broad partly forested plain situated between the Dniester and Prut rivers. There are 75 rivers longer than 10 kilometers.

International Borders: Romania and Moldova

Industry: Food, light, mechanical engineering and woodworking. Food includes sugar, bakery products, alcohol, oil, meat and milk, fruits, vegetables and other products; In the light industry, garments, knitwear, hosiery, rubber and leather footwear and textiles prevails; In mechanical engineering oil and gas processing equipment and agricultural machinery. The timber industry is dominated by the production of lumber, furniture, joinery and other wood products.

Universities: Known as scientific and educational center in Western Ukraine. Research Institutes of Thermoelectricity, the Institute of Medical and Ecological Problems of the Ministry of Health Care of Ukraine, Chernivtsi National University, Bukovinian State Medical University, Trade and Economics Institute, Institute of Economics and Law, Bukovinian State Institute for Finance and Economics.

The Chernivtsi Oblast has an international border with Romania and Moldova. The oblast is the smallest in Ukraine by area and second smallest by population representing 1.3% of the population. It has an international border with Romania and Moldova. The oblast has a large variety of landforms: the Carpathian Mountains and picturesque hills at the foot of the mountains gradually change to a broad partly forested plain situated between the Dniester and Prut rivers. There are 75 rivers longer than 10 kilometers. The largest rivers are the Dniester (290 km, in the Oblast), Prut (128 km, in the Oblast) and Siret (113 km, in the Oblast). The oblast covers three geographic zones: a forest steppe region between Prut and Dnister rivers, a foothill region between the Carpathian Mountains and Prut river, and a mountain region known as the Bukovinian part of the Carpathian Mountains. It has a population of 896,566 as of 2020, and its capital is the city Chernivtsi. The region spans 8,100 sq-km. The Oblast consists of:

Chernivtsi oblast was created on August 7, 1940. At the end of the 10th century, it became a part of the Kievan Rus. Since July 2020, Chernivtsi Oblast is administratively subdivided into 3 raions (districts): Chernivtsi Raion, Dnistrovskyi Raion, and Vyzhnytsia Raion. The oblast is divided among 11 cities, 8 urban-type settlements, and 252 communes. According to the latest Ukrainian Census (2001), Ukrainians represent about 75% (689.1 thousands) of the population of Chernivtsi Oblast. 12.5% (114.6 thousands) reported themselves as Romanians, 7.3% (67.2 thousand) as Moldovans, and 4.1% (37.9 thousands) as Russians. The other nationalities, such as Poles, Belarusians, and Jews sum up to 1.2%.

The Chernivtsi region has 836 archeological monuments (of which 18 have national meanings), 586 historical monuments (2 of them have national significance), 779 monuments of architecture and urban development (112 of them national significance), 42 monuments of monumental art.

The largest city is Chernivtsi. It is a multinational city with a tolerant atmosphere and is a cradle for artists representing different cultures.

The key industries in Chernivtsi city are food, light, mechanical engineering and woodworking. Food processing companies produce sugar, bakery products, alcohol, oil, meat and milk, fruits, vegetables and other products. In the light industry, the production of garments, knitwear, hosiery, rubber and leather footwear and textiles prevails. Mechanical engineering is represented by the production of oil and gas processing equipment and agricultural machinery. The timber industry is dominated by the production of lumber, furniture, joinery and other wood products.

Chernivtsi city is also known as a scientific and educational center in Western Ukraine. Research Institutes of Thermoelectricity, the Institute of Medical and Ecological Problems of the Ministry of Health Care of Ukraine, Chernivtsi National University, Bukovinian State Medical University, Trade and Economics Institute, Institute of Economics and Law, Bukovinian State Institute for Finance and Economics.

Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

Location: Southern Region 48.39°N 34.71°E
Size: 31,974 sq-km.
Founding: 10th century, it became a part of the Kievan Rus.
Established: February 27, 1932.

Population: 3,096,485 (2022)

Ethnic Groups: Ukrainians 79.3%, Russians 17.6%, Belarusians 0.8%, Jews 0.4%, Armenians 0.3%, Azeris 0.2%, Moldovans 0.12%, Romanians 0.11%, Tatars 0.11%, Germans 0.11%, Other 0.95%.

Terrain: 217 rivers flow within the area, including 55 rivers which are longer than 25 km, the major one being the Dnieper, which crosses through the center of the oblast. Also flowing through the region are three major reservoirs, the Kamianske, Dnieper and Kakhovka, and the Dnieper-Kryvyi Rih Canal. The Black Sea Lowland covers about half of the territory of the oblast. The oblast is in the steppe region. Forests in the oblast occupy about 3.9% of the oblast's total territory.

International Borders: None.

Industries: The Oblast has iron, manganese, granite, graphite, brown coal, and kaolin. It produces over 7 million tones of crude steel and over 17 million tones of iron ore annually. It is the main iron ore region of Eastern Europe. Heavy industry produces cast-iron, rolled metal, pipes, machinery, different mining combines, agricultural equipment, tractors, trolleybuses, refrigerators, and different chemicals. It has large food processing and light industry factories. Many sewing and dress-making factories produce goods for France, Canada, Germany and Great Britain. It is engaged in the aerospace industry and heavy manufacturing including: space rockets, agricultural equipment, buses, trolley buses, trams, wind turbines, and satellites. Dniproavia airlines head office is on the grounds of Dnipropetrovsk International Airport.

Universities: There are 14 Universities.

Dnipropetrovsk Oblast is in central-eastern Ukraine and is the most important industrial region of the country. It was created on February 27, 1932. In the 6th and 8th centuries, the first settlements of Slavs appeared on the banks of the Dnieper within the region. During the period of Kievan Rus (9-12 centuries AD) the Dnieper River was one of the main trade routes of medieval Eastern Europe called "From the Varangians to the Greeks", which connected the Baltic countries with the Crimea and the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople. The Dnieper also served as a major route for transporting the army of Kyiv princes on their way to the Byzantine coastal cities in the early 9th and late 9th centuries.

The Dnieper River runs through the oblast. In 2019, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine approved the change of the oblast's name to Sicheslav Oblast. The Dnipropetrovsk Oblast is located in southeastern Ukraine. The area of the oblast is 31,974 sq-km and is about 5.3% of the total area of the country. 217 rivers flow within the area, including 55 rivers which are longer than 25 km, the major one being the Dnieper, which crosses through the center of the oblast. Also flowing through the region are three major reservoirs, the Kamianske, Dnieper and Kakhovka, and the Dnieper-Kryvyi Rih Canal. The Black Sea Lowland covers about half of the territory of the oblast. The oblast is in the steppe region. Forests in the oblast occupy about 3.9% of the oblast's total territory. The Oblast consists of:

Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has a population of 3,096,485 (2022). At the 2001 census, the ethnic groups within the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast were: Ukrainians 79.3%, Russians 17.6%, Belarusians 0.8%, Jews 0.4%, Armenians 0.3%, Azeris 0.2%, Moldovans 0.12%, Romanians 0.11%, Tatars 0.11%, Germans 0.11%, Other 0.95%; the groups by native language are: Ukrainian 67%, Russian 32%, other languages 1%.

The Dnieper Upland contains a number of minerals including iron, manganese, granite, graphite, brown coal, and kaolin. Kryvbas is an important economic region, specializing in iron ore mining and the steel industry. It is the main iron ore region of Eastern Europe. The region possesses major deposits of iron ore and some other metallurgical ores. To exploit them, several large mining companies were founded here in the middle of the 20th century. Most of them are located in Kryvyi Rih itself, which is the longest city in Europe.

The average temperature in the winter balances from -3 to -5 °C and in the summer from 22 to 24 °C. The average annual rainfall is 400 to 490 mm. During the summer, Dnipropetrovsk oblast is very warm (average day temperature in July is 24 to 28 °C (75 to 82 °F), even hot 34 to 38 °C (90 to 97 °F). Temperatures as high as 36 °C (97 °F) have been recorded in May. Winter is not so cold (average day temperature in January is -3 to 0 °C (25 to 32 °F). A mix of snow and rain happens usually in December.

The climate, mineral sources, and the curative mud allow opportunities for rest and cure within the region. There are 21 health-centers, 10 rest homes, recreation departments and rest camps for children. The Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has splendid flora and fauna. There are more than 1700 kinds of vegetation, 7500 kinds of animals (including elk, wild boar, dappled deer, roe, hare, fox, wolf, etc.) There are also 114 park and nature objects, including 15 state reserves; 3 nature memorials, 24 local parks; 7 landscape parks; 3 park tracts, which altogether make up approximately 260 square kilometers.

Dnipro is a major industrial centre of Ukraine. It has several facilities devoted to heavy industry that produce a wide range of products, including cast-iron, rolled metal, pipes, machinery, different mining combines, agricultural equipment, tractors, trolleybuses, refrigerators, different chemicals and many others. The most famous and the oldest (founded in the 19th century) is the Metallurgical Plant named after Petrovsky. The city also has large food processing and light industry factories. Many sewing and dress-making factories produce goods for France, Canada, Germany and Great Britain, using the most advanced technologies, materials and design. Since the 1950s Dnipro has been engaged in the aerospace industry and heavy manufacturing including: space rockets, agricultural equipment, buses, trolley buses, trams, wind turbines, and satellites. Dniproavia, an airline, has its head office on the grounds of Dnipropetrovsk International Airport. The region has major deposits of iron ore and some other metallurgical ores. To exploit them, several large mining companies were founded in the middle of the 20th century producing over 7 million tones of crude steel and mining over 17 million tones of iron ore annually.

Donetsk Oblast

Location: Eastern Region 48.14°N 37.74°E
Size: 26,517 sq-km 10,238 sq-mi
Founding: 10th century, it became a part of the Kievan Rus
Established:

Population: 4,100,280 (2021)

Ethnic Groups: Ukrainians 56.9%, Russians 38.2%, Pontic Greeks 1.6%, Belarusians 0.9%, others 2.3%.

Terrain: Steppe landscape, scattered woodland, hills, spoil tips, rivers and lakes., and coast line.

International Borders: Russia

Industries: Mining, coal, finished steel, coke, cast iron and steel production, agraculture.

Universities: 5 state universities, 11 institutes, three academies, 14 technicums, five private universities, and six colleges,

The Donetsk Oblast is located in southeastern Ukraine. The area of the oblast (26,517 sq-km) and comprises 4.4% of the total area of the country. The oblast borders the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts on the southwest, the Kharkiv Oblast on the north, the Luhansk Oblast on the northeast, the Rostov Oblast in Russia on the east, and with the Sea of Azov on the south. Its longitude from north to south is 270 km, from east to west - 190 km. The extreme points of the oblast's borders are: Bilosarayska Kosa (spit) on the south, Shevchenko of Velykonovosilkivskyi Raion on the west, Verkhnyi Kut of Shakhtarskyi Raion on the east, and Lozove of Lyman Raion on the north. The state historic-architectural preserve near the city of Sviatohirsk with the Sviatohirsk Lavra was nominated for the Seven Wonders of Ukraine.

The terrane is steppe landscape, scattered woodland, hills, spoil tips, rivers and lakes, and coast line. The Oblast has coal (25 billion tons), rock salt, lime carbonate, potassium, mercury, asbestos, and graphite mineral resources. The area is also rich in fertile black earth. The oblast includes salt lakes and mineral water sources, park zones, steppe and the Azov sea coast. Overall, the Donetsk Oblast contains about 70 protected park and nature attractions including branches of the Ukrainian steppe park, six state reserves, ten memorials of nature, landscapes, and six park tracts. The Oblast includes:

It is Ukraine's most populous province, with 4.1 million residents. Its population is estimated as 4,100,280 (2021). In 2013, the population of Donetsk Oblast was 4.43 million, which constituted 10% of the overall Ukrainian population, making it the most populous and most densely populated region of the country. Its large population is due to the presence of several big industrial cities and numerous villages near the cities. At the 2001 Ukrainian National Census, the ethnic groups within the Donetsk Oblast were: Ukrainians 56.9%, Russians 38.2%, Pontic Greeks 1.6%, Belarusians 0.9%, others 2.3%.

The oblast is known for its urban sprawl of Donetsk Makiivka and Horlivka Yenakiieve and it is often associated with the coal mining industry. The Donetsk Oblast accounts for more than one half of the coal, finished steel, coke, cast iron and steel production in Ukraine. Ferrous metallurgy, fuel industry and power industry are in demand in the structure of industry production. The oblast includes the Donetsk railway (covers 40% of national transportation), the Mariupol Port, the Donetsk International Airport, passenger airports in Mariupol and Kramatorsk, and dense road systems. In 1999, the gross grain yield in the oblast was 999.1 thousand tons, sugar beets 27.1 thousand tons, sunflower seeds 309.4 thousand tons, and potatoes 380.2 thousand tons. Also, 134.2 thousand tons of meat, 494.3 thousand tons of milk and 646.4 million eggs have been produced.

The city of Donetsk has several universities, which include 5 state universities, 11 institutes, three academies, 14 technicums, five private universities, and six colleges. The educational institutions include Donetsk National Technical University, founded in 1921 (Donetsk Polytechnical Institute in 1960 - 1993), as well as the Donetsk National University which was founded in 1937, Donetsk National Medical University, which was founded in 1930 and became one of the largest medical universities in the former Soviet Union, and Prokofiev Donetsk State Music Academy, a music conservatory founded in 1960. There are also several scientific research institutes and an Islamic. The largest cities by population are:

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Kirovohrad Oblast

Location: Central Region 48.46°N 32.27°E
Size: 24,588 sq-km
Founding: Cossack Zaporizka Sich in 1471.
Established: January 10, 1939.

Population: 974,724 (2015), 920,128 (2021)

Ethnic Groups: Ukrainians 85.8%, Russians 12.0%, Belarusians 0.5%, others 1.7%.

Terrain: Steppe and known as Wild Fields.

International Borders: None

Industries: Agriculture, some light industry.

Universities:

It is Ukraine's second least populated oblast, behind Chernivtsi. In 2019, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine approved the change of the oblast's name to Kropyvnytskyi Oblast. The oblast was created on January 10, 1939. The history of the city beginnings dates back to the year 1754 when Fort St. Elizabeth was built on the lands of former Zaporizka Sich in 1471. The name Zaporizhia refers to the military and political organization of the Cossacks and to the location of their autonomous territory beyond the Rapids (za porohamy) of the Dnieper River. It is 24,588 sq-km and has a population of 974,724 (2015). The terrain is Steppe and known as Wild Fields. The Oblast consists of:

It is in the center of Ukraine and within the Dnieper Upland. The Inhul river flows through Kropyvnytskyi. Within the city, several other smaller rivers and brooks runs in the Inhul; they include the Suhoklia and the Biyanka. The population consists of Ukrainians 85.8%, Russians 12.0%, Belarusians 0.5%, others 1.7%. The climate is moderate continental: cold and snowy winters, and hot summers. The seasonal average temperatures are not too cold in winter, not too hot in summer: -4.8 °C (23.4 °F) in January, and 20.7 °C (69.3 °F) in July. The average precipitation is 534 mm (21 in) per year, with the most in June and July.

The economy is dominated by agricultural machinery like tractor seeders, hydraulic units, radio components, and previously typewriters.

Luhansk Oblast

Location: Western Region 48.92°N 39.02°E
Size: 26,684 sq-km 10,303 sq-mi
Founding: Cossack Zaporozhian Sich 15th century.
Established: 1938.

Population: 2,121,322 (2021), 2,272,676 (2012), 2,461,506, (2004) 2,546,178 (2001)

Ethnic Groups: Ukrainians 58.0%, Russians 39.1%, Belarusians 0.8%, and others 1.4%.

Terrain: Located in the valley of the Siversky Donets river, which splits the region approximately in half. The southern portion of the region is elevated by the Donetsk Ridge which is located closer to the southern border. The highest point is Mohyla Mechetna (367 m (1,204 ft)), the highest point of Donetsk Ridge. The left bank of the Siversky Donets river is part of the Starobilsk Plain.

International Borders: Russia

Industries: Mining coal and anthracite machine building, metallurgy, chemicals, oil refining, agriculture.

Universities: 6 Universities

Special History: The Don and Kuban Cossacks were the first people to declare war against the Bolsheviks. In 1918, Russian Cossacks declared their independence, creating two independent states: the Don Republic and the Kuban People's Republic, and the Ukrainian State emerged in 1918.

Luhansk Oblast is located in eastern Ukraine. The city of Luhansk traces its history to 1795 when the British industrialist Charles Gascoigne founded a metal factory near the Zaporizhian Cossacks settlement Kamianyi Brid. The Cossack Zaporozhian Sich traces to the 15th century. The settlement around the factory was known as Luganskiy Zavod. In 1882 the factory settlement Luganskiy Zavod was merged with the town of Kamianyi Brid into the city of Luhansk (also Luhanske, according to the Kharkiv orthography). The Luhansk Oblast was established in 1938.

Located in the Donets Basin, Luhansk developed into an important industrial center of Eastern Europe, particularly as a home to the major locomotive-building company Luhanskteplovoz.The area of the oblast (26,700 km2), comprises about 4.42% of the total area of Ukraine. The oblast has the longest segment of the Ukrainian international border with Russia consisting of 746 km (464 mi). The region is located in the valley of the Siversky Donets river, which splits the region approximately in half. The southern portion of the region is elevated by the Donetsk Ridge which is located closer to the southern border. The highest point is Mohyla Mechetna (367 m (1,204 ft)) which is the highest point of Donetsk Ridge. The left bank of the Siversky Donets river is part of the Starobilsk Plain. The Oblast consists of:

The Luhansk Oblast population is 2,461,506 (2004) and is 5.13% of the overall Ukrainian population. The ethnic groups are Ukrainians 58.0%, Russians 39.1%, Belarusians 0.8%, and others 1.4%. The Luhansk Oblast rates fifth in Ukraine by the number of its inhabitants, having an average population density of 90.28/sq-km. About 87% of the population lives in urban areas, while the remaining 13% reside in agricultural areas.

The economy is connected with the Donets Basin and includes mining coal and anthracite, machine building, metallurgy, chemicals, oil refinery, and agriculture. There are multiple universities as follows:

The Cossacks are predominantly East Slavic Orthodox Christian people originating in the Pontic-Caspian steppe of Ukraine and southern Russia. They were a semi-nomadic and semi-militarized people, who, while under the nominal suzerainty of various Eastern European states at the time (Polish, Lithuanian, Russian), were allowed a great degree of self governance in exchange for military service. Although numerous linguistic and religious groups came together to form the Cossacks, most of them coalesced and became East Slavic speaking Orthodox Christians. The Cossacks were particularly noted for holding Democratic traditions.

The rulers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russian Empire endowed Cossacks with certain special privileges in return for the military duty to serve in the irregular troops (mostly cavalry). The various Cossack groups were organized along military lines, with large autonomous groups called hosts. Each host had a territory consisting of affiliated villages called stanitsa. They inhabited sparsely populated areas in the Dnieper, Don, Terek, and Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of both Russia and Ukraine. The Cossack way of life persisted into the twentieth century, though the sweeping societal changes of the Russian Revolution disrupted Cossack society as much as any other part of Russia; many Cossacks migrated to other parts of Europe following the establishment of the Soviet Union, while others remained and assimilated into the Communist state. Cohesive Cossack-based units were organized and many fought for both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II. After World War II, the Soviet Union disbanded the Cossack units in the Soviet Army, and many of the Cossack traditions were suppressed during the years of rule under Joseph Stalin and his successors. During the Perestroika era in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, descendants of Cossacks moved to revive their national traditions. In 1988, the Soviet Union passed a law allowing the re-establishment of former Cossack hosts and the formation of new ones. During the 1990s, many regional authorities agreed to hand over some local administrative and policing duties to their Cossack hosts. Between 3.5 and 5 million people associate themselves with the Cossack cultural identity across the world. Cossack organizations operate in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Canada, and the United States.

The Ukrainian Cossacks are grouped into: Zaporozhian Cossacks, Registered Cossacks, Black Sea, Azov and Danubian Sich Cossacks. The Russian Cossacks are grouped into: Don Cossacks, Kuban Cossacks, Terek Cossacks, Yaik Cossacks.

During the Russian Civil War, Don and Kuban Cossacks were the first people to declare open war against the Bolsheviks. Because of their strong roots in Democratic traditions, on December 22, 1917, the Soviet Council of People's Commissars effectively abolished the Cossack estate by ending their military service requirements and privileges. In 1918, Russian Cossacks declared their complete independence, creating two independent states: the Don Republic and the Kuban People's Republic, and the Ukrainian State emerged in 1918. Cossack troops formed the effective core of the anti-Bolshevik White Army, and Cossack republics became centers for the anti-Bolshevik White movement. After the widespread anticommunist rebellions among Cossacks in 1918, the Soviet regime's approach hardened in early 1919, when the Red Army occupied Cossack districts in the Urals and northern Don. The Bolsheviks embarked on a genocidal policy of de-Cossackization, intended to end the Cossack threat to the Soviet regime. With the victory of the Red Army, Cossack lands were subjected to decossackization and the Holodomor famine. As a result, during World War II, their loyalties were divided and both sides had Cossacks fighting in their ranks.

Lviv Oblast

Location: Eastern Region 49.43°N 23.57°E
Size: 21,833 sq-km 8,430 sq-mi
Founding: 10th century, it became a part of the Kievan Rus.
Established: December 4, 1939.

Population: 2,497,750 (2021)

Ethnic Groups: Ukrainians 94.8% , Russians 3.6%, Poles 0.7%, there are also smaller German, Jewish and Romani minorities (2021). By comparison of the 2001 Ukrainian census, the last Soviet census of 1989 reveals that the number of Poles in the Lviv Oblast declined by 29.7 percent which, defies explanation, but could possibly be attributed to intensive Ukrainization of the Roman Catholic Church.

Terrain: The southern part is occupied by the low Beskyd mountain chains running parallel to each other from northwest to southeast and covered with secondary coniferous forests as part of the Eastern Carpathians; the highest point is Pikuy (1408 m). Going north there are the wide upper Dniester river valley and much smaller upper San River valley.

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The current population is 2,497,750. (2021). The nationalitiies are: (2001) Ukrainians 94.8% , Russians 3.6%, Poles 0.7%, there are also smaller German, Jewish and Romani minorities. Notably, the comparison of the 2001 Ukrainian census (mentioned above), with the last Soviet census of 1989 reveals that in those 12 years the number of Poles in the Lviv Oblast declined by 29.7 percent which, in the opinion of "Wspólnota Polska" Society defies explanation, and could possibly be attributed to the intensive Ukrainization of the Roman Catholic Church.

The terrain of Lviv Oblast is highly varied. The southern part is occupied by the low Beskyd mountain chains running parallel to each other from northwest to southeast and covered with secondary coniferous forests as part of the Eastern Carpathians; the highest point is Pikuy (1408 m). Going north there are the wide upper Dniester river valley and much smaller upper San River valley. These rivers have flat bottoms covered with alluvial deposits, and are susceptible to floods. Between these valleys and Beskyd lies the Precarpathian upland covered with deciduous forests, with well-known mineral spa resorts. It is also the area of one of the earliest industrial petroleum and gas extraction. These deposits are all now depleted.

In the central part of the region lie Roztocze, Opillia, and part of the Podolia uplands. Rich sulphur deposits were mined here during the Soviet era. Roztocze is densely forested, while Opillia and Podolia (being covered with loess on which fertile soils develop) are densely populated and mostly covered by arable land. In the central-north part of the region lies the Small Polesia lowland, geographically isolated from the rest of Polesia but with similar terrain and landscapes (flat plains with sandy fluvioglacial deposits and pine forests). The far North of the region lies on the Volhynia upland, which is also covered with loess; coal is mined in this area.

The oblast's strategic position at the heart of central Europe and as the gateway to the Carpathians has caused it to change hands many times over the centuries. It was ruled variously by Great Moravia, Kievan Rus, Poland, as the independent state of Galicia-Volhynia (circa 1200 to 1340), and then ruled by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1340 to 1772), the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1772 to 1918), West Ukrainian People's Republic and Poland (1919 to 1939), when it was part of the Lwów Voivodeship of the Second Republic of Poland. The region's historically dominant Ukrainian population declared the area to be a part of an independent West Ukrainian National Republic in November 1918 - June 1919, but this endured only briefly. Local autonomy was provided in international treaties but later those were not honoured by the Polish government and the area experienced significant ethnic tension between the Polish and Ukrainian population.

The region and its capital city take their name from the time of Galicia-Volhynia, when Daniel of Galicia, the King of Rus', founded Lviv; naming the city after his son, Leo. During this time, the general region around Lviv was known as Red Ruthenia (Cherven' Rus').

The region only became part of the Soviet Union under the terms of the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, when it was annexed to the Ukrainian SSR. It was occupied by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944, when almost all local Jews were killed, and remained in Soviet hands after World War II as was arranged during the Teheran and Yalta conferences. Local Poles were expelled and Ukrainians expelled from Poland arrived. Given its historical development, Lviv Oblast is one of the least Russified and Sovietized parts of Ukraine, with much of its Polish and Habsburg heritage still visible today.

In Ukraine today, there are three provinces (oblasts) that formed the eastern part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Two of these, Lviv Oblast and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast were entirely contained in the kingdom; the third oblast of Ternopil was mainly in the kingdom apart from four of its most northerly counties (raions). The counties of the Kingdom of Galicia remained largely unchanged when they were incorporated into successor states; with minor changes as detailed below, the current counties are almost co-extensive with those of the Kingdom.

During the 2014 Euromaidan protests, the region is also notable for having declared independence from the central government led by Viktor Yanukovych who started to use active military force against protestors.

The climate of Lviv Oblast is moderately cool and humid. The average January temperatures range from -7 °C (19 °F) in the Carpathians to -3 °C (27 °F) in the Dniester and San River valleys while in July the average temperatures are from 14-15 °C (57-59 °F) in the Carpathians to 16-17 °C (61-63 °F) in Roztocze and 19 °C (66 °F) in the lower part of the Dniester valley.[4] The average annual precipitation is 600-650 mm (23.62-25.59 in) in the lowlands, 650-750 mm (25.59-29.53 in) in the highlands and up to 1,000 mm (39.37 in) in the Carpathians, with the majority of precipitation occurring in summer. Prolonged droughts are uncommon, while strong rainfalls can cause floods in river valleys. Severe winds during storms can also cause damage, especially in the highlands. The climate is favourable for the cultivation of sugar beets, winter wheat, flax, rye, cabbage, apples, and for dairy farming. It is still too cold to successfully cultivate maize, sunflower, grapes, melon, watermelon or peaches in Lviv Oblast. In the Carpathians conditions are favourable for Alpine skiing 3 to 4 months a year.

The most important research into cereal epidemics in the country is undertaken here. The National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine's Institute of Agriculture in Obroshino is the center of study for cereal pathogens including powdery mildew of barley.

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Location: Southern Region 47° 00 N, 30° 00 E
Size: 33,314 sq-km 12,863 sq-mi
Founding: Greeks 1st millennium BC
Established: 1991

Population: 2,368,107 (2021)

Ethnic Groups: Significant Bulgarian (6.1%) and Romanian (5.0%) minorities reside in the province.[10] It has the highest proportion of Jews of any oblast in Ukraine (although smaller than the Autonomous City of Kyiv) and there is a small Greek community in the city of Odesa. Bulgarians and Romanians represent 21% and 13% respectively, of the population in the salient of Budjak, within Odesa Oblast.

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Odesa Oblast is an oblast (province) of southwestern Ukraine, located along the northern coast of the Black Sea. Its administrative centre is the city of Odesa. The oblast's population (as at the start of 2021) was 2,368,107 people, nearly 43% of whom lived in the city of Odesa. The dominant religion in Odesa Oblast is Eastern Orthodox Christianity, professed by 84% of the population. Another 8% declares to be non-religious and 6% are unaffiliated generic Christians. Adherents of Catholicism and Protestantism make up 0.5% of the population respectively.

It is characterised by largely flat steppes, part of the Black Sea Lowland, divided by the estuary of the Dniester river, and bordered to the south by the Danube. Its Black Sea coast has numerous sandy beaches, estuaries and lagoons. The region's soils (especially chernozems) have a reputation for fertility, and intensive agriculture is the mainstay of the local rural economy. The southwest has many orchards and vineyards, while arable crops grow throughout the region.

The city of Odesa has a hot-summer humid continental climate, bordering a cold semi-arid as well as a humid subtropical climate. This has, over the past few centuries, aided the city greatly in creating conditions necessary for the development of summer tourism. During the tsarist era, Odesa's climate was considered to be beneficial for the body, and thus many wealthy but sickly persons were sent to the city in order to relax and recuperate. This resulted in the development of spa culture and the establishment of a number of luxury hotels in the city. The average annual temperature of the sea is 13 - 14 °C (55 - 57 °F). Seasonal sea temperatures range from an average of 6 °C (43 °F) from January to March, to 23 °C (73 °F) in August. Typically, for a total of 4 months, from June to September, the average sea temperature in the Gulf of Odesa and the city's bay area exceeds 20 °C (68 °F).

The city typically experiences dry, cold winters, which are relatively mild when compared to most of Ukraine, as they're marked by temperatures which rarely fall below -10 °C (14 °F). Summers see an increased level of precipitation, and the city often experiences warm weather with temperatures often reaching into the high 20s and low 30s C. Snow cover is often light or moderate, due to its location on the northern coast of the Black Sea, and municipal services rarely experience the problems that can often be found in other, more northern, Ukrainian cities. The city hardly ever faces the phenomenon of sea-freezing.

Significant branches of the oblast's economy are: oil refining and chemicals processing; transportation (important sea and river ports, oil pipelines and railway); viticulture and other forms of agriculture, notably the growing of wheat, maize, barley, sunflowers and sugar beets. The region's industrial capability is mostly concentrated in and around Odesa.

Until 2020, the Odesa Oblast was administratively subdivided into 26 raions (districts) and 7 municipalities which were directly subordinate to the oblast government. On 18 July 2020, the number of districts (raions) was reduced to seven, now also incorporating the formerly independent cities. They are now divided into 91 municipalities (hromadas). The Oblast consists of:

Odesa is home to several universities and other institutions of higher education. The city's best-known and most prestigious university is the Odesa I.I. Mechnykov National University. This university is the oldest in the city and was first founded by an edict of Tsar Alexander II of Russia in 1865 as the Imperial Novorossian University. Since then the university has developed to become one of modern Ukraine's leading research and teaching universities, with staff of around 1,800 and total of thirteen academic faculties. Other than the National University, the city is also home to the 1921 inaugurated Odesa National Economic University, the Odesa National Medical University (founded 1900), the 1918-founded Odesa National Polytechnic University.

In addition to these universities, the city is home to the National University Odesa Law Academy, the National Academy of Telecommunications, the Odesa State Environmental University and the Odesa National Maritime Academy. The last of these institutions is a highly specialised and prestigious establishment for the preparation and training of merchant mariners which sees around 1,000 newly qualified officer cadets graduate each year and take up employment in the merchant marines of numerous countries around the world. The South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University is also based in the city, this is one of the largest institutions for the preparation of educational specialists in Ukraine and is recognised as one of the country's finest of such universities.

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Location: Southern Region 45.3°N 34.4°E
Size: 26,200 sq-km 10,100 sq-mi
Founding: Crimean Khanate 1441
Established: February 26, 1992

Population: 2,352,385 (2007) 2,416,856 (2021)

Ethnic Groups: Russians 60.4%, Ukrainians 24%, Crimean Tatars 10.2%, Belarusians 1.5%, Armenians 0.4%, Jews 0.2%, Others 0, Total population stating nationality 2,401,200, Nationality not stated 12,000, Total population 2,413,200. (2001) Count performed by Ukraine. Russians 67.9%, Ukrainians 15.7%, Crimean Tatars 10.6%, Belarusians 1.0%, Armenians 0.5%, Jews 0.1%, Others 4.2% (2014) Count performed by Russia. Crimean Tatars were original people, removed by Russia.

Terrain: Steppe, mountains, coastline.

International Borders: Sea of Azov (facing Russia), Black Sea (facing Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Georgia).

Industries: agriculture, fishing, tourism, ports, food production, chemicals, mechanical engineering, metalworking, fuel production, natural gas fields, natural oil fields, offshore oil and gas. Black Sea resources are estimated to be 4 to 13 trillion cm of natural gas (2014).

Universities: 1 university: V. I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is an autonomous parliamentary republic within Ukraine and is governed by the Constitution of Crimea in accordance with the laws of Ukraine. The capital and administrative seat of the republic's government is the city of Simferopol, located in the centre of the peninsula. Crimea's area is 26,200 square kilometres (10,100 sq mi).

The population was 1,973,185 in 2007 but these figures do not include the area and population of the City of Sevastopol (2007 population: 379,200), which is administratively separate from the autonomous republic. The peninsula has 2,352,385 people (2007 estimate). Ethnic composition of Crimea's population has changed dramatically since the early 20th century. The 1897 Russian Empire Census for the Taurida Governorate reported: 196,854 (13.06%) Crimean Tatars, 404,463 (27.94%) Russians and 611,121 (42.21%) Ukrainians. But these numbers included Berdyansky, Dneprovsky and Melitopolsky uyezds which were on mainland, not in Crimea.

The ethnic groups in 2001 were: Russians 60.4%, Ukrainians 24%, Crimean Tatars 10.2%, Belarusians 1.5%, Armenians 0.4%, Jews 0.2%, Others 0, Total population stating nationality 2,401,200, Nationality not stated 12,000, Total population 2,413,200. Count performed by Ukraine.

The ethnic groups in 2014 were: Russians 67.9%, Ukrainians 15.7%, Crimean Tatars 10.6%, Belarusians 1.0%, Armenians 0.5%, Jews 0.1%, Others 4.2%, Total population stating nationality 2,197,564, Nationality not stated 87,205, Total population 2,284,769. Count performed by Russia.

Crimea is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea and on the western coast of the Sea of Azov. The only land border is shared with Ukraine's Kherson Oblast on the north. Crimea is almost an island and only connected to the continent by the Isthmus of Perekop, a strip of land about 5 - 7 kilometres (3.1 - 4.3 mi) wide. Much of the natural border between the Crimean Peninsula and the Ukrainian mainland is the Sivash or Rotten Sea, a large system of shallow lagoons stretching along the western shore of the Sea of Azov. Besides the isthmus of Perekop, the peninsula is connected to the Kherson Oblast's Henichesk Raion by bridges over the narrow Chonhar and Henichesk straits and over Kerch Strait to the Krasnodar Krai. The northern part of Arabat Spit is administratively part of Henichesk Raion in Kherson Oblast, including its two rural communities of Shchaslyvtseve and Strilkove. The eastern tip of the Crimean peninsula is the Kerch Peninsula, separated from Taman Peninsula on the Russian mainland by the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov, at a width of between 3 - 13 kilometres (1.9 - 8.1 mi).

The peninsula has three zones: steppe, mountains and southern coast. Seventy-five percent of Crimea consists of semiarid prairie lands, a southward continuation of the Pontic-Caspian steppe, which slope gently to the northwest from the foothills of the Crimean Mountains. Numerous kurgans, or burial mounds, of the ancient Scythians are scattered across the Crimean steppes.

The southeast coast is flanked at a distance of 8 - 12 kilometres (5.0 - 7.5 mi) from the sea by a parallel range of mountains: the Crimean Mountains. These mountains are backed by secondary parallel ranges. The main range of these mountains rises with extraordinary abruptness from the deep floor of the Black Sea to an altitude of 600 - 1,545 metres (1,969 - 5,069 ft), beginning at the southwest point of the peninsula, called Cape Fiolente. Some Greek myths state that this cape was supposedly crowned with the temple of Artemis where Iphigeneia officiated as priestess. Uchan-su, on the south slope of the mountains, is the highest waterfall in Crimea.

There are 257 rivers and major streams on the Crimean peninsula; they are primarily fed by rainwater, with snowmelt playing a very minor role. This makes for significant annual fluctuation in water flow, with many streams drying up completely during the summer.

The terrain that lies south of the sheltering Crimean Mountain range is different. The narrow strip of coast and the slopes of the mountains are covered with greenery. This riviera stretches along the southeast coast from capes Fiolente and Aya, in the south, to Feodosia. It is studded with summer sea-bathing resorts. During the years of Soviet rule, the resorts and dachas of this coast served as prime perquisites of the politically loyal. In addition, vineyards and fruit orchards are located in the region. Fishing, mining, and the production of essential oils are also important. Numerous Crimean Tatar villages, mosques, monasteries, and palaces of the Russian imperial family and nobles are found here, as well as picturesque ancient Greek and medieval castles. The Crimean Mountains and the southern coast are part of the Crimean Submediterranean forest complex ecoregion. The natural vegetation consists of scrublands, woodlands, and forests, with a climate and vegetation similar to the Mediterranean Basin.

Mean annual temperatures range from 10 °C (50.0 °F) in the far north (Armiansk) to 13 °C (55.4 °F) in the far south (Yalta). In the mountains, the mean annual temperature is 5.7 °C (42.3 °F). For every 100 m (330 ft) increase in altitude, temperatures decrease by 0.65 °C (1.17 °F) while precipitation increases. In January mean temperatures range from -3 °C (26.6 °F) in Armiansk to 4.4 °C (39.9 °F) in Myskhor. Cool season temperatures average 7 °C (44.6 °F) and it is rare for the weather to drop below freezing except in the mountains, where there is usually snow. In July mean temperatures range from 15.4 °C (59.7 °F) in Ai-Petri to 23.4 °C (74.1 °F) in the central parts of Crimea to 24.4 °C (75.9 °F) in Myskhor. The frost free period ranges from 160 to 200 days in the steppe and mountain regions to 240 - 260 days on the south coast.

The Black Sea ports of Crimea provide quick access to the Eastern Mediterranean, Balkans and Middle East. Historically, possession of the southern coast of Crimea was sought after by most empires of the greater region since antiquity (Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Russian, British and French, Nazi German, Soviet). The nearby Dnieper River is a major waterway and transportation route that crosses the European continent from north to south and ultimately links the Black Sea with the Baltic Sea, of strategic importance since the historical trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. The Black Sea serves as an economic thoroughfare connecting the Caucasus region and the Caspian Sea to central and Eastern Europe. According to the International Transport Workers' Federation, as of 2013 there were at least 12 operating merchant seaports in Crimea.

The economy is gas and oil, agriculture and fishing oysters pearls, industry and manufacturing, tourism, and ports. Crimea has vast offshore oil and gas resources in the Black Sea, estimated between 4-13 trillion cm of natural gas. Industrial plants are situated in the southern coast (Yevpatoria, Sevastopol, Feodosia, Kerch) regions of the republic and a few in northern (Armiansk, Krasnoperekopsk, Dzhankoi) coast, aside from the central area, mainly Simferopol okrug and eastern region in Nizhnegorsk (few plants, same for Dzhankoj) city. Important industrial cities include Dzhankoi, housing a major railway connection, Krasnoperekopsk and Armiansk, among others. The industries include food production, chemicals, mechanical engineering, and metalworking, and fuel production. Sixty percent of the industry market belongs to food production.

The development of Crimea as a holiday destination began in the second half of the 19th century. The development of the transport networks brought masses of tourists from central parts of the Russian Empire. At the beginning of the 20th century, a major development of palaces, villas, and dachas began, most of which remain. These are some of the main attractions of Crimea as a tourist destination. The most visited areas are the south shore of Crimea with cities of Yalta and Alushta, the western shore of Yevpatoria and Saky, and the south eastern shore of Feodosia and Sudak. According to National Geographic, Crimea was among the top 20 travel destinations in 2013.

Crimea also has several natural gas fields both onshore and offshore, which were starting to be drilled by western oil and gas companies before Russian annexation in 2014. The inland fields are located in Chornomorske and Dzhankoi, while offshore fields are located in the western coast in the Black Sea and in the northeastern coast in the Azov Sea. The republic also has two oil fields: one onshore, the Serebryankse oil field in Rozdolne, and one offshore, the Subbotina oil field in the Black Sea.

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Ternopil - Harbuziw Village

Ternopil is a city in western Ukraine and serves as the administrative centre of Ternopil Oblast, it has the status of city of oblast significance. Located on the banks of the Seret. Ternopil is one of the major cities of Western Ukraine and the historical regions of Galicia and Podolia. It is served by Ternopil Airport.

The city was founded in 1540 by Polish commander and Hetman Jan Amor Tarnowski, as a military stronghold and castle. It passed bewteen what we know of as German, Polish, and Russian control for centuries and decades. Currently the National structure of Ternopil Oblast - 1,138.5 (100%) is:

Galicia - Oslavichi Village

Galicia lies within the modern regions of western Ukraine: the Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts near Halych.

2014 War Background

In 2014 the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was invaded by Russia and annexed. The invasion is directly related to the Crimean gas and oil fields that were being being developed at the time and who will control those energy sources. Currently Russia relies on its oil and gas fields and developing the oil and gas resources in Crimea would directly reduce the revenue streams from the Russian oil and gas fields. In the absence of being able to control the Crimean oil and gas resources via a compromised Ukrainian nation state, Russia was left with the only option of direct invasion and annexation of Crimea. Who will financially and politically benefit from the Crimean gas and oil resources is at the heart of the war that started in Ukraine in 2014.

Ukraines' energy independence and gas diversification strategy of August 2013 to reduce its gas dependence on Russia failed following Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Prior to this, the Ukrainian government had managed to decrease Ukraines' gas imports from Russia from 45 bcm in 2011 to 28 bcm in 2013. The original plan was to end any Russian gas imports by 2020. This was a stepping stone on the way to becoming self-sufficient by 2035 by boosting domestic conventional and unconventional gas extraction. [1]

Russias' annexation of Crimea was driven by undermining Ukraines' energy and gas diversification strategy. For the Russian strategy to work, the Crimean peninsula was of strategic importance. It has vast offshore oil and gas resources in the Black Sea, estimated between 4-13 trillion cm of natural gas. When it comes to the Crimean energy resources, no unanimously accepted prognoses is available, as the exploration of the reserves by Exxon Mobil was stopped after the annexation. However, former Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Sergei Donskoi announced that Crimean territory has 44 hydrocarbon fields, 7 gas condensate reservoirs, and 10 oil and 27 gas fields. Natural gas reserves of 165.3 billion cubic meters, 47 million tons of oil and 18.2 million tons of gas condensate. Oil fields are not numerous in Crimea but natural gas resources are large enough for such a relatively small region. It has gas condensate reservoirs as well, he said (TASS, 2014). Ukrainian media reported that Russia had seized some 7 billion cubic meters of natural gas from nine producing fields around Crimea since the annexation of the peninsula until April 2018. [1] [2]

Over 2017, in violation of the norms of the UN International Convention on the Law of the Sea, Russia continued the illegal extraction of hydrocarbons in the waters of the Azov and Black Seas adjacent to the occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea. [3] The new illegal Russian Crimean government has entrusted Russias' Gazprom to manage the peninsula’s energy resources. The Crimean branch of Naftohaz Ukrainy, Chornomor Naftohaz, has was nationalised by Gazprom. Russia claimed large parts not just of Crimeas', but also of Ukraine’s continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which seriously complicates the division of the Black Sea continental shelf and EEZs with Romania and Turkey. Ukraine in 2014 was concerned about losing one of the two largest shale gas fields (Yuzivska field) in the Donetsk and Kharkiv oblasts. Ukraine holds Europe’s third largest shale gas reserves. The new regional separatism of its eastern regions starting in 2014 undermined. Kiev’s plan was switch from gas to coal found in the eastern region of Ukraine. The region has 45.6 percent of Ukraines' national coal reserves. The new regional separatism of the eastern regions in 2014 undermined the plan. In 2022 the national coal reserves are part of the war. In 2013, through use of reverse flow capabilities in neighbouring EU countries, Ukraine was able to import 2 bcm gas from Germany via Poland and Hungary in 2013. In 2014 Ukraine negotiated reverse flow gas supplies from Slovakia, which offers additional annual imports of 3.2 bcm from October 2014. These could be raised to 8-10 bcm by early 2015. [1]

As of 2018, Ukraine lost 80% of oil and gas deposits in the Black Sea and a significant part of the port infrastructure due to the annexation of Crimea. Russias' brazenness in Ukraines' territorial waters since 2014 serves as a reminder that the Kremlin views these areas and their associated hydrocarbon resources as its exclusive war booty. Ukraine made efforts to resist Russia, at the cost of more than 10,000 soldiers and civilians since 2014. Western military support was muted and economic sanctions against the aggressor were proved to be an inadequate means of deterrence. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Russias' latest attempt to strengthen its grip over Europes energy supplies, received approval from Paris and Berlin and was planned to launched as early as December 2019. The subsea pipeline entirely bypasses Ukraine and would deprive the country of $3 billion in annual transit revenues from oil and gas originating from Russia, almost 3% of the country’s GDP. The Black Sea has large hydrocarbon resources. The northwestern portion holds estimated reserves of 495.7 bcm of natural gas and 50.4 million tons of oil and condensate. The Prykerchenska zone holds about 321.2 bcm of gas and 126.8 million tons of oil and condensate, and the continental slope has an estimated 766.6 bcm of gas and 232.6 million tons of oil and condensate. [4]

In 2018 there were nine blocks of natural gas available for licensing in Ukraine’s Black Sea, the potential of which ranges from 92 billion cubic meters (bcm) to over 500 bcm, according to an April 2018 survey conducted by Deloitte. This is a small amount compared to 635 bcm Russia produces annually but it alllows Russia to further control Ukraine. Some 70% of potential natural gas deposits of the Black Sea are concentrated in just two blocks: Neptune Deep and Trident, well within Russias' newly claimed Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) around the Crimea. When Russian forces annexed Crimea in 2014, they seized subsidiaries of Ukraine’s state energy conglomerate Naftogaz operating in the Black Sea. The Kremlin appropriated the companies, billions of dollars of equipment, and delivered them to Gazprom, Russias' state owned energy giant. In one military action Russia ended Ukraines' offshore oil and gas operations and bolstered its own. [4]

Crimea is Ukrainian territory currently occupied by Russia (2022). Ukraine has not relinquished title over the Crimean territory since the events of 2014. Crimea is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. They exercise in extremis administration of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea from Kyiv in the Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories. Ukrainian president Zelenskiy drew attention to this fact in August 2022 when he stated that it was necessary to liberate Crimea from Russian occupation and to reestablish world law and order.

The Cimmerians, Bulgars, Greeks, Scythians, Goths, Huns, Khazars, the state of Kievan Rus, Byzantine Greeks, Kipchaks, Ottoman Turks, Golden Horde Tatars and the Mongols each controlled Crimea in its earlier history. In the 13th century, it was partly controlled by the Venetians and by the Genoese. They were followed by the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire in the 15th to 18th centuries, the Russian Empire in the 18th to 20th centuries, Germany during World War II, and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and later the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, within the Soviet Union during the rest of the 20th century until Crimea became part of independent Ukraine with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Crimea (called the Tauric Peninsula until the early modern period) has historically been at the boundary between the classical world and the steppe. Greeks colonized its southern fringe and were absorbed by the Roman and Byzantine Empires and successor states while remaining culturally Greek. Some cities became trading colonies of Genoa, until conquered by the Ottoman Empire. Throughout this time the interior was occupied by a changing cast of steppe nomads. In the 14th century it became part of the Golden Horde; the Crimean Khanate emerged as a successor state. In the 15th century, the Khanate became a dependency of the Ottoman Empire. Russia was often the target of slave raids during this period. In 1783, the Russian Empire annexed Crimea after an earlier war with Turkey. Crimea's strategic position led to the 1854 Crimean War and many short lived regimes following the 1917 Russian Revolution. When the Bolsheviks secured Crimea it became an autonomous soviet republic within Russia. During World War II, Crimea was downgraded to an oblast. In 1944 Crimean Tatars were ethnically cleansed and deported under the orders of Joseph Stalin, in what has been described as a cultural genocide. The USSR transferred Crimea to Ukraine on the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Treaty in 1954.

Russia maintains a Soviet base and fleet in Crimea. In 1997 a treaty with Ukraine allowed Russia to continue to base its fleet in Sevastopol. The Crimean, Russian, and Ukrainian relationship becomes complex after the fall of the Soviet Union and the change of the Ukrainian Republic that is part of the Soviet Russian empire to the independent nation state of Ukraine. As Russia struggles to maintain and rebuild the Soviet empire with multiple Republics, the Russian politics becomes very sophisticated and addresses multiple scenarios to ensure their own goals. In this case the goal of Russia is to maintain control of Crimea, if not through power players in Ukraine, then directly as a Crimean republic that shifts its alliance either by force or voluntarily to Russia.

After Ukrainian independence in 1991, Ukraine was still under massive Russian control because the people in power were still remnants of the Russian Soviet system, Crimea seeing what happened in Ukraine for independence clashes with the central new Ukrainian government, now an independent country on paper but still massively Russian Soviet, clashes with the region being granted more autonomy. On February 26, 1992 the Crimean parliament changed the official name from the Crimean ASSR to the Republic of Crimea. Then on May 5, 1992 it proclaimed self-government and twice enacted a constitution that the Ukrainian Parliament and government deemed to be inconsistent with Ukraine's constitution. Finally in June 1992, the parties reached a compromise, Crimea would have considerable autonomy but remain part of Ukraine (still under heavy influence from the Russian Soviet system). At first Crimean authorities attempted to claim that it was a sovereign Republic with a relationship with Ukraine. On May 5, 1992 the Crimean legislature declared conditional independence, but a referendum to confirm the decision was never held amid opposition from Kyiv (still under heavy influence from the Russian Soviet system).

On December 17, 1992 the office of the Ukrainian presidential representative in Crimea was created. In January 1993 the previous months' creation of the office of the Ukrainian presidential representative in Crimea caused a wave of protests. Among the protesters that created the unsanctioned rally were the Sevastopol branches of the National Salvation Front, the Russian Popular Assembly, and the All-Crimean Movement of the Voters for the Republic of Crimea. In February 1994 the Ukrainian Parliament (still under heavy influence from the Russian Soviet system) issued an ultimatum to Crimea, which had just elected the pro-Russian Meshkov, giving it a month to harmonize its laws with Ukraine. However Meshkov did try to institute a number of symbolic measures, such as harmonising the time with Russia rather than Ukraine.

In 2014, the Russians occupied the Crimean peninsula and organized an illegal referendum in support of Russian annexation. Most countries recognize Crimea as Ukrainian territory and that this is a massive violation of The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances signed on December 5, 1994. The agreement was signed by three nuclear powers, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. See sections Denuclearization for Guarantee of Territorial Integrity and Ukraine Memorandum on Security Assurances.

Unfortunately this is only one small part of the Russian plan and in 2022 Russia invades Ukraine. As of 2022 the war has been ongoing for 8 years. Lost in the modern history of 2022 is the fight over the gas and oil resources of Crimea and that the fight has now expanded to become an ideological fight between Democracy and Russia as a non-democratic power currently engaged in conquest. Russia claims it had no choice but to invade Ukraine to stop encroachment from NATO and the West. The claims are only claims and at this point it is obvious that Russia is just executing the vision they have been communicating for years. The world just refused to listen, which is exactly what Russia has been saying for years, the world is not listening. The vision is clear, rebuild the old Soviet empire under the new system. Crimea has gas and oil resources that threaten Russia and Ukraine has food resources that Russia needs in times of severe world wide food stress. Both are massive revenue streams. Other countries that have not yet been invaded fit into the puzzle of the new Russian vision.

[2] The Annexation of Crimea: A Realist Look from the Energy Resources Perspective, Baltic Journal of European Studies, Tallinn University of Technology (ISSN 2228-0588), Vol. 9, No. 3 (28). webpage https://sciendo.com/pdf/10.1515/bjes-2019-0027, Janurary 2022.

[3] The Illegal Mining of Natural Resources in Crimea. Part 1. The Development of the Stolen Shelf, Black Sea News, February 28, 2018. webpage https://www.blackseanews.net/en/read/140575, Janurary 2022.

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Start of WWII

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to partition Poland between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and was officially known as the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Unofficially, it has also been referred to as the Hitler-Stalin Pact, Nazi-Soviet Pact or Nazi-Soviet Alliance (although it was not a formal alliance). [1]

The establishment of the treaty was preceded by Soviet efforts to form an alliance with Britain and France. The Soviet Union began negotiations with Germany on August 22, 1939 one day after talks broke down with Britain and France, and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed the next day. Its clauses provided a written guarantee of peace by each party towards the other and a commitment that declared that neither government would ally itself to or aid an enemy of the other. In addition to the publicly announced stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included the Secret Protocol, which defined the borders of Soviet and German spheres of influence across Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland. The secret protocol also recognised the interest of Lithuania in the Vilnius region, and Germany declared its complete uninterest in Bessarabia. The existence of the Secret Protocol was proved when it was made public during the Nuremberg Trials.

Soon after the pact, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939, one day after a Soviet-Japanese ceasefire came into effect after the Battles of Khalkhin Gol and one day after the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union had approved the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. After the invasions, the new border between the two countries was confirmed by the supplementary protocol of the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty. In March 1940, parts of the Karelia and Salla regions, in Finland, were annexed by the Soviet Union after the Winter War. That was followed by the Soviet annexation of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and parts of Romania (Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region). Concern for ethnic Ukrainians and Belarusians had been used as pretexts for the Soviets' invasion of Poland. Stalin's invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact since it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence that had been agreed with the Axis.

The territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union after the 1939 Soviet invasion east of the Curzon line remained in the Soviet Union after the war ended and are now in Ukraine and Belarus. Vilnius was given to Lithuania. Only Podlaskie and a small part of Galicia east of the San River, around Przemysl, were returned to Poland. Of all the other territories annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939 to 1940, those detached from Finland (Western Karelia, Petsamo), Estonia (Estonian Ingria and Petseri County) and Latvia (Abrene) remain part of Russia, the successor state to the Russian SSR after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The territories annexed from Romania had also been integrated into the Soviet Union (as the Moldavian SSR or oblasts of the Ukrainian SSR). The core of Bessarabia now forms Moldova. Northern Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region now form the Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine. Southern Bessarabia is part of the Odessa Oblast, which is also in Ukraine.

The pact was terminated on June 22, 1941 when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union, in pursuit of the ideological goal of Lebensraum. The Anglo-Soviet Agreement replaced it. After the war, Ribbentrop was convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials and executed. Molotov died in 1986.

The Soviet invasion of Poland began on September 17, 1939. The Red Army entered eastern Poland in furtherance of the secret Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and Russia and contrary to the Soviet Polish Non Aggression Pact. Tarnopol was captured, renamed Ternopol (in Russian) or Ternopil (in Ukrainian), and incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic under Ternopol Oblast. The Soviets made it their first priority to decimate the Polish intelligentsia and destroy Ukrainian political movements. Ukrainian nationalist leaders were imprisoned. Mass arrests, torture, and executions of Ukrainians, Poles and Jews followed. The Soviets also carried out mass deportations of enemies of the working class to Kazakhstan; They were former state administration, police, border service, and land and business owners, Christians and Jews alike. [2]

On July 02, 1941, Ternopil was occupied by the Nazis who immediately led a Jewish pogrom. Several thousand Jews were murdered until the Germans ordered the program stopped. Jews were murdered, sent to Belzec extermination camp, and to labor camps by Nazi Germans. During most of this time Jews lived in the Tarnopol Ghetto. Many Ukrainians were sent as forced labor to Germany.

In the years 1942 - 1943, the Polish Armia Krajowa was active opposing Nazi rule and performing operations to incorporate Ternopil into a future Polish state. Ukrainians, politically represented by Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), fought for the creation of an independent state. In the years 1942 - 1949, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was active in Ternopil region and battled for independence of Ukraine opposing Nazis, the Soviets, and the Polish Armia Krajowa and People's Army of Poland.

During the Soviet offensive in March and April 1944, the city was encircled. In March 1944, the city was declared a fortified place (Gates to the Reich) by Adolf Hitler, to be defended until the last round was fired. The stiff German resistance caused extensive use of heavy artillery by the Red Army on March 7 - 8 resulting in the complete destruction of the city and killing of nearly all German occupants. Unlike many other occasions, where the Germans had practised a scorched earth policy during their withdrawal from territories of the Soviet Union, the devastation was caused directly by the hostilities. Finally, Ternopil was occupied by the Red Army on April 15 ,1944. After the second Soviet occupation, 85% of the city's living quarters were destroyed.

From 1944 to 1949 (active) and 1949 to 1956 (localized) the Ukrainian Insurgent Army resisted Soviet rule in the region and fought for Ukrainian independence.

Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, the ethnic Polish population of Ternopil and its region was forcibly deported to postwar Poland and settled in, and near Wroclaw (among other locations), as part of Stalinist ethnic cleansing in the Soviet Ukraine. In the following decades, Ternopil was rebuilt in a typical Soviet style and only a few buildings were reconstructed. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, Ternopil became part of the independent Ukraine.

[1] Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, Wikipedia, accessed december 22, 2022, webpage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact

COVID-19

It is clear that Russia is using the COVID-19 disaster to its advantage to further its internal goals, while the world has been dealing with the COVID-19 disaster. COVID-19 is a massive destabilization event with massive international and internal consequences yet to be felt and understood. Putin clearly concluded that now was the time to strike and invade Ukraine as part of a long term policy goal going back decades.

Populations Affected

The following table shows the countries affected by Russian invasions and the population levels. It also shows countries that were admitted into NATO and their population levels.

Country	NATO Entry	Russian Invasions	Population (million)	Comments
Russia	NA		144
Belarus	NA		9.4	Russian Ally. Stated that they would use Nuclear weapons.
Ukraine	Rejected by NATO	2014 part 2022 full	44	Ukraine Memorandum on Security Assurances was not honored by the USA and UK. Russia also signed the agreement but they broke the agreement with the first invasion in 2014, which resulted in Ukrainian territories being conquered by Russia.
Bulgaria	2004		7
Estonia	2004		1
Latvia	2004		2
Lithuania	2004		2.8
Romania	2004		19
Slovakia	2004		5.5
Slovenia	2004		2
Albania	2009		2.8
Croatia	2009		4
Montenegro	2017		0.6
North Macedonia	2020		2
Georgia	-	2008	10.6
Syria	-	2015	17.5

NOTES: NATO alliance exists to protect against possible Russian invasion. Ukraine Memorandum on Security Assurances existed to protect Ukraine from invasion from any source.

Denuclearization for Guarantee of Territorial Integrity

The root cause of this war (Russian Invasion of Ukraine) goes back to when the country of Ukraine gave away their nuclear weapons for a guarantee of territorial integrity signed by the US, Russia, and UK, etc. When the revolution happened in Ukraine, Russia claimed that original agreement no longer applied because that government collapsed and an illegal government was established. [1]

At the heart of the Trump impeachment is the country of Ukraine and its struggle with the invasion from Russia, loss of its territorial integrity, and a commitment made by the USA. When Trump left office, the US policy towards Russia returned to its previous approach. [1]

In 1994 the country of Ukraine had the world's third largest nuclear weapons stockpile. They gave up their nuclear weapons between 1994 and 1996 as part of an agreement that would ensure that its territorial integrity would be preserved. The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances is an agreement signed at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Budapest, Hungary on December 5, 1994. The agreement was signed by three nuclear powers, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. [1]

By the start of the new century the US started to make business deals and investments in Russia especially for the development of its oil resources. The same was happening in Ukraine on a smaller scale. The people of Ukraine had a strong distaste of the Russian communists who were brutal to them and they wanted to align themselves more with Western Europe and perhaps become part of NATO. This eventually led to an internal revolution where the Russian friendly Ukraine president was removed from power. Russia panicked and invaded Ukraine and gained control of Crimea. [1]

The countries that signed the treaty to protect Ukraine responded with economic sanctions on Russia. This caused all the business deals in Russia to come to a standstill. Meanwhile Russia acting in its own interest wanted to shift the political landscape in the USA so that the sanctions would be removed. [1]

Unexpectedly the US people elected President Trump who himself and his key backers had significant business interests in Russia. These business interests were fully known and disclosed in the popular media before and after the election. When Trump entered office, his policies were friendly towards Russia. [1]

President Trump with little knowledge or respect for the government that he found himself leading made a serious mistake and betrayed his public trust by trying to force the Ukrainian President to make public statements about a political rival, Vice President Biden’s son, in exchange for arms previously agreed to be provided to Ukraine to defend themselves against the Russian attack and Crimean territorial annexation in Ukraine. It is obvious that President Trump was trying to restart business interests in Russia but he may have given aid and comfort to an enemy country. Aiding the enemy in time of war is the only way someone can be charged for treason under the US constitution. The attack on Ukraine was an attack on the US because of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances and the enormous sacrifice and trust the Ukrainians had when giving away their nuclear arms. [1]

Lost in all of this is the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear missiles and when the time came to protect them nothing happened. The message to powers seeking nuclear capability like North Korea and Iran is clear and the precedent has been set for a generation. As the US struggled with short term impeachment of Trump, the long-term policy impacts on nuclear weapons are huge and will last decades. The situation is very serious. Cause and effect and balance of power move history. [1]

The roots of this tragedy may be traceable to government privatization. Privatization is a worldwide trend that included Russia. Unfortunately, Russian defense conversion and privatization did not go well. They did not have 100 years of history to tune the system and protect against extremes as nation state assets were being claimed. This affected their internal policies and ultimately their approach to the country of Ukraine. [1]

Ukraine Memorandum on Security Assurances

There was great hope when the Berlin Wall came down and then great joy that the world had one less nuclear annihilation threat on our small blue plant. Below is the document that was supposed to protect the country of Ukraine from invasion in exchange for Ukraine eliminating all its nuclear weapons. The following is the Ukraine Memorandum on Security Assurances: [1]

In 1991 the doomsday clock was set to 17 minutes before midnight. The dream of a nation state sacrificing its nuclear weapons did not set the clock back further in 1994 when the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances was signed. Instead by 1998 the clock moved to 14 minutes before midnight. The sacrifice of the Ukrainians was ignored. The clock as of 2018 is at 2 minutes before midnight. [1]

Ukrainian Starvation 1932 - 1933

The Holodomor also known as the Terror Famine or the Great Famine, was a famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. It was a large part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932 to 1933. The term Holodomor emphasises the famine's man made aspects such as rejection of outside aid, confiscation of all household foodstuffs, and restriction of population movement. The Spanish, French, British, and Dutch had their colonies to access food. Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by Ukraine and 15 other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government. The world may ignore that sad history but the Russians and Ukrainians never forgot it. [2]

The Russians know the importance of Ukrainian food and the Ukrainians know the brutality of the Russians toward the Ukrainians.

There are key questions that are lost to history but are important to understand the current situation:

So perhaps an invite to Russia and Ukraine by NATO plus a guarantee of access to food was step A in any Russian negotiation? The reality is NATO was created to protect Eastern Europe from the Russian Empire. It behaved like an empire for centuries and it was unclear if its internal culture had changed. Given what has happened with the invasion of Ukraine, it is obvious that having Russia join NATO would have been disastrous.

Ukraine and NATO Relations

Dialogue between Ukraine and NATO began in 1992 shortly after Ukraine regained its independence. In order to become a member of NATO, Ukraine must meet a series of criteria including the alliance’s standards for governance and transparency. Some NATO members stated that Ukraine’s democracy is not stable enough, and others fear escalation with Russia if they are adopted. This is a summary of NATO’s relationship with Ukraine over time.

In 1992, Ukraine joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. A few years later, Ukraine was the first post-Soviet country to support the initiative of Central and Eastern European countries joining NATO.

Ukraine’s relationship with the United States and NATO declined over one of the recordings from the Cassette Scandal where there was an alleged transfer of a sophisticated Ukrainian defense system to Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

President Leonid Kuchma retracted a provision of the Military Defense of Ukraine which stated the country’s goal would be to join NATO. Instead, he stated that he only wished to strengthen the relationship with NATO, rather than joining.

After a series of protests over electoral fraud, otherwise known as the Orange Revolution[6], President Victor Yushckenko replaced Kuchma, and in a change of events at a Summit in Brussels, declared the ultimate goal was membership in NATO.

U.S. President George Bush cautiously supported Ukraine becoming a member of NATO during a press conference.

The Charter on a Distinctive Partnership was signed, establishing the NATO-Ukraine Commission (NUC). The commission’s task is to assess the NATO-Ukraine relationship and suggest ways to improve or further develop cooperation. Members include representatives from all NATO states and Ukraine.

Ukraine was denied membership to NATO despite strong support from the United States and European allies due to unmet criteria for the Membership Action Plan, as well as concerns over Ukraine’s relationship with Russia.

Following the 2010 election, NATO membership was put on hold when then President Viktor Yanukovych decided not to sign the European Union-Ukraine Association Agreement and instead chose closer ties to Russia igniting protests known as Euromaidan in 2014. President Yanukovych fled the country to Russia (and other government ministers fled) in 2014.

While the interim Yatsenyuk government stated that they had no plans to join NATO, the Ukrainian Parliament made this a priority, as areaction to the Russo-Ukrainian War that annexed Crimea. This started a partnership where Ukraine contributed to NATO led operations and support for a reform in the security and defense sector had taken a priority, a vital piece of Ukraine’s democratic development and ability to defend themselves.

During the NATO Summit in Warsaw in July 2016, a Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP) was put together in support of Ukraine. This included trust funds that focused on improving command and control, strengthening cyberdefense, and rehabilitating wounded soldiers.

The Ukrainian Parliament adopted legislation in 2017 reinstating membership in NATO as a strategic foreign and security policy objective, and in February 2019 the constitution of Ukraine was amended to include the following text:

In January, President Zelenskyy appealed to Biden to let Ukraine join NATO. Biden reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty. In June at the Brussels Summit, NATO leaders reiterated that Ukraine would become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP). During a congressional hearing, Gerry Connolly, President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, spoke candidly about the ongoing threat to Ukraine.

As a result of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, some of NATO’s eastern countries requested rare consultations under Article 4 of the founding treaty. Article 4 has only been involved six times previously since the alliance formed in 1949.

NATO expressed its outrage over the Ukraine invasion, and deployed thousands of troops to Eastern Europe to protect their members. As of December 2022, no troops have been sent to Ukraine. NATO has no plans to intervene, but has made it clear that they would invoke Article 5 if one of their alliances were attacked. Article 5 has only been initiated once, after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. This clause does not automatically mean immediate reciprocation would happen - the nations would have to unanimously agree to move forward.

Minimum Requirements for NATO Membership

There are requirements that must be met if a country requests to join NATO [3]. They are as follows:

It is important to understand that there are cultural differences between Russians and Ukrainians. Russians have historically been ruled by Czars and totalitarian forms of government. Ukrainians while tolerant of Czar forms of government hate totalitarian forms of government because of their experiences in the last century.

Some scholars have classified the famine in Ukraine and Kazakhstan as genocides, which were committed by Stalin's government, targeting ethnic Ukrainians and Kazakhs, while others focus on the class dynamics between the land owning peasants (kulaks) with strong political interest in private property, freedom, and liberty versus the ruling Soviet Communist party's fundamental tenets which oppose those interests. In other words Ukrainians are oriented more towards democratic ideas and ways of life that naturally surface in self sufficient agrarian settings. [2]

The following table is an analysis of the feasibility of Russia or Ukraine joining NATO.

NATO Membership Minimum Requirements	Ukraine	Russia	Comments
1. New members must uphold democracy, including tolerating diversity.	Yes	Democracy no, diversity yes	Show Stopper for Russia. Russia is on record of rejecting Democracy.
2. New members must be making progress toward a market economy.	Yes	Oligarchy is desired approach
3. Their military forces must be under firm civilian control.	Yes	Unclear
4. They must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders.	Yes	No	Massive Show Stopper for Russia, massive military with recent history of invasions of other countries.
5. They must be working toward compatibility with NATO forces.	Desired	Possible

While Ukraine can meet all 5 of the NATO membership minimum requirements, Russia unfortunately cannot meet 2 critical requirements for NATO Membership. They are rejecting Democracy (Req 1) and they keep invading other countries (Req 4). Even though Russia is not a NATO member it is a NATO partner country and has worked with NATO to deal with issues around the world.

Author Comment: This is so sad for the Russian leaders and people. This is why government officials need to be voted out of office frequently before they do massive damage.

Ukrainian Citizens Embracing Russia

There is no question that there are Ukrainian citizens exchanging their citizenship for Russia. This is part of a Russian program where incentives such as Russian retirement benefits that are larger than Ukrainian retirement benefits require rejection of Ukrainian citizenship. An alternative would be to permit dual citizenship so that people could claim the benefits that they earned both in Russia and Ukraine. This is just one of many policy choices being made by Russia in an attempt to dismantle the country of Ukraine and bring it into a new emerging Russian sphere of influence. It is unclear what the final end state condition is from the Russian perspective. Is the goal to keep Ukraine a standalone country in close alliance with Russia, convert it to a brutally subjugated satellite country, or make it a state as part of a new Russian country with multiple states?

However, the majority of Ukrainian citizens rejected Russia and encoded in their constitution in 2019 to join the European Union and NATO. The Ukrainian Parliament adopted legislation in 2017 reinstating membership in NATO as a strategic foreign and security policy objective, and in February 2019 the constitution of Ukraine was amended to include the following text:

Russian Interests

In February 2022 Russia formally responded to diplomatic requests that NATO roll back its encroachment on Russia and that Ukraine never be permitted to join NATO. The Ukrainian element shows how closely Russia feels its interests are related to Ukraine. The following illustrates Russian concerns. [4]

Since 1999 multiple countries have been added to NATO. All the while Russia is still a NATO partner country and does participate.

The member states of NATO are: Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States.

NATO partner countries are: Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kyrghyz Republic, Malta, The Republic of Moldova, Russia, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.

Putin stated that Zelenskyy could end the war by meeting four of his demands, including:

Russia and Ukraine have had a tumultuous past, and since the end of the Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Ukraine has pushed to become part of NATO.

Russian Empire Needs

It is time (March 3, 2022) to start the systems analysis that has not been performed for decades. This systems analysis is associated with empires.

Empires need natural resources, water, food, workers, and to satisfy the rich (oligarchs). Empires are needed to maintain a leisure class at the top of the empire social structure.

Empires are also driven by threats. The threats include internal cultural trends and external country or other empire threats.

In the end, a country will prevail based on its population level. It is rare when population is not a factor. There needs to be other limiting factors and in the past the limiting factors for empires were distance and oceans. In this century distance and oceans have become irrelevant. Today the limiting factor to a potential threat of invasion is the ultimate threat of the use of nuclear weapons, which Ukraine gave away as part of the Ukraine Memorandum on Security Assurances agreement.

A fundamental question is: Which is more important, the NATO agreement or the Ukraine Memorandum on Security Assurances? History will clearly show that the Ukraine Memorandum on Security Assurances was the most important agreement in all history. It is the ultimate sacrifice and promise. No one can walk away from this, and no management talking points or selective memory will change this fact. What does this suggest for small NATO countries is a key question. Confidence is clearly shaken.

Other possible reasons (needs) for why Russia may have decided to rebuild the Russian empire:

The following table shows the affected countries and why Russia may want to conquer a country. It shows the risk phase to suggest the level of risk and an order of possible invasion and conquest.

Country	NATO Entry	Russian Invasion	Population (million)	Russian Empire Needs
Russia	NA	NA	144
Belarus	NA	NA	9.4
Ukraine	Rejected by NATO	2014 part 2022 full	44	2014: Oil and gas fields, seaport, factories, workers. 2022: Food, land, workers, comfortable cities and living spaces, remove cultural threat, take Ukranian oligarchs wealth
Georgia	No	2008	10.6
Syria	No	2015	17.5
Bulgaria	2004	Risk Phase 1	7
Estonia	2004	Baltic State Risk Phase 1	1	High income state workers
Latvia	2004	Baltic State Risk Phase 1	2	High income state workers
Lithuania	2004	Baltic State Risk Phase 1	2.8	High income state workers
Romania	2004	Risk Phase 1	19
Slovakia	2004	Risk Phase 1	5.5
Slovenia	2004	Risk Phase 1	2
Albania	2009	Risk Phase 1	2.8
Croatia	2009	Risk Phase 1	4
Montenegro	2017	Risk Phase 1	0.6
North Macedonia	2020	Risk Phase 1	2
Poland	Yes	Risk Phase 2	38
East Germany	Yes	Risk Phase 3	16 (2016)
EU	Yes	None	447	remove external country or other empire threats
UK	Yes	None	62	remove external country or other empire threats
USA	Yes	None	330	remove external country or other empire threats

Ukrainian Russian Borders and Internal Areas

Examining the external borders and internal areas of Russia and Ukraine is critical in understanding the Russian - Ukrainian war. These borders are encoded in their constitutions. When this systems analysis was started there were no observations or conclusions. There was only the desire to understand the borders and internal areas of each country. Examining the borders and internal areas has resulted in some significant system observations and recommendations.

The system observations are offered at the start of this section rather than at the end. You can jump to the various sections and come back and read the system observations or just keep reading.

When we in the United States think of a country, we have a mental model based on the structure of the Continental United Starts (CONUS). There is the external country boundary and then there are states with the states further subdivided into counties, cities, and towns. We also tend to think in terms of regions like: New England, Mid-Atlantic, South, Midwest, Southwest, Pacific West Coast and somtimes the Rocky Mountains. However, the CONUS United States is more or less homogeneous in terms of peoples, culture, and political operations. The United States includes non-CONUS regions like the state of Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Then there are the United States Protectorates (Territories) American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands and 9 uninhabited areas. However, the primary mental model is CONUS based. It is a non-empire based mental model. It is a united states model.

Russia is different and a different mental model needs to be used to attempt to understand Russia. Russia itself exists and it is also a federation of multiple Republics. The term federation is a polite word that essentially is an empire when the Republics are subjugated. Russia itself consists of Oblasts, which are similar to states in the United States. Examining the Republics within Russia is important because they exist within Russia and Russia is fragmented by the Republics. This situation is analogous to what existed in the very distant past in the United States where the South and Texas did not want to join the union when the United States was forming. The founders knew the situation that existed in Europe during their time. They knew that they needed a United States. Those forces in the South and Texas still exist but they are not in the main stream, instead they are a lunatic fringe from people lost in some nostalgic distant past that did not exist. In Russia it is different. The Union never happened. There is fragmentation and division in Russia and it uses force to keep the Republics in line.

Russia - Republics 1 to 21 [1]

Russia - Oblasts 1-49 [2]

Russia - Territories 1-9 [3]

Ukraine is a different story. Ukraine, unlike the current Russian republics, is not embedded within a fragmented Russia. Instead it is a distinct contiguous land of people that share the same culture, language, history, and world view. It is a separate nation state with logical borders. Like the United States, Ukraine has other peoples within its borders including large numbers of Russian people with cultural ties to Russia. However, from a nation state perspective, they are a minority in the country, but may form a majority is some Ukrainian areas. Unfortunately, like in the United States hundreds of years ago, where the South and Texas dreamed of not being part of the United States, there were Russians that had that dream. However, as part of this war which started in 2014 that dream is gone and these people now view themselves as Ukrainians. They do not share the world view that Russia has of itself as an empire or federation. Instead they have a modern Ukrainian world view. They are a new people similar to people in the United States that came from different parts of the world. They may remember their roots, but fundamentally like in the United States, they are now Ukrainians with possible families in Russia.

Ukraine with 1 Republic Crimea [5]
Includes the hash marked areas

Russia with Republics 1 to 21 [1]

This is the map of modern Ukraine. There is no reason to go back hundreds of years and make references to long lost kingdoms, tribes, and lands. They are long gone. It has Oblasts (states) that are grouped into regions. It has one republic, Crimea. These are the official borders established decades ago and guaranteed by the Ukraine Memorandum on Security Assurances when Ukraine gave up their Nuclear weapons. No amount of Russian propaganda will change this fact. However, war does redraw geographic boundaries. Ukraine is at war with Russia and is currently engaged in a defensive war.

Ukraine Regions, Oblasts, and Republic of Crimea [4] [5]
Copyright: This map is released by Cassbeth in full for any purpose.

Since the fall of the Berlin wall Russia has maintained a massive propaganda machine to discredit Ukrainian ways and put in place puppet rulers that the Ukrainians rejected. The Ukrainians first removed the Russian puppets and then they constantly reached out to the West. What the Ukrainians did not do is push back on the Russian propaganda that attempted to discredit Ukraine and its people.

They have stated them repeatedly during this horrible Russian attack on Ukraine - True Democracy and the implication of Freedom and Liberty and not only in words but as a way of life.

This is not rocket science, Russia wants an empire because Russia benefits from the empire and they use extreme force to ensure that the empire is maintained. However, they are living in a delusional past from hundreds of years ago. Russia fears that if Ukraine joins the west, its' internal Republics will break away. All these Republics have their own stories just like Ukraine. They may remain with Russia or they may break away in the future. The Russian internal Republics may have many common interests with Russia. Russia may not have mistreated them in the same way that Russia mistreated the Ukrainians. However, the Ukrainians had no choice but to reach out to the west because of Russian actions since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Because Russia has a different mental model of a nation state, Russian propaganda targets the United States Southern and Texas lunatic fringe using social media and unregulated talk radio and Cable TV stations as it attempts to disrupt the United States. They do not understand that people in the United States find this as silly. The United States has not been fragmented in hundreds of years and will never fragment because the ties are too tight to break. It is the same in Ukraine. They are united against Russia, and Ukraine will never break and be subjugated again now that Russia launched its horrible war against its' people.

On November 24, 2022 Olena Zelenska told the BBC that Ukraine will endure this coming winter despite the cold and the blackouts caused by Russian missiles, and they will keep fighting what she describes as a war of world views, because "without victory there can be no peace". "We've had so many terrible challenges, seen so many victims, so much destruction, that blackouts are not the worst thing to happen to us." She cites a recent poll where 90% of Ukrainians said they were ready to live with electricity shortages for two to three years if they could see the prospect of joining the European Union. Olena Zelenska basically stated that they are prepared to fight this war for 2-3 years if it means eventual entry into the European Union. They have had it with Russia. Even if they never join the European Union they will never accept Russian subjugation.

A key question to ask is why now? Russia has been suppressing Ukrainians for generations, why have the Ukrainians decided to now reject Russia.

Many claim that the Soviet Union collapsed because of the massive arms race and Russia could no longer sustain that spending. Others claim the Chernobyl disaster caused Russia to dump the massive liability and they decided to release the satellite countries washing their hands of the Chernobyl disaster. Estimates for the Chernobyl cleanup provided by Canadian TV at the time exceeded $10 trillion dollars. A number that would consume an entire generation of Russian Gross Domestic Product (GDP). There was even a popular science fiction Star Trek movie made about a similar scenario. Gorbachev in April 2006 wrote "The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union." I claim that the camcorders and fax machines from Japan caused the collapse as people being attacked by their childhood friends were being video taped and threatened that the video tapes would be sent to their mothers. The collapse of the Soviet Union was probably due to all these causes and others yet to be identified.

Again, why has Russia started this war without fear and why has Ukraine decided to fight? In the case of Russia, apparently they feel that they are in full control of their internal media and messaging. In the case of Ukraine they had access to Newspapers, TV, Radio, Books, and Music but the Newspapers, TV and Radio were tightly controlled. The Books and Music would leak in, and with video tape machines the movies would leak into the country and show a different world view. The video tape machines may have inspired the Ukrainians to expel the Russian puppets as part of the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Maidan Revolution / Ukrainian Revolution of 2014.

First, the Ukrainians did not think that Russia would invade, and if they did invade it would not be brutal, massive, and long lasting. The brutal invasion is seen as a massive betrayal. Second is the Internet. The Internet is something that the new generation embraced and the world view that is offered via the Internet is something that the new generation wants for themselves and their children. They want to live in that world that they also equate with the European Union or the west. They have rejected Russia and their old ways. The Internet succeeded at inspiring an entire new generation where Newspapers, TV, Radio, and the video tape machines could not.

Russia lost this war before it even started. The reality is the Russian leaders failed miserably and there is no recovery at this point in time. They are old and do not understand that the world has shifted. Even if they remove the current Ukrainian leaders, the Ukrainians will never surrender because too much has happened to them as a direct result of Russia. The Ukrainian world view is modern while the Russian world view fell into the trash heap of history long ago.

This is a multigenerational problem for the Russian people to solve. The sooner they solve it the better their children may live. They need a new world view of what is Russia and fast. It is not a dead empire. It is not the dead Soviet Union. It must be a new Russia that peacefully exists with the rest of the peoples of the world. Eventually all the Russian leaders that caused this horrible war will be dead, but the Russian people will still exist. The question is will they live as a free and happy people or as a sick isolated dying culture with no future lost in the trash heap of history.

Take a look at the structure of each country and examine the maps. The pictures and words offer enormous insight into this war.

Lands Listed In Russian Constitution

With each invasion of countries the Russian constitution has been amended to add the new territories.

Republics

Territories

Regions / Oblasts

Areas

Federal Cities

Republic of Adygeya (Adygeya),
Republic of Altai,
Republic of Bashkor tostan,
Republic of Buryatia,
Republic of Dagestan,
Ingush Republic, K
abardin-Balkar Republic,
Republic of Kalmykia-Khalmg Tangch,
Karachayevo-Cherkess Republic,
Republic ofKarelia,
Republic of Komi,
Republic of Mari El,
Republic of Mordovia,
Republic of Sakha (Yakutia),
Republic of North Ossetia,
Republic of Tatarstan (Tatarstan),
Republic of Tuva,
Udmurt Republic,
Republic of Khakasia,
Chechen Republic,
Chuvash Republic-Chavash Republics;

Altai Territory,
Krasnodar Territory,
Krasnoyarsk Territory,
Maritime Territory,
Stavropol Territory,
Khabarovsk Territory;

count = 6

Amur Region,
Arkhangelsk Region,
Astrakhan Region,
Belgorod Region,
Bryansk Region,
Vladimir Region,
Volgograd Region,
Vologda Region,
Voronezh Region,
Ivanovo Region,
Irkutsk Region,
Kaliningrad Region,
Ka luga Region,
Kamchatka Region,
Kemerovo Region,
Kirov Region,
Kostroma Region,
Kurgan Region,
Kursk Region,
Leningrad Region,
Lipetsk Region, M
agadan Region,
Moscow Region,
Murmansk Region,
Nizhny Novgorod Region,
Novgorod Region,
Novosibirsk Region,
Omsk Region,
Orenburg Region,
Oryol Region,
Penza Region,
Perm Region,
Pskov Region ,
Rostov Region,
Ryazan Region,
Samara Region,
Saratov Region,
Sakhalin Region,
Sverdlovsk Region,
Smolensk Region,
Tambov Region,
Tver Region,
Tomsk Region,
Tula Relation,
Tyu men Region,
Ulyanovsk Region,
Chelyabinsk Region,
Chita Region,
Yaroslavl Region;

count = 49

Jewish Autonomous Region;

count = 1

Aginsky Buryat Autonomous Area,
Komi-Permyak Autonomous Area ,
Koryak Autonomous Area, N
Nenets Autonomous Area,
Taimyr (Dolgan-Nenets) Autonomous Area,
Ust-Ordynsky Buryat Autonomous Area,
Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area,
Chukchi Autonomous Area,
Evenk Autonomous Area,
Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area.

count = 10

Moscow,
St. Petersburg

- federal cities;

count = 2

2. Accession to the Russian Federation and formation of a new subject of the Russian Federation within it shall be carried out as envisaged by the federal constitutional law.

The Russian Federation shall be composed of the following constituent entities of the Russian Federation:

Republics

Territories

Oblasts

Areas

Federal Cities

Republic of Adygeya (Adygeya),
Republic of Altai,
Republic of Bashkortostan,
Republic of Buryatia,
Republic of Daghestan,
Republic of Ingushetia,
Kabardino-Balkarian Republic,
Republic of Kalmykia,
Karachayevo-Cherkessian Republic,
Republic of Karelia,
Komi Republic,
Republic of Marij El,
Republic of Mordovia,
Republic of Sakha(Yakutia),
Republic of North Osetia -Alania,
Republic of Tatarstan (Tatarstan),
Republic of Tuva,
Udmurtian Republic,
Republic of Khakasia,
Chechen Republic,
Chuvashi Republic - Chuvashia;

Altai kray,
Krasnodar kray,
Krasnoyarsk kray,
Perm kray,
Primorie kray, S
tavropol kray,
Khabarovsk kray;

count = 7

Amur oblast,
Arkhangelsk oblast,
Astrakhan oblast,
Belgorod oblast,
Bryansk oblast,
Vladimir oblast,
Volgograd oblast,
Vologda oblast,
Voronezh oblast,
Ivanovo oblast,
Irkutsk oblast,
Kaliningrad oblast,
Kaluga oblast,
Kamchatka oblast,
Kemerovo oblast,
Kirov oblast,
Kostroma oblast,
Kurgan oblast,
Kursk oblast,
Leningrad oblast,
Lipetskoblast,
Magadan oblast,
Moscow oblast,
Murmansk oblast,
Nizhni Novgorod oblast,
Novgorod oblast,
Novosibirsk oblast,
Omsk oblast,
Orenburg oblast,
Oryol oblast,
Penzaoblast,
Pskov oblast,
Rostov oblast,
Ryazan oblast,
Samara oblast,
Saratov oblast,
Sakhalin oblast,
Sverdlovsk oblast,
Smolensk oblast,
Tambov oblast,
Tver oblast,
Tomskoblast,
Tula oblast,
Tyumen oblast,
Ulyanovsk oblast,
Chelyabinsk oblast,
Chita oblast,
Yaroslavl oblast;

count = 48

the Jewish autonomous oblast;

count = 1

Aginsk Buryat autonomous okrug,
Koryak autonomous okrug,
Nenets autonomousokrug,
Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) autonomous okrug,
Ust-Ordyn Buryat autonomousokrug,
Khanty-Mansijsk autonomous okrug -Yugra,
Chukotka autonomous okrug,
Evenk autonomous okrug,
Yamalo-Nenets autonomous okrug.

count = 10.

Moscow,
St. Petersburg

- cities of federal significance;

count = 2

Admission into the Russian Federation and creation of a new constituent entity shall take place in accordance with the procedure established by federal constitutional law.

The Russian Federation shall be composed of the following constituent entities of the Russian Federation:

Republics

Territories

Oblasts

Areas

Federal Cities

Republic of Adygeya (Adygeya),
Republic of Altai,
Republic of Bashkortostan,
Republic of Buryatia,
Republic of Crimea,
Republic of Daghestan,
Republic of Ingushetia,
Kabardino-Balkarian Republic,
Republic of Kalmykia,
Karachayevo-Cherkessian Republic,
Republic of Karelia,
Komi Republic,
Republic of Marij El,
Republic of Mordovia,
Republic of Sakha(Yakutia),
Republic of North Osetia - Alania,
Republic of Tatarstan (Tatarstan),
Republic of Tuva,
Udmurtian Republic,
Republic of Khakasia,
Chechen Republic,
Chuvashi Republic - Chuvashia;

Altai kray,
Krasnodar kray,
Krasnoyarsk kray,
Perm kray,
Primorie kray,
Stavropol kray,
Khabarovsk kray;

count = 7

Amur oblast, Arkhangelsk oblast,
Astrakhan oblast, Belgorod oblast,
Bryansk oblast, Vladimir oblast,
Volgograd oblast, Vologda oblast,
Voronezh oblast, Ivanovo oblast,
Irkutsk oblast, Kaliningrad oblast,
Kaluga oblast, Kamchatka oblast,
Kemerovo oblast, Kirov oblast,
Kostroma oblast, Kurgan oblast,
Kursk oblast, Leningrad oblast,
Lipets oblast, Magadan oblast,
Moscow oblast, Murmansk oblast,
Nizhni Novgorod oblast,
Novgorod oblast,
Novosibirsk oblast,
Omsk oblast,
Orenburg oblast,
Oryol oblast,
Penza oblast,
Pskov oblast,
Rostov oblast,
Ryazan oblast,
Samara oblast,
Saratov oblast,
Sakhalin oblast,
Sverdlovsk oblast,
Smolensk oblast,
Tambov oblast,
Tver oblast,
Tomsk oblast,
Tula oblast,
Tyumen oblast,
Ulyanovsk oblast,
Chelyabinsk oblast,
Chita oblast,
Yaroslavl oblast;

count = 48

the Jewish autonomous oblast;

count = 1

Nenets autonomous okrug,
Khanty-Mansijsk autonomous okrug - Yugra,
Chukotka autonomous okrug,
Yamalo-Nenets autonomous okrug.

count = 4

Moscow,
St. Petersburg,
Sevastopol

- cities of federal significance;

count = 3

Admission into the Russian Federation and creation of a new constituent entity shall take place in accordance with the procedure established by federal constitutional law.

1993	2008	2014
Republic of Adygeya (Adygeya),	Republic of Adygeya (Adygeya),	Republic of Adygeya (Adygeya),
Republic of Altai,	Republic of Altai,	Republic of Altai,
Republic of Bashkortostan,	Republic of Bashkortostan,	Republic of Bashkortostan,
Republic of Buryatia,	Republic of Buryatia,	Republic of Buryatia,
-	-	Republic of Crimea,
Republic of Daghestan,	Republic of Daghestan,	Republic of Daghestan,
Republic of Ingushetia,	Republic of Ingushetia,	Republic of Ingushetia,
Kabardino-Balkarian Republic,	Kabardino-Balkarian Republic,	Kabardino-Balkarian Republic,
Republic of Kalmykia,	Republic of Kalmykia,	Republic of Kalmykia,
Karachayevo-Cherkessian Republic,	Karachayevo-Cherkessian Republic,	Karachayevo-Cherkessian Republic,
Republic of Karelia,	Republic of Karelia,	Republic of Karelia,
Komi Republic,	Komi Republic,	Komi Republic,
Republic of Marij El,	Republic of Marij El,	Republic of Marij El,
Republic of Mordovia,	Republic of Mordovia,	Republic of Mordovia,
Republic of Sakha(Yakutia),	Republic of Sakha(Yakutia),	Republic of Sakha(Yakutia),
Republic of North Osetia - Alania,	Republic of North Osetia - Alania,	Republic of North Osetia - Alania,
Republic of Tatarstan (Tatarstan),	Republic of Tatarstan (Tatarstan),	Republic of Tatarstan (Tatarstan),
Republic of Tuva,	Republic of Tuva,	Republic of Tuva,
Udmurtian Republic,	Udmurtian Republic,	Udmurtian Republic,
Republic of Khakasia,	Republic of Khakasia,	Republic of Khakasia,
Chechen Republic,	Chechen Republic,	Chechen Republic,
Chuvashi Republic - Chuvashia;	Chuvashi Republic - Chuvashia;	Chuvashi Republic - Chuvashia;

Maps of Russian Lands

Russian Republics

The republics of Russia are territories in the Russian Federation that each constitute a federal subject, the highest-level administrative division of Russian territory. They are one of several types of federal subjects in Russia. The republics were originally created as nation states for ethnic minorities. The indigenous ethnic group that gives its name to the republic is referred to as the titular nationality. However, due to centuries of Russian migration, each nationality is not necessarily a majority of a republic's population.

Russia - Republics [1]

Adygea
Altai
Bashkortostan
Buryatia
Dagestan
Ingushetia
Kabardino-Balkaria
Kalmykia
Karachay-Cherkessia
Karelia
Komi
Mari El
Mordovia
Sakha
North Ossetia - Alania
Tatarstan
Tuva
Udmurtia
Khakassia
Chechnya
Chuvashia

Formed in the early 20th century by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks after the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, republics were meant to be nominally independent regions of Soviet Russia with the right to self-determination. Lenin's conciliatory stance towards Russia's minorities made them allies in the Russian Civil War and with the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922 the regions became Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSR), a third order of autonomy, subordinate to a union republic. While officially autonomous, ASSRs were in practice hypercentralized and largely under the control of the Soviet Union and its leadership. Throughout their history the ASSRs experienced varying periods of Russification and cultural revival depending on who led the country. The 1980s saw an increase in the demand of autonomy as the Soviet Union began large scale reforms of its centralized system. In 1990 the ASSRs declared their sovereignty and renounced their status as autonomous republics. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Russia became independent. The current day republics were established with the signing of the Federation Treaty in 1992, which gave them substantial rights and autonomy.

Republics differ from other subjects in that they have more powers. Republics have their own constitutions, official languages, and national anthems. Due to this, Russia is an asymmetrical federation as the other subjects do not have these rights. Powers vary between republics and largely depend on their economic power. Through the signing of bilateral treaties with the federal government, republics had extensive authority over their economies, internal policies, and even foreign relations in the 1990s. However, at the turn of the century, Vladimir Putin's centralization reforms steadily eradicated all autonomy the republics had with the exception of Chechnya. The bilateral agreements were abolished and in practice all power rests with the federal government. With the termination of the final bilateral treaty in 2017, some commentators expressed that Russia ceased to be a federation.

In 2014, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea from Ukraine and established the Republic of Crimea, however, it remains internationally recognized as Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia declared the annexation of four partially-occupied Ukrainian regions, claiming the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as republics. These also remain internationally recognized as part of Ukraine.

Krai or Territory

A Krai is a federal subject of the Russian Federation. Russia is divided into 89 federal subjects, of which nine are Krais or Territories. Oblasts, another type of federal subject, are legally identical to Krais and the difference between a political entity with the name Krai or Oblast is traditional, similar to the commonwealths in the United States; both are constituent entities equivalent in legal status in Russia with representation in the Federation Council.

During the Soviet era, the autonomous Oblasts could be subordinated to Republics or Krais, but not to Oblasts. Outside of political terminology, both words have very similar general meaning (region or area in English) and can often be used interchangeably. When a distinction is desirable, Krai is sometimes translated into English as Territory, while Oblast can be translated to Province or Region, but both of these translations are also reasonable interpretations of Krai. The term Krai or Kray is derived from the Russian word for an edge, and can be translated into English as frontier or territory.

Russia - Krais or Territories [3]

Altai Krai
Kamchatka Krai
Khabarovsk Krai
Krasnodar Krai
Krasnoyarsk Krai
Perm Krai
Primorsky Krai
Stavropol Krai
Zabaykalsky Krai

Each Krai features a state government holding authority over a defined geographic territory, with a state legislature, the Legislative Assembly, that is democratically elected. The Governor is the highest executive position of the state government in a Krai, and is elected by people. Krais can be divided into raions (districts), cities/towns of Krai significance, and okrugs. Krais previously featured autonomous okrugs until the formation of Zabaykalsky Krai on March 1, 2008, when the last remaining autonomous okrug of a Krai was abolished.

The largest Krai by geographic size is Krasnoyarsk Krai at 2,339,700 square kilometers (903,400 sq mi) and the smallest is Stavropol Krai at 66,500 square kilometers (25,700 sq mi). The most populous Krai is Krasnodar Krai at 5,404,300 (2010 Census) and the least populous is Kamchatka Krai at 322,079 (2010).

Historically, Krais were massive first-level administrative divisions in the Russian Empire, divided into large guberniyas (governorates). Following the numerous administration reforms during the Soviet era, the guberniyas were abolished and Krais were reshaped into smaller, more numerous divisions. Eventually, Krais and Oblasts became almost totally equal as the top-level administrative division of the Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs), the constituent political entities of the Soviet Union, with the only difference being autonomous Oblasts could be subordinated to Krais. The Krais were unique to the Russian SFSR, and held very little autonomy or power, but when the Soviet Union dissolved into sovereign states along the lines of the SSRs, they became first-level administrative divisions of the Russian Federation and received much greater devolved power.

Oblasts

Oblasts are political entities in a federal union with representation in the Federation Council, and serve as a first-level administrative division. Each Oblast features a state government holding authority over a defined geographic territory, with a state legislature, the Oblast Duma, that is democratically elected. The governor is the highest executive position of the state government in an Oblast, and is elected by people. Oblasts are divided into raions (districts), cities of Oblast significance (district-equivalent independent cities), and autonomous okrugs, which are legally federal subjects equal to an Oblast but are administratively subservient to one. Two Oblasts have autonomous okrugs: Arkhangelsk Oblast (Nenets Autonomous Okrug) and Tyumen Oblast (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug).

Russia - Oblasts [2]

Amur Oblast
Arkhangelsk Oblast
Astrakhan Oblast
Belgorod Oblast
Bryansk Oblast
Chelyabinsk Oblast
Irkutsk Oblast
Ivanovo Oblast
Kaliningrad Oblast
Kaluga Oblast
Kemerovo Oblast
Kirov Oblast

Kostroma Oblast
Kurgan Oblast
Kursk Oblast
Leningrad Oblast
Lipetsk Oblast
Magadan Oblast
Moscow Oblast
Murmansk Oblast
Nizhny Novgorod Oblast
Novgorod Oblast
Novosibirsk Oblast
Omsk Oblast

Orenburg Oblast
Oryol Oblast
Penza Oblast
Pskov Oblast
Rostov Oblast
Ryazan Oblast
Sakhalin Oblast
Samara Oblast
Saratov Oblast
Smolensk Oblast
Sverdlovsk Oblast
Tambov Oblast

Tomsk Oblast
Tver Oblast
Tula Oblast
Tyumen Oblast
Ulyanovsk Oblast
Vladimir Oblast
Volgograd Oblast
Vologda Oblast
Voronezh Oblast
Yaroslavl Oblast

The term oblast can be translated into English as province or region, and there are currently 46 oblasts, the most common type of the 85 federal subjects in Russia. The majority of oblasts are named after their administrative center, the official term for a capital city in an oblast, which is generally the largest city. Exceptions to this include Leningrad Oblast and Moscow Oblast, which have no official capital, and Sakhalin Oblast, which is named after a geographic location. Leningrad Oblast and Sverdlovsk Oblast retain the previous names of Saint Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, respectively.

Oblasts are typically areas that are predominantly populated by ethnic Russians and native Russian language speakers, and are mostly located in European Russia. The largest oblast by geographic size is Tyumen Oblast at 1,435,200 square-km (excluding autonomous okrugs Irkutsk Oblast is the largest at 767,900 square-km) and the smallest is Kaliningrad Oblast at 15,100 square-km. The most populous oblast is Moscow Oblast at 7,095,120 and the least populous is Magadan Oblast at 156,996.

Territorial Structure of Ukraine

The territorial structure of Ukraine is based on the principles of unity and indivisibility of the state territory, the combination of centralisation and decentralisation in the exercise of state power, and the balanced socio-economic development of regions that takes into account their historical, economic, ecological, geographical and demographic characteristics, and ethnic and cultural traditions.

The system of the administrative and territorial structure of Ukraine is composed of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, oblasts, districts, cities, city districts, settlements and villages.

Ukraine is composed of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Vinnytsia Oblast, Volyn Oblast, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Donetsk Oblast, Zhytomyr Oblast, Zakarpattia Oblast, Zaporizhia Oblast, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Kyiv Oblast, Kirovohrad Oblast, Luhansk Ob last, Lviv Oblast, Mykolaiv Oblast, Odesa Oblast, Poltava Oblast, Rivne Oblast, Sumy Oblast, Ternopil Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, Kherson Oblast, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Cherkasy Oblast, Chernivtsi Oblast and Chernihiv Oblast, and the Cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol.

The Cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol have special status that is determined by the laws of Ukraine.

Maps Of Ukrainian Lands

Ukraine's territory is divided into Oblasts, one autonomous republic of Crimea, and two cities with special status, Kyiv and Sevastopol.

Ukraine with Russian Occupation [4]

Cherkasy Oblast
Chernihiv Oblast
Chernivtsi Oblast
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast
Donetsk Oblast
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast
Kharkiv Oblast
Kherson Oblast
Khmelnytskyi Oblast
Kyiv Oblast
Kirovohrad Oblast
Luhansk Oblast
Lviv Oblast
Mykolaiv Oblast
Odesa Oblast
Poltava Oblast
Rivne Oblast
Sumy Oblast
Ternopil Oblast
Vinnytsia Oblast
Volyn Oblast
Zakarpattia Oblast
Zaporizhzhia Oblast
Zhytomyr Oblast

Russia invaded Ukrainian territory as part of a massive Russian war on a sovereign nation state and annexed Crimea and southeastern Ukraine, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, portions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts. Russia claims them as the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol as well as the Donetsk People's Republic, Kherson Oblast, the Luhansk People's Republic and Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Internationally, states have not recognised the Russian claims.

Ukrainian Republics

Oblast

Ukraine has 24 Oblasts and is often called a region or province and is the main type of first-level administrative division of the country. Ukraine is a unitary state, thus the oblasts do not have much legal scope of competence other than that which is established in the Ukrainian Constitution and by law. Articles 140 - 146 of Chapter XI of the constitution deal directly with local authorities and their competency.

Oblasts are subdivided into raions (districts), each oblast having from 3 to 10 raions following the July 2020 reform. Most of Ukraine's oblasts are named after their respective administrative centers, which are also the largest and most developed cities in the region. Oblast populations range from 904,000 in Chernivtsi Oblast to 4.4 million in the eastern oblast of Donetsk. Each oblast is generally subdivided into about 20 raions (mean average, can range anywhere from 11 in Chernivtsi to 27 in Kharkiv and Vinnytsia Oblasts).

Like many other countries, Ukraine has modern regional designations. The semi-official regions are typically refered to as Central Ukraine, Eastern Ukraine, Southern Ukraine, and Western Ukraine. There is no clear definition of the boundaries of the regions, but rather a general reference.

Ukraine Regions [5]
Copyright: This map is released by Cassbeth in full for any purpose. You are free to download and use.

Ukraine Regions, Oblasts, and Republic of Crimea [4] [5]
Copyright: This map is released by Cassbeth in full for any purpose. You are free to download and use.

Ukraine Regions [5]
Copyright: This map is released by Cassbeth in full for any purpose. You are free to download and use.

Ukraine Regions, Oblasts, and Republic of Crimea [4] [5]
Copyright: This map is released by Cassbeth in full for any purpose. You are free to download and use.

Other regional references that are rarely used are South-Western Ukraine, can denote either Transcarpathia, or Budjak. Sometimes the term South-Eastern Ukraine is used to define both regions of the Southern and Eastern Ukraine. Due to the shape of the country, in narrow terms, Northern Ukraine is often used to denote either the bulge of Chernihiv / Sumy oblasts or, in broader terms, the whole of Polesia. North-Western Ukraine almost exclusively refers to the historic region of Volhynia. This makes the term North-Eastern Ukraine rarest of them all - it is either used as synonym for the narrow definition of Northern Ukraine, or as synonym for Sloboda Ukraine (particularly Sumy Oblast). This is similar to the United States where the regions and the suggested boundaries vary. For example New England, Mid-Atlantic, South, Midwest, Southwest, Pacific West Coast and sometimes the Rocky Mountains also may be Northeast, Southwest, West, Southeast, and Midwest or Alaska, Midwest, Northwest, North Central, Northeast, Pacific Islands, Southwest, South Central, and Southeast. [5]

Key Speeches

President Biden Announcing to the World Russia will Invade Ukraine

We have reason to believe the Russian forces are planning to and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week in the coming days. We believe that they will target Ukraine's capital Kyiv (Kiev) a city of 2.8 million innocent people.

We're calling out Russia's plans loudly repeatedly not because we want a conflict but because we're doing everything in our power to remove any reason that Russia may give to justify invading Ukraine and prevent them from moving.

Make no mistake if Russia pursues its plans, it will be responsible for a catastrophic and needless war of choice.

The United States and our allies are prepared to defend every inch of NATO territory from any threat to our collective security as well. We also will not send troops in to fight in Ukraine but we will continue to support the Ukrainian people. This past year the United States provided a record amount of security assistance to Ukraine to bolster its defensive, $650 million dollars from Javelin missiles to ammunition. We also previously provided $500 million dollars in Ukraine and humanitarian aid and economic support for Ukraine and earlier this week we also announced an additional sovereign loan guarantee of up to $1 billion dollars to strengthen Ukraine's economic resilience but the bottom line is this, the United States and our allies and partners will support the Ukrainian people.

We will hold Russia accountable for its actions. The west is united and resolved. We're ready to impose severe sanctions on Russia if it further invades Ukraine but I say again Russia can still choose diplomacy.

It is not too late to de-escalate and return to the negotiating table. Last night Russia agreed that secretary of state Blinken and foreign minister Lavrov should meet on on February 24th in Europe, but if Russia takes military action before that date it will be clear that they have slammed the door shut on diplomacy. They will have chosen war and they will pay a steep price for doing so not only from the sanctions that we and our allies will impose on Russia but the moral outraged the rest of the world will visit upon them.

You know of the many issues that divide our nation and our world but standing up to Russian aggression is not one of them. The American people are united, Europe is united, the Transatlantic community's are united, our political parties in this country are united, the entire free world is united. Russia has a choice between war and all the suffering it will bring or diplomacy that will make a future safer for everyone.

President Biden's speech in Warsaw on Russia's invasion of Ukraine

"Be not afraid." These were the first words that the first public address of the first Polish pope after his election in October of 1978, they were the words who would come to define Pope John Paul II. Words that would change the world.

John Paul brought the message here to Warsaw in his first trip back home as pope in June of 1979. It was a message about the power, the power of faith, the power of resilience, the power of the people. In the face of a cruel and brutal system of government, it was a message that helped end the Soviet repression in the central land in Eastern Europe 30 years ago.

It was a message that we'll overcome the cruelty and brutality of this unjust war. When Pope John Paul brought that message in 1979, the Soviet Union ruled with an iron fist behind an Iron Curtain. Then a year later, the solidarity movement took hold in Poland. While I know he couldn't be here tonight, we're all grateful in America and around the world for Lech Walesa. [Applause] It reminds me of that phrase from the philosopher Kierkegaard, "Faith sees best in the dark." And they were dark moments.

Ten years later, the Soviet Union collapsed and Poland and Central and Eastern Europe would soon be free. Nothing about that battle for freedom was simple or easy. It was a long, painful slog. Fought over not days and months but years and decades. But we emerged anew in the great battle for freedom. A battle between democracy and autocracy. Between liberty and repression. Between a rules-based order and one governed by brute force. In this battle, we need to be clear-eyed. This battle will not be won in days or months either. We need to steel ourselves of a long fight ahead.

Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Mayor, members of the parliament, distinguished guests, and the people of Poland, and I suspect some people of Ukraine that are here. We are [applause], we are gathered here at the royal castle in this city that holds the sacred place in the history of not only of Europe but human kind's unending search for freedom.

For generations, Warsaw has stood where liberty has been challenged and liberty has prevailed. In fact, it was here in Warsaw when a young refugee who fled her home country from Czechoslovakia was under Soviet domination, came back to speak and stand in solidarity with dissidence. Her name was Madeleine Korbel Albright. She became one of the most ardent supporters of democracy in the world. She was a friend with whom I served. America's first woman Secretary of State.

She passed away three days ago. She fought her whole life for central democratic principles. And now in the perennial struggle for democracy and freedom, Ukraine and its people are in the front lines.

Fighting to save their nation and their brave resistance is part of a larger fight for essential democratic principles that unite all free people. The rule of law, fair and free elections, the freedom to speak, to write and to assemble. The freedom to worship as one chooses. The freedom of the press. These principles are essential in a free society. [Applause]

But they have always, they have always been under siege. They have always been embattled. Every generation has had to defeat democracy's moral foes. That's the way of the world, for the world is imperfect, as we know. Where the appetites and ambitions of a few forever seek to dominate the lives and liberty of many.

My message to the people of Ukraine is a message I delivered today to Ukraine's foreign minister and defense minister, who I believe are here tonight. We stand with you. Period! [Applause]

Today's fighting in Kyiv and Mariupol and Kharkiv are the latest battle in a long struggle. Hungary, 1956. Poland, 1956, and then again, 1981. Czechoslovakia,1968. Soviet tanks crushed democratic uprisings, but the resistance continued until finally in 1989, the Berlin Wall and all the walls of Soviet domination, they fell. They fell! And the people prevailed.

But the battle for democracy could not conclude, and did not conclude with the end of the Cold War. Over the last 30 years, the forces of autocracy have revived all across the globe. Its hallmarks are familiar ones -- contempt for the rule of law, contempt for democratic freedom, contempt for the truth itself.

Today, Russia has strangled democracy and sought to do so elsewhere, not only in his homeland. Under false claims of ethnic solidarity, there's invalidated neighboring nations. Putin has the gall to say he's 'denazifying' Ukraine. It's a lie. It's just cynical, he knows that and it's also obscene.

President Zelenskyy was democratically elected. He's Jewish. His father's family was wiped out in the Nazi Holocaust. And Putin has the audacity, like all autocrats before him, to believe that might will make right.

In my own country, a former president named Abraham Lincoln voiced the opposing spirit to save our union in the midst of the Civil War. He said let us have faith that right makes might. Right makes might. Today, let us have that faith again. [Applause] Let us resolve to put the strength of democracies into action to thwart the designs of autocracy.

Let us remember that the test of this moment is the test of all time. A criminal wants to portray NATO enlargement as an imperial project aimed at destabilizing Russia. Nothing is further from the truth. NATO is a defensive alliance. It has never sought the demise of Russia. In the lead up to the current crisis, the United States and NATO worked for months to engage Russia to avert war. I met with him in person, talked to him many times on the phone.

Time and again, we offered real diplomacy and concrete proposals to strengthen European security, enhance transparency, build confidence on all sides. But Putin and Russia met each of the proposals with disinterest in any negotiation, with lies and ultimatums.

Russia was bent on violence from the start. I know not all of you believed me and us when we kept saying, they are going to cross the border, they are going to attack. Repeatedly he asserted we had no interest in war, guaranteed he would not move. Repeatedly saying he would not invade Ukraine. Repeatedly saying Russian troops along the border were there for training. All 180,000 of them.

There's simply no justification or provocation for Russia's choice of war. It's an example, one of the oldest human impulses, using brute force and disinformation to satisfy a craving for absolute power and control. It's nothing less than a direct challenge to the rule-based international order established since the end of World War II. And it threatens to return to decades of war that ravaged Europe before the international rule-based order was put in place.

We cannot go back to that. We cannot. The gravity of the threat is why the response of the West has been so swift and so powerful and so unified, unprecedented and overwhelming. Swift and punishing costs are the only thing that are going to get Russia to change its course.

Within days of his invasion, the West has moved jointly with sanctions to damage Russia's economy. Russia's Central Bank is now blocked from global financial systems, denying Kremlin's access to the war fund that's stashed around the globe. We have aimed at the heart of Russia's economy by stopping the imports of Russian energy to the United States.

To date, the United States has sanctioned 140 Russian oligarchs and their family members, seizing their ill-begotten gains, their yachts, their luxury apartments, their mansions. We've sanctioned more than 400 Russian government officials, including key architects of this war. These officials and oligarchs have reaped enormous benefit from the corruption connected to the Kremlin. And now they have to share in the pain.

The private sector has acted as well. Over 400 private multinational companies have pulled out of doing business in Russia. Left Russia completely. From oil companies to McDonald's. As a result of these unprecedented sanctions, the ruble almost is immediately reduced to rubble. The Russian economy -- that's true, by the way, it takes about 200 rubles to equal $1.

The economy is on track to be cut in half in the coming years. It was ranked, Russia's economy was ranked the 11th biggest economy in the world before this invasion. It will soon not even rank among the top 20 in the world.

Taken together [applause] these economic sanctions, a new kind of economic statecraft with the power to inflict damage that rivals military might. These international sanctions are sapping Russian strength, its ability to replenish its military, and its ability to project power. And it's Putin, it is Vladimir Putin who is to blame. Period.

At the same time, alongside these economic sanctions, the Western world has come together to provide for the people of Ukraine with incredible levels of military, economic, humanitarian assistance.

In the years before the invasion, we, America, had sent over $650 million, before they crossed the border, in weapons to Ukraine, including anti-air and anti-armor equipment. Since the invasion, America has committed another $1.35 billion in weapons and ammunition. And thanks to the courage and bravery of the Ukrainian people, the equipment we've sent and our colleagues have sent have been used to devastating effect to defend Ukrainian land and air space.

Our allies and partners have stepped up as well. But as I've made clear, American forces are in Europe -- not in Europe to engage in conflict with Russian forces. American forces are here to defend NATO allies. Yesterday I met with the troops that are serving alongside our Polish allies to bolster NATO's front line defenses. The reason we want to make clear is their movement on Ukraine -- don't even think about moving on one single inch of NATO territory. We have sacred obligation. We have a sacred obligation under Article 5 to defend each and every inch of NATO territory with the full force of our collective power.

And earlier today I visited your national stadium, where thousands of Ukrainian refugees are now trying to answer the toughest questions a human can ask. My God, what is going to happen to me? What is going to happen to my family? I saw tears in many of the mothers' eyes as I embraced them. Their young children, their young children, not sure whether to smile or cry.

One little girl said, Mr. President -- she spoke a little English -- is my brother and my daddy, are they going to be okay? Will I see them again? Without their husbands, their fathers. In many cases, their brothers and sisters have stayed back to fight for their country.

I didn't have to speak the language or understand the language to feel the emotion in their eyes, the way they gripped my hand, little kids hung on to my leg, praying with a desperate hope that all this is temporary. Apprehension that they may be perhaps forever away from their homes. Almost a debilitating sadness that this is happening all over again.

But I was also struck by the generosity of the people of Warsaw -- for that matter, all the Polish people -- for the depths of their compassion, their willingness to reach out [applause], for opening their hearts. I was saying to the mayor, they were opening their hearts and their homes simply to help.

I also want to thank my friend, the great American chef Jose Andres, and his team for help feeding those who are yearning to be free. But helping these refugees is not something Poland or any other nation should carry alone. All the world's democracies have a responsibility to help. All of them. And the people of Ukraine can count on the United States to meet its responsibility. I have announced two days ago, we will welcome 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. We already have 8,000 a week coming to the United States of other nationalities. We will provide nearly $300 million of humanitarian assistance, providing tens of thousands of tons of food, water, medicine and other basic supplies.

In Brussels, I announced the United States is prepared to provide more than $1 billion in additional humanitarian aid. The World Food Programme told us that despite significant obstacles, at least some relief is getting to major cities in Ukraine. But not Metripol -- no, excuse me -- not Mariupol because Russian forces are blocking relief supplies.

But we'll not cease our efforts to get humanitarian relief wherever it is needed in Ukraine and for the people who've made it out of Ukraine. Notwithstanding the brutality of Vladimir Putin, let there be no doubt that this war has already been a strategic failure for Russia already. Having lost children myself, I know that's no solace to the people who've lost family but he, Putin, thought Ukrainians would roll over and not fight. Not much of a student of history. Instead Russian forces have met their match with brave and stiff Ukrainian resistance. Rather than breaking Ukrainian resolve, Russia's brutal tactics have strengthened the resolve. Rather than driving NATO apart, the West is now stronger and more united than it's ever been.

Russia wanted less of a NATO presence on its border but now he has a stronger presence, a larger presence with over 100,000 American troops here along with all the other members of NATO. In fact, Russia has managed to cause something I'm sure he never intended. The democracies of the world are revitalized with purpose and unity found in months that we've once taken years to accomplish.

It's not only Russia's actions in Ukraine that are reminding us of democracy's blessing. It's our own country, his own country, the Kremlin, it's jailing protesters. Two hundred thousand people who have allegedly already left. There's a brain drain leaving Russia. Shutting down independent news. State media is all propaganda. Blocking the image of civilian targets, mass graves, starvation tactics of the Russian forces in Ukraine.

Is it any wonder as I said that 200,000 Russians have all left their country in one month. A remarkable brain drain in such a short period of time. Which brings me to my message to the Russian people. I worked with Russian leaders for decades. I sat across the negotiating table going all the way back to Soviet Alexei Kosygin to talk arms control at the height of the Cold War. I've always spoken directly and honestly to you, the Russian people. Let me say this, if you're able to listen. You, the Russian people, are not our enemy. I refuse to believe that you welcome the killing of innocent children and grandparents, or that you accept hospitals, schools, maternity wards and for God sake's being pummeled with Russian missiles and bombs. Or cities being surrounded so that civilians cannot flee. Supplies cut off and attempting to starve Ukrainians into submission.

Millions of families are being driven from their homes, including half of all Ukraine's children. These are not the actions of a great nation. Of all people, you, the Russian people, as well as all people across Europe still have the memory of being in a similar situation in the late '30s and '40s. Situation in World War II still fresh in the minds of many grandparents in the region. Whatever your generation experienced, whether it experienced the siege of Leningrad or heard about it from your parents and grandparents. Train stations overflowing with terrified families fleeing their homes. Nights sheltering in basements and cellars. Mornings sifting through the rubble in your homes. These are not memories of the past. Not anymore. Because it's exactly what the Russian army is doing in Ukraine right now.

March 26, 2022, just days before we're at the 21 -- you were a 21st century nation, with hopes and dreams that people all over the world have for themselves and their family. Now, Vladimir Putin's aggression have cut you, the Russian people, off from the rest of the world, and it's taking Russia back to the 19th century. This is not who you are. This is not the future you deserve for your families and your children. I'm telling you the truth, this war is not worthy of you, the Russian people. Putin can and must end this war. The American people will stand with you, and the brave citizens of Ukraine who want peace.

My message to the rest of Europe, this new battle for freedom has already made a few things crystal clear. First, Europe must end its dependence on Russian fossil fuels. And we, the United States will help. [Applause] That's why just yesterday in Brussels I announced the plan with the president of the European Commission to get Europe through the immediate energy crisis. Over the long-term, as a matter of economic security and national security and for the survivability of the planet, we all need to move as quickly as possible to clean, renewable energy. And we'll work together to help to get that done so that the days of any nation being subject to the whims of a tyrant for its energy needs are over. They must end. They must end.

And second, we have to fight the corruption coming from the Kremlin to give the Russian people a fair chance. And finally, most urgently, we maintain absolute unity, we must, among the world's democracies. It's not enough to speak with rhetorical flourish of ennobling words of democracy, of freedom, of quality, and liberty. All of us, including here in Poland, must do the hard work of democracy each and every day -- my country as well. That's why [applause], that's why I came to Europe again this week with a clear and determined message for NATO, for the G7, for the European Union, for all freedom-loving nations -- we must commit now to be in this fight for the long haul. We must remain unified today and tomorrow and the day after. And for the years and decades to come. It will not be easy. There will be costs. But it is a price we have to pay because the darkness that drives autocracy is ultimately no match for the flame of liberty that lights the souls of free people everywhere.

Time and again history shows that. It's from the darkness moments that the greatest progress follows. And history shows this is the task of our time, the task of this generation. Let's remember the hammer blow that brought down the Berlin Wall, the might that lifted the Iron Curtain were not the words of a single leader, it was the people of Europe, who for decades fought to free themselves. Their sheer bravery opened the border between Austria and Hungary for the Pan-European Picnic. They joined hands for the Baltic Way. They stood for solidarity here in Poland. And together it was an unmistakable and undeniable force of the people that the Soviet Union could not withstand. And we're seeing it once again today for the brave Ukrainian people showing that their power of many is greater than the will of any one dictator.

So in this hour, let the words of Pope John Paul burn as brightly today. Never ever give up hope. Never doubt. Never tire. Never become discouraged. Be not afraid! [Applause]

A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never erase a people's love for liberty. Brutality will never grind down their will to be free. Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness. We will have a different future, a brighter future, rooted in democracy and principle, hope and light. Of decency and dignity and freedom and possibilities. For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power. God bless you all. And may God defend our freedom, and may God protect our troops. [Applause] Thank you for your patience. Thank you. Thank you.

President Zelensky - Day 2 Of Munich Security Conference

There is another transcript after this one that was officially released by the Presidents Office in Ukraine.

Ukraine wants peace. Europe is longing for peace. The World is saying it doesn't want any war while Russia is claiming she doesn't want to intervene. Someone here is lying. This is not an axiom but by far not only a hypothesis too.

I visited the separation line in the Donbass just a couple of days ago. In legal terms this is [the] line separating Ukraine and [the] temporary occupied territory, but in real terms this is the line separating peace and the war. The line with a kindergarten on the one hand and the shell flying into it.

On the one hand the school and on the other hand the shell flying into the school playground with 30 children nearby.

On the other hand the children who are not heading towards NATO they're heading towards their classrooms.

Some of them might be having their physics classes and with their elementary knowledge of physics even these children will know that alleging that it was Ukraine to have shelled these objects is just silly.

Other children might [as well] be having their math classes. They don't need a calculator to figure out the difference between the total number of shelling the last two days and the number of times Ukraine is mentioned in the Munich security report.

Yet some children might be having their history class and so when they see the shell crater in their playground instead of their school playground they might start asking questions. Has our world completely forgotten the mistakes of the 20th century?

Where does the appeasement policy usually lead to? How did we get from the question what's the point of dying for Donestk to dozens or millions having to die [and] give away their lives for Duncan as well as dozens of other European cities?

With this I'm simply trying to make sure we have been reading the same textbook so that we are all on the same page about one main question: how did we get to this point in the 21st century where the war is being raged and people are dying in Europe? How come that time wise it's already longer that World War II? How did we end up in the biggest security crisis since the end of the cold war? To me as a president of the country, which lost part of its territory, thousands of people [in] the country, [that is] surrounded by a hundred fifty thousand army with heavy armament and machinery on our borders.

To me this answer [is] obvious, the security architecture of our world is brittle. It is obsolete. The rules that have been agreed upon by the world dozens of years ago are no longer working. They are neither [not] catching up with the new threats [and] not being effective in overcoming them just like a cough a syrup instead of a good COVID vaccine. This security system is slow and failing us time and time again because of different things egotism, arrogance, and irresponsibility of countries on the global level. As a result some countries are committing crimes while others resort to indifference. The indifference that [has] turned them into accomplices. It is symbolic that I am saying this here. Fifteen years ago it was [the] Russian federation who made the statement here and put the challenge to the global security. How did the world respond? Appeasement. What do we have as a result? The annexation of the Crimean aggression against my country at the very least.

The U.N. which was initially called to safeguard peace's security cannot protect itself when its own charter [is] being violated as one the security council members annexing the territory of another founding member. While the U.N. itself is ignoring the Crimean platform established to de-occupy the Crimea and advocate for the rights of the Crimean Tatars.

It was here three years ago when Angela Merkel said who can pick up the pieces of the worlds puzzle only all of us together she said. To rush to a rash audible excitement in the room which stood out to applaud. Unfortunately the collective ovation failed to transform into collective action so now that the world is talking about the threat of a big war it begs the question is there anything left to pick up the security architecture of Europe and beyond is almost destroyed it's too late now to talk about fixing it. It's high time for a new one. [The] Mankind did so on two occasions having paid and [an] extensively high price. It has [had] the two world wars. We do have a chance to break that trend before it becomes a [permanent] trend and build a new system before we pay [with] millions of casualties [with] based on the experience of two world wars without a third one to come.

In [here in U.N. and in] the U.N. already mentioned there [there] is no such thing as it is not my war in the 21st 6:08 century. That annexation of the Crimea and the war in the Donbass is a blow to the whole world. That this is not about war in the Ukraine. This is about the war in Europe. I mentioned [it in] 2019, 2020, 2021. Will the world be able to hear me in 2022.

This is no longer hypothesis but not yet an axiom. Why not because it requires proof. It requires something more than just tweets and statements in mass media. Action is needed. The world needs this action not Ukraine.

We are going to protect our country with or without support of our partners. Be it hundreds of pieces of contemporary armament or 5,000 helmets, we equally appreciate the support. But, everyone needs to understand that this is not some kind of donation Ukraine should be reminded [ing] of begging for. This is not just a broad gesture that Ukraine should be bowing down. For this is your contribution into the European and International security for which Ukraine has been serving as a shield for eight years now. A reliable shield holding back one of the largest armies in the world. That same army which is now poised on the Ukrainian not EU Member states borders.

And the 7:31 the missiles are flying into Mariupol 7:35 not the European cities [and thanks].

And it is always blazing in the Avdiivka industrial zone which is being shelled.

And none of the countries of Europe know what the military funerals are around the country in all regions.

And none of the European leaders know what is it to regularly meet with the families of the dead soldiers.

No matter what, we're going to protect our beautiful land. Either we have 150,000 or 1 million soldiers of any army. In order to help Ukraine indeed we don't need to hear how many of them are there how many armaments they have. We need to hear how many are there of us together to help Ukraine. We don't need to be reminded of the dates of the plausible intervention. We're going to protect our land on the 16th of June or February or the 1st of March and the 31st December. We need other dates much more than these dates and everyone understands what kind of date tomorrow is - the day of commemoration of the heavenly hundred.

Eight years ago Ukrainians [have] made their choice and many of them have sacrificed their lives for that. Do you [r] think that eight years later Ukraine should keep calling for acknowledgement of our European perspective. Since 2014 Russia is convincing everyone that this was an erroneous past part for Ukraine, that no one is waiting for us in Europe. Isn't Europe that should be saying and proving them wrong. Isn't it Europe who should be saying today that our citizens have a positive attitude towards Ukraine joining the union. Why are we avoiding this question. Doesn't Ukraine deserve to have direct and frank answers. The same is true about NATO. We are told the doors are open but [but] so far the strangers are not allowed. If not all the members are willing to see us there or all members don't want to see us there, be honest about it. Open doors are good but we need open answers [but] not the years and years of closed questions. Is isn't the right for truth part of our opportunities and the sooner the better. The soonest summit in Madrid for example, the Russian federation is saying that the Ukraine [is] wants to join NATO to bring the Crimean back by force. It's good to hear that bring back the Crimea is something that they mentioned in their rhetoric but they didn't read carefully article 5 of the NATO charter, the collective actions are for protection, not for attacking. The Crimean [and] the occupied lands of Donbass will come back to the Ukraine but only through peaceful process.

Ukraine is consistent about [the] Normandy and Minsk agreement. The foundation is the recognition of the territorial integrity and independence of our state. We want to have diplomatic resolution over the military conflict. Exclusively I would like to emphasize based on [their] international law.

So what in reality is happening now in Minsk in the peaceful process. Two years ago with the presidents of France and Russian Federation and German chancellor we agreed about a full fledged ceasefire and Ukraine is committed to these agreements and we're observing them. We are we keep uh 11:29 not responding to the provocations we're submitting proposals to the Normandy foreign trilateral content groups and we see instead shelling and bullets. Our soldiers are dying, our peaceful population is dying, civil infrastructure is being destroyed. The last two days have become very symbolic. Massive shelling from the armament prohibited by the Minsk agreement. It's important to allow for the observers of the OSCE to visit. They are being threatened, they're being scared [terrorized], all humanitarian questions are being blocked. Two years ago I signed into law the unconditional access of humanitarian organizations into the detainees but on the temporary occupied territories they're simply not allowed. After two exchanges of prisoners this process has been stalled [although] and blocked. Although Ukraine has been sharing the approved lists torches 12:35 until the death in the notorious Islazia prison isolation prison. Donetsk now is the symbol of human rights violation. In November the two new crossing points that we opened in Luhansk Oblast have not been put into operation and we see this as an obstruction under false pretext. [And] Ukraine is doing its best to push this discussion to push discussion for political questions as well. In the TCG 13:08 in the Minsk process we have submitted the proposals and the drafts of law but everything is blocked and no one is talking about them.

Ukraine demands urgently to unblock the negotiation process at the same time this does not mean that looking for peace is limited and restricted only by that. We are prepared to look for the keys to end the war in all possible formats and all possible platforms. Paris, Minsk, Istanbul, Beijing, Barcelona, it doesn't matter where in the world [we'll ]we will agree about the peace in Ukraine. Four countries will be there, seven countries will be, 100 countries, it doesn't matter, the most important - Russia and Ukraine to be there. What is important is the understanding that we need not only us who need peace the world needs peace. We need to restore uh 14:09 peace and integrity in the internationally acknowledged borders.

[And] I hope no one is thinking Ukraine as a permanent buffer between Russian Federation and the west. This will never happen. No one allow this to happen. Otherwise there will be a question [of ]who is [are] the next NATO countries will have to protect each other.

I would I want to believe that [the] North Atlantic Treaty and article 5 will be more effective than the Budapest Memorandum. [The fact is we were the third biggest nuclear power in the world and we gave them away in return for security guarantees, but we have no security guarantee.] --- For the refusal the fact the we refuse for from the third biggest nuclear power we receive the security guarantees we are no longer we don't we no longer have that weapon neither do we have the security. - -- We have lost parts of our territory which is bigger in territory than Switzerland, Netherlands, or Belgium. Millions of citizens have been lost. All of that has been lost but we still have something we have the right to demand, to move from the appeasement policy to ensuring the guarantees of security.

Since 2014 three times Ukraine has tried to call for consultations for the guarantors of the countries who guaranteed the Budapest Memorandum. Three times no success. This will be the fourth time today that we're going to do this. As a president for the first time but both Ukraine and me is [are going to] will do this the last time. We are initiating the Budapest Memorandum and call for the [uh 15:57 and ask] the foreign minister to have this meeting, and if as the result of this, we're not going to guarantee of defense after this summit, we will think [officially conclude] that [the] Budapest Memorandum is not working. It's and all the package decisions of 1994 have been put in question and compromised.

In the nearest weeks I propose to call the [a] summit of the countries of the security council with the participation of Europe, Germany and Turkey to resolve security challenges in Europe and come up with a new effective guarantees of security guarantees for Ukraine the guarantees that we need before we become the members of the defense council, being in this gray zone in a security vacuum so to speak.

We can continue the effective support of Ukraine and its defense capabilities,

and providing specific timelines for Ukraine possible membership in their alliance.

We need support for the transformation in our country to create the stability and [the] restoration fund, the land lease 17:15 program uh

supplying new armament and equipment to our army the army, which is protecting the whole Europe.

An effective preventative sanctions package is what we need to restrain the aggression

and the energy integration of the Ukraine into European Union in the times when Nord Stream 2 17:38 is being used as a weapon.

All these questions require answers. Instead there is silence and while this silence persists there will be no silence in the East of Ukraine. In the East of Europe and in the whole world. I do hope finally the whole world will understand this and Europe will understand.

Ladies and Gentlemen I'm very grateful to the countries who have supported Ukraine with their words [and] with their declarations and specific support - those who are on our side, on the side of truth, on the side of international law. I'm not calling my friends out by names. I don't want some countries to be ashamed, but this is their business, this is their matter, these are their countries, their karma, and this is their conscience they have to look into. I [although I] don't know how they will be able to explain these actions to the two people who were killed and three wounded Ukrainian soldiers today and three girls from Kyiv [Kiev] ten six and one years old who don't have a father any longer. At six o'clock in the morning East European time when Ukrainian scout officer was killed from the artillery shell prohibited by Minsk. I don't know what he thought about at the last second of his life. He didn't really for sure understand what kind of agenda we need for the meeting to stop the war in the East but what he knew is the answer to the question that I asked at the very beginning. He very well knows [knew] who is lying here. Rest in peace to him and to all those who have died for [the] enduring these years of all in the eastern back country.

The title of the video in the reference is highly inappropriate. Next to the Biden speech announcing to the world that he believes Russia will invade Ukraine and go all the way into the capital, this speech also will go down in history. If Russia invades, both of these speeches will be the most important speeches of the last 100 years on par with speeches from Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt entering into World War II.

Official Transcript from the Presidents Office

The following is the full translated transcript of the speech delivered by President Volodymyr Zelensky at the 58th Munich Security Conference on February 19, 2022. It was published by the President's Office and is republished here without changes. Zelensky delivered the speech in Ukrainian. [8]

Two days ago I was in Donbas, on the delimitation line. Legally - between Ukraine and the temporarily occupied territories. In fact, the delimitation line between peace and war. Where on the one side there is a kindergarten, and on the other side there is a projectile that hit it. On the one side there is a school, on the other side there is a projectile hitting the school yard.

And next to it there are 30 children who go... no, not to NATO, but to school. Someone has physics classes. Knowing its basic laws, even children understand how absurd the statements that the shelling is carried out by Ukraine sound.

Someone has math classes. Children can calculate the difference between the number of shelling occasions in these three days and the occasions of mentioning Ukraine in this year's Munich Security Report without a calculator.

And someone has history classes. And when a bomb crater appears in the school yard, children have a question: has the world forgotten its mistakes of the XX century?

What do attempts at appeasement lead to? As the question "Why die for Danzig?" turned into the need to die for Dunkirk and dozens of other cities in Europe and the world. At the cost of tens of millions of lives.

These are terrible lessons of history. I just want to make sure you and I read the same books. Hence, we have the same understanding of the answer to the main question: how did it happen that in the XXI century, Europe is at war again and people are dying? Why does it last longer than World War II? How did we get to the biggest security crisis since the Cold War? For me, as the President of a country that has lost part of the territory, thousands of people and on whose borders there are now 150,000 Russian troops, equipment and heavy weapons, the answer is obvious.

The architecture of world security is fragile and needs to be updated. The rules that the world agreed on decades ago no longer work. They do not keep up with new threats. They are not effective for overcoming them. This is a cough syrup when you need a coronavirus vaccine. The security system is slow. It crashes again. Because of different things: selfishness, self-confidence, irresponsibility of states at the global level. As a result, we have crimes of some and indifference of others. Indifference that makes you an accomplice. It is symbolic that I am talking about this right here. It was here 15 years ago that Russia announced its intention to challenge global security. What did the world say? Appeasement. Result? At least - the annexation of Crimea and aggression against my state.

The UN, which is supposed to defend peace and world security, cannot defend itself. When its Charter is violated. When one of the members of the UN Security Council annexes the territory of one of the founding members of the UN. And the UN itself ignores the Crimea Platform, the goal of which is to de-occupy Crimea peacefully and protect the rights of Crimeans.

Three years ago, it was here that Angela Merkel said: "Who will pick up the wreckage of the world order? Only all of us, together." The audience gave a standing ovation. But, unfortunately, the collective applause did not grow into collective action. And now, when the world is talking about the threat of a great war, the question arises: is there anything left to pick up? The security architecture in Europe and the world is almost destroyed. It's too late to think about repairs, it's time to build a new system. Mankind has done this twice, paying too high a price - two world wars. We have a chance to break this trend until it becomes a consistent pattern. And start building a new system before millions of victims. Having the old lessons of the First and Second World Wars, not our own experience of the possible third, God forbid.

I talked about it here. And on the rostrum of the UN. That in the XXI century there are no more foreign wars. That the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas affects the whole world. And this is not a war in Ukraine, but a war in Europe. I said this at summits and forums. In 2019, 2020, 2021. Will the world be able to hear me in 2022?

This is no longer a hypothesis, but not an axiom yet. Why? Evidence is needed. More important than words on Twitter or statements in the media. Action is required. It is the world that needs it, not just us.

We will defend our land with or without the support of partners. Whether they give us hundreds of modern weapons or five thousand helmets. We appreciate any help, but everyone should understand that these are not charitable contributions that Ukraine should ask for or remind of.

These are not noble gestures for which Ukraine should bow low. This is your contribution to the security of Europe and the world. Where Ukraine has been a reliable shield for eight years. And for eight years it has been rebuffing one of the world's biggest armies. Which stands along our borders, not the borders of the EU.

And Grad rockets hit Mariupol, not European cities. And after almost six months of fighting, the airport in Donetsk was destroyed, not in Frankfurt. And it's always hot in the Avdiivka industrial zone - it was hot there in the last days, not in Montmartre. And no European country knows what military burials every day in all regions are. And no European leader knows what regular meetings with the families of the deceased are.

Be that as it may, we will defend our beautiful land no matter if we have 50,000, 150 or one million soldiers of any army on the border. To really help Ukraine, it is not necessary to say how many servicemen and military equipment are on the border. Say what numbers we have.

To really help Ukraine, it is not necessary to constantly talk only about the dates of the probable invasion. We will defend our land on February 16, March 1 and December 31. We need other dates much more. And everyone understands perfectly well which ones.

Tomorrow in Ukraine is the Day of the Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred. Eight years ago, Ukrainians made their choice, and many gave their lives for that choice. Eight years later, should Ukraine constantly call for recognition of the European perspective? Since 2014, Russia has been convincing that we have chosen the wrong path, that no one is waiting for us in Europe. Shouldn't Europe constantly say and prove by action that this is not true? Shouldn't the EU say today that its citizens are positive about Ukraine's accession to the Union? Why do we avoid this question? Doesn't Ukraine deserve direct and honest answers?

This also applies to NATO. We are told: the door is open. But so far authorized access only. If not all members of the Alliance want to see us or all members of the Alliance do not want to see us, be honest. Open doors are good, but we need open answers, not open questions for years. Isn't the right to the truth one of our enhanced opportunities? The best time for it is the next summit in Madrid.

Russia says Ukraine seeks to join the Alliance to return Crimea by force. It is gratifying that the words "return Crimea" appear in their rhetoric. But they inattentively read Article 5 of the NATO Charter: collective action is for protection, not offensive. Crimea and the occupied regions of Donbas will certainly return to Ukraine, but only peacefully.

Ukraine consistently implements the Normandy agreements and the Minsk agreements. Their foundation is the unquestionable recognition of the territorial integrity and independence of our state. We seek a diplomatic settlement of the armed conflict. Note: solely on the basis of international law.

So what is really going on in the peace process? Two years ago, we agreed with the Presidents of France, the Russian Federation, the Chancellor of Germany on a full-scale ceasefire. And Ukraine is scrupulously adhering to these agreements. We are as restrained as possible against the background of constant provocations. We are constantly making proposals in the framework of the Normandy Four and the Trilateral Contact Group. And what do we see? Shells and bullets from the other side. Our soldiers and civilians are being killed and wounded, and civilian infrastructure is being destroyed.

The last days have become especially illustrative. Hundreds of massive shelling occasions with weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements. It is also important to stop restricting the admission of OSCE observers to Ukraine's TOT. They are threatened. They are intimidated. All humanitarian issues are blocked.

Two years ago, I signed a law on the unconditional admission of representatives of humanitarian organizations to detainees. But they are simply not admitted to the temporarily occupied territories. After two exchanges of captives, the process was blocked, although Ukraine provided agreed lists. Inhuman torture at the infamous Isolation Prison in Donetsk has become a symbol of human rights abuses.

The two new checkpoints we opened in November 2020 in the Luhansk region still do not function - and here we see outright obstruction under contrived pretexts.

Ukraine is doing everything possible to reach progress in discussions and political issues. In the TCG, in the Minsk process, we've put forward proposals - draft laws, but everything is blocked - no one talks about them. Ukraine demands to unblock the negotiation process immediately. But this does not mean that the search for peace is limited to it alone.

We are ready to look for the key to the end of the war in all possible formats and platforms: Paris, Berlin, Minsk. Istanbul, Geneva, Brussels, New York, Beijing - I don't care where in the world to negotiate peace in Ukraine.

It does not matter if four countries, seven or a hundred participate, the main thing is that Ukraine and Russia are among them. What is really important is the understanding that peace is needed not only by us, the world needs peace in Ukraine. Peace and restoration of territorial integrity within internationally recognized borders. This is the only way. And I hope no one thinks of Ukraine as a convenient and eternal buffer zone between the West and Russia. This will never happen. Nobody will allow that.

Otherwise - who's next? Will NATO countries have to defend each other? I want to believe that the North Atlantic Treaty and Article 5 will be more effective than the Budapest Memorandum.

Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world's third nuclear capability. We don't have that weapon. We also have no security. We also do not have part of the territory of our state that is larger in area than Switzerland, the Netherlands or Belgium. And most importantly - we don't have millions of our citizens. We don't have all this.

Therefore, we have something. The right to demand a shift from a policy of appeasement to ensuring security and peace guarantees.

Since 2014, Ukraine has tried three times to convene consultations with the guarantor states of the Budapest Memorandum. Three times without success. Today Ukraine will do it for the fourth time. I, as President, will do this for the first time. But both Ukraine and I are doing this for the last time. I am initiating consultations in the framework of the Budapest Memorandum. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was commissioned to convene them. If they do not happen again or their results do not guarantee security for our country, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt.

I also propose to convene a summit of permanent members of the UN Security Council in the coming weeks with the participation of Ukraine, Germany and Turkey in order to address security challenges in Europe. And elaborate new, effective security guarantees for Ukraine. Guarantees today, as long as we are not a member of the Alliance and in fact are in the gray zone - in a security vacuum.

What else can we do now? Continue to effectively support Ukraine and its defense capabilities. Provide Ukraine with a clear European perspective, the tools of support available to candidate countries, and clear and comprehensive timeframes for joining the Alliance.

Support the transformation in our country. Establish a Stability and Reconstruction Fund for Ukraine, a land-lease program, the supply of the latest weapons, machinery and equipment for our army - an army that protects the whole of Europe.

Develop an effective package of preventive sanctions to deter aggression. Guarantee Ukraine's energy security, ensure its integration into the EU energy market when Nord Stream 2 is used as a weapon.

So far we have silence instead of them. And as long as there is silence, there will be no silence in the east of our state. That is - in Europe. That is - in the whole world. I hope the whole world finally understands this, Europe understands.

In words, in declarations, in concrete help. Those who are on our side today. On the side of truth and international law. I'm not calling you by name - I don't want some other countries to be ashamed. But this is their business, this is their karma. And this is on their conscience. However, I do not know how they will be able to explain their actions to the two soldiers killed and three wounded in Ukraine today.

And most importantly - to three girls from Kyiv. One is ten years old, the second is six, and the third is only one. Today they were left without a father. At 6 o'clock in the morning Central European Time. When the Ukrainian intelligence officer, Captain Anton Sydorov was killed as a result of artillery fire prohibited by the Minsk agreements. I don't know what he thought at the last moment of his life. He definitely didn't know what agenda someone needs to meet to end the war.

But he knows exactly the answer to the question I asked at the beginning. He knows exactly who of us is lying.

May his memory live forever. May the memory of all those who died today and during the war in the east of our state live forever.

President Zelensky Address to US Congress 03-16-22

President, it is my honor to present to you the congress of the united states, which has great respect and admiration and appreciation for your courageous leadership.

Members of congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.

[ speaking foreign language ] [ applause ] >> my colleagues -- [ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: glory to heroes.

Madam speaker, members of the congress, ladies and gentlemen, Americans, friends, I'm proud to greet you from Ukraine, former capital city of Kyiv, a city that is under missile and air strikes from Russian troops every day, but it doesn't give up.

And we have not even thought about it for a second, just like many other cities and communities in our beautiful country which found themselves in the worst war since world war ii.

I have the honor to greet you on behalf of the Ukrainian people, brave, and freedom loving people who for eight years have been resisting the Russian aggression.

Those who give their best sons and daughters to stop this full-scale Russian invasion.

The destiny of our people, whether Ukrainians will be free, whether they will be able to preserve their democracy, Russia has attacked not just us, not just our land, not just our cities, it went on a brutal offensive against our values, basic human values.

It threw tanks and planes against our freedom, against our right to live freely in our own country, choosing our own future.

Against our desire for happiness, against our national dreams, just like the same dreams you have, you, Americans, just like anyone else in the united states, I remember your national memorial in Rushmore.

The faces of your prominent presidents, those who laid the foundation of the united states of America as it is today, democracy, independence, freedom and care for everyone, for every person, for everyone who works diligently, who lives honestly, Ukraine want the same for our people.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends, Americans, in your great history you have things that would have allowed you to understand Ukrainians.

Understand us now when you need it right now -- when we need you right now, remember pearl harbor, terrible morning of December 7, 1941 when your sky was black from the planes attacking you, just remember it.

Remember September the 11th, a terrible day in 2001 when evil tried to turn your cities, independent territories in battlefields, when innocent people were attacked, attacked from air, yes, just like nobody else expected it, you could not stop it.

Our country experiences the same every day, right now at this moment, every night for three weeks now, various Ukrainian cities Odesa and Sumy, Mariupol, Russia has turned the Ukrainian sky into a source of death for thousands of people.

Russian troops have already fired nearly 1,000 missiles at Ukraine, countless bombs, they use drones to kill us with precision.

This is a terror that Europe has not seen, has not seen for 80 years and we are asking for a reply, for an answer to this terror from the whole world.

Is this a lot to ask for? To create a no-fly zone over Ukraine to save people, is this too much to ask? Humanitarian no-fly zone, something that Ukraine -- that Russia would not be able to terrorize our free cities.

You know what kind of defense systems we need, s-300 and other similar systems.

You know how much depends on the battlefield on the ability to use aircraft, powerful, strong aviation to protect our people, our freedom, our land.

Aircraft that can help Ukraine, help Europe and, you know that they exist, and you have them but they are on earth, not in the Ukrainian sky.

I have a dream, these words are known to each of you today, I can say, I have a need.

I need your decision, your help which means exactly the same, the same you feel when you hear the words, I have a dream.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends, Ukraine is grateful to the united states for its overwhelming support, for everything that your government and your people have done for us for weapons and ammunition, for training, for finances, for leadership in the free world which helps us to pressure the aggressor economically.

I'm grateful to president Biden for his personal involvement, for his sincere commitment to the defense of Ukraine and democracy all over the world.

I am grateful to you for the resolution which recognizes all those who commit crimes against Ukraine, against the Ukrainian people as war criminals.

However, now it is true in the darkest time for our country, for the whole Europe, I call on you to do more.

New packages of sanctions are needed constantly, every week until the Russian military machine stops.

We've proposed that the united states sanction all politicians in the Russian federation who remain in their offices and to not cut ties with those who are responsible for the aggression against Ukraine, from state duma members to the last official who has lack of morale to break the state terror, all American companies must leave Russia from their market, leave their market immediately because it is flooded with our blood.

Ladies and gentlemen, members of congress, please take the lead if you have companies in your districts who finance the Russian military machine leaving business in Russia, you should put pressure.

I am asking to make sure that the Russians do not receive a single penny that they use to destroy people in Ukraine.

The destruction of our country, the destruction of Europe, all American ports should be closed for Russian goods.

Peace is more important than income and we have to defend this principle in the whole world.

We already became part of the anti-war -- big anti-war collision that unites many countries, dozens of countries, those who reacted in principle to president Putin's decision to invade our country but we need to move on and do more.

We need to create new tools to respond quickly and stop the war -- the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine which began on February 24th.

And it would be fair if it ended in a day, in 24 hours that evil would be punished immediately.

The war of the past have prompted our predecessors to create institutions that should protect us from war, but they unfortunately don't work.

We propose to create an association, you-24, united for peace, a union of responsible countries that have the strength and consciousness to stop conflicts immediately, provide all the necessary assistance in 24 hours if necessary even weapons if necessary sanctions, humanitarian support, political support, finances, everything you need to keep the peace and quickly, save the world -- to save lives.

In addition, such association, such union could provide assistance to those who are experiencing natural disasters, man-made disasters who fell victim to humanitarian crisis or epidemics, remember how difficult it was for the world to do the simplest thing, just to give vaccines, vaccines against covid to save lives to prevent new strains, the world spent months, years doing things like that, much faster to make sure there are no human losses, no victims.

Ladies and gentlemen, Americans, if such alliance would exist today that is u-24, we would be able to save thousands of lives in our country.

I ask you to watch one video, video of what the Russian troops did in our country, in our land.

We must prevent it, preventively destroy every single aggressor who seeks to subjugate other nations.

And today, today it's not enough to be the leader, it takes to be the leader of the world, being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

It depends on those next to you and those who are strong, strong doesn't mean weak.

Strong is brave and ready to fight for the life of its citizens and citizens of the world.

Human rights, for freedom, for the right to live peacefully and to die when your time comes and not when it's wanted by someone else, by your neighbor.

Today the Ukrainian people are defending not only Ukraine, we are fighting for the values of your and the world in the name of the future.

That's why today the American people are helping not just Ukraine, but Europe and the world to keep the planet alive, world to keep the planet alive, to keep justice in history.

Today my age stopped when the hearts of more than 100 children stopped beating, I see no sense in life if it cannot stop the deaths and this is my main mission as a leader of my people, great Ukrainians and as the leader of my nation, I am addressing the president Biden, you are the leader of the nation, of your great nation, I wish you to be the leader of the world, being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

President Zelensky Address to US Congress 12-21-2022

There was a long standing ovation when President Zelensky entered the room. There were several standing ovations during the speech. The standing ovations included both the Democrats and a Majority of the Republicans. President Zelensky provided a gift of the Ukrainian flag signed by soldiers in battle and the US provided a gift of the US flag to President Zelensky. It is difficult not to imagine that this is the solidification of a long multi-generational collaboration and multi-national deep friendship. The Ukrainian flag will forever be in US government possession either hung for all to admire or placed in a museum housing some of the most precious artifacts in US history.

The visuals were stunning and undeniable. The words powerful even though there are translation challenges. This speech was one of the most significant speeches in US history.

While most US media outlets carried the afternoon press conference with President Biden and President Zelensky, many did not cover the live speech in front of the US Congress later in the evening. That was a serious mistake because this was one of those moments in history that rarely happens. This was big, it was of massive historical proportions. It is clear that the sides have been drawn for history to see. The media outlets that missed this live coverage of this speech to the American people from the President of Ukraine, President Zelensky, are definitely regretting their decisions.

As far as the Republicans that did not attend as part of a political obstructionist stunt - Future generations will study these events and they will be forever cast as very poor representatives. It is one thing to attend and be respectful and polite but yet have a difference of opinion on policy. It is another to snub a leader, that is an ally, in the middle of a massive war, whose people are dying everyday, that was invited to a major US Congressional meeting. Outside of a family crisis, the missing Republicans had an obligation to the American people to attend, it is their jobs and they failed miserably.

Reporters should be asking the following questions from all those that did not attend:

It is unclear if those not attending fall into the category of aiding and abetting the enemy in a time of war, but it is a reasonable question to ask and discuss.

The Ukrainians will continue to fight for their country even if US policy should change. These are possible scenarios if the radical Republicans change US policy and Ukrainian support stops:

Unfortunately, if the US policy is changed, the scenarios will lead to a massive escalation of the war. This is the same scenario that unfolded with the start of WW II. Although Russia initially thought the Ukrainians would not fight, their initial thoughts have been proved wrong. The Ukrainians will not stop fighting especially since Russia has inflicted so much death and destruction on Ukraine. This is a time of great challenge.

As of December 2022 the American people are feeling some of the shocks of the war associated with food and energy price increases. However, they are not feeling the costs of arming Ukraine. The US military budget for 2023 is $773 billion and the current costs to support Ukraine are a fraction of this budget. US aid to Ukraine totals $68 billion in 2022, and the White House has asked Congress for another $37.7 billion. In the spring of 2023, the new Republican controlled House will consider aid in the context of the administration's proposed budget. The world cannot look to marginal and stupid leaders at this time.

Equating dollars with death and destruction from a military war started by an out of control power is beyond any cost benefit analysis and is immoral. However, for those untouched by war and unable to understand, the Ukrainians have plainly stated the case: Pay now and we will do the fighting here and stop this aggression here, or pay later with new massive aggression and attacks on Democratic states around the world by non-Democratic states watching closely and waiting. This new military threat posed by Russia on the US is beyond any cost benefit analysis. A key question to ask for those fixated on cost benefit analysis is what is the benefit offered by Ukrainians engaged in the fight - the benefit is priceless, it is beyond any measurable level.

This is war. This is what war is like. Cost benefit analysis are irrelevant as survival is at stake. Those that are attacked do not want war, but what does one do once the war is started by an out of control nation state that attacks with military weapons and refuses to stop? This is the horror of war and why war must never take root by an aggressor. The reality is the Russians should have been stopped in 2022 as soon as they placed military equipment that sat for weeks on Ukrainian soil. This is the point the Ukrainians are trying to make. Stop the aggression immediately, do not wait. From the Ukrainians the message is - we Ukrainians waited thinking Russia would not attack and look what happened - even though US intelligence was stating what was about to happen, they were correct. The costs of waiting are beyond anyones imagination. Escalation continues and all exit points are lost. Generational hate and the desire for revenge is established.

The lesson from WW II that the Ukrainians keep trying to communicate is that appeasement failed then and it is failing now in this century. They are trying to communicate that this is a war between Democracy and Non-Democracy states just like prior to WW II. The Non-Democracy states are publicly stating that they are the future and they want control. This is the same scenario that was unfolding prior to WW II. At that time the US was actively debating if it made sense to maintain its Democracy as Totalitarian Fascists and others were making their cases to abandon their Democracy. Eventually the US and Great Britain selected Democracy and they stated their reasons - Democracies are messy and slow but they self correct when the leaders go out of control, while totalitarian regimes fail because there is no way to remove leaders that go out of control, and these out of control leaders destroy their nations and their people. According to the Ukrainians, this is where Russia is at this point in history. President Zelensky stated that the Russian people must defeat the Kremlin in their minds if they are to be free.

Chief among President Zelensky's requests was for G20 leaders to use their power to make Russia abandon nuclear threats and to implement a price cap on energy imported from Moscow. He also called for an all for all prisoner swap with Russia, saying: Thousands of our people - military and civilians - are in Russian captivity. We must release all these people, we must unite for the sake of the only realistic model of the release of prisoners - all for all.

Days later on December 23, the US congress approved an additional $45 billion dollars and the Patriot Missiles for Ukraine. The Ukrainians have stated that this is a turning point in the war.

There are two transcripts offered. The first one is from the President of Ukraine Official website and the second is from US media sites.

We stand, we fight and we will win. Because we are united. Ukraine, America and the entire free world - address by Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a joint meeting of the US Congress

In all states, cities and communities. All those who value freedom and justice. Who cherish it as strongly, as we, Ukrainians, in all our cities, in each and every family. I hope my words of respect and gratitude resonate in each American heart!

Madam Vice President, I thank you for your efforts in helping Ukraine! Madam Speaker, you bravely visited Ukraine during the full-fledged war, thank you very much! It is a great honor, a great privilege to be here!

Dear members of the Congress - representatives of both parties - who also visited Kyiv! Esteemed Congressmen and Senators - from both parties - who will visit Ukraine, I’m sure, in the future! Dear representatives of diaspora - present in this chamber and spread across the country! Dear journalists!

It's a great honor for me to be at the U.S. Congress and speak to you and all Americans!

Against all odds and doom and gloom scenarios, Ukraine did not fall. Ukraine is alive and kicking.

And it gives me good reason to share with you our first joint victory - we defeated Russia in the battle for minds of the world. We have no fear. Nor should anyone in the world have it.

Ukrainians gained this victory - and it gives us courage, which inspires the entire world.

Americans gained this victory - and that's why you have succeeded in uniting the global community to protect freedom and international law.

Europeans gained this victory - and that's why Europe is now stronger and more independent than ever.

The Russian tyranny has lost control over us and it will never influence our minds again.

Yet, we have to do whatever it takes to ensure that countries of the Global South also gain such victory.

I know one more thing - the Russians will stand a chance to be free only when they defeat the Kremlin in their minds.

Yet, the battle continues! And we have to defeat the Kremlin on the battlefield.

This battle is not only for the territory - for this or another part of Europe. This battle is not only for life, freedom and security of Ukrainians or any other nation, which Russia attempts to conquer. This struggle will define - in what world our children and grandchildren will live and then - their children and grandchildren. It will define whether it will be a democracy - for Ukrainians and for Americans - for all.

This battle cannot be frozen or postponed. It cannot be ignored hoping that the ocean or something else will provide a protection.

From the United States to China, from Europe to Latin America, and from Africa to Australia - the world is too interconnected and interdependent to allow someone to stay aside - and at the same time - to feel safe when such a battle continues.

And next year will be a turning point. The point, when Ukrainian courage and American resolve must guarantee the future of our common freedom. The freedom of people, who stand for their values.

Yesterday - before coming here to Washington DC - I was at the frontline, in our Bakhmut. In our stronghold in the East of Ukraine - in the Donbas.

The Russian military and mercenaries have been attacking Bakhmut non-stop since May. They have been attacking it day and night. But Bakhmut stands.

Last year seventy thousand people lived there in Bakhmut and now only few civilians stay.

Every inch of that land is soaked in blood. Roaring guns sound every hour. Trenches in the Donbas change hands several times a day in fierce combat and even hand fighting. But the Ukrainian Donbas stands.

Russians use everything they have against Bakhmut and our other beautiful cities.

The occupiers have a significant advantage in artillery. They have an advantage in ammunition. They have much more missiles and planes than we ever had.

The Russian tactic is primitive. They burn down and destroy everything they see. They sent thugs to the frontlines. They sent convicts to the war...

They threw everything against us - similar to the other tyranny, which in the Battle of the Bulge threw everything it had against the free world. Just like the brave American soldiers, which held their lines and fought back Hitler’s forces during the Christmas of 1944, brave Ukrainian soldiers are doing the same to Putin’s forces this Christmas. Ukraine holds its lines and will never surrender!

So, here is the frontline - the tyranny, which has no lack of cruelty - against the lives of free people.

And your support is crucial - not just to stand in such fights, but to get to the turning point. To win on the battlefield.

We have artillery. Yes. Thank you. Is it enough? Honestly, not really. To ensure Bakhmut is not just a stronghold that holds back the Russian army - but for the Russian army to completely pull out - more cannons and shells are needed.

If so, just like the battle of Saratoga, the fight for Bakhmut will change the trajectory of our war for independence and freedom.

If your <<Patriot>> stop the Russian terror against our cities, it will let Ukrainian patriots work to the full to defend our freedom.

When Russia cannot reach our cities by its artillery, it tries to destroy them with missile attacks. More than that, Russia found an Ally in its genocidal policy - Iran.

Iranian deadly drones, sent to Russia in hundreds, became a threat to our critical infrastructure. That is how one terrorist has found the other. It is just a matter of time - when they will strike against your other allies, if we do not stop them now. We must do it!

I believe there should be no taboos between us in our alliance. Ukraine never asked the American soldiers to fight on our land instead of us. I assure you that Ukrainian soldiers can perfectly operate American tanks and planes themselves.

Financial assistance is also critically important. And I would like to thank you for both, financial packages you have already provided us with, and the ones you may be willing to decide on. Your money is not charity. It's an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.

Russia could stop its aggression if it wanted to, but you can speed up our victory. I know it.

And it will prove to any potential aggressor that no one can succeed in breaking national borders, committing atrocities and reigning over people against their will.

It would be naive to wait for steps towards peace from Russia - which enjoys being a terrorist state. Russians are still poisoned by the Kremlin.

The restoration of international legal order is our joint task. We need peace. Ukraine has already offered proposals, which I just discussed with President Biden - our Peace Formula.

Ten points, which should and must be implemented for our joint security - guaranteed for decades ahead.

I am glad to stress that President Biden supported our peace initiative today. Each of you, ladies and gentlemen, can assist in its implementation - to ensure that America’s leadership remains solid, bicameral and bipartisan.

You can strengthen sanctions to make Russia feel how ruinous its aggression truly is.

It is in your power to help us bring to justice everyone, who started this unprovoked and criminal war. Let's do it!

Let the terrorist state be held responsible for its terror and aggression, and compensate all losses done by this war.

In two days, we will celebrate Christmas. Maybe, candlelit. Not because it is more romantic. But because there will be no electricity. Millions won't have neither heating nor running water. All of this will be the result of Russian missile and drone attacks on our energy infrastructure. But we do not complain.

Your well-being is the product of your national security - the result of your struggle for independence and your many victories.

We, Ukrainians, will also go through our war of independence and freedom with dignity and success.

We'll celebrate Christmas - and even if there is no electricity, the light of our faith in ourselves will not be put out. If Russian missiles attack us - we'll do our best to protect ourselves. If they attack us with Iranian drones and our people will have to go to bomb shelters on Christmas eve - Ukrainians will still sit down at a holiday table and cheer up each other. And we don't have to know everyone's wish as we know that all of us, millions of Ukrainians, wish the same - victory. Only victory.

We already built strong Ukraine - with strong people, strong army, and strong institutions. Together with you!

We develop strong security guarantees for our country and for entire Europe and the world. Together with you!

And also - together with you! - we’ll put in place everyone, who will defy freedom.

Now, on this special Christmas time, I want to thank you. All of you. I thank every American family, which cherishes the warmth of its home and wishes the same warmth to other people.

I thank President Biden and both parties at the Senate and the House - for your invaluable assistance.

I thank your cities and your citizens, who supported Ukraine this year, who hosted our people, who waved our national flags, who acted to help us.

Thank you all! From everyone, who is now at the frontline. From everyone, who is awaiting victory.

Standing here today, I recall the words of the President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which are so good for this moment: "The American People in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory".

The Ukrainian People will win, too. Absolutely. I know that everything depends on us. On Ukrainian Armed Forces! Yet, so much depends on the world! So much in the world depends on you!

When I was in Bakhmut yesterday, our heroes gave me the flag. The battle flag. The flag of those who defend Ukraine, Europe and the world at the cost of their lives. They asked me to bring this flag to the US Congress - to members of the House of Representatives and Senators, whose decisions can save millions of people.

We stand, we fight and we will win. Because we are united. Ukraine, America and the entire free world.

May God protect our brave troops and citizens! May God forever bless the United States of America!

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for that. Thank you. It’s too much for me. All this for our great people. Thank you so much.

Dear Americans, in all states, cities and communities, all those who value freedom and justice, who cherish it as strongly as we Ukrainians in our cities, in each and every family, I hope my words of respect and gratitude resonate in each American heart.

Madam Vice President, I thank you for your efforts in helping Ukraine. Madam Speaker, you bravely visited Ukraine during the full-fledged war. Thank you very much. Great honor. Thank you.

I am very privileged to be here. Dear members of the Congress, representatives of both parties who also visited Kyiv, esteemed congressmen and senators from both parties who will visit Ukraine, I am sure, in the future; dear representatives of diaspora, present in this chamber, and spread across the country; dear journalists, it’s a great honor for me to be at the U.S. Congress and speak to you and all Americans.

Against all odds and doom-and-gloom scenarios, Ukraine didn’t fall. Ukraine is alive and kicking. Thank you. And it gives me good reason to share with you our first, first joint victory: We defeated Russia in the battle for minds of the world. We have no fear, nor should anyone in the world have it. Ukrainians gained this victory, and it gives us courage which inspires the entire world.

Americans gained this victory, and that’s why you have succeeded in uniting the global community to protect freedom and international law. Europeans gained this victory, and that’s why Europe is now stronger and more independent than ever. The Russian tyranny has lost control over us. And it will never influence our minds again.

Yet, we have to do whatever it takes to ensure that countries of the Global South also gain such victory. I know one more, I think very important, thing: The Russians will stand a chance to be free only when they defeat the Kremlin in their minds. Yet, the battle continues, and we have to defeat the Kremlin on the battlefield, yes.

This battle is not only for the territory, for this or another part of Europe. The battle is not only for life, freedom and security of Ukrainians or any other nation which Russia attempts to conquer. This struggle will define in what world our children and grandchildren will live, and then their children and grandchildren.

It will define whether it will be a democracy of Ukrainians and for Americans — for all. This battle cannot be frozen or postponed. It cannot be ignored, hoping that the ocean or something else will provide a protection. From the United States to China, from Europe to Latin America, and from Africa to Australia, the world is too interconnected and interdependent to allow someone to stay aside and at the same time to feel safe when such a battle continues.

Our two nations are allies in this battle. And next year will be a turning point, I know it, the point when Ukrainian courage and American resolve must guarantee the future of our common freedom, the freedom of people who stand for their values.

Ladies and gentlemen — ladies and gentlemen, Americans, yesterday before coming here to Washington, D.C., I was at the front line in our Bakhmut. In our stronghold in the east of Ukraine, in the Donbas. The Russian military and mercenaries have been taking Bakhmut nonstop since May. They have been taking it day and night, but Bakhmut stands.

Last year — last year, 70,000 people lived here in Bakhmut, in this city, and now only few civilians stay. Every inch of that land is soaked in blood; roaring guns sound every hour. Trenches in the Donbas change hands several times a day in fierce combat, and even hand fighting. But the Ukrainian Donbas stands.

Russians — Russians use everything, everything they have against Bakhmut and other our beautiful cities. The occupiers have a significant advantage in artillery. They have an advantage in ammunition. They have much more missiles and planes than we ever had. It’s true, but our defense forces stand. And — and we all are proud of them.

The Russians’ tactic is primitive. They burn down and destroy everything they see. They sent thugs to the front lines. They sent convicts to the war. They threw everything against us, similar to the other tyranny, which is in the Battle of the Bulge. Threw everything it had against the free world, just like the brave American soldiers which held their lines and fought back Hitler’s forces during the Christmas of 1944. Brave Ukrainian soldiers are doing the same to Putin’s forces this Christmas.

Ukraine — Ukraine holds its lines and will never surrender. So, so, here the front line, the tyranny which has no lack of cruelty against the lives of free people — and your support is crucial, not just to stand in such fight but to get to the turning point to win on the battlefield.

We have artillery, yes. Thank you. We have it. Is it enough? Honestly, not really. To ensure Bakhmut is not just a stronghold that holds back the Russian Army, but for the Russian Army to completely pull out, more cannons and shells are needed. If so, just like the Battle of Saratoga, the fight for Bakhmut will change the trajectory of our war for independence and for freedom.

If your Patriots stop the Russian terror against our cities, it will let Ukrainian patriots work to the full to defend our freedom. When Russia — when Russia cannot reach our cities by its artillery, it tries to destroy them with missile attacks. More than that, Russia found an ally in this — in this genocidal policy: Iran. Iranian deadly drones sent to Russia in hundreds — in hundreds became a threat to our critical infrastructure. That is how one terrorist has found the other.

It is just a matter of time when they will strike against your other allies if we do not stop them now. We must do it. I believe there should be no taboos between us in our alliance. Ukraine never asked the American soldiers to fight on our land instead of us. I assure you that Ukrainian soldiers can perfectly operate American tanks and planes themselves.

Financial assistance is also critically important, and I would like to thank you, thank you very much, thank you for both financial packages you have already provided us with and the ones you may be willing to decide on. Your money is not charity. It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.

Russia, Russia could stop its aggression, really, if it wanted to, but you can speed up our victory. I know it. And it, it will prove to any potential aggressor that no one can succeed in breaking national borders, no one committing atrocities and reigning over people against their will. It would be naïve to wait for steps towards peace from Russia, which enjoys being a terrorist state. Russians are still poisoned by the Kremlin.

The restoration of international legal order is our joint task. We need peace, yes. Ukraine has already offered proposals, which I just discussed with President Biden, our peace formula, 10 points which should and must be implemented for our joint security, guaranteed for decades ahead and the summit which can be held.

I’m glad to say that President Biden supported our peace initiative today. Each of you, ladies and gentlemen, can assist in the implementation to ensure that America’s leadership remains solid, bicameral and bipartisan. Thank you.

You can strengthen sanctions to make Russia feel how ruinous its aggression truly is. It is in your power, really, to help us bring to justice everyone who started this unprovoked and criminal war. Let’s do it. Let terrorist — let the terrorist state be held responsible for its terror and aggression and compensate all losses done by this war. Let the world see that the United States are here.

Ladies and gentlemen — ladies and gentlemen, Americans, in two days we will celebrate Christmas. Maybe candlelit. Not because it’s more romantic, no, but because there will not be, there will be no electricity. Millions won’t have neither heating nor running water. All of these will be the result of Russian missile and drone attacks on our energy infrastructure.

But we do not complain. We do not judge and compare whose life is easier. Your well-being is the product of your national security; the result of your struggle for independence and your many victories. We, Ukrainians, will also go through our war of independence and freedom with dignity and success.

We’ll celebrate Christmas. Celebrate Christmas and, even if there is no electricity, the light of our faith in ourselves will not be put out. If Russian — if Russian missiles attack us, we’ll do our best to protect ourselves. If they attack us with Iranian drones and our people will have to go to bomb shelters on Christmas Eve, Ukrainians will still sit down at the holiday table and cheer up each other. And we don’t, don’t have to know everyone’s wish, as we know that all of us, millions of Ukrainians, wish the same: Victory. Only victory.

We already built strong Ukraine, with strong people, strong army, strong institutions together with you. We developed strong security guarantees for our country and for entire Europe and the world, together with you. And also together with you, we’ll put in place everyone who will defy freedom. Put-in.

This will be the basis to protect democracy in Europe and the world over. Now, on this special Christmastime, I want to thank you, all of you. I thank every American family which cherishes the warmth of its home and wishes the same warmth to other people. I thank President Biden and both parties, at the Senate and the House, for your invaluable assistance. I thank your cities and your citizens who supported Ukraine this year, who hosted our Ukrainians, our people, who waved our national flags, who acted to help us. Thank you all, from everyone who is now at the front line, from everyone who is awaiting victory.

Standing here today, I recall the wars of the president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which are I think so good for this moment. The American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory. The Ukrainian people will win, too, absolutely.

I know that everything depends on us, on Ukrainian armed forces, yet so much depends on the world. So much in the world depends on you. When I was in Bakhmut yesterday, our heroes gave me the flag, the battle flag, the flag of those who defend Ukraine, Europe and the world at the cost of their lives. They asked me to bring this flag to you, to the U.S. Congress, to members of the House of Representatives and senators whose decisions can save millions of people.

So, let these decisions be taken. Let this flag stay with you, ladies and gentlemen. This flag is a symbol of our victory in this war. We stand, we fight and we will win because we are united — Ukraine, America and the entire free world.

Just one thing, if I can, the last thing — thank you so much, may God protect our brave troops and citizens, may God forever bless the United States of America. Merry Christmas and a happy, victorious New Year. Slava Ukraini. [Glory to Ukraine.]

President Xi Jinping Video Call with US President Joe Biden

On the evening of 18 March, President Xi Jinping had a video call with US President Joe Biden at the request of the latter. The two Presidents had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on China-US relations, the situation in Ukraine, and other issues of mutual interest.

President Biden said that 50 years ago, the US and China made the important choice of issuing the Shanghai Communiqué. Fifty years on, the US-China relationship has once again come to a critical time. How this relationship develops will shape the world in the 21st century. Biden reiterated that the US does not seek a new Cold War with China; it does not aim to change China’s system; the revitalization of its alliances is not targeted at China; the US does not support “Taiwan independence”; and it has no intention to seek a conflict with China. The US is ready to have candid dialogue and closer cooperation with China, stay committed to the one-China policy, and effectively manage competition and disagreements to ensure the steady growth of the relationship. President Biden expressed readiness to stay in close touch with President Xi to set the direction for the US-China relationship.

President Xi noted the new major developments in the international landscape since their first virtual meeting last November. The prevailing trend of peace and development is facing serious challenges. The world is neither tranquil nor stable. As permanent members of the UN Security Council and the world’s two leading economies, China and the US must not only guide their relations forward along the right track, but also shoulder their share of international responsibilities and work for world peace and tranquility.

President Xi stressed that he and President Biden share the view that China and the US need to respect each other, coexist in peace and avoid confrontation, and that the two sides should increase communication and dialogue at all levels and in all fields. President Biden has just reiterated that the US does not seek to have a new Cold War with China, to change China’s system, or to revitalize alliances against China, and that the US does not support “Taiwan independence” or intend to seek a conflict with China. “I take these remarks very seriously,” said President Xi.

President Xi pointed out that the China-US relationship, instead of getting out of the predicament created by the previous US administration, has encountered a growing number of challenges. What’s worth noting in particular is that some people in the US have sent a wrong signal to “Taiwan independence” forces. This is very dangerous. Mishandling of the Taiwan question will have a disruptive impact on the bilateral ties. China hopes that the US will give due attention to this issue. The direct cause for the current situation in the China-US relationship is that some people on the US side have not followed through on the important common understanding reached by the two Presidents and have not acted on President Biden’s positive statements. The US has misperceived and miscalculated China’s strategic intention.

President Xi underscored that there have been and will continue to be differences between China and the US. What matters is to keep such differences under control. A steadily growing relationship is in the interest of both sides.

President Biden expounded on the US position, and expressed readiness for communication with China to prevent the situation from exacerbating.

President Xi pointed out that China does not want to see the situation in Ukraine to come to this. China stands for peace and opposes war. This is embedded in China’s history and culture. China makes a conclusion independently based on the merits of each matter. China advocates upholding international law and universally recognized norms governing international relations. China adheres to the UN Charter and promotes the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security. These are the major principles that underpin China’s approach to the Ukraine crisis. China has put forward a six-point initiative on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, and is ready to provide further humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and other affected countries. All sides need to jointly support Russia and Ukraine in having dialogue and negotiation that will produce results and lead to peace. The US and NATO should also have dialogue with Russia to address the crux of the Ukraine crisis and ease the security concerns of both Russia and Ukraine.

President Xi stressed that with the need to fight COVID-19 on the one hand and protect the economy and people’s livelihood on the other, things are already very difficult for countries around the world. As leaders of major countries, we need to think about how to properly address global hotspot issues and, more importantly, keep in mind global stability and the work and life of billions of people. Sweeping and indiscriminate sanctions would only make the people suffer. If further escalated, they could trigger serious crises in global economy and trade, finance, energy, food, and industrial and supply chains, crippling the already languishing world economy and causing irrevocable losses. The more complex the situation, the greater the need to remain cool-headed and rational. Whatever the circumstances, there is always a need for political courage to create space for peace and leave room for political settlement. As two Chinese sayings go, “It takes two hands to clap.” “He who tied the bell to the tiger must take it off.” It is imperative that the parties involved demonstrate political will and find a proper settlement in view of both immediate and long-term needs. Other parties can and should create conditions to that end. The pressing priority is to keep the dialogue and negotiation going, avoid civilian casualties, prevent a humanitarian crisis, and cease hostilities as soon as possible. An enduring solution would be for major countries to respect each other, reject the Cold War mentality, refrain from bloc confrontation, and build step by step a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture for the region and for the world. China has been doing its best for peace and will continue to play a constructive role.

The two Presidents agreed that the video call is constructive. They directed their teams to promptly follow up and take concrete actions to put China-US relations back on the track of steady development, and make respective efforts for the proper settlement of the Ukraine crisis.

Russia Invades Ukraine

On February 23, 2022 at 10:00 PM Russia began the invasion of Ukraine with missile strikes in the heart of Ukraine. At an emergency UN meeting the Ukrainian representative stated that Russia declared war on Ukraine and offered to play the speech from Putin announcing the invasion. The Ukrainian representative then stated that Russia violated its UN membership suggesting that Russian membership was no longer valid and that a special meeting be convened immediately to stop this war.

The western media are clearly stating that Putin is no longer acting rationally and that we are the point in history like 1939 when like Germany, Russia invaded a country for no reason other than empire building.

It is unclear what the Russian army will do and it is unclear how the Ukrainians will deal with the invading army. Everyone assumes a terrible fight but that may not be the case.

Military and Other Capabilities

The military challenge is higher than in previous wars Russia has fought since the Soviet Union's collapse, including in breakaway Chechnya (1.4 million people) in the 1990s and against Georgia (10.6 million people) in 2008.

Name	Role	Birth Date	Age
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy	Democratically Elected President of Ukraine	January 25, 1978	44
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin	President of Russia since 2012	October 7, 1952	69

Comparing Ukraine And Russia's Military Might. This is a report by Global Firepower that shows the disparities in military power between Ukraine and Russia. Helicopters includes all such aircraft, including attack helicopters. Published on January 21, 2022. Data as of January 2022. [14]

Military Capability	Ukraine	Russia	NATO
Population (million)	44	144	947
Defense budget (billion)	$11.9	$154	$1,200
Active manpower	200,000	850,000	3,366,000
Armored vehicles	12,303	30,122	115,855
Attack aircraft	98	1,511	3,527
Airforce		4,173	20,700
Naval Fleet strength	38	605	2,049
Helicopters	146	2,087	8,485
Mobile rocket launchers	490	3,391	2,803
Paramilitary manpower	50,000	250,000	738,700
Reserve manpower	250,000	250,000	1,301,000
Self-propelled artillery	1,067	6,574	5,040
Special-mission aircraft	5	132	1,014
Tanks	2,596	12,420	14,682
Towed artillery	2,040	7,571	5,495
Trainer aircraft	71	522	-
Transports aircraft	32	445	1,543
Naval Forces		605	2,049
Nuclear Weapons	0000	6,065	6,255

The following is a comparison of the military capabilities of NATO and Russia as of March 03, 2022 and March 16, 2022.

Military Capability	NATO 03/03/22	Russia 03/03/22	Ukraine 03/16/22
Personnel	-	-	-
Total military personnel	5,405,700	1,350,000	500,000
Active soldiers	3,366,000	850,000	200,000
Reserve forces	1,301,000	250,000	250,000
Paramilitary units	738,700	250,000	50,000
Air Force	-	-	-
Total aircraft	20,723	4,173	318
Fighters / interceptors	3,527	772	69
Ground attack aircraft	1,048	739	29
Transport aircraft	1,543	445	32
Special aircraft (e.g reconnaissance)	1,014	132
Tanker aircraft	678	20
Total helicopters	8,485	1,543	112
Combat helicopters	1,359	544	34
Trainers		522	71
Ground combat vehicles	-	-	-
Main battle tanks	14,682	12,420
Armored vehicles	115,855	30,122
Self-propelled artillery	5,040	6,574
Tower artillery	5,495	7,571
Self-propelled rocket launchers	2,803	3,391
Naval forces	-	-	-
Total military ships	2,049	605
Destroyers	112	15
Frigates	135	11
Corvettes	56	86
Aircraft carriers	17	1
Submarines	144	70
Patrol boats	298	59
Minesweepers	153	49
Nuclear Weapons	-	-	-
Nuclear warheads	6,065	6,255

Ukrainian History 1

They got most of it right except for one small detail that is actually the massive reason why we are watching this massive human disaster unfold. That detail is provided at the end of this section in bold text.

The poem Calamity Again was written in Ukrainian, in 1859. Taras Shevchenko, was not speaking metaphorically when he wrote about slavery. Shevchenko was born into a family of serfs and slaves on an estate in central Ukraine. At the time it was controlled by the Russian empire. Taken away from his family as a child, he followed his master to St. Petersburg, where he was trained as a painter and also began to write poetry. Impressed by his talent, a group of other artists and writers helped him purchase his freedom. [10]

Shevchenko is recognized as one of Ukraine’s most prominent poets. His words define the particular set of memories and emotions that describes Ukrainian national identity. Much has been written about Russian views of Ukraine. On February 21, 2022, in an hour long rant, Putin the president of Russia thinks Ukraine shouldn’t exist at all. Ukrainians have a different view as they fight for their national identity and resist cultural genocide.

The Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians, came from the medieval state of Kyivan Rus. Like the Irish and the Slovaks, Ukrainians became a land based colony of other empires. In the 16th and 17th centuries Ukrainian noblemen learned to speak Polish and participated in Polish court life. Later some Ukrainians learned Russian to seek positions of power in the Russian empire and then in the Soviet Union.

During those same centuries, a sense of Ukraine identity developed that was linked to the peasantry, serfs, and farmers who would not assimilate. They are not the noblemen, they are not the elites, they are the majority of the people that form a culture and make a country. The Ukrainian language, as well as Ukrainian art and music were all preserved in the countryside, while in the Ukrainian cities Polish or Russian was spoken. Ukrainian identity was once a statement about status and social position as well as ethnicity. Being Ukrainian meant defining oneself against the nobility, against the ruling class, against the merchant class, against the urbanites. Later, it meant being against the Soviet Union. Ukrainian partisans fought against the Red Army in 1918, the Second World War, and the early years of the Cold War. The Ukrainian identity was and is anti elitist.

In the 19th century Ukrainian culture was expressed in voluntary, religious, and charitable organizations, civil society self help, and study groups that published periodicals and newspapers. They founded schools, Sunday schools, and promoted literacy among the peasants. As they gained strength and numbers, Moscow saw these grassroots Ukrainian organizations as a threat to the unity of imperial Russia. In 1863 and 1876, the empire banned Ukrainian books and persecuted Ukrainians who wrote and published the books. Shevchenko spent years in exile.

Ukrainian culture survived in the villages and grew stronger among intellectuals and writers. Ukrainians attempted to establish a nation state (country) during the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. They lost that chance in the civil war, but the Bolsheviks allowed a Ukraine republic within the Soviet Union that was run by Ukrainian Communists. Ukrainian mistrust of authority, especially Soviet authority, is ingrained in the culture. In 1929 when Stalin started forced collectivization of agriculture across the Soviet Union a series of rebellions broke out in Ukraine. Stalin feared that he would, as he put it, lose Ukraine. Stalin feared that even Ukrainian communists did not want to obey his orders. The soviet secret police organized teams of activists to go from house to house and confiscate food in rural Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians died in the resulting famine. Mass arrests of Ukrainian intellectuals, writers, linguists, museum curators, poets, and painters followed.

In 1991 a grassroots civic movement won independence from the Soviet Union. Ukrainians remained wary of the state, even of their own state, in the following years. The state, the government, the rulers, the power, were not trusted. There was no tradition of Ukrainian public service, civil service, or military service. There was massive corruption in all of the former Soviet republics but it was very bad in Ukraine, perhaps because of this distrust and lack of service.

Eventually millions of Ukrainians began to wake up and resist both corruption and autocracy. Ukrainians in the 21st century became invigorated with the desire for democracy, for freedom, for the rule of law, for integration in Europe. By the beginning of the 21st century, Ukrainians began to object to the post Soviet establishment linked by financial interests to Russia.

In 2005 and 2014, self-organized Ukrainian movements toppled their Russian backed corrupt kleptocratic autocratic leaders who fixed Ukrainian elections, ignored the rule of law, and blatantly stole massive amounts of wealth. In 2005, Russia responded with a renewed effort to interfere in Ukrainian politics. In 2014, Russia invaded Crimea and eastern Ukrainian cities in Donbas.

In 2019, 70 percent of Ukrainians voted against the establishment and a total outsider became president. A Jewish actor born in eastern Ukraine with no political experience. He had long history of making fun of those who are in power. This is the kind of humor that Ukrainians value most. Volodymyr Zelensky was famous for playing a school teacher who rants against corruption and is filmed by a student. In the television series, the clip goes viral and the teacher wins the presidency. Zelensky, the actor makes fun of of the corrupt players and outsmarts them in the long running TV series. Ukrainians wanted Zelensky the real life president to do the same for real in their country of Ukraine.

During his election campaign, Zelensky promised to end the war with Russia. The conflict along the border of eastern Ukraine has taken more than 14,000 lives in the past decade. Many Ukrainians hoped he would achieve that goal. He did seek to establish links to the inhabitants of occupied Crimea and Donbas. He asked for meetings with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. He also kept seeking Ukrainian integration with the West.

Ukraine is now under brutal attack. Tens of thousands of Russian troops are moving through its eastern provinces, along its northern border and its southern coast.

Like the Russian czars, Stalin, and Lenin before Putin, he perceives Ukrainians as a threat. Not a military threat, but an ideological threat. Ukraine’s determination to become a democracy is a genuine challenge to Putin’s imperial political project of the creation of an autocratic kleptocracy in which he is all-powerful. Ukraine undermines this project just by existing as an independent state. By striving for something better, for freedom and prosperity, Ukraine becomes a dangerous rival. If Ukraine succeeds in its decades long push for democracy, the rule of law, and European integration, then the Russian make seek the same.

Just like in the CIA Factbook on Ukraine, absent from the above brief history on Ukraine is the most significant event in human history. In 1994 the country of Ukraine had the world's third largest nuclear weapons stockpile. They gave up their nuclear weapons between 1994 and 1996 as part of an agreement that would ensure that its territorial integrity would be preserved. The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances is an agreement signed at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Budapest, Hungary on December 5, 1994. The agreement was signed by three nuclear powers, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. At the heart of this current war is the fact that this guarantee for security and territorial integrity was broken by Russia in 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea and occupied eastern Ukraine. It is unclear how such a significant event and agreement could be missing from this brief history on Ukraine because it fits with their cultural background described above. [1]

In systems analysis it is always about the key issues, key requirements, key system drivers.

Ukrainian History 2

The following are selected extracts that recently appeared in the Guardian. [15]

Thirty years ago, as the countries of the former Soviet Union declared their independence, everyone breathed a sigh of relief that the empire disappeared so gently. Aside from a nasty irredentist conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the ethnic Armenian exclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, there was very little violence. But gradually, almost imperceptibly, conflict began appearing at the edges of the former USSR. Advertisement

In Moldova, Russian troops supported a small separatist movement of Russian-speakers that eventually formed the tiny breakaway republic of Transnistria. In Georgia, the autonomous region of Abkhazia, also supported by Russian arms, fought a short war with the central government in Tbilisi, as did South Ossetia. Chechnya, a Russian republic that had fiercely resisted the encroachment of the empire throughout the 19th century, and which suffered terribly under Soviet rule, declared its own wish for independence, and was ground down in not one but two brutal wars. Tajikistan endured a civil war, in part a fallout from the civil war raging in Afghanistan, with which it shared a border. And on and on. In 2007, Russia launched a cyber-attack against Estonia, and in 2008, it responded to an attempt by Georgia to retake South Ossetia with a massive counter-offensive. Despite all this, it was still common for people to say that the dissolution of the Soviet Union had been miraculously peaceful. And then came Ukraine.

In the laboratory of nation-building that was the former empire, Ukraine stood out. Some of the Soviet former republics had longstanding political traditions and distinct linguistic, religious and cultural practices; others less so. The Baltic states had each been independent for two decades between the world wars. Most of the other republics had had, at best, a brief experiment with independence in the immediate wake of the collapse of tsarism in 1917. To complicate matters, many of the newfound nations had significant Russian-speaking populations who were either uninterested in or actively hostile toward their new national projects.

Ukraine was unique on all these fronts. Though it, too, had only existed as an independent state in modern times for a few short years, it had a powerful nationalist movement, a vibrant literary canon, and a strong memory of its independent place in the history of Europe before Peter the Great. It was very large - the second-largest country in Europe after Russia. It was industrialised, being a major producer of coal, steel and helicopter engines, as well as grain and sunflower seeds. It had a highly educated populace. And that populace at the time it became independent in 1991 numbered 52 million - second only to Russia among post-Soviet states. It was strategically located on the Black Sea and on the border with numerous eastern European states and future Nato members. It possessed what had once been the most beautiful beaches in the USSR, on the Crimean peninsula, where the Russian tsars had spent their summers, as well as the USSR's largest warm water naval port, in Sevastopol. It had suffered greatly during the German advance into the Soviet Union in 1941 - of the 13 'hero cities' of the USSR, so called because they saw the heaviest fighting and raised the stoutest resistance, four were in Ukraine (Kyiv, Odesa, Kerch and Sevastopol). The economies of Russia and Ukraine were deeply intertwined. Ukrainian factories in Dnipropetrovsk were a vital part of the military-industrial capacity of the USSR, and Russia's largest export gas pipelines ran through Ukraine. Strategically, in the words of historian Dominic Lieven, describing the situation circa the first world war, Ukraine could not have been more vital. 'Without Ukraine's population, industry and agriculture, early-20th-century Russia would have ceased to be a great power.' The same was true, or seemed to be true, in 1991.

Ukraine was not just geopolitically significant to Russia. It was culturally and historically, too. The Russian and Ukrainian languages had diverged sometime in the 13th century, and Ukraine had a distinct and notable literature, but the two remained close - about as close as Spanish and Portuguese. While most of the country was ethnically Ukrainian, there was, particularly in the east, a large ethnic Russian minority. Perhaps more important, while the official language was Ukrainian, the lingua franca in most of the large cities was Russian. And perhaps even more important than that, most people knew both languages. It was common on television to see a journalist, for example, ask a question in Russian and receive an answer in Ukrainian, or to have a panel of experts for a talent show with two Russian-language judges and two Ukrainian-language judges. It was a genuinely bilingual nation - a rare thing.

From a Russian nationalist perspective, that was a problem. Why speak two languages when you could just speak one? Crimea was a particularly sore spot: the vast majority of the population identified as Russian. And once you started thinking about Crimea, you then started thinking about eastern Ukraine. There were many Russians there. To be sure, there were also Russians in other places - in northern Kazakhstan, for example, and eastern Estonia. There were irredentist claims on these areas as well, and occasionally they flared up. The writer turned political provocateur Eduard Limonov, for example, was arrested in Moscow in 2001 for allegedly plotting to invade northern Kazakhstan and declare it an independent ethnic Russian republic. But no place held such a central part in the Russian historical imagination as Ukraine.

For the first 20 years of independence, Russia kept a very close eye on developments in Ukraine, and interfered in various ways, but that was as far as it went. That was as far as it needed to go. Ukraine's large Russian-language population guaranteed, or seemed to guarantee, that the country would not stray too far from the Russian sphere of influence.

In Ukraine itself, even aside from the Russian presence, there were the birth agonies of a nation. Many of the new post-Soviet countries had their share of problems - corrupt elites, restive ethnic minorities, a border with Russia. Ukraine had all this, and more. Because it was large and industrialised, there was plenty of it to steal. Because it had a major Black Sea port in the city of Odesa, there was an easily accessible seaway through which to steal it. As became clear in 2014, when it became time to use it, much of the equipment of the old Ukrainian army was smuggled out of the country through that port.

On top of this, Ukraine was, if not divided, then certainly not immediately recognizable as a unified whole. Because it had so many times been conquered and partitioned, the country's historical memory itself was fractured. In the words of one historian, 'Its different parts had different pasts.' To make things worse, one of the most treasured aspects of the political culture of Ukraine, historically - the legacy of the Cossack hetmanate of the 17th century - was anarchism. The original Cossacks were warriors who had escaped serfdom. Their political system was a radical democracy. There was something beautiful about this. But in terms of the construction of a modern state, it had its drawbacks. In a now-infamous CIA analysis written shortly after the creation of independent Ukraine, it was predicted that there was a good chance the country would fall apart.

And yet, for two decades, it didn't. For better and worse, democracy was rooted deep in Ukrainian political culture, and so while in Russia power was never transferred to an opposition, in Ukraine it happened again and again. In 1994, the first president of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, was voted out of office in favour of Leonid Kuchma, who promised better relations with Russia and to give the Russian language equal status in Ukraine. In 2004, his hand-picked successor, Viktor Yanukovych, was, after massive protests against a falsified election, voted out in favour of a more nationalist and pro-European candidate, Viktor Yushchenko. In 2010, Yushchenko proceeded to lose to a resurgent Yanukovych. But Yanukovych was thrown out of office by the Maidan revolution in 2014. A nationalist candidate and chocolate billionaire, Petro Poroshenko, became the next president, but he was replaced by Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a Russian-speaking pro-peace candidate, in 2019. Viktor Yushchenko after winning the re-run of the 2004 presidential election in Ukraine.

Ukrainian politics were full of conflict. Fist-fights in the Rada were common and protests were a fact of ordinary life. There were massive protests against Kuchma, for example, in 2000, when a recording surfaced of him apparently ordering the murder of the journalist Georgiy Gongadze, whose headless body had been found in the woods outside Kyiv. (Kuchma insisted the tapes were doctored. He was charged in 2011, but the prosecution was dropped after a court ruled the tapes inadmissible.) Yushchenko, the opposition candidate in 2004, barely survived a dioxin poisoning, which had all the markings of a Russian special operation. The initial round of voting in 2004 was marked by severe irregularities and clear voter fraud such as had not yet appeared in Russia. It took mass protests, known as the Orange Revolution, to win another round of voting, in which Yushchenko won. Yushchenko himself subsequently presided over a fair election in 2010, which he lost. And on and on.

These changes of power were alternately tumultuous and pedestrian, but they reflected genuine differences of opinion among the populace about what Ukraine should be. Some thought Ukraine should integrate further with Europe, others that it should remain friendly and closely connected with Russia. The cultural and historical differences between the different parts of Ukraine would surface in times of crisis.

For Russian speakers and Ukraine's remaining Jewish population, the memory of the second world war, of resistance to Nazi invasion and occupation, remained an important touchstone. Ukrainian nationalists had a different perspective on these events. For some, the occupation of their country began in 1921 (when the Bolsheviks consolidated control of Ukraine) or 1939 (when Stalin took the last part of western Ukraine as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Germany and the USSR to carve up Poland), if not 1654, when the Cossack Hetmanate sought the protection of the Russian tsar. The famous wartime resistance fighters known as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, who had opposed both Soviet and German occupation in western Ukraine, and who were seen as fascist villains by the Soviets, were, in the nationalist narrative, the George Washingtons of Ukrainian history. For nationalists, the signal tragedy of the 20th century was not the Nazi invasion, but instead the great famine of 1932-33, in which millions of Ukrainians died. It was known as the Holodomor - 'murder by hunger' - and was consistently referred to as a deliberate act by Stalin (and by extension Russia) to destroy the Ukrainian nation.

All these arguments took place against a backdrop of economic stagnation. Ukraine's economy was consistently one of the weakest in the former Soviet bloc. Corruption was endemic and living standards were low. Ukraine was dependent on cheap gas from Russia as well as the 'transit fees' it charged for Russian gas going to Europe.

To Ukrainians living under these see-sawing politics, going from hope to disappointment and back again, with what seemed like a permanent elite merely trading the presidency back and forth between themselves, it felt like their lives were passing them by. A journalist I met in Kyiv in 2010, who had taken part in the protests that were part of the Orange Revolution and was then let down by Yuschenko's presidency, lamented the missed opportunities. 'All this while time is passing,' he said. He couldn't believe how little had been done since 2005, and since 1991.

But there was another aspect to time passing. The more time passed, the more Ukraine's fragile nationhood could coalesce. Because what did it mean to belong to a nation? Where, in the words of the famous Soviet song, does the motherland begin? It begins with the pictures in the first book your mother reads you, according to the song. And to your good and true friends from the courtyard next door. The more people who were born in Ukraine, rather than the USSR, the more people grew up thinking of Kyiv as their capital instead of Moscow, and the more they learned the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian history, the stronger Ukraine would become. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in the TV show that made him famous in Ukraine and eventually catapulted him to the presidency, played a Russian-speaking high school history teacher who suddenly becomes president. In the brief scenes in which we see Zelenskiy's character actually teaching, he is quizzing his students about the great Ukrainian national historian and politician Mykhailo Hrushevsky.

It was violent Russian opposition to EU membership for Ukraine that in late 2013 precipitated the Maidan revolution, which in turn precipitated the Russian annexation of Crimea and incursion into eastern Ukraine. But after the end of the cold war, it was NATO expansion that had been the greatest irritant to the relationship between Russia and the west, a relationship that found Ukraine trapped in between.

NATO expansion proceeded very slowly, then seemingly all at once. In the immediate wake of the Soviet collapse, it was not a foregone conclusion that NATO would get bigger. In fact, most US policymakers, and the US military, opposed expanding the alliance. There was even talk, for a while, of disbanding NATO. It had served its purpose - to contain the Soviet Union - and now everyone could go their separate ways.

This changed in the early years of the Clinton administration. The motor for the change came from two directions. One was a group of idealistic foreign policy hands inside the Clinton national security council, and the other was the eastern European states.

After 1991, the post-communist countries of eastern Europe, particularly Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, found themselves in an uncertain security environment. Nearby Yugoslavia was falling apart, and they had their own potential border disputes. Most of all, though, they had a vivid memory of Russian imperialism. They did not believe Russia would remain weak for ever, and they wanted to align with NATO while they still could. 'If you don't let us into NATO, we're getting nuclear weapons,' Polish officials told a team of thinktank researchers in 1993. 'We don't trust the Russians.'

In presenting their case, it did not hurt that the leaders of the eastern European countries had a great deal of moral credibility. It was after a meeting with, among others, Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa in Prague in January 1994 that Bill Clinton announced that 'the question is no longer whether NATO will take on new members but when.' This formulation - not whether, but when - became official US policy. Five years later, the Czech Republic (having peacefully divorced Slovakia), Hungary and Poland were inducted into NATO. In the years to come, 11 more countries would join, bringing the total number of countries in the alliance to 30.

During the recent crisis, some American pundits and policymakers have claimed that Russia did not object to NATO until quite recently, when it was searching for a pretext to invade Ukraine. The claim is genuinely ludicrous. Russia has been protesting NATO expansion since the very beginning. The Russian deputy foreign minister told Clinton's top Russia hand Strobe Talbott in 1993 that 'NATO is a four-letter word'. At a joint press conference with Clinton in 1994, Boris Yeltsin, to whom Clinton had been such a loyal ally, reacted with fury when he realized that NATO was actually moving ahead with its plans to include the eastern European states. He predicted that a 'cold peace' in Europe would be the result.

Russia was too weak, and still too dependent on western loans, to do anything except complain and watch warily as NATO increased in power. The alliance's intervention in Kosovo in 1999 was particularly disturbing to the Russian leadership. It was, first of all, an intervention in a situation that Russia viewed as an internal conflict. Kosovo was, at the time, part of Serbia. After the NATO intervention, it was, in effect, no longer part of Serbia. Meanwhile the Russians had their own Kosovo-like situation in Chechnya, and it suddenly seemed to them that it was not impossible that NATO could intervene in that situation as well. As one American analyst who studied the Russian military told me: 'They got scared because they knew what the state of Russian conventional forces was. They saw what the actual state of US conventional forces was. And they saw that while they had a lot of problems in Chechnya with their own Muslim minority, the United States just intervened to basically break Kosovo off of Serbia.'

The next year, Russia officially changed its military doctrine to say that it could, if threatened, resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. One of the authors of the doctrine told the Russian military paper Krasnaya Zvezda that NATO's eastward expansion was a threat to Russia and that this was the reason for the lowered threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. That was 22 years ago.

The second post-Soviet round of NATO expansion was the largest. Agreed to in 2002 and made official in 2004, it brought Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia into the alliance. Almost all these states were part of the Soviet bloc, and Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - the 'Baltics' - were once part of the Soviet Union. Now they had joined the west.

As this was happening, a series of events shook up the Russian periphery. The 'colour revolutions' - coming in quick succession in Georgia in 2003 (Rose), Ukraine in 2004 (Orange) and Kyrgyzstan in 2005 (Tulip) - all used mass protests to eject corrupt pro-Russian incumbents. These events were greeted with great enthusiasm in the west as a reawakening of democracy, and with skepticism and trepidation in the Kremlin as an encroachment on Russian space. In the US, policymakers celebrated that freedom was on the march. In Moscow, there was a slightly paranoid concern that the colour revolutions were the work of the western secret services, and that Russia was next.

The Kremlin might not have been right about a long-range western plot, but they weren't wrong to think that the west never saw it as an equal, as a peer. The fact is that at every turn, at every sticking point, in every situation, the west, and the US in particular, did what it wanted to do. It was, at times, exquisitely sensitive to Russian perceptions; at other times, cavalier. But in all cases the US just pressed ahead. Eventually this just became the way things were. Relations between the two sides soured, and positions hardened. In 2006, Dick Cheney gave an aggressive speech in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, in which he celebrated the achievements of the Baltic nations. 'The system that has brought such great hope to the shores of the Baltic can bring the same hope to the far shores of the Black Sea, and beyond,' he said. 'What is true in Vilnius is also true in Tbilisi and Kyiv, and true in Minsk, and true in Moscow.' As Samuel Charap and Timothy Colton note in their excellent short history of the 2014 Ukraine conflict, Everyone Loses, 'One can only conjecture the reaction to such statements in the Kremlin.'

A year later, at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, in what is widely considered a key turning point in relations between Russia and the west, Putin delivered his response, assailing the US and its unipolar system for its arrogance, its flouting of international law, and its hypocrisy. 'We are constantly being taught about democracy,' he said of Russia. 'But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves.'

The warning was heard, but not heeded. In April 2008, in Bucharest, NATO countries met and delivered a promise that Georgia and Ukraine 'will become members of NATO'. It was, as many have since noted, the worst of both worlds: a promise of membership without any of the actual benefits, in the form of security guarantees, that membership would bring. A few months later, in what, up to that point, was by far the most significant military action outside its borders, Russia defeated Georgia in a decisive five-day war. Russian tanks in South Ossetia in Georgia in 2008.

In retrospect, one could argue that if NATO had moved faster and accepted Ukraine and Georgia much earlier, none of what followed would have happened. This argument has the virtue of examples to bolster it: the Baltics entered NATO, and despite being former Soviet republics, have experienced relatively little Russian harassment since. But one could also argue that, in the face of mounting Russian alarm and repeated warnings about 'red lines' over NATO, the US States and its allies should have been extra careful. They should have taken into account the specificity of the places they were dealing with, in particular Ukraine. Ukraine was not Russia, in Leonid Kuchma's famous phrase, but it was also not Poland. One of the problems with Ukraine's NATO bid in 2008, for example, pushed forth by the western-friendly Yushchenko administration, was that it was unpopular inside Ukraine - in large part because Ukrainians knew how Russia felt about it, and were rightly worried.

But as NATO and the EU both expanded further east, their representatives considered it a matter of principle not to make compromises with a regime they viewed as trying to bully them and Ukraine. Again, they may have been right in principle. In practice, Putin has been warning of this invasion, in one form or another, for 15 years. A great many voices are now saying that we should have been much tougher on Putin much earlier - that the sanctions we are now seeing should have been deployed after the war in Georgia in 2008, or after the polonium poisoning in London of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. But there is also a case to be made that we should have thought more deeply about how to create a security arrangement, and an economic one, in which Ukraine would never have been faced with such a fateful choice.

Still, at the centre of this tragedy lies one man: Vladimir Putin. He has embarked on a murderous and criminal war that also appears almost certain to be judged a colossal strategic blunder - uniting Europe, galvanising NATO, destroying his economy and isolating his country. What happened?

This war would have never happened if Ukraine did not give away their Nuclear weapons and instead took the same position as Poland. This US policy decision may have been the worst policy decision in the past 100 years. It was only a matter of time before Russia would eventually invade Ukraine, regardless of the reasons. Ukrainian Nuclear weapons would have placed Ukraine at the same level as Russia and Russia would have respected their position. Both countries would have found common ground and Ukraine would have never needed to ask for NATO entry. What a disaster.

This is a simple systems cause and effect analysis. Cause and effect move history. There must have been those that developed the various scenarios and it is clear that the long term scenario pointed to Ukraine being able to defend itself, especially in the context of Poland that also faced the same situation and deciding to keep their Nuclear weapons. It's not like Ukraine did not have massive Nuclear management capability in country. They had and continue to have multiple Nuclear power stations including one of the largest Nuclear power plants in Europe. This author remembers those days and Ukraine was painted as some corrupt unstable society filled with ignorant people that could not be trusted with Nuclear weapons. This was a lie and it did not reflect the facts of: a highly educated population, a population that was managing multiple Nuclear facilities, and a people that saved Europe from Nuclear contamination after the Chernobyl disaster. However, it is easy to see why Ukraine wanted to rid themselves of Nuclear weapons because of the Chernobyl disaster. They were taken advantage of by toxic forces. These are the same toxic forces at work today in 2022 as Ukraine fights for its very survival.

Systems Assessment and Possible Scenarios

Putin has stated that the greatest tragedy in the 20th century is the fall of the communist Soviet Union. It is clear that his policy has been and is to reconstitute the Russian Empire with its colonies from previous centuries. This war has nothing to do with NATO encroachment. If NATO did not expand, the world still would be facing this same result of Russia eventually using war to invade other countries and force them to become part of a new Russian empire. The following are possible scenarios from the invasion of Ukraine.

Scenario	Description	Status	Outcome	Comment
A.	There is little or no Ukrainian resistance. The Ukrainian president and political power structure flees the country. Russia establishes a new Russian puppet government in Ukraine. This is the best case scenario for Russia. This is probably what was expected by Putin.	Did not happen	Ukraine Loses the war	This is a devastating scenario for NATO and the USA. Putin begins the next steps of his policy to reconstitute the Russian Empire and other countries (the Baltics) are invaded eventually leading to Poland and then what was once East Germany.
B.	There is Ukrainian resistance, however the Ukrainian president and political power structure flees the country.	Did not happen	Ukraine Loses the war	See scenario A.
C.	There is Ukrainian resistance and the Ukrainian president and political power structure do not flee the country. They run out of supplies and Russia eventually takes the country.	Unlikely	Insurgency war	The world gains massive respect for Ukrainians and the Russian invasion is stalled. Demonstrations increase in Russia. However, there is no additional help from the world. The war becomes an insurgency war.
D.	Scenario C plus the world begins to provide more supplies.	Current state in March 2022	Insurgency war	Scenario C, but the insurgency war continues for years.
E.	Scenario D but Putin agrees to negotiations offered by President Zelensky.		Current situation defuses for the near term	This is an unlikely scenario because too much has been invested in the Russian war effort.
F.	Scenario D and Ukrainian resistance stalls invasion for months if not years.		Active war	Massive demonstrations in Russia but Russian policy does not change.
G.	Scenario F but Russian demonstrations have an internal impact. Putin and the related power structure is replaced in an internal revolution.		Ukraine wins the War	Most assume this is an unlikely scenario. However, war is always met with unknown outcomes. This could actually be a win win scenario. The Ukrainian and Russian people are free to pursue their futures.
H.	Ukraine is immediately admitted into NATO and directs Russia to immediately stop the war and begin peace talks with the new NATO country.		Unknown	Russia either continues the war, stops, or escalates the war to include NATO. Putin has made threats associated with their Nuclear status. It is unclear if the military would support Putin in a first strike order.
I.	Ukraine surrenders.	Unlikely to happen	Active war stops	This may save the Ukrainian cities. Russia will be brutal to all Ukrainians. There will be massive roundups of people and many will die or be sent to prisons. Russia will treat the west poorly. Ukrainian refugees will never return to Ukraine. Russian empire expansion will continue.
J.	Russia starts to run out of supplies and reaches out to others for supplies.	Current state in February 2023	Active war	China can provide the supply levels that will extend the war. However, they can not change the outcome because the Ukrainians have lost to much to surrender. This would have to translate into a full out Russian conquest of Ukraine. Russia failed to do this when they had the supplies. So China will not change the outcome. It will only diminish China in the 21st century.
K.	Russia runs out of supplies and soldiers with the will to fight.		Active war	Russian troops continue to be pushed out of occupied territories. The Ukrainians begin to take back territories lost in 2104.
L.	Scenario K and Russia decides to remove Putin		Peace talks	Ukrainian territory restored. Peace talks occur around war reparations and criminal trials.
M.	Russian people atone for what they allowed to happen with massive internal changes		Reconciliation and rebuilding	Russia begins a new path.

In recent Putin speeches (2/24 - 2/26 2022), there are significant signs of panic. Some suggest it is a tactic to show that he is insane as part of a Russian strategy. This is unlikely. He is actually under severe stress probably because this same type of scenario analysis was performed by Russian systems analysts. They expected Scenarios A or B. Instead they are currently facing Scenario F and fearing that they may soon need to deal with internal unrest that could lead to Scenario G. However, western journalists in Russia claim that mainstream Russians support the war. It is unclear if that support will shift as reality starts to sink into the mass mind in Russia.

Scenario H is extremely high risk. If the war continues and expands to other countries NATO may be forced to exercise Scenario H.

Some have suggested that this invasion is similar to the invasion of Poland by Germany in 1939. The invasion may be the same, and the words used by Hitler and Putin may be the same, but the cause is radically different. Germany was suffering from WW I reparations that left the economy and population devastated. Hitler came in, ended the democracy, and started to build a massive war machine that lifted Germany out of the massive poverty. This eventually led to a complete collapse of the German civilization as the Nazis took over and started their war and death system. Russia did not suffer the same level of economic collapse that Germany suffered. Its population did not suffer for a long period of time as the west tried to work with all the former Soviet regions. They were not isolated and forced to pay war reparations for the cold war fiasco. At the time of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian population enjoyed a relatively high standard of living. There was no reason for Russia to invade Ukraine. The Ukrainians did not do severe harm, real or perceived, to the Russian people. This is why President Biden has repeatedly stated that this is a war that was not needed, it is a war that should have never happened, this is Putins war.

This Russian war is a war of Empire building to feed ego and financial rewards to a few in Russia. It is a traditional war of conquest for the sake of conquest and what riches it may bring to the aggressors. This is a very sad chapter of history for the Russian people. If the aggression continues, and more people are harmed, eventually the Russian people will reach the same evil level as the German people. This is a history that they will never be able to erase.

The people of Russia arrived at this point because they rejected common sense and allowed a leader to remain in power for far too long a time period. At the first signs of corruption the people of Russia should have stood up and removed their leader. Instead they turned a blind eye. All systems are natural systems and all natural systems behave the same way. We know absolute power corrupts absolutely. No matter what anyone may claim that is the natural state of our world. If we are fortunate, those who have absolute power know their responsibility and will choose an enlightened path but that is rare.

This war is not a Russian Ukrainian war. It is much bigger that anyone realizes at this time including the Russian people.

There are additional systems assessments provided in the Key Daily Events section. They are significant.

Policy Assessment

The following is an assessment of Western policies towards Russia. It lists the events and shows the policy results.

Event	Western Policy	Russian Response	Spill Over	Russian Impacts	Ukrainian Impacts
Invasion of Donbas and Crimea	Failure	Invasion	No	Gained territory	Lost territory, Ukrainians died
Occupation of Donbas and Crimea	Failure	Escalation	No	Held territory	14,000 Ukrainians died in War since 2014.
Russian Army enters Ukraine beyond occupied territories	Failure	Invasion Phase 2	No	Sanctions	Ukrainians die
Russia attacks Ukrainian military targets	Failure	Escalation	No	Sanctions	Ukrainians die, massive refugees flee
Russia attacks Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure	Failure	Escalation	Yes	Sanctions, gaining cities	Ukrainians die, massive refugees flee
Russia surrounds and takes Ukrainian cities	Failure	Escalation	Yes	Sanctions, Russia nationalizing international companies	Ukrainians die, refugee crisis in receiving countries
Russia trying to surround and take Kyiv	Failure	Escalation	Yes	Russia requests military and economic support from China	Ukrainians die, refugee crisis in receiving countries

Systems Assessment: Western policy is being driven by European and Chinese dependence on Russian oil. Many alive today are wondering why the world is so intertwined and co-dependent. This was a conscious policy decision that was made in the 1970's. The thought at the time was that if the countries of the world were fully dependent on each other then the risk of war would be eliminated and the nuclear threat would become a distant memory. Unfortunately as with all systems, the ideal system structure does not exist. As with all systems people are an integral part of the system and people behave irrationally. We are seeing the system of world wide co-dependence fail. It is unclear if it can be repaired and continue to support a world of peace. This is not unlike those who study supply and demand as part of economic theory. It only works when people behave rationally. So the system requires external elements to stabilize the system and have it perform in a way that is highly effective and fully satisfies the need.

This is similar to the COVID-19 response where those in positions of authority with access denied that COVID-19 is airborne. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is just another symptom of very bad management. The 40 mile convoy in Ukraine should have been destroyed immediately. History will not be kind to the West as they allowed a tyrant to destroy a country in a way not seen since World War II. This generation is in really big trouble. What a mess.

Gulf War versus Russian Invasion of Ukraine

It was reasonable for Ukraine to expect that they should have been given the same level of defense in 2014 and in the follow on of total invasion in 2022 that was provided to Kuwait when Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait in 1990. Throughout the Cold War, Iraq had been an ally of the Russian Soviet Union, and there was a history of friction between Iraq and the United States. The operations were code named Operation Desert Shield (2 August 1990 - 17 January 1991) during the buildup of troops and Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 - 28 February 1991) during the combat phase. The Russian Soviet Union condemned Baghdad's aggression against Kuwait, but did not support the United States and allied intervention in Iraq and tried to avoid the conflict.

The US and the UN gave several public justifications for involvement in the conflict, the key item being the Iraqi violation of Kuwaiti territorial integrity. In addition, the US moved to support its ally Saudi Arabia, whose importance in the region, and as a key supplier of oil, made it of considerable geopolitical importance. Shortly after the Iraqi invasion, US Defense Secretary Dick Cheney made the first of several visits to Saudi Arabia where King Fahd requested US military assistance. During a speech in a special joint session of the US Congress given on September 11, 1990, US President George Bush summed up the reasons stating that: Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that President Bush decided to act to check that aggression.

This is why the Ukrainians are bewildered by the response they received from their allies.

On August 2, 1990, the Iraqi military invaded Kuwait and fully occupied the country within two days.

There are different speculations for the reasons behind the invasion, including Iraq's inability to pay Saudi Arabia and Kuwait more than US $14 billion dollars that it borrowed to finance its military efforts during the Iran - Iraq War, and Kuwait's surge in petroleum production levels, which kept revenues down for Iraq. Throughout most of the 1980s, Kuwait's oil production was above its mandatory OPEC quota, which kept international oil prices down. Iraq interpreted Kuwait's refusal to decrease its oil production as an act of aggression towards the Iraqi economy. Iraq also claimed Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman Empire's province of Basra and made Kuwait rightful Iraqi territory. Kuwait's ruling dynasty, the al-Sabah family, concluded a protectorate agreement in 1899 that assigned responsibility for Kuwait's foreign affairs to the United Kingdom. The UK drew the border between Kuwait and Iraq in 1922, making Iraq almost entirely landlocked. Kuwait rejected Iraq attempts to secure further provisions in the region.

The invasion of Kuwait was met with international condemnation, and economic sanctions against Iraq were immediately imposed by the United Nations Security Council. British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and American president George H. W. Bush deployed troops and equipment into Saudi Arabia, and urged other countries to send their own forces. In response to the call, many nations joined the US led coalition, forming the largest military alliance since World War II. The bulk of the coalition's military forces were from the United States with Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, and Egypt as the largest contributors, in that order. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia paid approximately US $32 billion of the US $60 billion cost.

The war effort to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait began with an aerial and naval bombardment on January 17, 1991 and continued for five weeks. During this period, Iraq began to launch missiles into Israel with the goal of provoking a response by the Israeli military, which the Iraqi leadership expected to prompt the coalition's Muslim states to withdraw and therefore jeopardize the alliance against Iraq. As the Iraqi missile campaign against Israel failed to generate the desired response, Iraq launched Scud missiles at coalition targets stationed in Saudi Arabia. This was followed by a ground assault by the coalition into Iraqi and Kuwait was occupied on February 24, 1991. The offensive was a decisive victory for coalition forces, who liberated Kuwait and began to advance past the Iraq Kuwait border into Iraqi territory. Approximately 100 hours after the beginning of the ground campaign, the coalition ceased its advance and declared a ceasefire. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and areas straddling the Iraq Saudi Arabia border.

Before the invasion, the Kuwaiti military was believed to have numbered 16,000 men, arranged into three armored, one mechanized infantry and one small artillery brigade. The pre-war strength of the Kuwait Air Force was approximately 2,200 Kuwaiti personnel, with 80 fixed wing aircraft and 40 helicopters. Kuwait did not mobilize its force and during the Iraqi invasion many Kuwaiti military personnel were on leave.

By 1988, at the end of the Iran Iraq war, the Iraqi Army was the world's fourth largest army, consisting of 955,000 standing soldiers and 650,000 paramilitary forces in the Popular Army. One low estimate suggested the Iraqi Army has 4,500 tanks, 484 combat aircraft and 232 combat helicopters. One high estimate suggested the Iraqi Army has one million men and 850,000 reservists, 5,500 tanks, 3,000 artillery pieces, 700 combat aircraft and helicopters. It held 53 divisions, 20 special-forces brigades, and several regional militias, and had a strong air defense.

Within 12 hours of the Iraq invasion most resistance ended within Kuwait and the royal family had fled allowing Iraq to control most of Kuwait. After two days of intense combat, most of the Kuwaiti military were either overrun by the Iraqi military or had escaped to Saudi Arabia. Saddam initially installed a puppet regime known as the Provisional Government of Free Kuwait before installing his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid as Kuwait's governor on August 08, 1991.

The US Navy dispatched two naval battle groups to the Persian Gulf built around the aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS Independence. They were ready by August 08, 1991. The US also sent the battleships USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin to the region. A total of 48 US Air Force F-15s from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, landed in Saudi Arabia and immediately commenced round the clock air patrols of the Saudi - Kuwait - Iraq border to discourage further Iraqi military advances. They were joined by 36 F-15 A-Ds from the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing at Bitburg, Germany. The Bitburg contingent was based at Al Kharj Air Base, approximately an hour south east of Riyadh. The 36th TFW would be responsible for 11 confirmed Iraqi Air Force aircraft shot down during the war. Two Air National Guard units were stationed at Al Kharj Air Base, the South Carolina Air National Guard's 169th Fighter Wing flew bombing missions with 24 F-16s flying 2,000 combat missions dropping four million pounds (1,800,000 kilograms; 1,800 metric tons) of munitions, and the New York Air National Guard's 174th Fighter Wing from Syracuse flew 24 F-16s on bombing missions. The military buildup eventually reached 543,000 troops, twice the number used in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Much of the material was airlifted or carried to the staging areas via fast sealift ships, allowing a quick buildup. As part of the buildup, amphibious exercises were carried out in the Gulf, including Operation Imminent Thunder, which involved the USS Midway and 15 other ships, 1100 aircraft, and 1,000 Marines. In a press conference, General Schwarzkopf stated that these exercises were intended to deceive the Iraqi forces, forcing them to continue their defense of the Kuwaiti coastline.

The Gulf War began with an extensive aerial bombing campaign on January 16, 1991. For 42 consecutive days and nights, the coalition forces subjected Iraq to one of the most intensive air bombardments in military history. The coalition flew over 100,000 sorties, dropping 88,500 tones of bombs, which widely destroyed military and civilian infrastructure. The coalition launched a massive air campaign, which began the general offensive code named Operation Desert Storm. The priority was the destruction of Iraq's Air Force and anti-aircraft facilities. The sorties were launched mostly from Saudi Arabia and the six carrier battle groups (CVBG) in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. The next targets were command and communication facilities. Saddam Hussein closely micromanaged Iraqi forces in the Iran - Iraq War, and initiative at lower levels was discouraged. Coalition planners thought that Iraqi resistance would quickly collapse if deprived of command and control. The air campaign's third and largest phase targeted military targets throughout Iraq and Kuwait: Scud missile launchers, weapons research facilities, and naval forces. About a third of the coalition's air power was devoted to attacking Scuds, some of which were on trucks and therefore difficult to locate. US and British special operations forces had been covertly inserted into western Iraq to aid in the search for and destruction of Scuds. The Gulf War had three of the largest tank battles in American military history.

Iraqi anti-aircraft defenses, including man-portable air-defense systems, were surprisingly ineffective against enemy aircraft, and the coalition suffered only 75 aircraft losses in over 100,000 sorties, 44 due to Iraqi action. Two of these losses are the result of aircraft colliding with the ground while evading Iraqi ground-fired weapons. The USAF F-117 Nighthawk was one of the key aircraft used in Operation Desert Storm.

The war marked the introduction of 24/7 live news broadcasts from the front lines of the battle, principally by the American network CNN. There were daily broadcast of images from cameras onboard American bombers during Operation Desert Storm. The live images showed that the US stealth aircraft were able to completely bypass the air defense systems.

Based on the history of the Gulf War it was reasonable on the part of the Ukrainians to expect that there would be a similar response to the invasion of Ukraine. However that did not happen. History will speculate for generations why there were differences. Not widely known, but prior to the invasion of Kuwait, President Bush stated that the US was not interested in the fall of Kuwait suggesting that the US would do nothing if Iraq invaded. The US policy completely changed and the US was going to war in an effort similar to World War II. It was terrifying. It is unclear what happened. There is a complete media void, but having lived through that history, it is clear that these events occurred. One of the West's main concerns was the significant threat Iraq posed to Saudi Arabia. Following Kuwait's conquest, the Iraqi Army was within easy striking distance of Saudi oil fields. Control of these fields, along with Kuwaiti and Iraqi reserves, would have given Saddam control over the majority of the world's oil reserves.

Acting on the Carter Doctrine policy, and out of fear the Iraqi Army could launch an invasion into Saudi Arabia, US President George H. W. Bush quickly announced that the US would launch a wholly defensive mission to prevent Iraq from invading Saudi Arabia, under the code name Operation Desert Shield. The operation began on August 07, 1990, when US troops were sent to Saudi Arabia. This was also at the request of Saudi Arabia, monarch King Fahd, who had earlier called for US military assistance. This wholly defensive doctrine was quickly abandoned when, on August 08, 1990, when Iraq declared Kuwait to be Iraq's 19th province and Saddam named his cousin, Ali Hassan Al-Majid, as its military-governor.

History will probably suggest that the different response is associated reason #6 Russia acting out of control with bizarre claims and goals just like Iraq in the Gulf War, but they have Nuclear weapons.

However, the history will also show that the fear of the Nuclear threat was misplaced because of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and the fact that the Russian Military does not want their families to die in a war to end all wars. Although Putin may have lost his marbles, those around him might be crazy and greedy megalomaniacs, and the ground military in Ukraine appears to be filed with many psychopaths, the reality is the military personnel in charge of the Nuclear weapons will not want to kill themselves nor will they make the calculated risk for a war with Ukraine that is basically irrelevant, pointless, and stupid.

As of April 11, 2021 the Russian military has withdrawn from various Ukrainian areas and regrouping to begin a massive assault of the western and southern portion of Ukraine in a battle of massive ground military power. Now is the time to act and prevent Russia from moving its military into this region. There does not appear to be any efforts to stop this event. The Ukrainians have stated that they have a strategy and that they will fight but they need heavy weapons to counter this offensive. They will not have the advantage of urban warfare. It will be out in the open.

Now is the time for Putin to be read the riot act and stop. We will see what happens.

In the Gulf War it was the US that organized and led the coalition to invade and free Kuwait. This was at the request of Saudia Arabia. In the Russian invasion of Ukraine it is the EU that is controlling the situation and the US can not act as the leader. Russia is selling its oil and gas to China, India, and the EU. Many suggest that the EU should stop oil and gas imports from Russia, but that would devastate the EU because they have no other alternatives. This is a direct result of policies in the previous century to make countries dependent on each other to avoid war. It was a peace strategy. What few discuss is the scenario of Russia deciding to cut off gas and oil from the EU. If that should happen then the EU will have no choice but too follow the same path that was followed in the Gulf War. For now the approach is to contain the conflict in Ukraine and the US is willing to accept that approach that is clearly driven by the EU needs at this time.

Ukrainian Refugees

A fund raising event in Warsaw on April 09, 2022 pledged nearly $11 billion in donations, loans, and grants to support refugees fleeing war in Ukraine and those internally displaced. Both the European commission and the Canadian government, who organized the fundraiser in concert with international the anti-poverty organization Global Citizen, were among the donors, whose pledges included direct donations, loans and grants to assist refugees fleeing Ukraine after Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion. As of April 09, 2022 there are 4.3 million Ukrainian refugees in neighbouring countries and another 6.5 million people are displaced inside the war torn country. Although the effort is noble it is a drop in the bucket for the actual costs that must be addressed and translates to $1018 per person for the 10.8 million people impacted.

The actual refugee cost estimates are provided in section War Costs and Reparations and approach $ 1 trillion dollars. War is a huge reality check on thinking and actions that must be performed. The systems analysis is clear that the damage due to the Russian invasion just from the Ukrainian Refugees is massive. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Ukrainian Refugees on April 09, 2022 is shown in the following table. [Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ukrainian_refugee_crisis]

Country	Refugees	Country	Refugees	Country	Refugees
Poland	2,593,902	Estonia	39,500	United Kingdom	12,000
Romania	686,232	Israel	35,000	Norway	11,000
Hungary	419,101	Portugal	28,243	Slovenia	10,000
Moldova	410,882	Sweden	27,954	Belgium	10,000
Slovakia	314,485	Spain	25,000
Czechia	300,000	Switzerland	24,837
Germany	310,000	Denmark	24,000
Bulgaria	152,340	Netherlands	21,000
Italy	88,593	Latvia	20,000
Turkey	58,000	Ireland	16,891
France	45,000	Finland	16,000
Austria	42,000	Greece	16,700
Lithuania	41,900	Croatia	15,000

In the US there is a debate on the treatment of refugees suggesting that some refugees have more favorable treatment and that race is one of the primary factors. When searching the Internet to determine type of refugees there is little information suggesting that all refugees are the same, they are people seeking refuge. However it is obvious that these people fall into the following categories:

The US refugee crisis at the Mexican border is associated with those Choosing a Better Way of Life. The current Ukrainian refugee crisis is associated with War Refugees. Depending on the outcome of the war, if Ukraine should lose the war, then the Ukrainian refugees will include: Displaced Person Refugees, Political Refugees, and perhaps Food Starvation Refugees.

These categories of people are obvious from a systems perspective. The moral question is who gets priority when allowing entry into a country. Ideally everyone would be welcomed into the country regardless of the numbers seeking entry. A consideration for the new host country is the amount of money sent back to support family and friends in the original country. Another consideration is the level of cultural disruption in the new country. For example, will the new refugees accept and adapt to the new country culture or is it just a temporary stop until they can go home. If it is a temporary stop, how disruptive will their desire to reject the new country culture be to the host country. If there are similar cultures then the disruption will be less than if there are large cultural differences. These are all important system considerations on the part of the host country and will set the priority of which refugees are selected by the host country. The refugee acceptance key requirements are:

Based on the above key requirements the following table shows the cultural affinity between Ukrainians and a host country. It does not suggest that Ukrainians will not survive, prosper, and be happy in countries with less cultural affinity. Keep in mind that Ukrainians also come from many different lands and their ancestors can trace roots to these various countries. The Ukrainians probably have a better handle on this table than what is shown, this is only one mental model. The Ukrainians probably have data.

Country	Cultural Affinity	Country	Cultural Affinity	Country	Cultural Affinity
Poland	Very High	Estonia	High	United Kingdom	High
Romania	High	Israel	High	Norway	Very High
Hungary	High	Portugal	High	Slovenia	High
Moldova	High	Sweden	Very High	Belgium	High
Slovakia	High	Spain	High	Canada	Very High
Czechia	High	Switzerland	Very High	USA	Very High
Germany	Med (see 3)	Denmark	Very High	Australia	Very High
Bulgaria	High	Netherlands	Very High	South America	Unknown
Italy	Med (see 3)	Latvia	High	Japan	Low (see 1)
Turkey	High	Ireland	High	Polynesia	Med (see 2)
France	Med (see 3)	Finland	Very High	-	-
Austria	High	Greece	High	Russia	Zero (see 4)
Lithuania	High	Croatia	High	China	Zero (see 4)

Notes:
1. Language issues rather than cultural issues
2. Geography will probably cause home sickness.
3. Might seem more like a vacation leading to home sickness.
4. No way in Hell - massive cultural differences.

Obviously the people decide along with the host countries what may be the best fit for each refugee case. In the refugee camps after World War II, Ukrainians were given choices of which country to emigrate to and begin their new lives. Typically it was a wait and see approach that many refugees took. Many held out until the country of their choice was calling for refugees. This process took years. Obviously information about each country was flowing around in the camps.

This is all irrelevant because the Ukrainians are intent on winning this war. This time there will be no conference in Yalta to toss them to the wolves as they would say. They have been clear on their position. They have learned from their painful history.

Ukrainian Values

As part of the systems analysis to understand the Ukrainian refugee crisis as significant system observation has surfaced and it is associated with Ukrainian culture. We know that unlike Russians, Ukrainians really believe in Democracy, Freedom, and Liberty and they are paying the ultimate price with their lives and the destruction of their cities. Something else is also happening and it is associated with survival versus self-expression values as shown in the The Inglehart - Welzel cultural map of the world.

The Inglehart - Welzel cultural map of the world is a scatter plot based on the World Values Survey and European Values Survey. It shows closely linked cultural values that vary between societies in two dimensions: traditional versus secular-rational values on the vertical y-axis and survival versus self-expression values on the horizontal x-axis. Moving upward on this map reflects the shift from traditional values to secular-rational ones and moving rightward reflects the shift from survival values to self-expression values. The following is the Inglehart-Welzel World Cultural Map for 2020.

Based on what Ukraine decided to do with the Russian invasion, they have moved from -0.50 to 3.25 on the Survival versus Self-Expression values scale (horizontal x-axis) and this is beyond Sweden. This is significant because something caused this massive shift that was not captured in the surveys for the 2020 results (2017 - 2020 Survey Questions). Either the survey was lacking some key element or there was a massive shift that happened between 2017/2020 and 2022. Since 2014 the world has experienced the the Internet grow into massive social media networks and a shift away from personal computers to very sophisticated multimedia high fidelity smart phones. It is possible that the new smart phones may have inspired Ukrainians to move to higher levels on Maslow Hierarchy of needs where Self Actualization and Transcendence is the level of consciousness thus leading to the massive Self-Expression values.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs was proposed by American Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation in the journal Psychological Review. Maslow extended the idea to include observations of humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. He created a classification system which reflected the universal needs of society as its base and then proceeded to acquired emotions. The hierarchy of needs is split between deficiency needs and growth needs. While the theory is usually shown as a pyramid in illustrations, Maslow himself never created a pyramid to represent the hierarchy of needs.

Maslow's hierarchy pyramid is frequently used because it visualizes the needs that one must meet to reach self-actualization. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is used to study how humans partake in behavioral motivation. Maslow used the terms "physiological," "safety," "belonging and love," "social needs" or "esteem," and "self-actualization" to describe the pattern through which human motivations move. In order for motivation to arise at the next stage, each stage must be satisfied within the individual themselves. Each of these individual levels contains a certain amount of internal sensation that must be met in order for an individual to complete their hierarchy. The goal in Maslow's hierarchy is to attain the fifth level or stage: self-actualization.

Level	Name	Broad Needs	Need Elements
5	Self-Actualization	Self Fulfillment Needs	achieving ones full potential including creative activities
4	Esteem Needs	Psychological Needs	prestige, feelings of accomplishment
3	Love and Social Belonging Needs	Psychological Needs	intimate relationships, friends
2	Safety Needs	Basic Needs	security, safety
1	Physiological Needs	Basic Needs	water, food, warmth, rest

Physiological needs are the base of the hierarchy. These needs are the biological component for human survival. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, physiological needs are factored in internal motivation. According to Maslow's theory, humans are compelled to satisfy physiological needs first in order to pursue higher levels of intrinsic satisfaction. In order to advance higher-level needs in Maslow's hierarchy, physiological needs must be met first. This means that if a person is struggling to meet their physiological needs, they are unwilling to seek safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization on their own. Physiological needs include: Air, Water, Food, Sleep, Clothes, Shelter, Sexual intercourse. These physiological needs must be met in order for the human body to remain in homeostasis.

Once a person's physiological needs are satisfied, their safety needs take precedence and dominate behavior. In the absence of physical safety - due to war, natural disaster, family violence, childhood abuse, etc. and/or in the absence of economic safety - (due to an economic crisis and lack of work opportunities) these safety needs manifest themselves in ways such as a preference for job security, grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, savings accounts, insurance policies, disability accommodations, etc. This level is more likely to predominate in children as they generally have a greater need to feel safe especially children that have disabilities. Adults are also impacted by this, typically in economic matters, adults are not immune to the need of safety. It includes shelter, job security, health, and safe environments. If a person does not feel safe in an environment, they will seek safety before attempting to meet any higher level of survival. This is why the goal of consistently meeting the need for safety is to have stability in one's life, stability brings back the concept of homeostasis for humans, which our bodies need. Safety needs include: Health, Personal security, Emotional security, Financial security.

After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third level of human needs is interpersonal and involves feelings of belongingness. Humans possess an effective need for a sense of belonging and acceptance among social groups, regardless of whether these groups are large or small; being a part of a group is crucial, regardless if it is work, sports, friends or family. The sense of belongingness is being comfortable with and connection to others that results from receiving acceptance, respect, and love. For example, some large social groups may include clubs, co-workers, religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, gangs, and online communities. Some examples of small social connections include family members, intimate partners, mentors, colleagues, and confidants. Humans need to love and be loved both sexually and non-sexually by others. Many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and clinical depression in the absence of this love or belonging element. This need is especially strong in childhood and it can override the need for safety as witnessed in children who cling to abusive parents. Deficiencies due to hospitalism, neglect, shunning, ostracism, etc. can adversely affect the individual's ability to form and maintain emotionally significant relationships in general. Mental health can be a huge factor when it comes to an individual's needs and development. When an individual's needs are not met, it can cause depression during adolescence. When an individual grows up in a higher income family, it is much more likely that they will have a lower rate of depression. This is because all of their basic needs are met. Studies have shown that when a family goes through financial stress for a prolonged amount of time, depression rates are higher, not only because their basic needs are not being met, but because this stress puts a strain on the parent child relationship. The parent(s) is/are stressed about providing for their children, and they are also likely to spend less time at home because they are working more to make more money and provide for their family.

Social belonging needs include: Family, Friendship, Intimacy, Trust, Acceptance, Receiving and giving love and affection. This need for belonging may overcome the physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer pressure. In contrast, for some individuals, the need for self-esteem is more important than the need for belonging; and for others, the need for creative fulfillment may supersede even the most basic needs.

Esteem is the respect and admiration of a person, but also self-respect and respect from others. Most people have a need for a stable esteem, meaning which is soundly based on real capacity or achievement. Maslow noted two versions of esteem needs. The lower version of esteem is the need for respect from others, and may include a need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, and attention. The higher version of esteem is the need for self-respect, and can include a need for strength, competence, mastery, self-confidence, independence, and freedom. This higher version takes guidelines, the hierarchies are interrelated rather than sharply separated. This means that esteem and the subsequent levels are not strictly separated; instead, the levels are closely related. Esteem comes from day to day experiences, that provide a learning opportunity which allows us to discover ourselves. This is incredibly important within children, which is why giving them the opportunity to discover they are competent and capable learners. In order to boost this, adults must provide opportunities for children to have successful and positive experiences to give children a greater sense of self. Adults, especially parents and educators must create and ensure an environment for children that is supportive and provides them with opportunities that helps children see themselves as respectable, capable individuals. The need for respect or reputation is most important for children and precedes real self-esteem or dignity, which reflects the two aspects of esteem: for oneself and for others.

What a person can be must be forms the basis of the perceived need for self-actualization. This level of need refers to the realization of one's full potential. This is the desire to accomplish everything that one can, to become the most that one can be. People may have a strong, particular desire to become an ideal parent, succeed athletically, or create paintings, pictures, or inventions. To understand this level of need, a person must not only succeed in the previous needs but master them. Self-actualization can be described as a value-based system when discussing its role in motivation. Self-actualization is understood as the goal or explicit motive, and the previous stages in Maslow's hierarchy fall in line to become the step-by-step process by which self-actualization is achievable; an explicit motive is the objective of a reward based system that is used to drive completion of certain values or goals. Individuals who are motivated to pursue this goal seek and understand how their needs, relationships, and sense of self are expressed through their behavior. Self-actualization needs include: Partner acquisition, Parenting, Utilizing and developing talents and abilities, Pursuing goals.

The original hierarchy of needs was extended and inserted between 4. Esteem Needs and 5. Self-Actualization. The extended stages of human needs are shown and described as follows.

Level	Name	Extended Levels	Name	Categories
		8	Transcendence	growth needs
5	Self-Actualization	7	Self-Actualization	growth needs
		6	Aesthetic needs	growth needs
		5	Cognitive needs	growth needs
4	Esteem Needs	4	Esteem Needs	deficiency needs
3	Love and Social Belonging Needs	3	Love and Social Belonging Needs	deficiency needs
2	Safety Needs	2	Safety Needs	deficiency needs
1	Physiological Needs	1	Physiological Needs	deficiency needs

As a result of the war it is clear that the Ukrainians have been moved to the lowest level of Maslows Hierarchy of needs: 1. Physiological Needs, however in times of war some move to the highest level 8. Transcendence. What is unclear is why there is a disconnect with the Survival versus Self-Expression values scale value and the actual evidence that the value may be the highest in the world at this point in 2022 and what may be happening with Maslows Hierarchy of needs. Is it possible that Survival versus Self-Expression values were actually below -2.5 and so the only alternative the Ukrainians thought they had was to fight? Perhaps when the invasion actually happened that is what actually happened to the overall Ukrainian mass mind, Survival versus Self-Expression values dropped below -2.5 and the Hierarchy of needs dropped to: 1. Physiological Needs, survival mode. Alternatively something else is happening that will shape Ukrainian culture for generations.

[Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inglehart - Welzel_cultural_map_of_the_world]

Ukrainian Food Production

Ukraine supports approximately 400 million people around the world with its food products. Suggestions are that production in Ukraine will be decreased by 40% to 45% in 2022 because of the war and the scarcity of supplies that go into the planting season like fuel diverted to the war effort. This suggests famine and moving food supplies from the hungry to feed the starving. The loss of Ukrainian food production from a systems perspective is:

Because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there is a loss of food production equal to 200 million people

It is unclear what the Russian intentions might be if they should capture the port city Odessa. Will they prevent the export of any food that feeds hundreds of millions of people world wide?

US Senator Cory Booker has warned that we could soon see tens of millions of people dying of starvation. The senator stated that Democrats and Republicans in Congress need to quickly come together and approve emergency global food aid in order to prevent tens of millions of people, including millions of children, from dying of starvation. President Biden admitted that food shortages are going to be real. The World Food Program estimates that 285 million people face starvation. The one thing that could provide a ray of hope would be an end to the war in Ukraine but that is unlikely.

Somalia is warning that an impending famine similar to what occurred in 2010/2011 where more than a quarter of a million people died - including 133,000 children under the age of five. Although some donors have committed to fund Somalia’s Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) that seeks US $1.5 billion but that is less than 4% of funding required to meet Somalia’s needs. Like the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which impacted many of Somali households, the Ukrainian crisis has driven inflation and rising costs in Somalia, particularly for food and energy, at a time when families are already incredibly desperate.

Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat and sunflower oil. Many countries in the developing world, including Lebanon and Bangladesh, rely on its wheat for staple foods, including bread.

In the Horn of Africa 13 million people are already suffering from hunger. Because of the war in Ukraine, the United Nations World Food Program has cut food rations by 50% in Yemen, Niger and, Chad. The World Food Program is warning that 285 million people face starvation.

The Russian invasion is having a direct impact on Ukrainian capacity to produce food for their own population. Ukrainian farmers face severe challenges to harvest this year’s crops because farmers and many farm workers are fighting the Russians. Also Ukraine’s military has commandeered stores of fuel for farm machinery, such as combine harvesters. Canada, a major donor through the World Food Program, is funnelling food aid to Ukraine. Canadian farmers could face shortages of fertilizer, which it usually buys from Russia. This could affect this year’s harvest, although Canadian farmers are trying to find alternatives.

Russian forces are targeting the Ukrainian food supply and infrastructure needed to gather and distribute the harvest. This includes: Silos and grain elevators, Food storage facilities and warehouses, Ukrainian stores of grain, Ports for export to the world. For example, on March 19, 2022, Russian forces destroyed one of the largest food storage facilities in the country. It had more than 50,000 tons of food. To place into perspective this destruction, 1 ton of food will feed 50 people for 1 month. This destruction denied food to 2.5 million people for 30 days. If people do not eat for 30 days they will not recover. From a systems perspective they just murdered 2.5 million people with that one war crime. The world wide food distribution system will compensate but not fully, someone will die someplace because of a lack of this food destroyed by the Russians.

History is being written. This time the extreme brutality of the Russians will not be whitewashed as it was in the previous century.

Russian Propaganda

Journalism is based on the following 6 key questions: Who? What? Where? When? Why? And How? These questions must be asked from multiple credible independent sources that are in the middle of the area being investigated and reported and they must match. Any work that does not reflect these basic requirements falls into the category of opinion and hearsay. Journalism follows the scientific method of repeatable results from multiple independent sources.

Propaganda techniques fall into two broad categories: (1) 98% is true but 2% is a lie and the lie completely changes the finding and (2) 100% is a lie but the lie is so huge no one will ever think it is a lie. The second category is based on the following: If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

The disinformation techniques for propaganda used by toxic management are the same techniques used by toxic political leaders: Deny, Distract, Delay, Lie, Bullshit.

The tools of propaganda are all sources of information. Propaganda pumps out massive information on all information sources 24/7 non stop. Some think that propaganda needs to be consistent or the story will break down in the mass mind but that is incorrect. It does not matter if the information is inconsistent, what matters is the message, and is the message affecting the mass mind.

Propaganda is devoid of all good values. It digs deep into the complete failings of humanity and just pushes the agenda regardless of outcomes. It is an immoral activity performed by immoral people led by immoral evil leaders. It is that simple.

American distributors and European governments have banned Russia Today (RT) after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, leading to the collapse of RT’s American operations (March 3, 2022). However as of April 16, 2022 there are radio stations offering Sputnik content to listeners and the story was released on March 7, 2022. Nothing has been done to stop the broadcasting of the Russian propaganda via Sputnik. For example, the Sputnik propaganda is broadcast and every hour by WZHF-AM on 1390 AM in Washington DC airs the following disclaimer:

“This radio programming is distributed by RM Broadcasting on behalf of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, Moscow, Russia. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.”

The radio station is 11 miles from the White House and is the flagship of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s effort to use American radio airwaves to provide Russian propaganda. Despite legal and political challenges, and the imposition of sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, the station has stayed on the air, broadcasting its Kremlin developed messages.

The radio station is one of five outlets in the United States that air English language broadcasts of Radio Sputnik, produced in Moscow and Washington under the Russian government’s supervision. Sputnik is the radio and digital arm of Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today), the same Kremlin-controlled media agency that directs RT and RT America, the TV and digital media operations founded by Putin’s regime in 2005.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) requested station owners to stop carrying Russian state sponsored programming. The NAB provided the statement: While the First Amendment protects freedom of speech it does not prevent private actors from exercising sound, moral judgment.

In 2017, three Democratic members of Congress sought an investigation into why WZHF was still on the air despite evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at the time, Ajit Pai, declined to take action, saying the First Amendment would bar the FCC from interfering with a broadcast licensee’s choice of programming, even if that programming may be objectionable to many listeners.

Sputnik does not own WZHF or any other radion stations because federal regulations bar foreign governments from controlling US broadcast licenses. The decades old prohibition is based on concerns that hostile foreign powers would use American radio and TV stations to broadcast propaganda. Since 2001, WZHF is licensed to a New York company, Way Broadcasting. But Way Broadcasting appears to be a largely passive owner. In 2017, it agreed to lease the station’s airtime to a second party, RM Broadcasting of Jupiter, Fla. RM sold all of the station’s airtime to Rossiya Segodnya and Sputnik. RM made a similar deal in 2020 with Alpine Broadcasting to place Sputnik’s programs on Alpine’s three stations in the Kansas City area.

According to federal filings, RM paid Way Broadcasting $1.12 million last year to air Radio Sputnik full time and Alpine Broadcasting about $160,000 to carry Sputnik for six hours a day on its Kansas City stations. It is unclear why the sanctions against Russia have had no affect on stopping this money flow.

The practice, known as a time brokerage agreement, is claimed to be a financial lifeline for small and financially troubled broadcast outlets since the 1930s. Instead of hiring a sales staff and producing programs, station owners merely lease blocks of airtime to another party, often through a broker, which puts its own programs on the air. The best known form of such agreements are TV infomercials.

RM’s owner, Arnold Ferolito, defends Sputnik saying efforts to remove it from the air are an attack on free speech. He wrote in an email: RM Broadcasting stands with Ukraine and victims of oppression and aggression worldwide. One of the fundamental rights that Ukraine is fighting for is freedom of speech and freedom from censorship, and RM is dedicated to the unfettered exchange of information and ideas.

He noted that the stations disclose Rossiya Segodnya’s role as the source of the broadcasts throughout the day so that people may make an informed decision on whether to listen or turn the dial. Ferolito said other American station owners wanted to carry the service, too, but Sputnik’s parent organization did not have the budget for wider US reach.

Under a separate lease agreement, WZHF’s content is carried on FM radio in the Washington area by a company called Reston Translator. John Garziglia, the company’s principal owner, claims: I’m a fervent believer in the First Amendment, Under the First Amendment, we should be seeking more information, not less.

RM is required to file federal disclosures about Rossiya Segodnya’s payments as a result of a legal battle between the company and the Justice Department. The agency determined in early 2018 that RM’s involvement with the Russian media group required it to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Ferolito sued to block the designation, arguing that RM was merely acting as a middleman and had no control over Sputnik’s programs, but a federal judge in Florida ruled against the company in 2019. As a result WZHF’s hourly disclaimer is broadcast.

The FCC is barred by law from trying to prevent the broadcast of any point of view. The Communications Act prohibits the FCC from censoring broadcast material, in most cases, and from making any regulation that would interfere with freedom of speech. Expressions of views that do not involve a "clear and present danger of serious, substantive evil" come under the protection of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press and prevents suppression of these expressions by the FCC. According to an FCC opinion on this subject, "the public interest is best served by permitting free expression of views." This principle ensures that the most diverse and opposing opinions will be expressed, even though some may be highly offensive.

The FCC, however, does have enforcement responsibilities in certain limited instances. For example, the Courts have said that indecent material is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution and cannot be banned entirely. It may be restricted, however, in order to avoid its broadcast when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience. Between 6 A.M. and 10 P.M. (when there is the greatest likelihood that children may be watching,) airing indecent material is prohibited by FCC rules. Broadcasters are required to schedule their programming accordingly or face enforcement action. Similarly, the Commission has stated that profane material is prohibited between 6 A.M. and 10 P.M.

Systems Perspective: This is not a free speech issue. This is an ownership issue where a foreign government has taken control of US radio stations because of funds propping up the radio stations. The problem is that this translates into defacto ownership of these radio stations, which could not exist without the Russian funding. This is an artifact of the broad trends associated with deregulation in the US that began in the 1980's. The FCC is not properly regulating and enforcing existing regulations but only politically responding to strong special interest groups. We now have a serious problem in the US and a major arm of the US government has been compromised. It is clear that these radio stations are controlled and owned by a foreign government. The licenses should be pulled by the FCC and the matter handled by the courts. The FCC should not be second guessing what the courts might decide. They must error on the side of protecting the people from significant harm in a time of full scale war that threatens the US. It is also unclear why the US sanctions have not stopped the Russian funding of these radio stations.

Russian Empire Conquest Approach

Prior to invading Ukraine in 2014 Russia began a program of offering Russian pension payments that were greater than Ukrainian pension payments. To take advantage of the higher Russian pension payments Ukrainians needed to take on Russian citizenship. This and other incentives to join Russia primed a segment of the population to not reject the Russian invasion of Crimea and annexation. In 2023 the same type of program is being used in the newly conquered regions of Ukraine. The following is an excerpt showing the approach Russia uses to divide and consume people.

Ukrainians Under Occupation Face Deportation, Loss of Property After Putin's New Order
by Alexander Khrebet July 3, 2023 9:25 PM 10 min read

On April 26, 1991 the Russian empire - Supreme Soviet of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, under its chairman Boris Yeltsin, passed the law On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples with Article 2 denouncing all mass deportations as Stalin's policy of defamation and genocide. This is significantly out of character for the Russian empire. This action lulled the World into thinking that the Russian empire changed. This was an incorrect conclusion as the World now clearly sees with the devastation of Ukraine by the Russian empire.

From 1930 to 1952, the Russian empire - Soviet Union, on the orders of Joseph Stalin under the direction of the NKVD official Lavrentiy Beria, forcibly transferred populations of various groups. These actions may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of anti-Soviet categories of population often classified as enemies of the people, deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite directions to fill ethnically cleansed territories. Dekulakization marked the first time that an entire class was deported, whereas the deportation of Soviet Koreans in 1937 marked the precedent of a specific ethnic deportation of an entire nationality.

In most cases, their destinations were underpopulated remote areas. This includes deportations to the Russian empire - Soviet Union of non-Soviet citizens from countries outside the Russian empire - USSR. It has been estimated that, in their entirety, internal forced migrations affected at least 6 million people. Of this total, 1.8 million kulaks were deported in 1930 - 31, 1.0 million peasants and ethnic minorities in 1932 - 39, about 3.5 million ethnic minorities were further resettled during 1940 - 52.

Russian empire - Soviet archives documented 390,000 deaths during kulak forced resettlement and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported to forced settlements during the 1940s. Nicolas Werth places overall deaths closer to some 1 to 1.5 million perishing as a result of the deportations. Contemporary historians classify these deportations as a crime against humanity and ethnic persecution. Two of these cases with the highest mortality rates, the deportation of the Crimean Tatars and the deportation of the Chechens and Ingush, were recognized as genocides by Ukraine, three other countries, and the European Parliament respectively.

The Russian empire - Soviet Union also practiced deportations in occupied territories, with over 50,000 perishing from the Baltic States and 300,000 to 360,000 perishing during the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe due to Soviet deportation, massacres, and internment and labour camps.

Many Russian empire - Soviet farmers, regardless of their actual income or property, were labeled Kulaks for resisting Communist collectivization. This term historically referred to relatively affluent farmers. Kulak was the most common category of deported Russian empire - Soviet citizen. Resettlement of people officially designated as kulaks continued until early 1950, including several major waves. On September 5, 1951 the Russian empire - Soviet government ordered the deportation of kulaks from the Lithuanian SSR for hostile actions against kolhozes, which was one of the last resettlements of that social group.

Large numbers of kulaks, regardless of their nationality, were resettled in Siberia and Central Asia. According to data from Russian empire - Soviet archives, which were published in 1990 where 1,803,392 people were sent to labor colonies and camps in 1930 and 1931, and 1,317,022 reached the destination. Deportations on a smaller scale continued after 1931. The reported number of kulaks and their relatives who died in labour colonies from 1932 to 1940 was 389,521. The total number of the deported people is disputed. Conservative estimates assume that 1,679,528 - 1,803,392 people were deported, while the highest estimates are that 15 million kulaks and their families were deported by 1937, and that during the deportation many people died, but the full number is not known.

During the 1930s, categorisation of so called enemies of the people shifted from the usual Marxist Leninist, class based terms, such as kulak, to ethnic based ones. The partial removal of potentially trouble making ethnic groups was a technique used consistently by Joseph Stalin during his government; between 1935 and 1938 alone, at least ten different nationalities were deported. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union led to a massive escalation in Russian empire - Soviet ethnic cleansing.

The Deportation of Koreans in the Russian empire - Soviet Union, originally conceived in 1926, initiated in 1930, and carried through in 1937, was the first mass transfer of an entire nationality in the Russian empire - Soviet Union. Almost the entire population of ethnic Koreans (171,781 persons) were forcibly moved from the Russian empire - Far East to unpopulated areas of the Kazakh SSR and the Uzbek SSR in October 1937. Looking at the entire period of Stalin's rule, one can list:

Shortly before, during and immediately after World War II, Stalin conducted a series of deportations on a huge scale which profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Russain empire - Soviet Union. It is estimated that between 1941 and 1949 nearly 3.3 million were deported to Siberia and the Central Asian republics. By some estimates, up to 43% of the resettled population died of diseases and malnutrition.

Western annexations and deportations occurred between 1939 - 1941. After the Russian empire - Soviet invasion of Poland following the corresponding German invasion that marked the start of World War II in 1939, the Russian empire - Soviet Union annexed eastern parts (known as Kresy to the Polish or as West Belarus and West Ukraine in the Russian empire - USSR and among Belarusians and Ukrainians) of the Second Polish Republic, which since then became western parts of the Belarusian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR. During 1939 - 1941, 1.45 million people inhabiting the region were deported by the Russian empire - Soviet regime. According to Polish historians, 63.1% of these people were Poles and 7.4% were Jews. Previously it was believed that about 1.0 million Polish citizens died at the hands of the Russian empire - Soviets, but recently Polish historians, based mostly on queries in Soviet archives, estimate the number of deaths at about 350,000 people deported in 1939 - 1945.

The same followed in the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (see Soviet deportations from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). More than 200,000 people are estimated to have been deported from the Baltic in 1940 - 1953. In addition, at least 75,000 were sent to the Gulag. 10% of the entire adult Baltic population was deported or sent to labor camps. In 1989, native Latvians represented only 52% of the population of their own country. In Estonia, the figure was 62%. In Lithuania, the situation was better because the migrants sent to that country actually moved to the former area of Eastern Prussia (now Kaliningrad) which, contrary to the original plans, never became part of Lithuania. Likewise, Romanians from Chernivtsi Oblast and Moldavia had been deported in great numbers which range from 200,000 to 400,000.

During World War II, particularly in 1943 - 1944, the Russian empire - Soviet government conducted a series of deportations. Some 1.9 million people were deported to Siberia and the Central Asian republics. Out of approximately 183,000 Crimean Tatars, 20,000 or 10% of the entire population served in German battalions. Consequently, Tatars too were transferred en masse by the Soviets after the war. Volga Germans and seven (non-Slavic) nationalities of the Crimea and the northern Caucasus were deported: the Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, and Meskhetian Turks. All Crimean Tatars were deported en masse, in a form of collective punishment, on May 18, 1944 as special settlers to Uzbekistan and other distant parts of the Russian empire - Soviet Union. According to NKVD data, nearly 20% died in exile during the following year and a half. Crimean Tatar activists have reported this figure to be nearly 46%. Other minorities evicted from the Black Sea coastal region included Bulgarians, Crimean Greeks, Romanians and Armenians.

The Soviet Union also deported people from occupied territories such as the Baltic states, Poland, and territories occupied by Germans. A study published by the German government in 1974 estimated the number of German civilian victims of crimes during expulsion of Germans after World War II between 1945 and 1948 to be over 600,000, with about 400,000 deaths in the areas east of the Oder and Neisse (ca. 120,000 in acts of direct violence, mostly by Soviet troops but also by Poles, 60,000 in Polish and 40,000 in Soviet concentration camps or prisons mostly from hunger and disease, and 200,000 deaths among civilian deportees to forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union), 130,000 in Czechoslovakia (thereof 100,000 in camps) and 80,000 in Yugoslavia (thereof 15,000 to 20,000 from violence outside of and in camps and 59,000 deaths from hunger and disease in camps).

By January 1953, there were 988,373 special settlers residing in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, including 444,005 Germans, 244,674 Chechens, 95,241 Koreans, 80,844 Ingush, and the others. As a consequence of these deportations, Kazakhs comprised only 30% of their native Republic's population.

After World War II, the German population of the Kaliningrad Oblast, former East Prussia was expelled and the depopulated area resettled by Russian empire - Soviet citizens, mainly by Russians. Poland and Soviet Ukraine conducted population exchanges; Poles who resided east of the established Poland - Soviet border were deported to Poland (2,100,000 persons) and Ukrainians that resided west of the established Poland-Soviet Union border were deported to Soviet Ukraine. Population transfer to Soviet Ukraine occurred from September 1944 to April 1946 (450,000 persons). Some Ukrainians (200,000 persons) left southeast Poland more or less voluntarily (between 1944 and 1945).

In February 1956, Nikita Khrushchev in his speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" condemned the deportations as a violation of Leninist principles: All the more monstrous are the acts whose initiator was Stalin and which are violations of the basic Leninist principles of the national policy of the Soviet state. We refer to the mass deportations from their native places of whole nations... This deportation action was not dictated by any military considerations. Thus, already at the end of 1943, when there occurred a permanent breakthrough at the fronts... a decision was taken and executed concerning the deportation of all the Karachay from the lands on which they lived. In the same period, at the end of December 1943, the same lot befell whole population of the Autonomous Kalmyk Republic. In March all the Chechen and Ingush peoples were deported and the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic was liquidated. In April 1944, all Balkars were deported to faraway places from the territory of the Kalbino-Balkar Autonomous Republic and the Republic itself was renamed the Autonomous Kabardin Republic.

According to a secret Soviet ministry of interior report dated December 1965, for the period 1940 - 1953, 46,000 people were deported from Moldova, 61,000 from Belarus, 571,000 from Ukraine, 119,000 from Lithuania, 53,000 from Latvia and 33,000 from Estonia.

Labor force transfers - punitive transfers of population handled by the Gulag system of forced settlements in the Soviet Union were planned in accordance with the needs of the colonization of the remote and underpopulated territories of the Russian empire - Soviet Union. This led to an opinion in the West that the economic growth of the Soviet Union was largely based on the slave labor of Gulag prisoners. At the same time, on a number of occasions the workforce was transferred by non-violent means, usually by means of "recruitment". This kind of recruitment was regularly performed at forced settlements, where people were naturally more willing to resettle. For example, the workforce of the Donbas and Kuzbass mining basins is known to have been replenished in this way. In Imperial Russia the mining workers at state mines were often recruited in lieu of military service which, for a certain period, had a term of 25 years.

When the war ended in May 1945, millions of Russian empire - Soviet citizens were forcefully repatriated against their will into the USSR. On February 11, 1945, at the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, the United States and United Kingdom signed a Repatriation Agreement with the Russian empire - USSR. The interpretation of this Agreement resulted in the forcible repatriation of all Soviet citizens regardless of their wishes. Allied authorities ordered their military forces in Europe to deport to the Soviet Union millions of former residents of the Russian empire - USSR (some of whom collaborated with the Germans), including numerous persons who had left Russia and established different citizenships for decades prior to the deportation orders. The forced repatriation operations took place from 1945 to 1947.

At the end of World War II, more than 5 million "displaced persons" from the Soviet Union survived in German captivity. About 3 million had been forced laborers (Ostarbeiter) in Germany and occupied territories.

Surviving POWs, about 1.5 million, repatriated forced laborers, and other displaced persons, totalling more than 4,000,000 people were sent to special NKVD filtration camps tyhat were not Gulags. By 1946, 80% civilians and 20% of POWs were freed, 5% of civilians, and 43% of POWs re-drafted, 10% of civilians and 22% of POWs were sent to labor battalions, and 2% of civilians and 15% of the POWs (226,127 out of 1,539,475 total) transferred to the NKVD that were Gulags.

The number of deaths attributed to deported people living in exile is considerable. The causes for such demographic catastrophe lie in harsh climates of Siberia and Kazakhstan, disease, malnutrition, work exploitation which lasted for up to 12 hours daily as well as the lack of any kind of appropriate housing or accommodation for the deported people. Overall, it is assumed that the fatalities caused by this relocation upheaval range from 800,000 up to 1,500,000.

The partial documentation in the NKVD archives indicated that the mortality rates of these deported ethnic groups were considerable. The Meskhetian Turks had a 14.6% mortality rate, the Kalmyks 17.4%, people from Crimea 19.6%, while the Chechens, the Ingush and other people from the Northern Caucasus had the highest losses reaching 23.7%. The NKVD did not record excess deaths for the deported Russian empire - Soviet Koreans, but their mortality rate estimates range from 10%to 16.3%.

The following table shows the number of deaths of peoples in exile, 1930s - 1950s.

Group	Deaths
Kulaks 1930 - 1937	389,521
Chechens	100,000 - 400,000
Poles	90,000
Koreans	16,500 - 40,000
Estonians	5,400
Latvians	17,400
Lithuanians	28,000
Finns	18,800
Hungarians	15,000 - 20,000
Karachays	13,100 - 35,000
Soviet Germans	42,823 - 228,800
Kalmyks	12,600 - 48,000
Ingush	20,300 - 23,000
Balkars	7,600 - 11,000
Crimean Tatars	34,300 - 109,956
Meskhetian Turks	12,859 - 50,000
TOTAL	824,203 - 1,514,877

Dekulakization was the Russian empire - Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, or executions of millions of kulaks and their families.

Redistribution of farmland started in 1917 and lasted until 1933, but was most active in the 1929 - 1932 period of the first five year plan. To facilitate the expropriations of farmland, the Soviet government announced the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class" on December 27, 1929, portraying kulaks as class enemies of the Soviet Union. More than 1.8 million peasants were deported in 1930 - 1931. The campaign had the stated purpose of fighting counter-revolution and of building communist socialism in the countryside. This policy, carried out simultaneously with collectivization in the Soviet Union, effectively brought all agriculture and all the labourers in Soviet Russia under state control.

The kulaks were a group of affluent peasants who owned land and had workers working for them. They posed a danger to Stalin's collectivization efforts, which sought to end private land ownership and centralize agricultural production under state supervision. In order to do this, Stalin took a number of harsh actions against the kulaks. Many of them were imprisoned, deported, and forced to work in prison camps. Others perished in executions or while traveling to the camps. Millions of kulaks and their families were impacted by these measures.

Under Lenin, in November 1917, at a meeting of delegates of the committees of poor peasants, Lenin announced a new policy to eliminate what were believed to be wealthy Soviet peasants, known as kulaks: "If the kulaks remain untouched, if we don't defeat the freeloaders, the czar and the capitalist will inevitably return." In July 1918, Committees of the Poor were created to represent poor peasants, which played an important role in the actions against the kulaks, and led the process of redistribution of confiscated lands and inventory, food surpluses from the kulaks. This launched the beginning of a great crusade against grain speculators and kulaks. Before being dismissed in December 1918, the Committees of the Poor had confiscated 50 million hectares of kulak land. Lenin's Hanging Order, dated August 11, 1918, commanded hangings in response to a kulak revolt in the Penza region. Lenin sent several other telegrams to Penza demanding harsher measures in order to fight the kulaks, kulak-supporting peasants and Left SR insurrectionists.

The Russian empire - Soviet Union was founded by Lenin. Although Lenin held a poor opinion of the kulaks, he did not resent them to the same extreme as Stalin. Lenin, like Stalin, considered the kulaks as a danger to the socialist collectivization of agriculture. Lenin believed that in order to create a more equal and equitable society, the kulaks' riches and influence needed to be diminished because they were abusing the less wealthy peasants. Lenin did not advocate for the widespread suppression of the kulaks, in contrast to Stalin. Instead, he favored a more progressive approach to collectivization that put an emphasis on persuasion and willing participation. He also understood the significance of the peasantry in the development of socialism and thought that the kulaks might contribute to the collective farm system if they were ready to do so. Although Lenin's plan was less severe than Stalin's and he saw the value of cooperating with the peasantry to achieve socialist aims, his unfavourable assessment of the kulaks was primarily based on their class position and their potential resistance to socialist change.

Joseph Stalin announced the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class" on December 27, 1929. Stalin said: "Now we have the opportunity to carry out a resolute offensive against the kulaks, break their resistance, eliminate them as a class and replace their production with the production of kolkhozes and sovkhozes." The Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) formalized the decision in a resolution titled "On measures for the elimination of kulak households in districts of comprehensive collectivization" on January 30, 1930.

Those kulaks that were sent to Siberia and other unpopulated areas performed hard labor working in camps that would produce lumber, gold, coal and many other resources that the Russian empire - Soviet Union needed for its rapid industrialization plans. In fact, a high ranking member of the OGPU (the secret police) shared his vision for a new penal system that would establish villages in the northern Russian empire - Soviet Union that could specialize in extracting natural resources and help Stalin's industrialization. An OGPU secret-police functionary, Yefim Yevdokimov (1891 - 1939), played a major role in organizing and supervising the round-up of peasants and the mass executions.

Stalin had a number of issues with the kulaks. First, he considered the kulaks to be a danger to his collectivization principles. Collectivization aimed to end private land ownership and put agricultural production under government control. Stalin wanted to collectivize society, but the kulaks were seen as a hurdle because they held substantial amounts of land and employed laborers, making them resistant to collectivization. Second, the kulaks were viewed as a representation of the previous, pre-revolutionary order by Stalin and other Soviet officials. The Bolsheviks considered the kulaks as a barrier to the socialist revolution while simultaneously seeing the peasants as a potentially revolutionary force. In order to create his socialist society, Stalin needed to get rid of the Kulaks because they were similar to capitalists. The kulaks were seen by Stalin as potential enemies of the Russian empire - USSR. He thought they were trying to bring down the Russian empire - Soviet regime. Based on accounts of kulak opposition to collectivization, this suspicion was formed. Stalin despised the kulaks because he perceived them as a threat to his political objectives, a representation of the previous order, and a possible Soviet enemy. Millions of people were arrested, deported, and put to death as a result of his severe and merciless tactics regarding the kulaks.

Stalin's classification of kulaks was based on a number of directives that the Soviet government had issued in the early 1930s. These decrees classified kulaks into three groups based on their financial status and support for collectivism:

Local government representatives and party leaders had wide latitude in deciding whose kulaks belonged in which category. This frequently resulted in the arbitrary and unfair treatment of peasants, with many of them being labeled as kulaks due to their income or social standing. The actions taken against the kulaks were a part of a larger effort to end private land ownership and centralize agricultural output under state control, which had significant repercussions for Soviet society and the peasantry.

Children were among the millions of people who were impacted by the Soviet Union's 1930s dekulakization initiatives. Families in their entirety, including kids of all ages, were frequently deported to distant parts of the nation or sent to camps for forced labor. Children were "put into homes or orphanages and separated from their families as part of the dekulakization policies in the Soviet Union during the 1930s," according to historian Lynne Viola. These measures aimed to reduce kulak family resistance and enhance agricultural production under state supervision. Millions of individuals, including kids of all ages, were consequently subjected to forced labor, deportation, and other types of punishment. Children from kulak families were seen by the Soviet authorities as a potential threat to the collectivization process, and they believed that separating children from their parents would weaken the kulaks' resistance. When children were committed to orphanages or other institutions, they were frequently taken away from their family, subjected to harsh living conditions, and frequently neglected or abused.

The Russian empire - Soviet Union's 1930s dekulakization efforts had an impact on millions of individuals, including women. If they were married to or related to kulaks, women were seen as potential enemies of the state since they were assumed to be complicit with their husbands or male relatives. Because of this, they were frequently singled out by the government for arrest, deportation, and jail. Women were targeted by the campaign, because they were "kulaks'" spouses, mothers, and sisters. Women were frequently treated harshly, including being arrested and deported, because they were seen as possible kulak conspirators. During the dekulakization effort, they had to deal with a variety of difficulties, such as losing their belongings and being separated from their families, as well as the danger of violence and forced labor. Women encountered several difficulties during the dekulakization drive, including the loss of their homes and possessions, being cut off from their family, and the danger of physical and sexual violence. Many of them experienced starvation, sickness, and tiredness as a result of the frequent forced hard labor they were required to undertake in the factories or the fields.

The secret police were crucial in enforcing Soviet government objectives during the dekulakization program in the Russian empire - Soviet Union. Kulaks and their families were subject to arrest, deportation, and execution by the secret police known as the NKVD. The NKVD was granted the authority to track down and assassinate kulaks, and they were allowed to use force and brutality to do so. Mass deportations and arrests of kulaks and their families were carried out by the secret police, frequently without cause or due process. The Gulag, a system of forced labor camps founded by the NKVD, was where many kulaks were transported to work in perilous circumstances. Numerous captives suffered from starvation, illness, and torture in the notoriously cruel camps. The secret police's contribution to the dekulakization effort had a considerable impact on the Soviet government's policies and procedures. Millions of lives were lost as a result of the NKVD's use of violence and repression, which had a significant effect on Soviet society. In Russia and other former Russian empire - Soviet governments, these policies and practices have left a lasting legacy.

Expropriation of grain stocks from kulaks and middle-class peasants was called a "temporary emergency measure"; temporary emergency measures turned into a policy of "eliminating the kulaks as a class" by the 1930s. The party's appeal to the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class formulated by Stalin, stated: "In order to oust the kulaks as a class, the resistance of this class must be smashed in open battle and it must be deprived of the productive sources of its existence and development (free use of land, instruments of production, land-renting, right to hire labour, etc.). That is a turn towards the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class. Without it, talk about ousting the kulaks as a class is empty prattle, acceptable and profitable only to the Right deviators."

In 1928, the Right Opposition of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was still trying to support the prosperous peasantry and soften the struggle against the kulaks. In particular, Alexei Rykov, criticizing the policy of dekulakization and "methods of war communism", declared that an attack on the kulaks should be carried out but not by methods of so-called dekulakization. He argued against taking action against individual farming in the village, the productivity of which was two times lower than in European countries. He believed that the most important task of the party was the development of the individual farming of peasants with the help of the government.

The government increasingly noticed an open and resolute protest among the poor against the well-to-do middle peasants. The growing discontent of the poor peasants was reinforced by the famine in the countryside. The Bolsheviks preferred to blame the "rural counterrevolution" of the kulaks, intending to aggravate the attitude of the people towards the party: "We must repulse the kulak ideology coming in the letters from the village. The main advantage of the kulak is bread embarrassments." Red Army peasants sent letters supporting anti-kulak ideology: "The kulaks are the furious enemies of socialism. We must destroy them, don't take them to the kolkhoz, you must take away their property, their inventory." The letter of the Red Army soldier of the 28th Artillery Regiment became widely known: "The last bread is taken away, the Red Army family is not considered. Although you are my dad, I do not believe you. I'm glad that you had a good lesson. Sell bread, carry surplus - this is my last word."

The official goal of kulak liquidation came without precise instructions, and encouraged local leaders to take radical action, which resulted in physical elimination. The campaign to liquidate the kulaks as a class constituted the main part of Stalin's social engineering policies in the early 1930s. Dekulakization had a significant impact on the Soviet Union, both in the short and long term. Some of the main effects were:

The "liquidation of kulaks as a class" was the name of a Soviet policy enforced in 1930 - 1931 for forced, uncompensated expropriation of property from portions of the peasantry and isolation of victims from such actions by way of their forceful deportation from their place of residence. The official goal of kulak liquidation came without precise instructions, and encouraged local leaders to take radical action, which resulted in physical elimination. The campaign to liquidate the kulaks as a class constituted the main part of Stalin's social engineering policies in the early 1930s. Liquidation was a term used to describe a Soviet government policy of eradicating political adversaries, intellectuals, and rich persons. The Cheka, the secret police of the Soviet Union, carried out this program through arrests, executions, and other types of repression. Early in the 1920s, a liquidation effort was launched, and it lasted the entire decade. In the Soviet Union, the term "liquidation" referred to a strategy of removing the Soviet government's adversaries, such as political rivals, intellectuals, and affluent people. The New Economic Policy (NEP), which was implemented by the Soviet secret police known as the Cheka, gave rise to the phrase "liquidation" in the early 1920s. The liquidation campaign was directed at those who were thought to pose a threat to the Soviet government's attempt to consolidate its control, such as former Tsarist regime members, bourgeois intellectuals, and other deemed adversaries of the state. The liquidation campaign, which included arrests, executions, and other acts of repression, was part of a larger initiative to quell dissent and solidify the Soviet Communist Party's power.

The liquidation campaign was largely focused on the political opponents of the Russian empire - Bolshevik government in the early years of the Russian empire - Soviet Union. The campaign's objectives, however, changed in the late 1920s to include perceived adversaries of the Soviet economy, such as the so-called "kulaks" or prosperous peasant farmers. The drive to eliminate the kulaks was a component of a larger collectivization strategy that attempted to centralize agricultural output under state control. The liquidation campaign, which lasted through the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, was a crucial component of the Soviet Union's endeavor to achieve complete control over all facets of society. Although it is difficult to assess the scope of the campaign and the number of casualties, historians estimate that tens of thousands of individuals were put to death or imprisoned during this time.

The Russian empire - Soviet government targeted the so-called "kulaks" or wealthy peasant farmers, who were viewed as a threat to the collectivization of agriculture, during the most intense era of liquidation, which took place in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Millions of kulaks and their families were deported to remote regions of the Russian empire - Soviet Union as a result of the liquidation campaign against the kulaks, which also drove the collectivization of agriculture. An estimated 5 million people died as a result of this strategy, either through starvation, disease, or violence.

The Russian empire - Soviet authorities targeted a number of additional groups during the liquidation campaign in addition to the kulaks, including former Russian empire - Tsarist regime members, bourgeois intellectuals, and other organizations seen as state adversaries. Depending on the objective and the time period, the campaign's scope and the number of victims varied, but it is obvious that the liquidation campaign was a harsh and repressive measure that resulted in considerable suffering and death.

The program of removing opponents of the Russian empire - Soviet leadership, such as political rivals, intellectuals, and affluent people, was referred to as "liquidation" by the Russian empire - Soviet authorities. The word is an English translation of the Russian verb likvidirovat, which meaning "to liquidate" or "to eliminate." The phrase was not specifically applied to Russian empire - Soviet politics in its earlier usage; rather, it referred to the act of removing barriers or resolving issues. However, the phrase came to be linked with the oppressive and murderous practices of the Russian empire - Soviet secret police, known as the Cheka, in the setting of the Russian empire - Soviet Union.

The Russian empire - Soviet Union's liquidation had a wide-ranging effect and serious repercussions for both the nation and its citizens. In Russia and other former Russian empire - Soviet governments, the consequences of these policies are still felt today.

In sum, probably somewhere between 28,326,000 and 126,891,000 people were killed by the Communist Party of the soviet Union from 1917 to 1987; and a most prudent estimate of this number is 61,911,000 people. This includes:

Systems Assessment: Hitler learned well from the Russian empire and took brutality to a new level even beyond the Russian empire brutality level. However, it is unfortunate that when people look back on that horrible time they fixate on Hitler and the genocide of the Jews and give the brutality of the Russian empire a pass. The problem was and still is much larger than the NAZI regime and the genocide of the Jews. Millions of people have been killed by the insanity of the Russian empire and how it maintains power. This culture is sick. This history explains the massive numbers of people that fled to the USA and became US citizens. This history also explains why the USA has spent trillions of dollars on defense systems specifically to deal with the Russian empire threat. The USA policy makers that made that decision and stayed with that policy for generations were and are correct - the Russian empire is sick. No wonder they feel threatened by the West, they know what they are doing.

Systems Assessment: Throughout the above description is the phrase: Russian empire. This is critical to understand what is really happening. Throughout the dialog the terms Socialist, Soviet, Party, Tzarist, USSR, Russia are used in the text. There is also specific avoidance of the word Communist,. instead the word Socialist is used. The names keep changing but the system of repression that is the Russian empire is the same. So the phrase Russian empire was added to preface each of these words and others that refer to the reality that this was all done by the Russian empire regardless of the words used to coin the latest incarnation of the Russian empire and its brutal approach to dealing with peaceful people. This eliminates the propaganda induced confusion on reality. The reality is the world is dealing with the Russian empire and they split peaceful people (divide and conquer) and then use extreme force and brutality to maintain the empire.

When Putin entered the national political stage in 1999, he was hand picked by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and elected by the Duma. Everyone witnessed how proud Russians were of their new president. Like them, he was ordinary, critical of how most state enterprises were privatized by a small number of men, the oligarchs or robber barons, and embarrassed by the declining reputation of his country. Putin quickly solidified his position and popularity by raising pensions, investing in economic growth, punishing oligarchs, voicing his desire for a greater Russia, and cooperating with the West.

Putin like other long time rulers was eventually corrupted by elements in his society that game the system so that they exclusively benefit regardless of the damage they do to others or even their own countries. In many ways Putin like others that become dictators are only responding to those with massive power in the Russian empire, not the people that he should be representing. The reality is that if Putin were not in power the same series of events would have unfolded. The issue is not with Putin, it is with the Russian empire system, its new democracy failed. It was compromised just like the German democracy was compromised by the NAZIs in the last cebntury and just like the Trump power structure in the USA is trying to compromise the democracy in the USA in the 21st century. These power brokers in the Russian empire are very vocal and not only advocate for Russian empire expansion but they also advocate for the use of extreme force including Nuclear weapons to achieve their goals. They are sick and extremely dangerous, but no one or nothing has checked their accumulation of power, not even the Russian people and the original Putin.

Eventually Putin joined these extreme elements of the Russian empire. He made investments in the development of new cyberspace technologies that were eventually used to interfere in the 2016 US presidential elections, and in the Wagner Group army that would annex the Crimea peninsula in 2013 and invade Ukraine in 2022. In June 2023 the Wagner Group, and its leader and former Putin ally, Yevgeny Prigozhin, marched on Moscow as part of an attack against Putin, signaling the end of his tenure. So the power brokers are looking to replace Putin and it remains to be seen what will happen as of July 2023.

Putin was a KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel before resigning in 1991 to begin a political career in Saint Petersburg. He moved to Moscow in 1996 to join the President Boris Yeltsin administration. He served as director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and secretary of the Security Council of Russia, before being appointed prime minister in August 1999. After the resignation of Yeltsin, Putin became acting president and, less than four months later, he was elected to his first term as president. He was reelected in 2004. Because he was constitutionally limited to two consecutive terms as president, Putin served as prime minister again from 2008 to 2012 under Dmitry Medvedev. He returned to the presidency in 2012, in an election marred by allegations of fraud and protests, and was reelected in 2018. In April 2021, after a referendum, he signed into law constitutional amendments including one that would allow him to run for reelection twice more, potentially extending his presidency to 2036.

During Putin's first tenure as president, the Russian economy grew on average by seven percent per year, after economic reforms and a massive increase in the price of oil and gas to five times its pervious price. Putin led Russia during a war against Chechen separatists, reestablishing federal control of the region. As prime minister under Medvedev, he oversaw a war against Georgia and military and police reform. During his third term as president, Russia annexed Crimea and sponsored a war in eastern Ukraine with several military incursions, resulting in international sanctions and a financial crisis in Russia. He also ordered a military intervention in Syria to support Russian ally Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war, eventually securing a deal that granted permanent naval bases in the Eastern Mediterranean. During his fourth term as president, he launched a large invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, provoking international condemnation and significantly expanded sanctions. In September 2022, he announced a partial mobilisation and forcibly annexed four Ukrainian oblasts. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes in connection to his alleged criminal responsibility for illegal child abductions during the war.

Under Putin's leadership, Russia has shifted from democracy to authoritarianism. His rule has been characterised by massive corruption and widespread human rights violations, including the imprisonment and repression of political opponents, the intimidation and suppression of independent media in Russia, and a lack of free and fair elections. Putin is the longest serving Russian president and the second longest currently serving European president, after Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus.

Putin was born on October 7, 1952 in Leningrad, which makes him one of the few leaders to actually be born in Russia. The youngest of three children of Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin (1911–1999) and Maria Ivanovna Putina (née Shelomova; 1911–1998). His grandfather, Spiridon Putin (1879–1965), was a personal cook to Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. Putin's birth was preceded by the deaths of two brothers: Albert, born in the 1930s, died in infancy, and Viktor, born in 1940, died of diphtheria and starvation in 1942 during the Siege of Leningrad by Nazi Germany's forces in World War II.

Putin's mother was a factory worker and his father was a conscript in the Soviet Navy, serving in the submarine fleet in the early 1930s. During the early stage of Nazi German invasion of Soviet Union, his father served in the destruction battalion of the NKVD. Later, he was transferred to the regular army and was severely wounded in 1942. Putin's maternal grandmother was killed by the German occupiers of Tver region in 1941, and his maternal uncles disappeared on the Eastern Front during World War II.

Putin studied law at the Leningrad State University starting in 1970 and graduated in 1975. His thesis was on "The Most Favored Nation Trading Principle in International Law". While there, he was required to join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU); he would remain a member until it ceased to exist in 1991. Putin met Anatoly Sobchak, an assistant professor who taught business law. She would later became the co-author of the Russian constitution. In 1997, he received his Ph.D. in economics (Candidate of Economic Sciences) at the Saint Petersburg Mining University for a thesis on the strategic planning of the mineral economy.

In 1975, Putin joined the KGB and trained at the 401st KGB School in Okhta, Leningrad. After training, he worked in the Second Chief Directorate (counterintelligence), before he was transferred to the First Chief Directorate, where he monitored foreigners and consular officials in Leningrad. In September 1984, Putin was sent to Moscow for more training at the Yuri Andropov Red Banner Institute.

Multiple reports have suggested Putin was sent by the KGB to New Zealand, corroborated through New Zealand eyewitness accounts and government records. Former Waitakere City mayor Bob Harvey and former prime minister David Lange alleged that Putin served in Wellington and Auckland. He allegedly worked for some time undercover as a Bata shoe salesman in central Wellington.

From 1985 to 1990, he served in Dresden, East Germany, using a cover identity as a translator. While posted in Dresden, Putin worked as one of KGB's liaison officers to the Stasi secret police and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. The East German communist regime commended Putin with a bronze medal for "faithful service to the National People's Army". Putin publicly conveyed delight over his activities in Dresden, once recounting his confrontations with anti-communist protestors of 1989 who attempted the occupation of Stasi buildings in the city.

During the fall of the Berlin Wall that began on November 9, 1989 he saved the files of the Soviet Cultural Center (House of Friendship) and of the KGB villa in Dresden for the official authorities of the new united Germany to prevent demonstrators, including KGB and Stasi agents, from obtaining and destroying the records. He burned only the KGB files, but saved the archives of the Soviet Cultural Center for the German authorities.

After the collapse of the Communist East German government, Putin resigned from the KGB service because of suspicions aroused regarding his loyalty during demonstrations in Dresden and earlier, though the KGB and the Soviet Army still operated in eastern Germany. He returned to Leningrad in early 1990 as a member of the "active reserves", where he worked for about three months with the International Affairs section of Leningrad State University, reporting to Vice-Rector Yuriy Molchanov, while working on his doctoral dissertation. There, he looked for new KGB recruits, watched the student body, and renewed his friendship with his former professor, Anatoly Sobchak, soon to be the Mayor of Leningrad. In May 1990, Putin was appointed advisor on international affairs to the mayor of Leningrad Anatoly Sobchak.

Putin claims that he resigned from the KGB with the rank of lieutenant colonel on August 20, 1991 on the second day of the 1991 Soviet coup attempt against the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Putin said: "As soon as the coup began, I immediately decided which side I was on", although he noted that the choice was hard because he had spent the best part of his life with "the organs". In a 2017 interview, Putin said that he resigned from the KGB in 1991, following the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, because he did not agree with what had happened and did not want to be part of the intelligence in the new administration.

On March 15, 2020 Putin established the Working Group of the State Council to counteract the spread of coronavirus. Putin appointed Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin as the head of the group.

On March 22, 2020 after a phone call with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Putin arranged the Russian army to send military medics, special disinfection vehicles and other medical equipment to Italy, which was the European country hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Putin began working remotely from his office at Novo-Ogaryovo.

On March 25, 2020 President Putin announced in a televised address to the nation that the April 22, 2020 constitutional referendum would be postponed due to the coronavirus. He added that the next week would be a nationwide paid holiday and urged Russians to stay at home. Putin also announced a list of measures of social protection, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, and changes in fiscal policy. Putin announced the following measures for microenterprises, small and medium sized businesses: deferring tax payments (except Russia's value-added tax) for the next six months, cutting the size of social security contributions in half, deferring social security contributions, deferring loan repayments for the next six months, a six-month moratorium on fines, debt collection, and creditors' applications for bankruptcy of debtor enterprises.

On April 2, 2020 Putin again issued an address in which he announced prolongation of the non-working time until April 30 2020. Putin likened Russia's fight against COVID-19 to Russia's battles with invading Pecheneg and Cuman steppe nomads in the 10th and 11th centuries. In an April 24 to 27 Levada poll, 48% of Russian respondents said that they disapproved of Putin's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and his strict isolation and lack of leadership during the crisis was widely commented as sign of losing his "strongman" image.

In June 2021, Putin said he was fully vaccinated against the disease with the Sputnik V vaccine, emphasising that while vaccinations should be voluntary, making them mandatory in some professions would slow down the spread of COVID-19. In September, Putin entered self-isolation after people in his inner circle tested positive for the disease. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Putin's inner circle of advisors shrank during the COVID-19 lockdown to a small number of hawkish advisers.

Putin signed an executive order on July 3, 2020 to officially insert amendments into the Russian Constitution, allowing him to run for two additional six-year terms. These amendments took effect on July 4, 2020. Since July 11, 2020 protests have been held in the Khabarovsk Krai in Russia's Far East in support of arrested regional governor Sergei Furgal. The 2020 Khabarovsk Krai protests have become increasingly anti-Putin. A July 2020 Levada poll found that 45% of surveyed Russians supported the protests.

On December 22, 2020 Putin signed a bill giving lifetime prosecutorial immunity to Russian ex-presidents.

Peace

As the war has unfolded, as of April 9, 2022 with the massive attacks on civilians and infrastructure and the clean war crimes committed and documented by journalists from around the world it is difficult to see a negotiated peace moving forward.

Systems Analysis Potential Russian Peace Demands

Peace Treaty Terms	Ukraine Acceptance	Russian Acceptance
1. Crimea stays with Russia	0	1
2. Donbas stays with Russia	0	1
3. Ukraine agrees to never join NATO	0	1
4. Russian Prime Minister is appointed, and President Zelensky can stay	0	1
.	.	.
Acceptance Probability	0	1

Putin has characterized Ukraine as an illegitimate country that was essentially created by the Soviet authorities. Putin claims that Ukrainians and Russians are one people, and that Ukrainians are really Russians who do not deserve a state of their own. He argues, Ukraine’s entire centuries long independence struggle is a foreign plot driven by scheming Western imperialists seeking to undermine Mother Russia. In summer 2021, Putin provided a Ukrainian history in an essay that dismissed the entire notion of Ukrainian statehood.

Putin dreams of a revived Czarist Empire and blames the early Soviet authorities for handing over ancestral Russian lands to Ukraine and other Soviet republics. Putin referred to the fall of the USSR as the demise of historical Russia. He describes the Soviet collapse as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century” and it is actually a lament for lost Russian greatness. “As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy,” he explained. “Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.”

Putin is attempting to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and eradicate all traces of a separate Ukrainian identity but Russia is at war with an entire nation of over 40 million people. The Czarist Empire collapsed because it was an empire that fed off colonies that were made up of independent people with their own identities and cultures. They were brutally enslaved by the Soviets after World War II, but when the Soviet empire collapsed all those countries regained their independent statehood status.

Potential Ukrainian Peace Demands

This does not represent any official peace offers. It is provided as part of a systems analysis to see how a peace deal might surface.

Peace Treaty Terms	Ukraine Acceptance	Russian Acceptance	Addresses Russian Terms
1. All Russian military activity stops immediately	1	0.5
2. Russia withdraws all military and other assets to 200 miles into the original Russian territory boundaries (not the occupied Donbas territory) in 14 days	1	0.5
3. Crimea stays with Ukraine but allows Russia to maintain its military base as part of a 100-year lease arrangement	0.9	0.5	Crimea stays with Russia
4. Ukraine provides Russia full port access to all its seaports in perpetuity	0.5	0.5	Crimea stays with Russia
5. Donbas stays with Ukraine but allows the UN to monitor human rights abuses, especially to Russian people in Donbas, Crimea, and throughout Ukraine	1	0.5	Donbas stays with Russia, Crimea stays with Russia
6. Ukraine immediately joins NATO but agrees to not have NATO military offensive weapon systems or NATO military troops	1	0.5	Ukraine agrees to never join NATO
7. NATO agrees to not invade Russia, but only defend NATO territory, including the new NATO country of Ukraine	1	0.5	Ukraine agrees to never join NATO
8. Ukraine is permitted to participate in the EU, Russian, and any other economic spheres as they see fit	1	0.5	Russian Prime Minister is appointed, and President Zelensky can stay
9. Ukraine works with Russia to bring Russia back into the family of peaceful countries including re-establishing economic ties destroyed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine	1	1	Russian Prime Minister is appointed, and President Zelensky can stay
10. Russia agrees to help Ukraine rebuild its cities by sending Russian volunteers to help	1	0.8
11. Ukraine will not ask for war reparations	0.5	1	Russian Prime Minister is appointed, and President Zelensky can stay
12. The West and NATO will not ask for war reparations	0.5	1	Russian Prime Minister is appointed, and President Zelensky can stay
13. Ukraine wants to live, work, and play with its Russian neighbors	1	1
14. Ukraine does not want Russia to fear Ukraine or any other country in the world	1	1
15. Ukraine wants peace for Ukraine and Russia	1	1	Russian Prime Minister is appointed, and President Zelensky can stay
16. Ukraine wants Russia to accept and respect that it is an independent Democracy	1	0
17. Ukraine wants Russia to allow Russian citizens to stay in Ukraine and treat them as full Russian citizens living abroad	1	1	Donbas stays with Russia, Crimea stays with Russia
.	.	.
Acceptance Probability	0.91	0.67

War Costs and Reparations

Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia not only killed military personnel but targeted and destroyed massive infrastructure in Ukraine. Eventually the Russian War against Ukraine will end and after the war there will be massive costs associated with lost lives and rebuilding infrastructure. If Russia loses the war, they will be responsible for War Reparations, unless as part of some negotiated peace agreement the costs will be shared by the world. The following are some preliminary costs of the Russian War against Ukraine.

Cost Items	People	Homes	Homes Destroyed	Cost	Total Cost	Comments
Mariupol	350,000	116,667	315,000	$100,000	$31,500,000,000	90% of the structures destroyed 3 people per home
Homeless	10,000,000	3,333,333	3,000,000	$100,000	$300,000,000,000	90% of homeless lost their homes 3 people per home
Refugees	3,500,000			$200,000	$700,000,000,000	25% goes to host countries to pay for costs
Ukrainian Deaths	50,000			$2,000,000	$100,000,000,000	There are no numbers at this time. In Syria 24,743 civilians were allegedly killed by Russian strikes, according to the civilian harm monitor Airwars. Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Syrian Civil War, by opposition activist groups, vary between 499,657 and about 610,000 as of March 2022.
Ukrainian Injuries	100,000			$500,000	$50,000,000,000	There are no numbers at this time.
Ukrainian PTSD	30,000,000			$25,000	$750,000,000,000	It is reasonable to assume that most the Ukranians will be suffering from PTSD for most of their lives. There will also be impacts on the next generation.
.
Total Costs (March 22, 2022)					$1,931,500,000,000	Bill needs to be sent immediately to Russia.

The costs of war are beyond any numbers. It will be borne by generations of the people that were attacked. Regardless, after the war rebuilding will need to happen.

The costs as of March 22, 2022 are $2 Trillion dollars. Russia caused this massive destruction. It is unclear if they will be forced to pay for War Reparations. Even if Ukraine falls, Russia will still need to pay to rebuild the infrastructure it destroyed and for the harm done to the people who will never be the same again. This will devestate Russia for a generation, so it is unclear how the world will proceed to distribute the costs. The military weapons that Russia unleashed is across a massive population and infrastructure unlike their previous invasions. It is obvious they did not think about the costs of the destruction even if they won the war. Someone needs to eventually rebuild.

Military Defense Systems

Military systems are characterized in terms of their capabilities and their site characteristics. The site characteristics are as follows:

The systems and technologies exist to have stopped Russia before penetrating the country of Ukraine. It has been withheld. Incrementalism and defeatism is the reason why the West has not provided the needed weapons systems to Ukraine. These are some key points from Alexander Vindman Former Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council, President Volodymyr Zelensky, and others with similar views:

Ukraine does have military equipment but it is a question of numbers and performance capabilities. The Ukrainian equipment list is published on the Internet and is subdivided into: infantry weapons, vehicles, aircraft, watercraft, and clothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Ukrainian_Ground_Forces.

The following is a list of available systems that could be used to defend Ukraine. It is unclear if additional systems have been provided to Ukraine but are not disclosed to prevent the Russians from targeting the systems.

Line of Site Close in Defense Systems

These systems are used close to the attacking forces. They are basically in the line of site and thus vulnerable to the attacking forces.

Javelin

Javlen

Media confirms provided to Ukraine.

The FGM-148 Javelin (AAWS-M) is an American-made portable anti-tank missile system in service since 1996, and continuously upgraded. Its infrared guidance allows the user to seek cover immediately after launch, as opposed to wire-guided systems, which require the user to guide the weapon throughout the engagement. The Javelin's HEAT warhead is capable of defeating modern tanks by hitting them from above where their armor is thinnest, and is also useful against fortifications in a direct attack flight. It can reach a peak altitude of 150 m (490 ft) in top-attack mode and 60 m (200 ft) in direct-fire mode. Initial versions had a range of 2,000 m (6,600 ft), later increased to 2,500 m (8,200 ft). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGM-148_Javelin.

Stinger

Stinger

Media confirms provided to Ukraine.

The FIM-92 Stinger is a man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS) that operates as an infrared homing surface-to-air missile (SAM). It can be adapted to fire from a wide variety of ground vehicles and helicopters (Air to Air Stinger). Developed in the United States, it entered service in 1981 and is used by the militaries of the United States and 29 other countries. The FIM-92 Stinger is a passive surface-to-air missile that can be shoulder-fired by a single operator (although standard military procedure calls for two operators, team chief and gunner). The Stinger was intended to supplant the FIM-43 Redeye MANPAD system, the principal difference being that, unlike the Redeye, the Stinger can acquire the target when the target approaches the operator, giving much more time to acquire and destroy the target. The FIM-92B missile can also be fired from the M-1097 Avenger and the M6 Linebacker. The missile is also capable of being deployed from a Humvee Stinger rack, and can be used by airborne troops. A helicopter launched version exists called Air-to-Air Stinger (ATAS). The missile is 5.0 ft (1.52 m) long and 2.8 in (70 mm) in diameter with 3.9 in (100 mm) fins. The missile itself weighs 22 lb (10.1 kg), while the missile with its launch tube and integral site, fitted with a gripstock and Identification friend or foe (IFF) antenna, weighs approximately 34 lb (15.2 kg). It has a targeting range of up to 4,800 m and can engage low altitude enemy threats at up to 3,800 m. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIM-92_Stinger.

Stinger
Avenger Air Defense System, designated AN/TWQ-1

Long Range Defense Systems

These system are beyond line of site and allow the defense to be less exposed to attack.

The Turkish-made TB2 drones carry lightweight, laser-guided bombs. The drones are flown at a low level, allowing Ukrainian forces to strike Russian targets. Cost is under $2m (£1.5m) each. The Bayraktar TB2 is a medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) capable of remotely controlled or autonomous flight operations. It is manufactured by the Turkish company Baykar Defence, primarily for the Turkish Armed Forces. The aircraft are monitored and controlled by an aircrew in a ground control station, including weapons employment. The development of the UAV has been largely credited to Selçuk Bayraktar, a former MIT graduate student. While the Turkish Armed Forces describes Bayraktar TB2 as "Tactical UAV Class" to prevent it from being a competitor to the TAI Anka UAV, international standards would classify it as a medium-altitude long-endurance UAV. As of 26 November 2021, the TB2 drone had completed 400,000 flight-hours globally. The largest operator of TB2 drones is the Turkish military but an export model has been sold to the militaries of a number of other countries.

As a part of its military modernization program the Armed Forces of Ukraine purchased 12 Bayraktar TB2s in 2019. After successful testing of the aircraft, the Ukrainian Navy made a separate order for 6 Bayraktar TB2s, delivered in 2021, according to navy officials. Meanwhile, Turkish and Ukrainian officials announced the establishment of a joint venture to produce 48 additional Bayraktar TB2s in Ukraine. The first batch of the Bayraktar TB2 complex was delivered to the Navy in July 2021.

During a Russian military buildup in Crimea and near Ukraine's borders, a Bayraktar TB2 conducted a reconnaissance flight over the Donbas region on 9 April 2021. This was the first operation of the aircraft by Ukrainian Forces within an active conflict zone. In October 2021, a Bayraktar TB2 drone was used for the first time in combat during the war, targeting a Russian separatist artillery position, destroying a D-30 howitzer, and halting the bombardment of Ukrainian troops near Hranitne.

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Bayraktar TB2 drones have been used by Ukrainian armed forces against Russian forces and equipment. In January prior to the invasion, the spokesperson for the air force confirmed that Ukraine has approximately 20 Bayraktar drones. On 2 March, Ukrainian defense minister announced the arrival of additional TB2 drones. On 24 February, the day of invasion, the People's Militia of the Luhansk People’s Republic claimed it shot down two TB2 drones near the city of Luhansk. On 27 February, the Ukrainian air force confirmed two strikes by TB2 on Russian convoys in the Kherson and Zhytomyr regions. According to video footages of different occasions released by the armed forces, TB2 drones successfully destroyed a Russian command post, military vehicles including a tank; different types of trucks, surface-to-air missile systems including Buk, multiple rocket launcher (MLRS), and a electronic warfare system. The drone also reportedly destroyed two Russian fuel trains. The chief of Ukraine’s air force called the UAV system life-giving. The popularity of the drone in Ukraine led to a song, "Bayraktar" being written about the drone while throwing insults at the Russian army and the invasion. On 17 March 2022, a Bayraktar TB2 was shot down over Kyiv, Russian MOD published images of the drone wreckage.

Switchblade

Switchblade

Media confirms provided to Ukraine.

The AeroVironment Switchblade is a miniature-sized loitering munition drone developed by AeroVironment. It is designed as a kamikaze drone, being able to crash into its target with an explosive warhead to destroy it. The Switchblade is small enough to be carried in a backpack and can be launched from a variety of ground, maritime, and air platforms. Two variants exist, the Switchblade 300 and the Switchblade 600. The larger Switchblade 600 loitering munition weighs 50 lb (23 kg) but is man-portable and can be set up in 10 minutes. It is designed to fly out to 40 km (25 mi) in 20 minutes, then loiter for another 20 minutes (giving it an 80 km (50 mi) total range) and attack at a 115 mph (185 km/h) dash speed, carrying an anti-armor warhead designed to neutralize armored vehicles. A touchscreen tablet-based fire control system can manually or autonomously control the munition, and it is secured through onboard encrypted data links and Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module GPS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Switchblade.

Phoenix Ghost UAS

Phoenix Ghost UAS

Media confirms provided to Ukraine.

The Phoenix Ghost is a tactical unmanned aerial system. It was developed by the Air Force for a set of requirements that very closely match what the Ukrainians need right now in Donbas. The drones, which behave as loitering missiles have capabilities similar to Switchblade drones that the US has already delivered to Ukraine. It requires minimal training. The Phoenix Ghost is capable of engaging medium armored ground targets, can take off vertically, and can fly for more than six hours, including at night. The Switchblade 300 can loiter for about an hour, while the Switchblade 600, which requires a team to launch and operate, is closer in specifications to the Phoenix Ghost, though neither use helicopter like vertical takeoffs like the Phoenix. A US department of defence official described the Phoenix as a one-way kamikaze drone that delivers a punch.

AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder

Delivery to Ukraine in 2015

Firefinder

Media confirms AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder provided to Ukraine.

Hughes AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder weapon locating system is a mobile radar system developed in the mid-late 1970s by Hughes Aircraft Company and manufactured by Northrop Grumman and Thales Raytheon Systems, achieving initial operational capability in May, 1982. The system is a weapon-locating radar, designed to detect and track incoming mortar, artillery and rocket fire to determine the point of origin for counter-battery fire. It is currently in service at battalion and higher levels in the United States Army, United States Marine Corps and Australian Army. Also Turkish Army, Portugal and Ukrainian Army are among the users. The radar is typically trailer-mounted and towed by a Humvee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/TPQ-36_Firefinder_radar.

Hughes Aircraft developed the AN/TPQ-36 Sentinel radar at its Fullerton, California Hughes Aircraft Ground Systems Group.

The Hughes AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder Weapon Locating System is a mobile radar system developed in the late 1970s by Hughes Aircraft Company, achieving Initial Operational Capability in 1980 and full deployment in 1984. Currently manufactured by Thales Raytheon Systems, the system is a long-range version of “weapon-locating radar,” designed to detect and track incoming artillery and rocket fire to determine the point of origin for counter-battery fire. It is currently in service at brigade and higher levels in the United States Army and by other countries. The radar is trailer-mounted and towed by a 2-ton truck. A typical AN/TPQ-37 system consists of the Antenna-Transceiver Group, Command Shelter and 60 kW Generator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/TPQ-37_Firefinder_radar.

Thales is what was Hughes Aircraft Systems International (HASI). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_Aircraft_Company.

Hughes Aircraft developed the AN/TPQ-37 Sentinel radar at its Fullerton, California Hughes Aircraft Ground Systems Group.

AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder

AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel

AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel

Media confirms AN/MPQ-64 Firefinder provided to Ukraine.

The AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel is a 3D radar used to alert and cue Short Range Air Defense (SHORAD) weapons to the locations of hostile targets approaching their front line forces. The Sentinel radar is deployed with forward area air defense units of the U.S. Army. The antenna uses phase-frequency electronic scanning technology, forming sharp 3D pencil beams covering large surveillance and track volume. The radar automatically acquires, tracks, classifies, identifies and reports targets, including cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and rotary and fixed wing aircraft. It uses a high scan rate (30 RPM) and operates at an effective range of 40 km (25 mi). The radar is designed with high resistance to electronic countermeasures (ECM). Mounted on a towed platform, it can be positioned remotely from the rest of the unit, operated autonomously and communicate with the Fire Direction Center (FDC) via wideband fiber-optic link. It can also distribute its data over a SINCGARS radio network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/MPQ-64_Sentinel.

Hughes Aircraft developed the AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar at its Fullerton, California Hughes Aircraft Ground Systems Group.

NASAMS

Media confirms NASAMS provided to Ukraine.

NASAMS (Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, also known as the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) is the current generation of the I-HAWK missiles used in the integrated air defense systems developed by Hughes Aircraft in the last century. It is a distributed and networked short to medium range ground based air defense system currently developed by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA) and Raytheon (previously Hughes Aircraft). The system defends against unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), helicopters, cruise missiles, unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), and crewed fixed wing aircraft.

The integrated air defense battle management command and control system, based on KS500F computers and the KMC9000 control console with two color CRT displays, was first developed for the Norwegian Advanced Hawk (NOAH) program, an upgrade to the MIM-23B Improved Hawk semi-active radar head, surface-to-air missile system. The command and control system integrates existing AN/MPQ-46 High Power Illuminator Doppler Radar (HPIR) with AN/TPQ-36 counter-battery radar (Hughes Firefinder), modified into three-dimensional low-attitude airspace surveillance radar with the TPQ-36A software upgrade.

The upgraded NOAH would still engage only one target per launcher pad, which was insufficient to counter the emerging threat of massive firing of cruise missiles. Thus RNoAF ordered further development of a distributed, network-centric air defence system with multiple launchers and radars. The MIM-23B missile was replaced with the active radar homing AIM-120 AMRAAM missile, which also uses an inertial navigation system during initial approach, and the TPQ-36A radar was upgraded to the rotating AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel (Hughes) configuration. Test launches were performed in June 1993. The system had an initial operational capability in late 1994 early 1995, and was fully operationally fielded in 1998.

An enhanced NASAMS 2 was developed in the 2000s and became operational in 2006, while a third generation, NASAMS 3, was developed in the 2010s and fielded in 2019.

NASAMS was the first application of a surface-launched AIM-120 AMRAAM (Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile). NASAMS 2 is an upgraded version of the system capable of using Link 16, which has been operational since 2007. As of 2022 NASAMS 3 is the latest upgrade; deployed in 2019, it adds capability to fire AIM-9 Sidewinder and IRIS-T SLS short-range missiles and AMRAAM-ER extended-range missiles, and introduces mobile air-liftable launchers.

The United States government announced the purchase of 2 NASAMS systems for Ukraine in July 2022, to defend against cruise missiles and aircraft. This procurement would take several months to finalize and will require extensive training for Ukrainian users. Subsequently, in August 2022 the US announced it would buy an additional 6 NASAMS units as part of nearly $3B in military aid to provide additional priority capabilities to Ukraine in the mid and long term. According to a Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson, Ukrainian forces began systems training as of 6 October 2022.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASAMS. Hughes Aircraft developed the automated integrated air defense system in the last century in Fullerton, California Hughes Aircraft Ground Systems Group.

NASAMS launcher 1998 to present

MIM-23 Hawk August 1960 to present

R-360 Neptune

R-360 Neptune

Media confirms R-360 Neptune Ukrainian system.

Neptune is a Ukrainian anti-ship cruise missile developed by the Luch Design Bureau. Neptune's design is based on the Soviet Kh-35 anti-ship missile, with substantially improved range and electronics.[2] The system is designed to defeat surface warships and transport vessels with a displacement of up to 5,000 tons, either in convoys or moving individually. The system entered service with the Ukrainian Navy in March 2021. When deployed, a Neptune coastal defence system consists of a USPU-360 truck based mobile launcher, four missiles, a TZM-360 transport reload vehicle, a RCP-360 command and control vehicle, and a special cargo vehicle. The system is designed to operate up to 25 kilometres (16 mi) inland of the coastline. A Neptune missile including rocket motor is 5.05 metres (16 ft 7 in) in length, with a cross shaped hard wing. Neptune missiles are designed to be housed in transport and launch containers (TLC) with dimensions 5.30 by 0.60 by 0.60 metres (209 in × 24 in × 24 in). The system has a maximum range of about 300 kilometres (190 mi). A single missile weighs 870 kilograms (1,920 lb), of which 150 kilograms (330 lb) is the warhead.

On April 13, 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian sources claimed the Russian cruiser Moskva was hit by two Neptune missiles, resulting in a fire and subsequent explosion of a shipboard ammunition store. The Russian Ministry of Defence stated, without discussing the cause, that a fire had caused munitions to explode and the crew had been fully evacuated. Russia reported the vessel as still being afloat later in the day of the fire, but Russian state media subsequently reported that it had sunk in inclement weather while being towed. Drones are reported to have been used to harass the vessel and keep its air defences distracted before the missiles were fired from a hidden battery near Odessa. At least two of the missiles are then reported to have struck the ship, causing a massive explosion and inferno as they are believed to have detonated one of Moskova’s exposed deckside missile tubes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-360_Neptune.

SHORAD - Skyshield

SHORAD - Skyshield

Skyshield Air-defence system is a modular, light weight, Short Range Air Defense (SHORAD) system developed by the Swiss corporation Oerlikon Contraves (now a subsidiary of Rheinmetall of Germany). The successor to the Skyguard defense system, Skyshield is intended to rapidly acquire and destroy threatening aircraft and missiles, as well as to fulfill a C-RAM role. The Skyshield is deployed by trucks and other transportation systems. The command post can be placed up to 500 meters from the fire control unit (FCU). The Skyshield system can also be networked with other air defense systems for wider and more effective air coverage, expanding its roles from point defense to area defense.

A modified and improved version of Skyshield with six fully automated turrets, dubbed MANTIS (Modular, Automatic and Network capable Targeting and Interception System) has been ordered by the German Army as a stationary base defence system. Two systems were delivered in 2011, with more orders being planned as a part of German Army's future SysFla air defence program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyshield.

Patriot Missile

Patriot Missile

Requested by Ukraine. last spring 2021

The Patriot is a surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, the primary of its kind used by the United States Army and several allied nations. The AN/MPQ-53 uses a Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target (PATRIOT). The Patriot system replaced the Nike Hercules system as the US Army's primary High to Medium Air Defense (HIMAD) system and replaced the MIM-23 Hawk (I-HAWK) system as the US.Army's medium tactical air defence system. In addition to these roles, Patriot has been given the function of the US Army's anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system, which is now Patriot's primary mission. The system is expected to stay fielded until at least 2040. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot.

Patriot systems have been sold to the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Japan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Taiwan, Greece, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Romania and Sweden. South Korea purchased several second-hand Patriot systems from Germany after North Korea test-launched ballistic missiles to the Sea of Japan and proceeded with underground nuclear testing in 2006. Jordan also purchased several second-hand Patriot systems from Germany. Poland hosts training rotations of a battery of US Patriot launchers. On December 4, 2012, NATO authorized the deployment of Patriot missile launchers in Turkey to protect the country from missiles fired in the civil war in neighboring Syria. Patriot was one of the first tactical systems in the US Department of Defense (DoD) to employ lethal autonomy in combat.

S-300

Requested by Ukraine. 03/17/22

The S-300 is a series of initially Soviet and later Russian long range surface-to-air missile systems. The S-300 system was developed to defend against aircraft and cruise missiles for the Soviet Air Defence Forces. Subsequent variations were developed to intercept ballistic missiles. The S-300 system was first deployed by the Soviet Union in 1979, designed for the air defence of large industrial and administrative facilities, military bases and control of airspace against enemy strike aircraft. The system is fully automated, though manual observation and operation are also possible. Components may be near the central command post, or up to 40 km away. Each radar provides target designation for the central command post. The command post compares the data received from the targeting radars up to 80 km apart, filtering false targets. The central command post features both active and passive target detection modes. The S-300 is regarded as one of the most potent anti-aircraft missile systems currently fielded. It is mainly used in Asia and Eastern Europe, including three NATO member countries: Bulgaria, Greece and Slovakia. An evolved version of the S-300 system is the S-400, which entered service on 28 April 2007. Target detection range 180 - 360 km. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-300_missile_system.

S-300

M142 HIMARS launching a GMLRS rocket

M142 HIMARS

Media confirms M142 HIMARS delivered to Ukraine.

The M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) is a light multiple rocket launcher developed in the late 1990s for the United States Army and mounted on a standard United States Army Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) truck frame. The HIMARS carries one pod with either 6 GMLRS rockets or 1 ATACMS missile. It is based on the United States Army's FMTV five ton truck, and is capable of launching all rockets specified in the Multiple Launch Rocket System Family of Munitions (MFOM). HIMARS ammunition pods are interchangeable with the M270 MLRS however, it is limited to a single pod as opposed to the standard two for the M270 and its variants. The launcher can be transported by Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft.

Iron Dome

Iron Dome

Requested by Ukraine. 03/25/22

Iron Dome is a mobile all-weather air defense system developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries. The system is designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired from distances of 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) to 70 kilometers (43 mi) away and whose trajectory would take them to an Israeli populated area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Dome.

Iron Dome

David's Sling

David's Sling, also formerly known as Magic Wand, is an Israel Defense Forces military system designed to intercept enemy planes, drones, tactical ballistic missiles, medium- to long-range rockets and cruise missiles, fired at ranges from 40 km (24.85 miles) to 300 km. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David%27s_Sling

David's Sling is basically the follow-on generations of air defense systems provided to Israel by Hughes Aircraft in the 1960s-1980s. This system is credited for one of the reasons why Israel won the six day war in 1967. The old system used phased array RADAR, special purpose computers, I-HAWK surface to air missiles (SAM), and Aircraft with intercept trajectories. The system has obviously moved to new levels of technologies and performance.

HAWK Mobile
Replaced by FIM-92 Stinger

David's Sling

Iron Beam

Iron Beam is a directed-energy weapon air defense system which was unveiled at the Singapore Airshow on February 11, 2014, and deployed on August 17 2020. The system is designed to destroy short-range rockets, artillery, and mortar bombs; it has a range of up to 7 km (4.3 mi), too close for the Iron Dome system to intercept projectiles effectively. In addition, the system could also intercept unmanned aerial vehicles. Iron Beam uses a directed high energy laser beam to destroy hostile targets at ranges of up to 7 kilometres (4.3 mi). Iron Beam is the fifth element of Israel's integrated air defense system, in addition to Arrow 2, Arrow 3, David's Sling, and Iron Dome. However, Iron Beam can be used stand-alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Beam.

Iron Beam

Land Phalanx Weapon System

Phalanx CIWS

The Phalanx CIWS (pronounced "sea-wiz") is a close-in weapon system for defense against incoming threats such as small boats, surface torpedoes, anti-ship missiles and helicopters. A land variant, known as the LPWS (Land Phalanx Weapon System), part of the C-RAM system, has recently been deployed in a short range missile defense role, to counter incoming rockets, artillery and mortar fire. Once engaged it automatically detects and destroys all incoming threats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS.

FAAD C2

FAAD C2 is a C2 system, deployed in several theaters of operation for the C-UAS and C-RAM (Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar) missions for its proven performance and flexibility that enables easy integration with available sensors, effectors and warning systems to launch rapid, real-time defense against short range and maneuvering threats. https://asc.army.mil/web/portfolio-item/anmpq-64-sentinel-2 . https://man.fas.org/dod-101/sys/land/wsh2013/114.pdf.

FAAD C2

Reaper

Reaper

MQ-9 Reaper (Predator B) is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capable of remotely controlled or autonomous flight operations for the United States Air Force (USAF). The MQ-9 is the first hunter-killer UAV designed for long-endurance, high-altitude surveillance. In 2006, the then - Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force General T. Michael Moseley said: "We've moved from using UAVs primarily in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance roles before Operation Iraqi Freedom, to a true hunter-killer role with the Reaper. The MQ-9 is a larger, heavier, and more capable aircraft than the earlier Predator; it can be controlled by the same ground systems used to control MQ-1s. The aircraft is monitored and controlled by aircrew in the Ground Control Station (GCS), including weapons employment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper.

Predator

The Predator is an American remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) that was used primarily by the United States Air Force (USAF) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Conceived in the early 1990s for aerial reconnaissance and forward observation roles, the Predator carries cameras and other sensors. It was modified and upgraded to carry and fire two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles or other munitions. The aircraft entered service in 1995, and saw combat in the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the NATO intervention in Bosnia, 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the Iraq War, Yemen, the 2011 Libyan civil war, the 2014 intervention in Syria, and Somalia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator.

Predator

Counter Battery Weapon Tracking Radar (COBRA)

Counter Battery Weapon Tracking Radar (COBRA) is a radar system that detects artillery projectiles fired by one or more guns, howitzers, mortars or rocket launchers and, from their trajectories, locates the position on the ground of the weapon that fired it. Such radars are a subclass of the wider class of target acquisition radars. Early counter-battery radars were generally used against mortars, whose lofted trajectories were highly symmetrical and allowed easy calculation of the launcher's location. Starting in the 1970s, digital computers with improved calculation capabilities allowed more complex trajectories of long-range artillery to also be determined. Normally, these radars would be attached to friendly artillery units or their support units, allowing them to quickly arrange counter-battery fire. With the aid of modern communications systems, the information from a single radar can be rapidly disseminated over long distances. This allows the radar to notify multiple batteries as well as provide early warning to the friendly targets. Modern counter-battery radar can locate hostile batteries up to about 50 km away depending on the radar's capabilities and the terrain and weather. Some counter-battery radars can also be used to track the fire of friendly artillery and calculate corrections to adjust its fire onto a particular place, but this is usually a secondary mission objective. The basic technique is to track a projectile for sufficient time to record a segment of the trajectory. Once a trajectory segment is captured it can then be processed to determine its point of origin on the ground and appropriate weapons are used to destroy the source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-battery_radar. The systems are:

Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar (C-RAM)

Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar, (C-RAM) or counter-RAM, is a set of systems used to detect destroy incoming rockets, artillery, and mortar rounds in the air before they hit their ground targets, or simply provide early warning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter_rocket,_artillery,_and_mortar. The systems are:

Air Defense Background

Air defense includes defense against mortar shells, aircraft, missiles, and drones.

Missile air defense is not just trying to intercept an incoming missile but also destroying the source of an incoming missile.

The concept is simple, one missile may make it through but then there will be no future missiles from that location. It does not matter if they are mobile. The missile source will be destroyed. All this is reduced to probability of intercept. The probability of intercepting a missile in flight is significantly less than the probability of destroying the source of the missiles, again a key air defense element. Basically the probability of missile intercept might be Pmi ~ 50% while the probability of destroying the missile source is Pms ~ 99%. Ukraine is being provided the capability to intercept missiles in flight but not the capability to destroy the missile source because it would involve strikes within Russian territory including Russian ships. It is a numbers and distance time problem. If the missiles are traveling long distances, and a sufficient number of intercepting missiles can be used to intercept an incoming missile, then the Pmi might increase to 85%. However, this is not a full up air defense system.

The same applies to mortar shells, aircraft, and drones. The source must be targeted and removed to increase the effectiveness of the air defense system.

There is a reason why Russia keeps spewing the rhetoric to not attack Russian soil. It is because a full up air defense system would end the war overnight. Russia would be stopped cold as their missile sources would be destroyed with each launch of one of their missiles into Ukraine. Russia knows this, NATO knows this, the UK knows this, and the US knows this. The problem is what would be the next Russian move with the inability to win the war in Ukraine using conventional weapons. It appears that policy makers are using the tactic to exhaust Russia to the negotiating table. Does Russia have the same air defense systems that can strike against missile sources, yes, but it would not matter as Russian ships are destroyed and missiles cross the Russian border and take out Russian fixed and mobile missile sites.

Air defense systems are categorized as tactical or strategic. Tactical systems are used on the battle field. They are mobile systems designed to destroy incoming rockets, artillery, and mortar rounds. Some mobile systems are also strategic. Strategic air defense systems are meant to deal with aircraft and long range missile attacks. For example they are set to defend an ADIZ (air defense information zone) or detect and destroy a ballistic missile. Strategic systems are typically hardened fixed sites.

Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar, abbreviated C-RAM or counter-RAM, is a set of systems used to detect and/or destroy incoming rockets, artillery, and mortar rounds in the air before they hit their ground targets, or simply provide early warning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter_rocket,_artillery,_and_mortar.

A counter-battery radar (alternatively weapon tracking radar or COBRA) is a radar system that detects artillery projectiles fired by one or more guns, howitzers, mortars or rocket launchers and, from their trajectories, locates the position on the ground of the weapon that fired it. Such radars are a subclass of the wider class of target acquisition radars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-battery_radar.

The following is old information but it still applies. The companies and system names have only changed and expanded.

There are fixed site systems, land mobile systems, below sea level, and sea level systems.

RCA worked on the sea level systems (things that float). Aegis is designed to protect a battle group and in the end the aircraft carrier. They have long range missile defense and gun capability. So they can attack a country from the sea. Their air defense is associated with protecting the aircraft carrier, which has the lethal aircraft and weapons, and it is accomplished with the CIWS. When placed on land, its air defense is limited to a small area associated with the CIWS. So it would need to be placed in each city.

Hughes did the NATO fixed site systems and the NATO mobile systems. The fixed site systems are underground and above ground with massive redundancy. Hughes also did the US JSS system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_Aircraft_Company. As part of these fixed site systems, the air traffic control systems can be "switched" to air defense mode. So all the sensors and command and control assets of a country merge in time of war but it is the military systems that are designed to survive and are the primary systems while the civilian components only add to the capability. Think in terms of sensors and more eyes. The US has hundreds of air traffic control sensors and ~20,000 civilian air traffic control eyes looking at the sky 24/7. This is in addition to the military staff sitting at their command and control centers using their sensors and the merged ATC sensors.

This is why Hughes provided international air traffic control systems. These systems were designed to be air defense systems and if a country could not take delivery of the air defense elements, it could be quickly augmented with those elements at the first sign of war. Most systems like Korean ATC and Japan Badge-X did / do air traffic control, but they are also full fledged air defense systems. In the 1960's Israel had this type of system and it was credited with winning the six day war in the 1967. This was for countries that could not afford separate air traffic control and air defense systems. They are also small land mass areas where it does not make sense to have 2 separate systems. Think boundaries and interior area. By the time you protect the boundary (ADIZ) the interior is covered so just use it for civilian ATC in peace time.

Mobile systems are designed to be quickly deployed and unlike fixed sites they are designed to deal with the close in battle. They perform air defense (aircraft), missile defense, mortar defense, and land based defense. The key is that they are mobile and can be pre-placed. They also form the forward air defense components of the air defense system with connectivity to the central systems. There are SOC (Sector Operation Centers), Air Operations Centers (AOC), and Forward Air Defense (FAD) locations as deployed elements.

Hughes Aircraft Fullerton California December 20, 1982

Some Hughes GSG Air Defense and Air Traffic Control Systems

Japanese Tactical Air Weapons Control System - JTAWCS
Swiss Air Defense System - FLORIDA
Spain Air Defense System - Combat Grande
Tactical Air Weapons Control System
Joint Surveillance System
German Air Defense Ground Environment (GEADGE)
Integrated NATO Air Defense System
NATO Air Defence Ground Environment (NADGE) - NSPA
Airborne Early Warning / Ground Environment Integration Segment (AEGIS)
Canadian Air Traffic Control System
Korean Air Traffic Control System
Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS)
AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel
AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radar
AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder radar

Hughes Aircraft Ground Systems Group or PDF. When you examine this old publication the key message is that there were a collection of people that engaged in massive technology for the purpose of air defense. All defense systems can trace their modern roots to this very special place. The sole purpose was to protect countries from tyrants and pure evil that starts wars and attempts to destroy countries and people.

Hughes Aircraft Ground Systems Group

Ground Systems Group in 1982 contains more than 3 million square feet of floor space, more than 12,000 employees and more than 250 diverse defense programs.

Welcome to GSG's 25th
anniversary open house

It gives us great pleasure to welcome you and your family to GSG's Silver Anniversary Open House celebration. Much has been planned to make this Open House, and your visit, a memorable one. We hope you enjoy this special day at Ground Systems Group.

A better motto could not have been chosen. GSG certainly possesses A Proud Past and A Bright Future. In the 25 years since Hughes Aircraft Company made the decision to open a new facility in Fullerton, Ground Systems Group has established itself as a world leader in a wide variety of important military defense systems that today make our communities and our country, and many other countries, safer places to live. It is indeed A Proud Past.

The Group is a leader in land and sea radars, in air defense command and control programs, in naval tactical display systems, in advanced computer software technology, in underwater detection, and a long list of other advanced electronic equipment and systems. The reason Ground Systems Group is a world leader in these areas is because it makes equipment and systems better than anyone else. And we make them better because of you, the hard-working GSG employee dedicated to performing your job well. Keep up the good work, and join all of us at GSG in working towards A Bright Future.

Dr. Nicholas Yaru
Sr. Vice President

Clare Carlson
Sr. Vice President
and Group President

Clare Carlson, senior vice president and group president, left, and Dr. Nick Yaru, senior vice president, proudly display the banner honoring Ground Systems Group's 25 years in Fullerton. Today's Open House honors the people and the programs who have given Ground Systems Group A Proud Past and A Bright Future.

Ground Systems Group in 1957 was nothing more than a barren stretch of hills, awaiting ground breaking. The growth of GSG began in early 1957 when Ground Systems Laboratory, then located in Culver City, was elevated to Division status and moved to Fullerton. In early 1958, Ground Systems was elevated to the Group status, and work on the permanent site was started.

Missile Monitor among first GSG products in the field - Missile Monitor, above, also called AN/MSG-4, was one of the first GSG programs to be put into military operation when it was tested in Colorado by the U.S. Army in 1960 and soon after deployed in Europe. Missile Monitor was a forerunner of today's modern ADGE systems by automating the detection and tracking of air borne targets, and forwarding that information to air defense missile batteries. Missile Monitor was the first system in the world to eliminate the grease pencil plotting and voice-telling methods of providing information to defense units. Development of the system was initiated at Ground Systems when it was still a laboratory status and located in Culver City in the mid-1950s.

Frescan or Frequency Scanning Radar - A major product that started Ground Systems Group off in the right direction was Fres can (also known as Frescanar), the first Frequency Scanning Radar. It was the first completely integrated electronic system for accumulating three-dimensional data on all airborne targets. Frescan was first conceived at Hughes Aircraft Company in 1948. By 1950, the company was demonstrating that experimental antennas designed for the Frescan technique could work. The first complete system was successfully tested in 1953, left. The first system, the shipboard AN/SPS-26, was delivered and installed in 1957. Today, technology derived from that first system is used in a wide variety of GSG· radars, ranging from the present shipboard version called AN/SPS-52C to the land-based Hughes Air Defense Radar (HADA) to the advanced AN/TPQ-36 and AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder weapon locating radars.

Land-based application of new Frescan radar - In the late 1950s, the revolutionary Frescan radar was first put into actual use as the AN/SPS-26 shipboard antenna. Soon after, however, the same technology was used in the AN/MPS-23 antenna, below, which was used as the detection radar for the AN/MSG-4 Missile Monitor system. The first Frescan AN/SPS-26 antenna was delivered and installed aboard a ship in 1957.

Hughes equipment getting presidential approval - President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, below, boarded the U.S.S. Enterprise aircraft carrier in 1967 and received a demonstration of a GSG produced AN/SYA-1 Navy Tactical Data System (NTDS) console. The AN/SYA-1 was the forerunner of the AN/UYA-4 and AN/UYQ-21 consoles, both of which are still under production at GSG. NTDS consoles were one of the first major programs for GSG, beginning in the late 1950s, and have been one of the longest continuing programs for the entire company.

First Air Defense Ground Environment (ADGE) program - GSG's long and celebrated line of ADGE programs began with the Japanese BADGE program, right, in the early 1960s. The system used in BADGE was known as Tactical Air Weapons Control System (TAWCS), with development beginning in the late 1950s. GSG has now produced more than 20 ADGE programs around the world.

"Sure, it's got muscles, but can it type?" - No, although MOBOT could pour water from a pitcher into a glass and not spill a drop. Developed in the 1950s by Hughes Aircraft Company in Culver City, MOBOT, below, was designed to substitute for humans in dangerous places, such as radioactive areas. It had double-jointed shoulders, elbows and wrists, soft padded hands providing a light touch and TV camera eyes to allow a human operator to control it from a safe distance. Each arm could lift 150 pounds. Versions were designed for underseas work and on a tracked vehicle. MOBOT was part of GSG's product line.

Big ears pointed to the sky - GSG produced the Mark 1B satellite communications dish antennas, above. These dishes were deployed around the world at ground stations. These antennas allowed controllers in the United States to track, control and communicate with satellites orbiting the earth. The antennas were produced in the 1960s and are still used today.

Mobile air defense system called Vest Pocket - One of the first major programs of GSG, Vest Pocket, above, or MSQ-18, coordinated Hawk and Nike guided missile batteries

that were deployed in Europe NATO countries beginning in the late 1950s. Vest Pocket was also used in GSG's Missile Monitor system, which utilized Hughes' Frescanar radar.

First multiple firing of missiles from a ship - In 1963, the Hughes revolutionary Frescan 3-D radar played an integral role in an important Navy test. The guided missile carrier U.S.S. Albany, below, outfitted with Frescan, was the first Navy vessel to simultaneously fire

three surface-to-air missiles. Among other advanced features, Frescan was the first ship board radar to electronically compensate for the pitch and roll of the ship, eliminating the requirement for heavy mechanical stabilizing equipment.

Air defense on a lonely hill in Spain - Long-range radars housed inside radomes provide early warning detection for Combat Grande, right, the Spanish Air Defense Ground Environment (ADGE) program developed by GSG's Systems Division in the mid-1970s. This was one of many programs that GSG has developed and built as part of consortiums with firms of countries around the world.

Volunteer labor builds GSG employee park - With management providing land, an access road and some materials, Simpson Park on GSG's site was built by volunteer labor from the Hughes Fullerton Employees Association in 1960, left.

A road built for uncomfortable rides? - That's what the road on GSG's Munson Course was built for. Originally built as an Army facility with a dirt road, water basin and rain test chamber in 1958, the Munson Course was improved by Hughes Aircraft Company to provide a wide range of vehicle test conditions. It was rededicated in 1967 and has been operated by GSG ever since.

The Blue Room for demonstrations in 1963 - Used by GSG personnel to demonstrate advanced products to customers and other interested persons, the Blue Room, above, showed off the newest air defense display consoles and top-of-the-line large screen displays.

The Systems Conference Center for demonstrations in 1982 - Housed in the basement of Building 618, the Center, right, demonstrates the latest technological advances. In a special session, a standard HMD-22 radar display console identical to those used in the U.S. Joint Surveillance System was set up to operate in front of a HDP-4000 large screen display.

Checking to be sure the test is right - Technicians at GSG's low frequency shock and vibration laboratory run a test on military equipment in 1960. The lab, which still operates, was the largest civilian laboratory of its type in the world. The lab could simulate any vehicular or shipboard motion in order to test equipment. The lab is leased to other firms to conduct their own tests.

Helicopter transportable electronic air defense system - In 1960, the U.S. Marines ordered the ANJTSQ-38 of Airtac from GSG. It was a helicopter transportable version of AN/MSQ-18, the land based truck transported version

of electronic air defense called Vest Pocket. In the Airtac configuration, the equipment was housed in shelters that were easily deployed by helicopters.

UYA-4 - A proven GSG product - Technicians in GSG's manufacturing area check a UYA-4 Navy Tactical Data System (NTDS) console. GSG's Data Processing Products Division has delivered more than 2,000 of the consoles

to navies around the world. The console receives radar and other detection information and forwards targeting information to defensive systems. The program started in the early 1960s and is still going strong today.

GSG technology protecting Europe - Hughes Aircraft Company led an international team to develop NADGE, above, the NATO Air Defense Ground Environment system to protect much of Europe. Begun in the mid-1960s, NADGE is a shared system that coordinates

air defense radars and command centers through nearly all the NATO countries. GSG is still active with NADGE today, through the AEGIS program which integrates the airborne E-3A radar information with the existing ground-based NADGE centers.

One of the world's most advanced radars - The AN/TPQ-37 Weapon Locating Radar, below, the larger of the two GSG Fire finder radars, pinpoints enemy artillery and mortar projectiles in flight and back plots their paths to determine the locations of the originating weapons. Firefinders do this in a matter of seconds. Development of the Firefinder radars began in the early 1970s, and GSG today has orders for more than 200 of the systems.

Latest offspring of Frescan radar - The Hughes Air Defense Radar (HADR), below, is a new generation long-range, three dimensional radar using some technology introduced in the mid-1950s with the Frescan radar. Improvements in HADR, however, make it one of the most advanced radars available in the world today. It is capable of performing all civilian air traffic control functions as well as military air defense functions.

Reliable radio communications with AN/PRC-104 - A Swedish soldier, left, uses a Manpack radio during winter exercises. The AN/PRC-104 is one of a series of radios, in manpack and vehicle mounted styles, to be produced during the past 20years by GSG. The Communications and Radar Division has delivered more than 5,000 radios to the U.S. Marines, the U.S. Navy and the Swedish Army.

Putting the artistry in art services - Left, head of GSG's Art Services Department, aids graphic artist in putting on the finishing touches, right, of one of hundreds of wall displays the department has produced. As a primary service to the marketing interests of GSG, the talented art services team of professionals has produced a wide variety of materials that have been exhibited around the world.

Author Comment: Hughes had a spectacular publications department. They would call in people from the hollywood studios industrial base to help engineers produce publications that anyone could understand. Hughes invented Sequential Thematic Organization of Publications (STOP), perhaps the single most important approach to the technical publications that helped the US to excel in massive complex systems and technologies.

Outfitting a military classroom - GSG has become a leader in the development of training equipment used for military purposes. Instead of training Firefinder radar operators in the battlefield, where inexperienced troops and equipment are vulnerable, the Army uses

computer-operated classroom trainers, or simulators, above, to properly train troops. A 1980s product of GSG's Engineering Services and Support Division, the Firefinder Trainer does a better and cheaper job of training operators than using the actual equipment.

Giving the U.S. and Canada better air defense - The Joint Surveillance System, above, jointly uses civilian airport radars and military radars to provide detection of air invaders for the United States and Canada. This air defense ground environment (ADGE) project is being developed by Systems Division and will be fully operational by the mid-1980s.

"OK little box, tell me where I am" - And it will. The Position Location Reporting System (PLRS), above, developed and produced by GSG's Communications and Radar Division, uses an intricate computerized communications system to tell battlefield soldiers and mobile units where they and others are located. PLRS is a GSG product of the 1970s and 1980s.

Jam-free, secure communications at the push of a button - A U.S. Air Force technician operates a Hughes-built Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) Class 1 terminal. Called a HIT (Hughes Improved Terminal), the terminal uses time division and spread spectrum techniques to provide voice and digital communications that is difficult for an enemy to stop.

Effective front-line battlefield communications - Defenders, such as this surface-to-air missile Redeye team, above, will receive battle information through terminals tied into the PLRS/JTIDS Hybrid system. That system uses PLRS and JTIDS to provide a complete and reliable battlefield communications method. It is a GSG product of the 1980s.

First HADA system installed in Germany - The first Hughes Air Defense Radar (HADA) antenna to be installed for a customer, below, gets lifted into place in the Federal Republic of Germany earlier this year.

New Navy ship detection capabilities - GSG is developing a new sonar device that a ship will tow behind it, above. That device makes possible the detection and classification of ocean targets for surveillance purposes and works with both shipboard and land-based equipment. The passive system permits greater detection without generating sound signals that would reveal the ship's position. A product of the 1980s.

New antisubmarine torpedo of the U.S. Navy - GSG is putting new guidance and control systems in existing submarine launched heavy torpedoes, below. Under the MK-48 Advanced Capabilities program, members of the Data Processing Products Division are improving the torpedo so that it will be able to perform into the 1990s.

Low Altitude Surveillance Radar (LASR) - A new mobile radar designed to detect low flying aircraft and missiles at short distances, LASR, above, and its larger counterpart Variable Search and Track Radar (VSTAR) are

developed from technology first applied in the Firefinder weapon locating radars. Under development in the Communications and Radar Division, both LASR and VSTAR are GSG radars of the 1980s.

Now you see it, now you don't - Through an elaborate process GSG's SLQ/17 electronic countermeasures system, left, fools attacking enemy missiles into believing a ship is at a location where it really isn't. Electronically, the system hides the real ship and makes a "ghost" ship miles away. The missile is fooled and attacks the false "ghost" ship. Produced by Communications and Radar Division, the program began in 1970.

Information at the touch of a finger - Display consoles for GSG's new product line, Command and Control Information Systems (CCIS), below, will provide military commanders with up-to date information on the availability of resources such as fighter aircraft or warehoused ammunition. The HMD-8000 display con soles will provide information in seven colors and will operate through the use of conventional keyboards and new touch-screen techniques. GSG's Systems Division received the world's first advanced system production contract from Norway and Denmark in late 1981.

Best defense to low flying threats - The small rectangular antenna near the top of the ship's mast, above, is GSG's Improved Point Defense Target Acquisition System (IPD/TAS) antenna. It provides ships with a complimentary self-defense capability against low flying threats such as cruise missiles. It is a 1970s and 1980s product of the Communications and Radar Division.

Smiles behind NATO's new air defense shield - All these people are smiling, left, because they are part of GSG's NATO Airborne Early Warning Ground Integration System (AEGIS) test team. In late 1981, this team successfully processed radar information received from an early warning E-3A aircraft flying over the Pacific Ocean and put that information on radar screens in the basement of Building 618. It was the first demonstration of NATO's program to tie in its E-3A aircraft to existing equipment stationed in Europe. The program is expected to be fully operational by the mid 1980s.

A file cabinet forest to house the contracts - Division 10 secretary, left, sifts through the mass of cabinets, locks and drawers to find the one document she is looking for. The hundreds of projects awarded to GSG during the past 25 years have required hundreds of cabinet drawers just to store the bulky contracts. And all must be well organized in order to be found quickly, should a question come up about a specific project or contract.

See full publication Hughes 1982 25th anniversary. When you examine this old publication the key message is that there were a collection of people that engaged in massive technology for the purpose of air defense. All defense systems can trace their modern roots to this very special place. The sole purpose was to protect countries from tyrants and pure evil that starts wars and attempts to destroy countries and people.

See section Military Defense Systems for systems that Ukraine has been provided and for systems Ukraine has requested.

Equipment Provided To Ukraine

Obviously this content is only provided because it was disclosed by official government sources via multiple normal media channels. This suggests that disclosing this information will not cause harm to the war effort.

The following is a list of military systems that have been provided to Ukraine and requested by Ukraine as identified in the media:

System	Site Characteristics	Capabilities	Date Provided or Requested	Comments
Javlen	Man-Portable	1. Line of Site Close in Defense System	2014, 03/07/22	This is one of the systems always featured in media reports.
Stinger	Man-Portable	1. Line of Site Close in Defense System	2014, 03/07/22	This is one of the systems always featured in media reports.
TB2 drones	Mobile	2. Long Range Defense System	2019, 2021	Provided by Turkey. A critical asset that has significantly helped Ukraine defense.
Firefinder	Fixed Site Transportable Mobile	2. Long Range Defense System 3. Counter Battery Weapon Tracking Radar System (COBRA)	2 units 2015 5 units 03/03/22 10 units 04/14/22	Originally developed by Hughes Aircraft. Systems were sold to Ukraine, the system is being used. Two units delivered by US Army in 2015. Five units delivered by the Netherlands Ministry of Defence in March 2022, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel	Fixed Site Transportable Mobile	3. Counter Battery Weapon Tracking Radar System (COBRA) 4. Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar Background (C-RAM)	2 units 04/14/22	Originally developed by Hughes Aircraft.
NASAMS	Mobile	3. Counter Battery Weapon Tracking Radar System (COBRA) 4. Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar Background (C-RAM)	July 2022 2 NASAMS August 2022 6 NASAMS	Integrated with AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel. NASAMS (Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, also known as the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) is the current generation of the I-HAWK missiles used in the integrated air defense systems developed by Hughes Aircraft in the last century. It is a distributed and networked short to medium range ground based air defense system currently developed by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA) and Raytheon (previously Hughes Aircraft). The system defends against unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), helicopters, cruise missiles, unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), and crewed fixed wing aircraft. To go operational Nov 2022.
Switchblade	Man-Portable	2. Long Range Defense System	03/17/22 various dates	US recently provided 100 systems. The quantity is acknowledged to be very low. There have been multiple deliveries since the initial 100 systems.
Unknown	No System Named	4. Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar Background (C-RAM)	Unknown	It is unclear if Ukraine has been provided with C-RAM systems. Ukraine has been able to shoot down some missiles. It is possible they have only a few systems and it may explain why the NATO training base in Ukraine was defended while Ukrainian cities are being destroyed.
S-300	Mobile	2. Long Range Defense System	Requested 3/17/22 04/08/22	Russian long range surface-to-air missile systems. Slovakia provided its Soviet-era S-300 air-defense system to Ukraine on 04/08/22. Slovakia was provided by Patriot system as part of this transfer.
M142 HIMARS	Mobile	2. Long Range Defense System	10/04/22	Range determined by missile type, current range 40 miles. Long range missiles have not been provided. Bring the total to 20 with an additional 18 to be provided in the long term.
Patriot Missile Systems	Mobile	2. Long Range Defense System	Requested last spring 2021	US long range surface-to-air missile systems
Iron Dome	Mobile	4. Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar Background (C-RAM)	Requested 3/25/22	The system is designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired from distances of 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) to 70 kilometers (43 mi).
Howitzers	Mobile	Long Range Weapon	18 04/13/22 72 04/21/22	72 systems along with 144,000 artillery rounds. Part of $800 million dollar package.
Tactical Vehicles	Mobile		72 04/21/22	72 Vehicles. Part of $800 million dollar package.
Phoenix Ghost Tactical UAS	Mobile	Tactical UAS	122 04/21/22	121 Phoenix Ghost Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems. Part of $800 million dollar package.

President Biden today announced an additional $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine, bringing the total U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine to $1 billion in just the past week, and a total of $2 billion since the start of the Biden Administration. The assistance will take the form of direct transfers of equipment from the Department of Defense to the Ukrainian military to help them defend their country against Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion.

In addition to the weapons listed above, previous United States assistance committed to Ukraine includes:

In addition to the U.S.-produced short-range air defense systems the Ukrainians have been using to great effect, the United States has also identified and is helping the Ukrainians acquire additional, longer-range systems on which Ukraine’s forces are already trained, as well as additional munitions for those systems.

The United States continues to expedite the authorization and facilitation of additional assistance to Ukraine from our Allies. At least 30 countries have provided security assistance to Ukraine since the Russian invasion began. In 2022, the Department of State authorized third-party transfers of defensive equipment from more than 14 countries, a number that continues to grow as Allies and Partners increase support to Ukraine.

President Biden announces additional military aid for Ukraine today totaling about $800 million, matching the same amount last week, plus $500 million in financial assistance.

The current policy approach appears to be based on the idea that Putin and Russia will burn themselves out and the war will fade away as Russia retreats from Ukraine. At that point Ukraine will be free and then rebuilding can begin. War reparations and war crimes trials may or may not follow. The current war reparations costs exceed $2 trillion dollars. This will devastate Russia for a generation, so it is unclear how the world will proceed to distribute the costs. The military weapons that Russia unleashed is across a massive population and infrastructure unlike their previous invasions. It is obvious they did not think about the costs of the destruction even if they won the war. Someone needs to eventually rebuild. See section War Costs and Reparations.

Military Elements	Ukrainian Capability	Russian Capability	Russian Losses 03/09/2022	Russian Losses 04/14/2022
Troops	1,096,600	2,900,000	12,000	19,900
Planes / Combat Aircraft	124	1,391	49	160
Helicopters	57	407	81	144
Tanks	987	3,417	317	753
Artillery	1,818	5,899	120	366
Armored Personnel Carriers	831	7,271	1,070	1,968
Mobile Short-Range Ballistic Missile Systems (SRBM)			-	4
Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS)			56	122
Boats			2	7
Vehicles			482	1,437
Fuel Tanks			60	76
UAV			7	134
Anti-Aircraft			28	64
Special Equipment			-	25

The above narrative was provided on or about April 2022. Since then the West has stepped up and started to provided weapons needed to fight the war such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). Although the weapons are still measured and do not include long range capabilities that would allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia like Russia is striking Ukraine from deep inside Russia and the Black Sea. --- September 2022.

Key Daily Events

Now that Ukraine is under attack the following is a daily log of some key events. There will be no references. The world wide media especially CNN and MSNBC are providing massive amounts of information from Ukraine and Russia using traditional journalism of reporters in the feild providing live reports. There is also Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty . Kyiv Independent

Each day President Zelensky uses social media to transmit messages that Ukraine will continue to defend their country. The messages from President Zelensky are gravely important and very inspiring affecting both the Ukrainians and the rest of the world. To understand some aspects of Ukraine see section Overview of Ukraine.

There are systems assessments provided after some of the daily events. The systems assessments are very significant. I need ammunition not a ride --- President Zelensky, days after the invasion. What a terrible systems finding. This is sad and pathetic. Since then NATO, US, and UK have been providing measured levels of equipment. President Zelensky keeps requesting equipment and as time unfolds the equipment is provided, but at great cost to Ukraine. See section Gulf War versus Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

This analysis has explanations for why the equipment is not immediately provided and it all points to bad policy based on a reactive and fearful mindset from the leadership that is denial that the world is in big trouble with Putin and Russia. Unfortunately, Putin and Russia have entered into a state of mind that historically has been refered to as insanity. History shows that there are few options when dealing with insanity of a nation state or an empire that does not realize it has not existed for a generation. See section Military Defense Systems.

Key Events and Systems Assessments

Systems Assessment: So what really happen to Speaker Johnson? A criminal trial of Trump was moving forward in New York. Headlines started to appear that Ukraine will lose the war if the US fails to approve aid. Those were all in play since February 2024. The new element was this analysis that clearly stated that the United States is at war with Russia because of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances and that everyone in the United States that helps Russia falls into the category of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, like it or not. The language of war is very important - direct, no mixed meanings, clear statements. Management speak to push hidden agendas have no place in the life and death struggle of war.

Systems Assessment: Not only will Ukraine lose the war and millions will die in the aftermath of Russian rule, but the United States will lose the war with Russia. Again the United States is at war with Russia because the United States signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. Everyone in the United States that helps Russia falls into the category of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, like it or not.

Russia is in the category of an evil power driven by evil leaders. The evidence is not only the invasion of Ukraine but the way in which they prosecuted the war. They left millions of landmines across territories that they occupied. These landmines will take a generation to remove with massive costs to humanity. It took a massive military industrial complex to manufacture and distribute all those landmines. Russia is executing a 100 year plan for conquest. That is why the Ukrainians keep stating that Russia will not stop with Ukraine. They know, they have the intelligence data. So does the United States.

This lost war will not be like Korea or Vietnam where the United States will return to business as usual. It is likely that Russia will continue its march across Europe and NATO will have no choice but to enter the war with troops and equipment.

The United States also knows that Russia has attacked the United States in the first ever massive cyber war where the Internet was used to attack a country, divide its people, and compromise people in positions of authority like congress and other elected officials with money, disinformation, and likely other techniques. The billionaire class will do what they have always done, just like in World War II where some will side with the dictators and anti-democracy tyrants and some will side with the United States and democracy. As previously stated the giant will soon awaken, toss out its compromised politicians and do what must be done because there will be no choice. It would be much better to solve the problem now as President Biden has stated multiple times. The intelligence data is there, the analysis is there, the plans and alternatives are there with the costs to the United States with each scenario.

Costs in this analysis has nothing to do with money. Money is irrelevant in the life and death struggle of war.

03/11/2024 Statement of the Permanent Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church In light of the interview of Pope Francis Conducted by Radio Television Suisse

Statement of the Permanent Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church In light of the interview of Pope Francis Conducted by Radio Television Suisse

We do not yet have a full version of the interview given by Pope Francis to the RTS (Radio Television Suisse) that apparently will be published only on March 20. According to the Holy See Press Office, the reference to a "white flag" in the interview is a summons to negotiations not to a surrender by Ukraine. In the conversation, the Holy Father speaks not only about the Russian war against Ukraine but also the war between Israel and Hamas. As he has done repeatedly, Pope Francis calls for negotiated settlements of armed conflicts.

In this regard we would like to reflect not upon the Pope's statement but upon the point of view of the victims of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It is important to understand the position of most Ukrainians.

To anyone on the ground in Ukraine it is clear that the citizens of Ukraine are - as we stated during our meetings with the US church leaders, politicians, and diaspora communities in the Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New York city - "wounded yet unbroken, tired yet resilient." Ukrainians cannot surrender because surrender means death. The intentions of Putin and Russia are clear and explicit. The aims are not those of one individual: 70% of the Russian population support the genocidal war against Ukraine, as does Patriarch Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church. The expressed objectives are articulated in concrete actions.

In Putin's mind, there is no such thing as Ukraine, Ukrainian history, language, and independent Ukrainian church life. All matters Ukrainian are ideological constructs, fit to be eradicated. Ukraine is not a reality but a mere "ideology." The ideology of Ukrainian identity, according to Putin, is “Nazi.”

By calling all Ukrainians (who refuse to be Russians and accept Russian rule) “Nazis,” Putin dehumanizes them. Nazis (in this case Ukrainians) have no right to exist. They need to be annihilated, killed. The war crimes in Bucha, Irpin, Borodianka, Izium, and in other places occupied by Russian forces have illustrated for Ukrainians (and to all people of good will) the clear purpose of this war: to eliminate Ukraine and Ukrainians. It is worth mentioning that every Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory leads to the eradication of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, any independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and to the suppression of other religions and all institutions and cultural expressions that do not support Russian hegemony.

Ukrainians will continue to defend themselves. They feel they have no choice. Recent history has demonstrated that with Putin there will be no true negotiations. Ukraine negotiated away its nuclear arsenal in 1994, at the time the third largest in the world, larger than that of France, the UK, and China combined. In return Ukraine received security guarantees regarding its territorial integrity (including Crimea) and independence, which Putin was obliged to respect. The 1994 Budapest memorandum signed by Russia, the US, and the UK is not worth the paper on which it was written. So it will be with any agreement "negotiated" with Putin's Russia.

Notwithstanding the suggestions for need for negotiations coming from representatives of different countries, including the Holy Father himself, Ukrainians will continue to defend freedom and dignity to achieve a peace that is just. They believe in freedom and God-given human dignity. They believe in truth, God's truth. They are convinced that God's truth will prevail.

The bishops of the Permanent Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, meeting in the USA:

Systems Assessment: This is the key takeaway: Ukrainians will continue to defend themselves. They feel they have no choice. Recent history has demonstrated that with Putin there will be no true negotiations. Ukraine negotiated away its nuclear arsenal in 1994, at the time the third largest in the world, larger than that of France, the UK, and China combined. In return Ukraine received security guarantees regarding its territorial integrity (including Crimea) and independence, which Putin was obliged to respect. The 1994 Budapest memorandum signed by Russia, the US, and the UK is not worth the paper on which it was written. So it will be with any agreement "negotiated" with Putin's Russia. - and there is the harsh reality.

This is how President Joe Biden started the March 7, 2024 State of the Union speech:

Systems Assessment: Just prior to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 President Biden went on national TV to alert the world that Russia will be invading Ukraine. No one believed that would happen, even the Ukrainians. Russia did indeed invade Ukraine - the Intelligence agencies had all the data and Biden listened to their assessments. Today Intelligence agencies still have all the data. Russia has started a major war like it or not and the United States is in a war with Russia. Almost on a daily basis Russia threatens the United States with Nuclear attack while claiming their people will be safe in Russian shelters. The intelligence agencies have even more data than what the Russians have publicly stated.

The war started in 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine not with an army like in 2022 but with disinformation, propaganda, and eventually men wearing strange green uniforms. They captured and control the Ukranian Crimean oil and gas fields. They also caused massive chaos within Ukraine by breaking their territorial integrity. It would be like the United States losing Texas and California to an invading nation.

Did the United States bring this on itself and the world? Yes. Did the Europeans and UK bring this on themselves? Yes. The question now is - what is the path forward. How will Russia be stopped from plunging the world into a massive war with massive death and destruction?

As for the obstructionists in the current Republican party, they are irrelevant. History is moving quickly and the system will soon push them aside into obscurity. The current Republican party will not survive what they unleashed. The question is when will a new Republican party in the United States surface and what will be the makeup of that new Republican party. It cannot be a party of billionaires. They are responsible for the destruction of the current Republican party. Perhaps it will be normal people with conservative but intelligent views and philosophies. The problem is the conservative platform has been tossed into the trash heap of history. Reduced taxes for the rich and trickle down economics started to fail miserably in the late 1980's. That is why the Republican party embarked on an approach of lies, to keep feeding the billionaire beasts, who are now closely aligning themselves with Russia and don't care if Democracy fails. This is not unlike what happened in the run up to World War II. The super rich at the time were also aligning themselves with dictators and did not care if Democracy failed. However, there was another super rich contingent in the United States and they picked a different path. They rolled out the New Deal and helped end World War II with the destruction of the anti-democracy movements in the United States and in Europe.

This is a very bad time. This generation is being challenged. There will be an event that will be as massive as Perl Harbor, it can not be avoided because the people are asleep and there is massive war. Choices will need to be made, and it will not include the useless obstructionists in the Failed Republican Party.

The United States is at war with Russia. Putin is correct in that regard. The war started in 2014 because of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances signed by the United Sates, where Ukraine agreed to give away their nuclear weapons in return to just ensure their territory would not be invaded. Russia invaded and so we are at war with Russia because of this agreement. It's that simple. Everyone in the United States that helps Russia falls into the category of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, like it or not. See Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.

This can all stop immediately if Russia removes all its troops from Ukraine and the conquered territories. Russia completed development of the Ukrainian oil and gas fields and that should be a relatively simple business negotiation. Paying for war reparations, which will be enormous, is a problem.

War is a life and death fight for survival and money is irrelevant. Russia made the false connection between its existential survival and NATO as part of a massive propaganda scheme to justify its invasion of Ukraine. Russia openly and constantly threatens the United States with Nuclear attack. That is an existential threat to the United Sates. Multiple dictators and billionaires have stated that Democracy is dead. That is an existential threat to the United Sates.

President Biden has alerted the world that the sleeping giant is about to be awakened.

08/20/2023 Ukraine to receive 42 fourth-generation F-16 fighter jets from the Netherlands and Denmark

Systems Assessment: The jets should have been immediately provide to Ukraine. This is not hindsight. This is a major policy mistake that is now being corrected. Russia was not playing games with the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian territory. The West thought that Russia was engaged in a game that would be temporary and fade even though they were constantly warned by those closest to the situation that this was not a game and it would not fade. It is possible that the Trump era had done significant damage in the U.S.A. and that damage is now finally being corrected. It is still no excuse. There are enough seniors in the U.S.A. that should have acted. The same scenario and result applies to the entire Republican Party. The seniors went silent. It is difficult not to see a potential connection between the massive damage in the Republican party and the weak policy towards the Russian massive invasion of Ukraine. It appears that the Republican party has been compromised as part of a larger broader Russian strategy and that compromise is rooted in the Trump movement. It is part of history that the Republican platform was modified to be more friendly towards Russia during the first election of Trump. It is part of history that Trump attempted to blackmail President Zelensky. It is part of history that Trump held several secret meetings with Putin where there are no documented records. It is part of history that Trump was damaging NATO and shifting the U.S.A. towards Russia as part of a major policy shift that he alone was enacting without notifying the people.

Systems Assessment: Russian claims that this is about the Ukrainian attack on the Kerch Bridge is just bullshit. Russia is continuing to attempt to stop the Ukrainian offensive. It is not clear what Ukraine will do with the Kerch Bridge. While Russia uses long range missiles to attack Ukraine the Ukrainians have no such capability because NATO has not provided them with those key military capabilities. It is obvious that NATO is making a serious mistake if they expect Ukraine to win this war. Russia has a massive war machine, NATO has a massive war machine, Ukraine has no war machine because they accepted peace decades ago when they gave away the Nuclear weapons in exchange for a simple agreement to ensure their territorial integrity.

Looking at the map it appears that Rostov-On-Don and the Kerch Bridge are strategic Russian supply lines. When the Wagner group took Rostov-On-Don it clearly sent a message to Moscow that the point of the war could end overnight because Crimea would lose its vital Russian supply lines. Crimea would be cutoff with only Ukraine to supply its key living necessities.

07/17/2023 Russians Flee Crimea After Kerch Bridge Strike as Queues Stretch for Miles

It began with Crimea, it will end with Crimea --- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2022.

The following interview with retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commanding general of the US Army Europe, identified the need for Crimea to be part of Ukraine and he laid out a three phase approach to seize Crimea. From his analysis removing Russia from Crimea would end the war and result in Russia sending its troops back home. Quotations and his recurring name in the text were removed for an easier read. The source is provided at the end of this section.

Systems Assessment: We don't know what the ultimate Ukrainian strategy for defeating the Russians in Ukraine might be but we do know that they are fighting for their survival. Crimea has lost its water supply with the Russian destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam. Smart Russians know that by the Fall they will have serious water issues and they are leaving Crimea. To solve the water issues will require an end to the war. So the Russians are cutting their losses. It is unclear how much property was stolen from the people living in Crimea by the Russians, but it is probably significant. After 10 years there has been property turnover which means some Russians will take a huge financial hit if they purchased the properties prior to 2022 from their Russian counter parts. So there will be denial and resistance to leave Crimea by some percentage of Russians. The original Russians are probably long gone with cash in hands.

Ukraine does not need the Kerch Bridge that links Crimea to Russia. Destroying the bridge is a scenario that has obviously been considered. It is difficult to see the downside from Ukraine's perspective if they decide to destroy the bridge. There is concern that Russian civilians will be unable to evacuate from Crimea, however there is still an evacuation route through the land route. This land route is hundreds of miles and it goes through a war torn region of Ukraine that the Russian civilians will experience for themselves as they make their painful journey and see what was done in their names.

There are two approaches that the Ukrainians might use for the counter offensive. The first is to take over the territory that is the land bridge as suggested by Lieutenant General Ben Hodges. The second approach is to destroy massive sections of the Kerch Bridge that links Crimea to Russia so that it cannot be used for months. Removing the Kerch Bridge would cut civilian supply channels to Crimea making life difficult for the occupying Russian population not used to suffering. The big question is which approach would result in the most lives saved while also ending the war as quickly as possible. Cutting off Crimea from the mainland is not a new tactic, it has been used in previous wars. The new variable is the Kerch Bridge. Removing the Kerch Bridge might have the same impact as cutting off Crimea from the traditional land route because the land route is in the middle of a massive war suggesting that civilian supplies would not survive the journey.

Based on the Map of Russian Supply Lines to Crimea, it is obvious why Ukraine keeps asking for long range weapons and F16 fighter jets. Currently they have no weapons that would allow them to shutdown the Russian supply lines to Crimea. Their only alternative is a horrible ground war where territory is taken until the Road To Crimea is reached and destroyed or fully controlled by Ukraine. The biggest issue is that Russia has all the weapons it needs in this and any other war it decides to start. NATO also has all the weapons it needs to defend and stop any war that Russia may decide to start. This sad history, including the lack of proper weapons for Ukraine will be discussed by school children for generations.

From retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commanding general of the US Army Europe: "... the bottom line is, they are not willing to say we want Ukraine to win." The hidden power structure and agreements are obviously throttling Ukraine's ability to defend itself and it has cost hundreds of thousands of lives with millions of refugees and children that will be forever devastated from this evil undertaking.

Observation: The reach of the Russian nobility of autocratic rule with unchecked power established hundreds of years ago is far and wide - from Trump and many members of the US Republican party to leaders in countries like China, India, and various African nations. No wonder they behave so arrogantly. It was never about Communists like the former Russian empire, NAZIs like the former German empire, Predatory Socialists like the former Russian empire, or Predatory Capitalists like the current Russian empire, it was and is about the ruling power structures that adopt whatever words are needed to accomplish their goals of absolute power and the destruction of equality, self determination, liberty and freedom that are the foundations of inalienable rights. Ukraine keeps communicating that simple message to the world. The question is are the people listening.

07/03/2023 Millions face deportation, loss of property after Putin's forced passportization order

Systems Assessment: The Wagner mutiny was NOT about stopping the war against Ukraine. It was about a different strategy to execute the war. Given the Wagner history, that strategy is probably based on more force against Ukraine, although it is unclear what form that strategy might include.

Originally I had more to offer but then I pulled the content because I thought I had no right to say those words. However, after reading an assessment from Timothy Snyder: Prigozhin's March on Moscow Ten lessons from a mutiny, June 25, 2023, [https://snyder.substack.com/p/prigozhins-march-on-moscow], I decided to add back the content.

The Wagner mutiny was NOT about stopping the war against Ukraine. It was about a different strategy to execute the war. Given the Wagner history, that strategy is probably based on more force against Ukraine, although it is unclear what form that strategy might include. There are hints on the Internet that tactical nuclear missiles might be part of that strategy, however using such force on the battlefield is not very effective because troops are highly dispersed. Tactical nuclear missiles would lead to massive casualties only when used in civilian population centers. This would likely lead to a quick and massive NATO military response that would probably end the war in a few days and cause the Russian leadership to fall into total chaos, something that NATO does not want because of Russia's nuclear weapons. The issue is how to deal with the aftermath of this catastrophic situation.

The Russian people really need to wakeup and understand what is really happening. They, the Russian people are the aggressors, they need to stop, they need to take responsibility for what is happening, they are responsible for their leaders both in and out of government. The centuries old Russian people approach of shutting up and keeping their heads down while the worst in their society take control will not work because things are just very bad. Sadly the good people of Russia who know right from wrong have no choice but to get involved to stop their failed policies (yes they also own it) before this horrible disaster gets worse. It must be done peacefully and intelligently so that Russians do not start harming other Russians. They are their own family. They are also family to Ukrainians and other peoples in the world, but they have forgotten that simple fact.

The answer for Russia is simple - just pull out all the Russian troops from all of Ukraine. Then talks can begin to address a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia. It will be hard after the devastation in Ukraine but this is the only strategy for Russia at this point in time that will work in the best interest of Russia. All other strategies will not work and will only harm Russians for generations.

Imagine if the Russian policy had been to use Ukraine as a bridge between East and West rather than a barrier and a colony to be abused. People in Russia would be working, traveling, studying, and vacationing around the world. People in the EU and the rest of the democratic world would be working, traveling, studying, and vacationing in Russia. There would be no talk of war. Children could play in peace and not fear what may come. Russia can make this happen, they are in control, it is their choice.

Systems Assessment: Dragging out the war by limiting supplies to Ukraine has led to massive casualties, massive Ukrainian Infrastructure destruction that will need to be rebuilt, and massive instability within Russia and the world. It is unclear what history will say about the situation. History will not be kind to the slow and measured equipment provided to Ukraine.

As far as Russia, they have massive internal problems that they need to resolve. It is because of these massive internal problems that they caused this needless and disastrous war. Only the Russian people can solve their internal problems. No one can help them, they must help themselves and quickly. What is clear is that war is not the answer and invading Ukraine was not only immoral, unethical, and evil, it was just plain stupid. There is an old saying: you can bring a horse to water but you can't make him drink - in other words you cant't fix stupid. Either the horse wakes up or it dies. The same is true for the Russian people. Ukraine is not Russian. It never was. This is like the other republics in Russia, they are not Russian, they just decided to be part of the Russian federation because it makes sense for them to be part of the federation. In the case of Ukraine there is too much damage from the Communists and now the Oligarchs for them to ever consider being part of the Russian federation or even the Russian sphere of influence. Perhaps in 2 generations things may change, but not now. The current Russian power structure blew it as they say in the US. They ran some insane model from medieval times thinking they could use extreme brutality to make the Ukrainian horse drink Russian water. What Russia failed to realize is that the Russian water offered to the Ukrainian horse was poisoned and the Ukrainians knew it from the very hard lessons learned over the past 100 years.

The Wagner rebellion is probably the final wakeup call for the Russian people. Russia needs to stop this war now and remove the Russian troops from Ukraine. Then they need to work with the Ukrainians to rebuild Ukraine and build a lasting peace for their children. The clock is running out. The next rebellion is coming and it is all internal to Russia. So will there be a massive purge within the Putin regime? If the purge happens will it be to continue the same policy of war and threatening the world with Nuclear War or will it be a new policy of peace and withdraw from Ukraine? Time will tell.

It is time to make assessments on China, India, and the African nations that are enabling Russia in this war. They need to make some serious decisions. Currently they are only acting in their own self interests and not considering the big picture. Their leaders are not failed leaders yet, but they are approaching a point where they need to understand that their short term self interests will do massive harm to their culture and people. The same is true for the financial interests in the US, UK, EU and elsewhere that continue to enable the Russian war machine. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has repeatedly stated more sanctions and tougher sanctions.

What can be worse than a War in Ukraine? How about a collapsed Russian empire in chaos with nuclear weapons in the hands of renegade Russian troops and power brokers that will target anyone including their friends to get what they want.

Ukraine will not allow itself to be subjugated and occupied, that is clear at this point. Russia is in big trouble, their policy of war has failed miserably. Russia needs a new direction and that direction is NOT war.

06/24/2023 Prigozhin To Leave For Belarus In Agreement Reached With Kremlin After Wagner Chief Halts March Toward Moscow

05/19/2023 US signals to allies it won’t block their export of F-16 jets to Ukraine

Systems Assessment: In March 2022 Alexander Vindman Former Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council, President Volodymyr Zelensky, and others stated:

Since that time Army Lieutenant Colonel Vindman has stated that Ukraine will eventually get the weapons they are requesting. History has proven him correct. The war will eventually end. Ukrainians have been around for over 1000 years. They will be around after this war. See section Ukraine History.

05/11/2023 Britain becomes first country to supply Ukraine with long-range missiles

04/23/2023 Sunday: Paris, Kyiv, Baltic states dismayed after China envoy questions Ukraine sovereignty

Systems Assessment: China is reacting to massive policy changes to bring manufacturing back into the USA and Canada and other Democracies around the world. This is a big policy shift. Taiwan and Russia are only one item happening in this unfolding history. The USA may not be able to displace the China supply chain overnight, however Canada, Mexico, UK, and other Democracies can displace the China supply chain overnight. China is panicking and positioning for negotiations.

See 03/24/2023 Friday: Remarks by President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada in Joint Press Conference. This is a partial extract.

03/24/2023 Friday: Remarks by President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada in Joint Press Conference

Systems Assessment: China is also reacting to massive policy changes to bring manufacturing back into the USA and Canada and other Democracies around the world. This is a big policy shift. So China is reacting.

Taiwan and Russia are only one item happening in this unfolding history. The USA may not be able to displace the China supply chain overnight, however Canada, Mexico, UK, and other Democracies can displace the China supply chain overnight. China is panicking and positioning for negotiations. It is now accepted that Capitalism does NOT lead to Democracy or the shared values of Democracies around the world. This is a major revelation and invalidates the policies of massive outsourcing in the 1980's.

This also signals the unfolding reality that economic dependencies does not stop aggression and full scale massive war.

Systems Assessment: It is unclear how Russia can prevail. Putin and his power elite made a terrible mistake. The USA power elite made their decision and they will not allow Russia to win this war. As far as President Biden, he has established his legacy and it always will be known as a great legacy. NATO is stronger than ever with two new countries requesting entry into NATO. Ukraine is fighting to its death with no end in sight.

China and India are at a cross roads. They need to think very carefully. If they decide to side with Russia they will diminish significantly in the 21st century. Russia will not prevail in Ukraine even if China begins to provide Russia offensive weapons.

The USA public divisions stimulated by Russian agents and Russian propaganda are irrelevant.

Estimates are that Russia has committed 97% of its military and this Spring and Summer will be very hard for Ukraine but it likely will be a disaster for Putin and his power elite.

Those who suggest that this will become a long war if China should start to provide offensive weapons do not realize the USA power elite will end this soon.

President Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy in the last century was based on the simple phrase of - "speak softly and carry a big stick". There is always the desire for redemption and peace but if none is possible, the Big Stick will end the disaster. This is historic and this is frightening for all, but in reality the Russians should be the most terrified for what they have done and their refusal to stop. It is their fault. They invaded another country that had no military and they refused to stop even after massive damage and death.

The Russian people need to start to figure out how they will pay to rebuild Ukraine, deal with their criminal leaders, and build a peaceful future for their grand children. The damage is now 2 generations long.

What many do not realize today is that the USA established the massive military industrial complex to deal with the potential threat directly from Russia. That threat has now become reality. This is not a proxy war. This is for real, as Russia has clearly stated the desire to reestablish the Russian Empire and topple the west. This is no joke, this is unlike any of the previous wars except for World War II. The USA power elite have dreaded this time for 2 generations and that is why they prepared. Unfortunately for this generation it is here now. The USA and NATO will not step away. Russia's only alternative is to completely withdraw from Ukraine including the lands previously conquered (Crimea, etc.). They now have the additional burden of paying for rebuilding Ukraine and delivering their leaders charged with crimes against humanity. This is horrible but this is reality. If you want to know where all your parents and grand parents taxpayer money went, it went into this Big Stick; It is the biggest stick on the planet and its one and only purpose was to deal with Russia should they again cause massive havoc. You may ask why, what did the previous generations know. They knew that Russia with Germany started World War II when both Russia and Germany invaded Poland as part of the secrect pact called: Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Start of WWII.

Even though Putin has publicly stated the desire to reestablish the Russian empire, the NATO encroachment propaganda makes its way into the dialog. The question that defenders of Russia never ask is why would all these countries want NATO protection. What do they know, what have they experienced, so that they risk their very survival to join NATO. Poland provided an answer on Tuesday 02/21/2023 when they stated - look we faced Germany and Russia before and with a German attack you lose your freedom but with a Russian attack you lose your soul.

Systems Assessment: According to the CIA database, there are multiple churches in Ukraine: there are the Ukraine Orthodox churches that includes the 1. Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), 2. Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), and the 3. Ukrainian Orthodox - Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), and 4. Ukrainian Greek Catholic church. See section Overview of Ukraine.

The following is from the Archeparchy of Philadelphia Ukrainian Catholic Church:

There is confusion in the US about the various Ukrainian churches and their affiliations. There is the Russian Orthodox Church based out of Moscow and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church based out of Kyiv. When the Soviet Union collapsed the churches resurfaced along with the Ukrainian Orthodox - Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP).

The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) was reestablished in 1990, right before the fall of the Soviet Union. The UAOC, in its contemporary form, has its origins in the Sobor of 1921 in Kyiv, shortly after Ukrainian independence. On December 15, 2018, at the Unification Council, the UAOC and the UOC-KP, along with metropolitans from the UOC-MP, unified into the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Metropolitan Epiphany (former bishop of the UOC-KP) was elected as the new Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine. This is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church based out of Kyiv.

The Ukrainian Orthodox - Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) is a remnant of the Soviet Union and Russian Empire and it allowed Russians living in Ukraine to maintain both their Ukrainian and Russian identities. Sadly the Russian Orthodox church with Patriarch Kirill is sided with the Russian war machine. This compromises and drags the Ukrainian Orthodox - Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) church into this horrible Russian war.

This is a critical finding because Russia has decided to engage in full out war that even includes religious leaders. The statement from Patriarch Kirill in Moscow - Today, Donbas is the front line of defense of the Russian world - the Russian world is not only Russia - it is everywhere where people who were brought up in the traditions of Orthodoxy and in the traditions of Russian morality live - is sad. Patriarch Kirill should be immediately invited to visit war torn Ukraine.

12/23/2022 Friday: Attacks to Weaponize Winter and Break the Spirit of Ukrainian People Failed

Systems Assessment: This analysis has been silent on the brutal Russian missile attacks on the Ukrainian people and infrastructure because it is documented by media from around the world. It does not matter if the Patriot Missiles are still unable to stop the terror attacks because the attacks to weaponize Winter and break the spirit of the Ukrainian people has failed. The Ukrainians are still celebrating their holiday season. They now have more reasons to celebrate because this was a terrible week for Russia and its' war machine. Russia failed in their attempts to disrupt US policy towards Ukraine. It is hard not to imagine that this is the beginning of the end of this brutal Russian regime. See section: President Zelensky Address to US Congress 12-21-2022.

The following is a direct extract from the Kyiv Independent, December 23, 2022, and is just an example of the historical record that the Russian people will face after the war.

In an op-ed for the Financial Times, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg accused the Kremlin of using “invitations to negotiations” as a mere pretext to buy time for Russia to ready itself for a new offensive against Ukraine. “Russia hopes to freeze the war to allow its forces to regroup, rearm and try to launch a renewed offensive,” he wrote in an op-ed. The NATO chief described 2022 as “a year of dismal failure for (Russian) President Vladimir Putin,” saying the Russian leader has underestimated both Ukraine and the unity of NATO. He added that Putin “is ending his year of failures with more cruelty against Ukrainian civilians, cities, infrastructure and health facilities.” “It was (Vladimir) Putin who started the war. He can end it today by getting out of Ukraine. Right now, he shows no signs that he is seeking real peace,” he said. Stoltenberg argued that Russia has demonstrated a “willingness to take large numbers of casualties,” going so far as to conscript over 200,000 additional servicemen in recent months and sourcing weapons from authoritarian regimes like Iran. In a similar statement in early December, the White House expressed skepticism about the possibility of dialogue with Moscow by saying, “Putin has shown absolutely no inclination to be interested in dialogue of any kind.” The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank, stated on Dec. 2 that Russia would stand to gain from negotiations with Ukraine and Western countries that included a ceasefire, as it would allow the country to regroup and prepare its military for further attacks on Ukraine. Ukraine has made it clear that it will not enter into talks with Russia unless the latter returns all occupied territories, including Crimea peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. In mid-November, President Volodymyr Zelensky presented a 10-point peace plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. The plan envisages preventing ecocide in Ukraine, punishing those responsible for war crimes, withdrawing all Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine, restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and the release of all prisoners of war and deportees. The proposals also call for ensuring energy security, food security, and nuclear safety. “If Russia opposes our peace formula, you will see that it only wants war,” Zelensky then said. The Kremlin dismissed the proposal by ruling out withdrawal from Ukraine by the end of 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Dec. 13 that Kyiv needs to accept new territorial “realities,” which include Moscow’s illegal “annexation” of four Ukrainian regions - Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson oblasts.

Putin asks Russia’s defense industry to make more weapons for his war in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin urged his defense industry leaders to increase their production and ensure that the country’s military receives all necessary weapons, equipment, and hardware for fighting in Ukraine as quickly as possible. “It’s also important to perfect and significantly improve the technical characteristics of weapons and equipment for our fighters based on the combat experience we have gained,” he said on Dec. 23. The comments came a day after he described the Patriot air defense system - the most advanced air defense weapon in the U.S. arsenal that will be provided to Ukraine after Kyiv’s long plea - as an “outdated weapon” that Russia will be able to counter. “The Patriot is quite an outdated system, it doesn’t work as well as our S-300 (surface-to-air) missiles,” Putin told journalists. “We’ll take this into account. It’s just a way to prolong the conflict... They want to supply the Patriots. Let them supply them - we’ll crack them (like nuts).” This week, Putin also pledged that Russia would invest “unlimited” funds in its military. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, it has lost control of approximately half of the territory it initially seized, Reuters noted. Additionally, Russia has left behind or lost a significant amount of military equipment, including over 3,000 tanks, and has lost 100,950 troops, according to Ukraine’s General Staff.

Thousands of civilians allegedly tortured by Russian troops during occupation

The Prosecutor General’s Office said on Friday that some 54 torture chambers have been discovered in territories recently freed from Russian occupation. In response to a request from the Zmina human rights center, prosecutors revealed that they are currently investigating more than 5,079 cases of torture, bodily harm, or other inhumane treatment believed to have been carried out by Russian troops. The office also disclosed that 855 criminal investigations have been launched into war crimes against children, including ten cases of sexual violence. The bodies of killed civilians and torture chambers have been found in various settlements in areas regained by Ukrainian forces. In October, the Ukrainian Reintegration Ministry reported that around 1,000 bodies - both military personnel and civilians, including children - had been exhumed in recently liberated settlements. Following the liberation of the southern city of Kherson in November, Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament’s Commissioner for Human Rights, said he was “shocked” by the scale of torture Russian forces inflicted on the residents. He also reported that even children were kept in the torture chambers.

Russian attacks on seven regions in eastern and southern Ukraine have resulted in five deaths and 14 injuries, according to local authorities. The majority of casualties occurred in the eastern Donetsk Oblast, where four civilians were killed, and seven more were injured, said Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. The attacks also damaged five houses, a college, and a high-rise in the region. In the Kharkiv Oblast, near the border with Russia, missiles and artillery were used to attack settlements. Five people were injured, Oleh Syniehubov, the oblast governor, said. In the Zaporizhzhia Oblast, a missile strike hit a private house with two children inside, though they survived the attack.

Thaisa Semenova
National reporter
Thaisa Semenova is a national reporter at the Kyiv Independent. She worked as a staff writer for the Kyiv Post until November 2021.

12/21/2022 Wednesday: President Volodymyr Zelensky Addresses Joint Meeting of Congress

Systems Assessment: This was big, it was of massive historical proportions. It is clear that the sides have been drawn for history to see.

Only 86 out of 213 House Republicans were present. Representatives Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Andrew Clyde, Diana Harshbarger, Warren Davidson, Michael Cloud and Jim Jordan attended but repeatedly remained seated during standing ovations. Republican Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida and Lauren Boebert of Colorado have both demanded an end to aid for Ukraine. This is a legitimate policy difference that the American people must ultimately decide via their votes. As far as the Republicans that did not attend as part of a political obstructionist stunt - Future generations will study these events and they will be forever cast as very poor representatives. It is one thing to attend and be respectful and polite but yet have a difference of opinion on policy. It is another to snub a leader, that is an ally, in the middle of a massive war, whose people are dying everyday, that was invited to a major US Congressional meeting. Outside of a family crisis, the missing Republicans had an obligation to the American people to attend, it is their jobs and they failed miserably.

Reporters should be asking the following questions from all those that did not attend: Why did you not attend? Do you side with Russia and Putin in this War? Do you plan to support further aid to Ukraine, if not why not? We have spent trillions of dollars on defense and specifically in preparation for a war that is now in Ukraine, do you now propose that we reduce our defense budget because there is no longer the threat from Russia and if so what do we tell our Ukrainian and NATO Allies? Do you believe Democracy is the future or Autocracy, do you know the difference? Let them state their cases and see if their constituents agree. It is unclear if those not attending fall into the category of aiding and abetting the enemy in a time of war, but it is a reasonable question to ask and discuss.

The Ukrainians will continue to fight for their country even if US policy should change. These are possible scenarios if the radical Republicans change US policy and Ukrainian support stops:

Equating dollars with death and destruction from a military war started by an out of control power is beyond any cost benefit analysis and is immoral. The Ukrainians have plainly stated the case: Pay now and we will do the fighting here and stop this aggression here, or pay later with new massive aggression and attacks on Democractic states around the world by non-Democractic states watching closely and waiting. This new military threat posed by Russia on the US is beyond any cost benefit analysis. A key question to ask for those fixated on cost benefit analysis is what is the benefit offered by Ukrainians engaged in the fight - the benefit is priceless, it is beyond any measurable level.

The lesson from WW II that the Ukrainians keep trying to communicate is that appeasement failed then and it is failing now in this century. They are trying to communicate that this is a war between Democracy and Non-Democracy states just like prior to WW II. The Non-Democracy states are publicly stating that they are the future and they want control. This is the same scenario that was unfolding prior to WW II and the US was engaged in an active debate if it made sense to maintain its Democracy as Totalitarian Fascists and others were making their cases to abandon their Democracy. Eventually the US and Great Britain selected Democracy and they stated their reasons - Democracies are messy and slow but they self correct when the leaders go out of control, while totalitarian regimes fail because there is no way to remove leaders that go out of control, and these out of control leaders destroy their nations and their people. According to the Ukrainians, this is where Russia is at this point in history. President Zelensky stated that the Russian people must defeat the Kremlin in their minds if they are to be free.

12/19/2022 Monday: US House January 6 Committee Recommendations To Charge Trump with Crimes

Systems Assessment: Coups to seize power are not new. There is a great deal of knowledge about how coups unfold. The most significant knowledge is that the first attempts at a coup rarely work. Further coup attempts are made until there is success, unless they are immediately stopped so that no further attempts are possible. In the US there are 2 other Presidents that engaged in attempts to seize and maintain power:

Each generation is tested and one of the tests that surfaces is the assault on Democracy. There is a big difference between people fighting for freedom and corrupt officials attempting to seize total power.

Today there is a massive challenge with Autocrats, Kleptocrats, and Theocrats who reject Democracy and engage in massive brutality to ensure they gain and stay in power. The most horrific example in 2022 is the Russian attack on Ukraine by Russia, where Putin has stated that there is no such country or people as Ukraine and Ukrainians and is thus engaged in a massive genocide, all because the people of Ukraine are fighting for Democracy. Internationally, Putin is constantly threatening the use of Nuclear weapons to stay in power and prevent Ukraine from receiving the weapons that they need to stop the war and end the Russian campaign against Ukraine.

Today US historians suggest that Trump was embolden because Richard Nixon was never held accountable for his crimes. They clearly state that unless Trump is indicted and held accountable there will be further coup attempts and more importantly the Democracy in the US will fail. They point to the many anti-democratic republicans that have been elected in the recent elections. This generation in the US is being tested to hold on to their Democracy.

Early in the Russian invasion of 2022 on Ukraine, the Ukrainians introduced the concept of the language of war. The Ukrainians clearly state their case and immediately stop any attempts to deflect away from the facts. The January 6 committee used the same approach of using the language of war. The statements are very direct and stop any attempts to deflect away from the facts. The anti-democratic republicans engaged in the opposite dialog, which is nothing more than propaganda to avoid, deny, deflect, and obstruct from the facts. The situation in the US is very serious and yes not only are the Ukrainians watching, but the the people of the world are watching, including those that are attempting to keep themselves in unchecked absolute power.

As far as the Ukrainians, they clearly state that they will fight for their country regardless of what happens in the US. They clearly state that they are fighting for Democracy for all the people in the world. They know what their challenge is and they have chosen their path. They rose to their challenge and their occasion. It is unclear if Americans will rise to their challenge and their occasion.

This problem in the US has been festering for decades. The rule of law and enforcing laws against corporations and the rich has been eroding and began in the massive corporate changes that started in the 1980's. By the mid 1980's many managers within some corporations were retaliating against employees pointing out problems and using statements like - This is not a Democracy. How and why these changes happened within US corporations is another subject, but it is clear that there is a direct connection between those movements, the Republican party that tended to support the rich, and what is happening in the US today with the assault on the US Democracy. It is almost as if some of the corporations were an early testing ground on how to overthrow the Democracy in the United States of America.

Systems Assessment: It is easy to make a speculative connection between what is happening in Ukraine and the United States with Russia as the common source. Trump uses the same propaganda and disinformation techniques as Russian officials. A lunatic fringe in the United States has fully accepted Russian propaganda and is currently engaged in terrorist activities against it own country. The Russian war with Ukraine clearly has gone beyond the Ukrainian borders and in the case of the United States is not just economic but includes massive political and criminal disruption in the United Sates. The Russian war has significantly escalated beyond Ukraine and Russian media even claims they are at war with the United States.

When Putin uses the term denazification he is refering to removing nationalist movements and not referencing Germany and the Nazis of World War II. This is a severe blunder on the part of journalists from around the world that did not clarify what the term means from the Russian perspective. Russia does not view itself as a nation state but as a Federation with the use of extreme force when regions get out of line and become nationalistic demanding their freedom. See section Ukrainian Russian Borders and Internal Areas.

When Putin uses the term socialist he is refering to democracy where the people decide their fate. Democracy is a social system that does not rely on kings, dictators, or the rich to rule over the people. From the Russian perspective this is a socialist system. Once again this is a severe blunder on the part of journalists from around the world that did not clarify what the term means from the Russian perspective.

Ukraine destroying the sources of missiles is a key element of an air defense system. There is no other choice to reduce the probability of missiles reaching their targets. See the systems assessment from 10/11/2022 Tuesday. For more on air defense see section Air Defense Background.

There is a bigger issue. The reality is there are only 2 ways the war in Ukraine ends - Either Russia wins or Russia loses. The only way for Russia to lose is for the current leaders to either decide to stop or for their figure head, Putin to be removed from office, which will cause the others to stop. This war could escalate where Ukraine decides to march on Moscow acquiring and using Russian weapons and even military personnel as part of a multi million man army attack on Russia. Unlike the Russians, the Ukrainians are now fully trained on using both NATO and Russian military equipment. That significantly shifts the military balance. This is a terrifying scenario but one that is known in Russia, Ukraine, and all other countries. Putin keeps referencing Nuclear weapons and the west keeps calling for negotiations. This is not Vietnam or Korea as Russia and others may think. This is not a war with the United States or Americans, proxy or otherwise. This is a war with Ukraine and the Ukrainians are very angry.

Systems Assessment: Olena Zelenska basically stated that they are prepared to fight this war for 2-3 years if it means eventual entry into the European Union. They have had it with Russia. Even if they never join the European Union they will never again accept Russian subjugation.

Systems Assessment: It is possible that this system once delivered in sufficient quantity may provide the air defense shield that Ukraine has been requesting since Russia started sending long range missiles into Ukraine. Air defense is not just trying to intercept an incoming missile but also destroying the source of an incoming missile. The concept is simple, one missile may make it through but then there will be no future missiles from that location. It does not matter if they are mobile. The missile source will be destroyed. All this is reduced to probability of intercept. The probability of intercepting a missile in flight is significantly less than the probability of destroying the source of the missiles, again a key air defense element. Basically the probability of missile intercept might be Pmi ~ 50% while the probability of destroying the missile source is Pms ~ 99%. Ukraine is being provided the capability to intercept missiles in flight but not the capability to destroy the missile source because it would involve strikes within Russian territory including Russian ships. It is a numbers and distance time problem. If the missiles are traveling long distances, and a sufficient number of intercepting missiles can be used to intercept an incoming missile, then the Pmi might increase to 85%. However, this is not a full up air defense system.

Large numbers of Russian dissidents are fleeing Russia. The current Russian leadership is allowing them to leave because they know that those people would put a stop to this sooner rather than later. However, not all are leaving and those that are staying will be key players in stopping the war and changing the direction of Russia. It is just a matter of time.

Systems Assessment: The Russian propaganda was massive in 2014 when the world was convinced that the territory taken by Russia was not Ukrainian territory. The world is quickly learning that Ukrainians were forced to live under a tyrannical regime that is equal to or worse than all other tyrannical regimes in world history. This invasion and its causes will be studied and discussed for decades and form the dialog of many future generations seeking freedom, liberty, justice, and the moral high ground. Russia as a country and a people is now permanently scarred and it will take generations for it to recover and find a normal path of peaceful existence. Russia faced a similar situation when it joined with NAZI Germany to invade and split Poland between Russia and Germany. This was lost to world history as the allies needed to have Russia join their side in order to defeat NAZI Germany.

Systems Assessment: The cost estimate is incomplete because it does not include the costs associated with the people. They have died, lost their health, lost their their faith in humanity, and will never be the same. A cost analysis was performed in March 2022 and the costs were estimated to be $1,931,500,000,000 with a statement that the bill needs to be sent immediately to Russia. Apparently they ignored the bill. Using modern weapons designed to fight a European war causes massive damage. War Costs and Reparations.

While Russia has been engaged in this effort for decades with other countries, all the other countries were small in comparison to Ukraine. Although the population of Ukraine has dropped over the decades because of actions from Russia, it is the largest land mass country in Europe and it stands to reason that there is a large amount of infrastructure and housing. Russian Empire Needs.

Systems Assessment: What is happening in Russia is what has happened in many US companies. Toxic and very stupid trust fund babies take control of a company and come in making demands that destroy the company. It is rare when there is a recovery, but it does happen in some instances. Those that have lived through these scenarios note the insanity of the situation as massive devastation happens for short term gains. A common analogy is that management takes a shot gun and blows off their own balls. A crude analogy but very effective in communicating the situation. It appears that the Russian trust fund baby class has done the same to Russia.

05/12/2022 Thursday: Finland's President Niinisto and Prime Minister Marin called for the country to apply for NATO membership

Daily Events and Systems Assessments

*** Daily Events ***

Systems Assessment: The following are two key article extracts that clearly summarize the horrible situation. The systems assessment is that the world is in big trouble. Russia has been running a massive production war machine to manufacture huge numbers of military weapons while the world was not watching. It is clear that they have had plans in place for decades. It is very clear that the US Trump administration and the Republican party will receive devastating assessments in history.

In February 2014 Russia invaded and in March 2014 annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. This event took place after of the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity and marks the start of the Russain War against Ukraine. President Obama was dealing with massive Republican obstruction and the administration was unable to deal with this massive threat to world stability and massive threat to the US. Mitt Romney was the only voice of reason sounding the alarms in the Republican primaries. It was in 2016 that the Republican party changed its platform on Russian aggression and war attacks.

President Trump may have been involved with a change to the Republican Party campaign platform that watered down support for US assistance to Ukraine. Diana Denman, a Republican delegate who supported arming US allies in Ukraine, claimed that Trump aide J.D. Gordon said at the Republican Convention in 2016 that Trump directed him to support weakening that position in the official platform. Ultimately, the softer position was adopted.

Trump said on the campaign trail that he didn't want World War III over Ukraine. And he wanted better relations with Russia. The change to the Ukraine platform in Cleveland attracted attention because it raised questions about whether it might have been evidence of communications between Russians and the Trump campaign, or was intended by the Trump team as some kind of a signal to the Russians about their willingness to accommodate them. This is similar to what Nixon did with North Vietnam when he announced a secret plan that would end the war if he were elected. President Johnson upon learning of this clearly stated that this was treason but he also stated that he did not want to tear the country apart and begin treason charges against Nixon (we were at war with North Vietnam).

What has become clear is that at the time of the 2016 convention, Russia was running a broad series of active measures against the US presidential election that included clandestine outreach by human agents and an overt information campaign on social media. That wasn't known to the public then, but FBI and Congressional investigators looked into whether anyone in the Trump camp helped the Russians who were attacking the election.

Trump won the 2016 presidential election. At the time the Internet was filled with articles that if Mitt Romney were nominated as the Republican candidate and elected President or Hillary Clinton were elected president then World War III would start. The US had a buffoon in the Whitehouse for 4 years and this empowered Russia to continue with their long term plans of empire.

It is clear that this is first a problem for the EU, then the UK, then the US, and finally the rest of the world. It is unclear why the EU was not on top of this very bad cancer that had taken root that we now see as a nation state, Russia, that has gone insane. It is probably the age old denial syndrome, because the times are good and the realty is too horrible to think about and address. Reality is now here. No one can run and hide.

Systems Perspective 04/21/2022: Using the language that surfaces during war where there is no room for confusion, where clear communications is key, the Russians destroyed themselves. They not only have they killed people in Ukraine, destroyed Ukrainian cities and towns, they also have caused starvation in the world because Ukraine will be unable to export food to 200+ million people. Today they could have been peacefully vacationing in Crimea, working to feed the world in the ports of Mariupol and Odessa, traveling to and from Ukraine while engaged in business, visiting family and friends. Instead they did the invasion in 2014 and escalated the war to such a level were these people will not be able to live together for generations. What a disaster. This generation is plagued with people that have become massively wealthy around the world like Putin and the Russians behind the war, and they have gone insane. Their insanity is the same insanity that was World War I and World War II.

Systems Perspective: Multiple US Radio stations backed by Russia is not a free speech issue. This is an ownership issue where a foreign government has taken control of US radio stations because of funds propping up the radio stations. The problem is that this translates into defacto ownership of these radio stations, which could not exist without the Russian funding. It is clear that these radio stations are controlled and owned by a foreign government. The licenses should be immediately pulled by the FCC and the matter handled by the courts. The FCC should not be second guessing what the courts might decide. They must error on the side of protecting the people from significant harm in a time of full scale war that threatens the US. It is also unclear why the US sanctions have not stopped the Russian funding of these radio stations. See section Russian Propaganda.

History is moved by cause and effect. When historians analyze history they always think in terms of cause and effect. This is a fundamental systems perspective and that is why true historians can make excellent systems engineers. For years as a young person taking history classes we were always asked what caused World War I and World War II, the massive wars that shaped the last century. All types of reasons were identified and greatly debated in class. No one at the time pointed to money. In the end I concluded that all wars were traced to money. By then I was now in University and not studying history, but in general conversation, if the topics of war arose I would point to money as the cause of all wars. Today, most make great arguments outside of money for why wars start. Even in the current Russian Ukrainian war there are arguments for why the war started with Ukraine. The reality is this war started because of money. It is simple, Ukraine is a source of wealth that was being stripped by Russia for generations. The Ukrainians decided to stop this stripping of wealth and threw out their Russian puppet government. The Ukrainians had a TV show about this corruption and its star is now President of Ukraine who ran on a platform to finally remove all corruption. What is not stated clearly is that Ukraine was in the final stages of removing all Russian corruption that was in place only to make money and lots of money for a few Russians and Ukraine was being devastated by this stripping of wealth. There are media stories abut this, but until now few were able to see the big picture.

This is why the Ukrainians are bewildered by the response they have received from their allies.

The US Navy dispatched two naval battle groups built around the aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS Independence to the Persian Gulf, where they were ready by August 08, 1991 . The US also sent the battleships USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin to the region. A total of 48 US Air Force F-15s from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, landed in Saudi Arabia and immediately commenced round-the-clock air patrols of the Saudi - Kuwait - Iraq border to discourage further Iraqi military advances. They were joined by 36 F-15 A-Ds from the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing at Bitburg, Germany. The Bitburg contingent was based at Al Kharj Air Base, approximately an hour south east of Riyadh. The 36th TFW would be responsible for 11 confirmed Iraqi Air Force aircraft shot down during the war. Two Air National Guard units were stationed at Al Kharj Air Base, the South Carolina Air National Guard's 169th Fighter Wing flew bombing missions with 24 F-16s flying 2,000 combat missions and dropping four million pounds (1,800,000 kilograms; 1,800 metric tons) of munitions, and the New York Air National Guard's 174th Fighter Wing from Syracuse flew 24 F-16s on bombing missions. The military buildup eventually reached 543,000 troops, twice the number used in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Much of the material was airlifted or carried to the staging areas via fast sealift ships, allowing a quick buildup. As part of the buildup, amphibious exercises were carried out in the Gulf, including Operation Imminent Thunder, which involved the USS Midway and 15 other ships, 1,100 aircraft, and a thousand Marines. In a press conference, General Schwarzkopf stated that these exercises were intended to deceive the Iraqi forces, forcing them to continue their defense of the Kuwaiti coastline.

The Gulf War began with an extensive aerial bombing campaign on January 16, 1991. For 42 consecutive days and nights, the coalition forces subjected Iraq to one of the most intensive air bombardments in military history. The coalition flew over 100,000 sorties, dropping 88,500 tones of bombs, which widely destroyed military and civilian infrastructure. The coalition launched a massive air campaign, which began the general offensive code named Operation Desert Storm. The priority was the destruction of Iraq's Air Force and anti-aircraft facilities. The sorties were launched mostly from Saudi Arabia and the six carrier battle groups (CVBG) in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. The next targets were command and communication facilities. Saddam Hussein had closely micromanaged Iraqi forces in the Iran - Iraq War, and initiative at lower levels was discouraged. Coalition planners hoped that Iraqi resistance would quickly collapse if deprived of command and control. The air campaign's third and largest phase targeted military targets throughout Iraq and Kuwait: Scud missile launchers, weapons research facilities, and naval forces. About a third of the coalition's air power was devoted to attacking Scuds, some of which were on trucks and therefore difficult to locate. US and British special operations forces had been covertly inserted into western Iraq to aid in the search for and destruction of Scuds.

The war marked the introduction of live news broadcasts from the front lines of the battle, principally by the American network CNN. There were daily broadcast of images from cameras onboard American bombers during Operation Desert Storm. The Gulf War had three of the largest tank battles in American military history. The live images showed that the US stealth aircraft were able to completely bypass the air defense systems.

Based on the history of the Gulf War it was reasonable on the part of the Ukrainians to expect that there would be a similar response to the invasion of Ukraine. However that did not happen. History will speculate for generations why there were differences. Not widely known, but when Kuwait was initially invaded, President Bush stated that the US was not interested in the fall of Kuwait suggesting that the US would do nothing. Within days policy completely changed and the US was going to war in an effort similar to World War II. It was terrifying. It is unclear what happened. There is a complete media void, but having lived through that history, it is clear that these events occurred. The primary reasons for the poor response to Ukraine will include:

During the Soviet offensive in March and April 1944, the Ternopil was encircled. In March 1944, the city was declared a fortified place (Gates to the Reich) by Adolf Hitler, to be defended until the last round was fired. The stiff German resistance caused extensive use of heavy artillery by the Red Army on March 7 - 8 resulting in the complete destruction of the city and killing of nearly all German occupants. Unlike many other occasions, where the Germans had practised a scorched earth policy during their withdrawal from territories of the Soviet Union, the devastation was caused directly by the hostilities. Finally, Ternopol was occupied by the Red Army on April 15 ,1944. After the second Soviet occupation, 85% of the city's living quarters were destroyed.

The horror of war and what happens in war is a terrifying fact. That is why war should always be avoided. Massing 200,000 Russian soldiers on the border of Ukraine and then having a 40 mile convoy sit for weeks is when the actual war crimes against humanity began. Every country has a ground and air defense zone that should never be penetrated. Once war breaks out it is over and horror and terror is the sad result. This history will be written for hundreds of years. Defending the Ukrainian border would not have been a war, it would have been a massive defense before a war could actually start. This war was allowed to start by inaction of NATO, the US, and the UK which had written and unwritten agreements with Ukraine.

It is clear that NATO, US, and UK do not see any foreign policy self interest in having Ukraine stay independent. From their perspective there is nothing in Ukraine for them and they see no disadvantage if Ukraine is eliminated and consumed by Russia to just become Russians. It is only a population of 44 million people that in the previous century everyone just called Russians. The cultural genocide from the last century did not happen but it does not matter. Through the centuries Ukraine has been conquered by Russian, Polish, German, and other armies. It is possible that the people from Europe seeking freedom and liberty in the US were inspired by the plight of the Ukrainians through the centuries, the fight is too hard and pointless, just flee away from the maniacs. Ukrainians have talked about Democracy in the abstract for generations. Perhaps the source and inspiration for Democracy owes its debt to the the plight of Ukraine and their long held dreams of Democracy. However, dreams of freedom, liberty, democracy do not align with todays system of extreme self interest, the same self interest that has driven NATO, US, and UK policy and actions towards Ukraine since 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine and split the country. The same self interest that allowed a 200,000 man army to invade and devastate a country and a people.

Ukrainian President Zelensky has clearly stated that it is time for a new approach to ensure global security. The wars of the past prompted the previous generations to create institutions that should protect us from war, but unfortunately they stopped working. The Ukrainians and the world see it. So, we need new institutions and new alliances that are a coalition of peacekeeping countries. This is a direct challenge to NATO. This new Alliance needs to do far more to counter the carnage and devastation by the Russian invasion. [16]

NATO faces both moral and strategic realities in Ukraine with 4 million refugees, 10 million displaced people, and massive destruction of infrastructure and cities totalling over $2 trillion dollars as of March 22, 2022. The NATO, and US obligation to protect Ukraine is clear because Ukraine answered calls for support in military operations in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq. [16]

NATO’s advantages over Russia are overwhelming. Its force includes 3.5 million active duty military and civilian personnel, the allied defense budgets collectively exceed $1.2 trillion and include the world’s most advanced weapons systems. Russia, fields only 900,000 military personnel, its budget totals between $150 billion and $180 billion, and Russia’s economy is barely one twenty-fifth the size of that of NATO allies and partners. [16]

The Alliance has held back because of fear of Putin’s threats of escalation. His nuclear threats has led allies to remove their forces from Ukraine, convinced them that a no-fly zone should be off the table, and even blocked the transfer of Polish MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine. If Putin achieves victory in Ukraine, he will pursue his empire ambitions and move against other European nations, possibly even those in NATO, as he has repeatedly warned. The more the Alliance backs away from exercising its power to help defend Ukraine now, the more Putin is emboldened and the more NATO’s credibility will be lost in the eyes of its front line Central and Eastern European member states. NATO needs to ensure Putin’s defeat in Ukraine. [16]

President Zelensky’s plea is from a Democratic European nation having its sovereignty attacked by massive military force, something the world has not witnessed since World War II. The outcome of this conflict will define not only the future of European security but also NATO’s relevance as an institution. [16]

History is moved by cause and effect. The cause of this war is the desire to rebuild an empire that has been clearly stated repeatedly over several years. The effect of not challenging this vision is continued empire expansion by any means including war and cultural genocide.

Russia is not negotiating in good faith. Russia has invaded Ukraine and Ukraine has been in defense mode. Ukraine was denied entry into NATO so an invasion of Ukraine into Russia can not be interpreted as a NATO invasion. There comes a time when the best defense is a strong offense. It is unclear if the war will find its way into Russia. Just like there are Russians in Ukraine, there are Ukrainians in Russia.

The Russo-Ukrainian War is an ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine that began in February 2014 following the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity. It initially focused on Crimea and parts of the Donbas that were internationally recognised as part of Ukraine. The first eight years of the war included the Russian annexation of Crimea (2014) and the war in Donbas (2014 - present) between Ukraine and Russia. The Ukrainians lost 14,000 people in this phase of the war. Following a Russian military build up on the Russia Ukraine border from late 2021, the conflict expanded when Russia launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

US policy was set by the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances and the US was providing military equipment to Ukraine in 2019. Trump as part of some bizarre internal political strategy attempted to blackmail the Ukrainian Government and President Zelensky in 2019 and denied the Ukrainians weapons unless certain statements were release about would be President Biden and his family. This action was effectively aiding and abetting Russia in times of a war that the US was associated with and bound by an agreement with Ukraine.

Trump was impeached but never arrested, tried in a court of law, and held accountable. In years to come when children study what caused the massive invasion by Russia of Ukraine, Trump will be a key figure as one of the causes of the war. He enabled Putin and continues to enable Putin even in March 30, 2022. This does not let NATO, the UK, and the USA off the hook with their poor policy choices, which enabled Putin to expand on and act on his vision of a new Russian Empire, which he disclosed for years. It also does not let the people of Russia off the hook who accepted the grand vision of a new Russian Empire. This is a very sad point in history but not new. Unfortunately in the last century the Germans were fed a vision of empire and greedily accepted that vision. It is a constant of history and care must always be taken to ensure such toxic visions do not take root. It looks like this generation is once again about to live through a very difficult lesson.

While President Biden stated that the struggle between Democracy and Autocracy will take years, the Ukrainians do not have years. They are lucky if they can hold out the next few months without the weapons they are requesting. President Zelensky was very clear that President Biden, the US, NATO, and the leaders of the EU know this reality. The Russian army has pulled back to defend their artillery positions. They are getting ready to bomb Ukrainian cities into oblivion as the West watches.

The invasion of Poland in 1939 was an attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and it marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on September 01, 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, and one day after the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union had approved the pact. The Soviets invaded Poland on September 17, 1939. The campaign ended on October 6, 1939 with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty.

German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west the morning after the Gleiwitz incident. Slovak military forces advanced alongside the Germans in northern Slovakia. As the Wehrmacht advanced, Polish forces withdrew from their forward bases of operation close to the German Poland border to establish more defense lines to the east. After the mid September Polish defeat in the Battle of the Bzura, the Germans gained an undisputed advantage. Polish forces then withdrew to the southeast where they prepared for a long defence of the Romanian Bridgehead and awaited expected support and relief from France and the United Kingdom. Those two countries had pacts with Poland and had declared war on Germany on September 03, 1939; in the end their aid to Poland was very limited. France invaded a small part of Germany in the Saar Offensive, and the Polish army was effectively defeated even before the British Expeditionary Force could be transported to Europe, with the bulk of the BEF in France by the end of September.

On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Red Army invaded Eastern Poland, the territory beyond the Curzon Line that fell into the Soviet sphere of influence according to the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This made the Polish plan of defence obsolete. Facing a second front, the Polish government concluded the defence of the Romanian Bridgehead was no longer feasible and ordered an emergency evacuation of all troops to neutral Romania. On October 06, 1939, following the Polish defeat at the Battle of Kock, German and Soviet forces gained full control over Poland. The success of the invasion marked the end of the Second Polish Republic, though Poland never formally surrendered.

On October 08, 1939, after an initial period of military administration, Germany directly annexed western Poland and the former Free City of Danzig and placed the remaining block of territory under the administration of the newly established General Government. The Soviet Union incorporated its newly acquired areas into its constituent Byelorussian and Ukrainian republics, and immediately started a campaign of Sovietization. In the aftermath of the invasion, a collective of underground resistance organizations formed the Polish Underground State within the territory of the former Polish state. Many of the military exiles who managed to escape Poland subsequently joined the Polish Armed Forces in the West, an armed force loyal to the Polish government in exile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Poland.

The Ukrainians do not have years. They are lucky if they can hold out the next few months without the weapons they are requesting. President Zelensky was very clear that President Biden, the US, NATO, and the leaders of the EU know this reality. The Russian army has pulled back to defend their artillery positions. They are getting ready to bomb Ukrainian cities into oblivion as the West watches.

US President Joe Biden ended the speech in Warsaw Poland with for Gods sake this man [Putin] cannot remain in power. This is a direct call for regime change in Russia. In Ukraine people are very aware of their history of grandmothers in Russian Gulags and young people that have died in the invasion of 2014. This speech is an inflection point in the war. Russia and Putin have been put on notice that there will be regime change in Russia. It does not matter that the White House released a statement backing off on the original words spoken by President Biden.

It was a remarkable statement that would reverse stated US policy, directly countering claims from senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who have insisted regime change is not on the table. It went further than even US presidents during the Cold War, and immediately reverberated around the world as world leaders, diplomats, and foreign policy experts sought to determine what Biden said, what it meant and, if he didn’t mean it, why he said it. Shortly after the speech, a White House official sought to clarify the comments. “The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia or regime change,” the official said.

The difference is that this war is worse than any event during the cold war, even the Cuban missile crisis because this is a massive shooting war that has destabilized the world.

Interview With Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry PESKOV;
Interview With Bellingcat Executive Director Christo Grozev;
Interview With Washington Post Global Opinions Writer Jason Rezaian. (not included below)

Aired 2-3p ET Aired March 22, 2022 - 14:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. [14:00:00]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: Hello, everyone, and welcome to AMANPOUR. Here's what's coming up. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): The Kremlin's view of the war, an exclusive interview with Dmitry PESKOV, President Putin's chief spokesperson and close confidant. He spent more than 20 years at the Russian president's side. Then: in a war of information, getting the facts with the Russia investigator for open source intelligence site Bellingcat. Plus: JASON REZAIAN, JOURNALIST DETAINED IN IRAN: It is very, very fishy. And I think, by keeping it quiet, we haven't done her any favors.

AMANPOUR: Jason Rezaian, "The Washington Post" journalist formally detained in Iran, talks to Hari Sreenivasan about the case of the American basketball star Brittney Griner, who has been held in Russian custody since mid-February. (END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane AMANPOUR in London. As the war in Ukraine rages into its fourth week, a huge question remains: What is Russian President Vladimir Putin thinking? What is the endgame? If anyone knows, it is my first guest tonight, Dmitry PESKOV, who has served as Putin's chief spokesman for more than two decades. And he's been at Putin's side throughout his rise to power. He is a close confidant. It's a relationship that's made him also a high-profile target for Western sanctions. And Dmitry PESKOV is joining me now from Moscow for this exclusive interview.

Dmitry PESKOV, welcome to the program. Can I start by asking you -- we're, as I said, nearly four weeks into this war. You, by all intelligence, I guess, experts, are somewhat stalled, certainly around Kyiv and in other parts. There seems to be low morale amount amongst your troops. There seems to be equipment breakdowns and command-and-control issues. My first question is, what does President Putin think he has achieved in Ukraine to date?

DMITRY PESKOV, KREMLIN PRESS SECRETARY: Well, first of all, not yet. He hasn't achieved yet. And we're speaking about special military operation that is going on. And it is going on strictly in accordance with the plans and with purposes that were established beforehand. And, of course, well, first of all, I think we have to speak about the reasons for this operation, I mean, because speaking about the morale against -- amongst our military, of course, you operate data and information coming from different media and from your intelligence. But you would probably have to doubt this information. You have to doubt it, and you have to think twice whether it is true or not.

AMANPOUR: Well, here's the thing, Mr. PESKOV. Intelligence that really predicted the invasion turned out to be true, despite what you all told us from the Kremlin. So, let's just get past that. We have also heard civilians and journalists who've seen Russian troops and who've recounted. But that's -- that's -- be that as it may, when you say he hasn't achieved, President Putin hasn't achieved yet, what do you foresee? Because this was going to be, according to your own side, in the press, in the state- sponsored media in Russia, a pretty quick operation. It was even suggested that, within a couple of days, that -- quote, unquote -- "Ukraine would return to" -- quote, unquote -- "mother Russia." What has gone wrong? And what do you see for the next phase of this?

PESKOV: Well, of course, no one would think from the very beginning about a couple of days. It's a serious operation with serious purposes. And I think, if we try to remember those purposes, those main goals of the operation, it's to get rid of the military potential of Ukraine. And, actually, this is why our military are targeting only military goals and military objects on the territory of Ukraine, not civil ones. Russian military are not hitting civil aims, civil targets. [14:05:00] Number two is to ensure that Ukraine changes from anti-Russian center to a neutral country. And, in this sense, let's remember that, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, actually, the neutral status was fixed in a declaration of independence of the country. Number three, to get rid of the nationalist battalions and nationalist regiments who are now actually, who are now opposing Russian troops, who are now trying to cover themselves under the shield of civilians, thus paving a way for civil casualties.

PESKOV: And, also -- I beg your pardon, if you let me -- and also to ensure -- to ensure that Ukraine acknowledges, acknowledges the fact that Crimea is also an untakable part of Russia, and that People's Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk are already independent states, that Ukraine actually has lost them after the coup that happened in 2014.

AMANPOUR: OK. So, basically, you are putting and laying out the original demands from President Putin, which I understand seem not to have changed. Let us talk about civilian infrastructure. Look, I know you guys say that you're not targeting civilians. And you have just told me it was a special military operation, which is, I know, what the Kremlin military censorship demands. It is a war and it is an invasion. And we're all watching it all over global television, no matter what you tell your own people. There are so many civilian targets that it's hard to count them right now. And you may deny it, but even the Chinese, Dmitry, even the Chinese, who are your friends, have expressed a very, very deep concern about civilian targets. Let me just read what the Foreign Ministry has said. It is "deeply grieved to see the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and highly concerned about the damage done to civilians." They are very, very concerned. Those are your friends, the Chinese, not weirdo journalists or anybody who's actually watching it with their own eyes and can tell the truth. So, what is -- the real question is, what is President Putin's strategic goal in blasting the civilian infrastructure of places like Mariupol, which we are watching turn to smithereens, for the last several weeks now? What's the strategic goal?

PESKOV: Well, the strategic goal is to clear up the Mariupol from nationalistic regiments who are there, and in a heavily covered environment, and so -- and, by the way, they're simply not letting people out from the city, from the town. And this is a problem, because now we're receiving lots of refugees coming from there. And they simply tell us -- they're eyewitnesses. They simply tell us that they were used like a shield. They were used under heavy bombardment. And then those nationalists, they were -- they were killing people who would want to leave the city. And now the main goal is to get rid of those bad guys there.

AMANPOUR: Dmitry, we also have reporters who are quite close to Mariupol. And they are watching, because, actually, some civilians are getting out right now. And they obviously tell a completely different story, that they have been prevented from getting out. And we know that any attempt to establish any kind of humanitarian corridor has collapsed under the weight of Russian shelling, even when you give assurances. There is no food going in. And your own Defense Ministry said these last few days that only if Mariupol surrenders will they allow food, water medicine to go in there. I have -- I have covered a siege, probably the longest in modern history, the siege of Sarajevo. So I know the playbook very, very well. So, the question is, why are they then coming out and telling -- telling us that? But, also, there are reports that Russia is taking civilians and citizens from Mariupol, taking them over to Russia, and, in some cases, putting them way out in the hinterlands and to work, in perhaps work camps, I don't know, but putting them to work.

PESKOV: No, this is not true. This is not true. It's a fake. It's a fake. And then -- well, believe me, we're all living, well, not under the -- not only under the circumstances of military operation. We're living in a severe informational war, in a war of fakes. [14:10:00] And then -- well, you have to -- you have to know the situation from the outside -- or from the inside. And, sometimes, it's very hard to understand what is going on there. So, and -- if you are a journalist. And we're receiving operation there from our military -- information. And then we know what is being said by the people who are -- who are, well, led by those nationalist regiments to leave the city. And then -- so, it's very desperate stories that they are telling us.

AMANPOUR: Why do you think most Russians who are able to get out of these horrendously besieged areas and horrendously shelled areas, why do you think they're fleeing west, they're trying to get out to other parts of Ukraine and to the west, rather than fleeing to Russia, if -- if they feel so safe with you? Why do you think that's happening?

PESKOV: Part of them is going eastwards. Part of them is going westwards. It's a choice of people. And no one is making any obstacles.

AMANPOUR: Let me put it this way, then. Let's just say you believe all of this. You have just talked about a disinformation war. Russia is known to have perfected the disinformation war ever since it was the Soviet Union. Russian propaganda is incredibly effective, incredibly effective. Let's just say that your people believe it. Let's just say that they believe all this stuff that you have said as a reason for this war, for this invasion, whatever you call it, special military operation. How then do you -- how then do you square the circle that something like 90 percent of the Ukrainian people, asked, believe that they will win, and that barely a single one of them has collaborated, has surrendered, has shown anything other than a fierce patriotic fervor to hold onto their country and to hold onto their sovereignty and their Ukraine? Are you surprised? Is the president, President Putin, surprised by that?

PESKOV: Well, first of all, you are mistaken. There are Ukrainians who are collaborating. There are Ukrainians who are in cooperation with our military. There are Ukrainians who would like to avoid any casualties and who are in contacts with our military, whether they like it or don't. But they understand, because it was declared that, if you don't -- if you don't aim our -- target our military, if you're not trying to kill them, no one is going to hurt you. We will hurt, but we will hurt those nationalistic Nazis. We will hurt Nazis, not ordinary people and civil people. It is forbidden to target civil people for our military. So, and then, partly, partly, they are in cooperation with our guys. So, you are simply mistaken. And speaking about propaganda, starting from a great school of the Soviet Union, I would say that masterpieces of propaganda that we're witnessing now in the West is a good school for us. And we're not that good pupils. I mean, I can even ask you why -- why, for example, CNN is that single- sided in covering this story.

AMANPOUR: Well, you lead me then to -- I wasn't going to get there. But if you would allow journalists to come into Russia, and actually report this in a truthful way, rather than heavily military censorship, we would be able to report much more of your side. But let's park that for the moment, and let's carry on. President Putin -- first and foremost, you have seen it, Dmitry. I know that you're watching international news. I know that you watch it, whatever the Russian people see. You have seen the Ukrainian people refuse to surrender. Every single time your forces issue an ultimatum, not an invitation, an ultimatum, they simply refuse to surrender. And I'm not talking about troops. I'm talking about old men and women. I'm talking about young people. I'm talking about kids. They just won't surrender. This is something that has surprised and impressed, actually, the whole world. So, let me just quickly ask you again, what is the endgame? Is it to occupy Ukraine? Can you actually do it with the number of troops that you have? Do you really think that, even if you win a battle here or there, that you can win a long war?

AMANPOUR: Right. OK. Well, that's that answer then. Let me ask you, again, about -- we're trying to get to the truth, right, Dmitry? So, I'm going to -- actually, let me -- let me just ask. Do you see President Putin often? I mean, you're his spokesperson. You -- you know, we know that you're obviously a close official, a close confidant. Do you see him often? [14:15:05] When was the last time you saw him?

PESKOV: Sometimes -- sometimes face to face, sometimes on the telephone. It's -- it doesn't matter.

AMANPOUR: I want to ask you this question about the Ukrainians, because several analysts are watching. And they have listened to what President Putin has said about mother Russia, about a fraternal Ukraine or a Ukraine that doesn't exist and has no right to exist. And they're wondering whether the president is getting very angry with the Ukrainians. They're wondering whether there's a -- there's sort of a punishment against the Ukrainians being leveled. I spoke with the Finnish president, Sauli Niinisto, who, as you know, has met many times with President Putin. And he described to me what he felt was a sense of growing, I'm going to use -- well, hatred is what he said, by President Putin for the Ukrainian people, for the Ukrainian leadership now.

PESKOV: No, he's not angry with Ukrainians. And no one here in Russia is angry with Ukrainians. He's angry with the -- those people in Ukraine who want to be part of NATO and who want to deploy nuclear -- American nuclear missiles on their territory. And he is angry with those people in Ukraine who forbids people to speak Russian in their country, including those Russians who are living in Ukraine for ages. He is angry with those people in Ukraine who carries symbols of Nazis on the streets of Kyiv and Lviv. And he's crazy with the -- he's angry with the Ukrainians and those people in Ukraine who would want to -- who would want to speak with the world, with Minsk negotiations group, years and years, without implementing any obligations. It's a fact...

AMANPOUR: Well, look, President Putin tore up the Minsk Accords by deciding to do what he wanted to do. And, as you know, Zelenskyy has already said several times in the last few weeks that he knows there is no NATO on the table for Ukraine. So, all the other things are presumably negotiable, what you have just said about neo- Nazis and signs and languages. But you know also that neo-Nazis or ultranationalists, which do exist there, are a very, very small group that barely won any percentage in recent elections. So, it's kind of a straw man. But you mentioned nuclear. You know better than I do that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1994 to Russia, and Russia was meant to defend it, according to the agreement in Budapest -- Bucharest or Budapest -- I'm sorry, I can't remember -- not to attack it. But it's President Putin who has put the nuclear card on the table. Can you tell me and tell the world whether you believe President Putin has tried to scare the rest of the world and Ukraine by mentioning the nuclear option? Can you tell me that? And can you tell me that he would never use a nuclear weapon?

PESKOV: Two things. I would disagree with you, firstly. President Putin was not the one who ruined Minsk Accords.

PESKOV: That was Ukrainian side. This is number one. Number two, Ukrainian, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, handed in all the nuclear weapons to the Russian Federation. But, unfortunately, in the year of 2022, just a couple of months ago, in Munich conference, President Zelenskyy started to speak about possibility of generating nuclear arms on the territory of Ukraine. And, most probably, you have witnessed that. (CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: And I actually interviewed him. I do remember him saying: Look what we have got for giving up our nuclear weapons. And the real issue is now what do you expect other countries to do when you ask them to give up their nuclear weapons? Because territorial integrity and sovereignty has been violated. Again, even your friends the Chinese have said they respect every nation's territorial integrity and sovereignty, including Ukraine's. Could I quickly ask you, though? I need to ask you this, because the world is afraid, and I want to know whether Putin intends the world to be afraid of the nuclear option. [14:20:01] Would he use it?

PESKOV: President Putin intends to -- intends to make the world listen to and understand our concerns. We have been trying to convey our concerns to the world, to Europe, to the United States, for a couple of decades, but no one would listen to us. And before it is too late, it was a decision to start -- to launch a special operation, military operation, to get rid of entire Russia that was created next to our borders.

PESKOV: Anti-Russia, because Ukraine -- actually, Ukraine started to be -- it was formed by the Western countries, anti-Russia.

AMANPOUR: Look, Ukraine is a country, sovereign. It's recognized by the United Nations. It's been around for a very, very long time. But I just want to know. I want to ask you again, is President Putin -- because, again, the Finnish president said to me that when he asked Putin directly about this, because President Putin has laid that card on the label, President Putin said that, if anybody tries to stop him, very bad things will happen. And I want to know whether you are convinced or confident that your boss will not use that option.

PESKOV: Well, we have a concept of domestic security, and, well, it's public. You can read all the reasons for nuclear arms to be used. So, if it is an existential threat for our country, then it can be used, in accordance with our concept.

AMANPOUR: So, you are basically saying only an existential threat to your country. I still don't know that I have got a full answer from you. And I just -- I'm just going to assume that President Putin wants to scare the world and keep the world on the tenterhooks. What about chemical and biological weapons? The United States has said that they have -- they believe that there's intelligence that a frustrated President Putin, lack of progress on the ground, may be preparing to use chemical or even biological weapons against Ukrainian troops, civilians or its leadership.

PESKOV: Well, unfortunately, we have a very strong reason to believe and a very strong evidence that United States have been developing biolabs programs on the territory of various countries around the Russian Federation, including the territory of Ukraine. And this is quite -- quite a sophisticated and quite a dangerous biolab program that was led, top secret, by American specialists.

PESKOV: And when it comes to biological and chemical weapons, we don't have these weapons anymore. In the year of 2017, if I'm not mistaken, it was destroyed completely, in accordance with international agreements.

AMANPOUR: Dmitry PESKOV, the United States and allies completely deny that. Basically, there are no Ukrainian biological weapons laboratories, not near Russia's border, not anywhere, says the U.N. ambassador, only public health facilities proudly supported and recognized by the U.S. government, the World Health Organization, and other governments and international institutions. They believe this is part of your disinformation campaign, which confuses issues. Can I ask you the following? Before the invasion, yourself and several other high-ranked Russian officials denied to the whole world that there was going to be anything like this and accused all the rest of the world of being hysterical. In November, you responded yourself, saying: "Such headlines are nothing more than empty, unfounded escalation of tension. Russia poses no threat to anyone." Your E.U. ambassador, Chizov, eight days before the invasion says: "I can assure, as far as Russia is concerned, there will be no attack this Wednesday. There will be no escalation next week or the week after or next month." And your deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, shortly after negotiations with the Americans and other side in January said the following. And here's his sound bite. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SERGEI RYABKOV, RUSSIAN DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER: I do believe that there is no risk of a larger-scale war to start to unfold in Europe or elsewhere. [14:25:02] We do not want, and we will not take any action of aggressive character. We will not attack strike, "invade" -- quote, unquote -- whatever, Ukraine. (END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Dmitry, those are emphatic denials of any such intention very close to the day of the invasion, and as what now turns out to be very accurate intelligence was telling everybody that this was going to happen. So, I guess I can't ask you why the lies, but what I want to ask you is, after all those lies, how do you expect Russia at the highest levels to be taken seriously now? What can one believe about what's coming up next and about what you all say about what -- what's next in terms of negotiations or the situation on the ground?

PESKOV: Well, yes, we have said it. And we have said that hoping, hoping that Ukraine will never get prepared for strike against Donbass. Yes, we have said that hoping that, at the end, that, at the end, there will be a breakthrough in Normandy process, Normandy format. And -- but, after that, in a couple of days, there was perfectly clear for us, there was perfectly clear for our military specialists that Ukraine was going to launch an offensive against Donbass, that Ukraine, by the way, before the end of the operation, Ukraine have concentrated more than 120,000 military personnel at the border, at the division line. And there were clear signs that an offensive was going to -- to start. So, this was the reason. This was the reason. Like elsewhere, like everyone in the world, until the last moment, we never wanted to believe -- we never wanted to believe that -- to that grave sense, no one would listen to our concerns. No one would warn Ukrainians not to do that. No one would push Ukrainians towards the solution within a framework of Normandy process. But no one -- no one did that.

AMANPOUR: OK. Well, there are all these foreign leaders. We know that both presidents went to France to talk about this. None of the intelligence that we heard suggested any such buildup by Ukrainian forces, in fact, the opposite, with President Zelenskyy saying, no, no, no, no, it's not going to happen, stay calm. In fact, Western intelligence was concerned there wouldn't even be a defense from Ukraine, that they hadn't even been prepared for what was coming their way. Are you, is the president surprised at the level of defense and resistance by the Ukrainian forces?

PESKOV: Well, near the Donbass, actually, the level of resistance in Donbass shows that they were quite well-prepared, but they were not well- prepared for the defense. They were preparing for offensive operations. This is the case.

AMANPOUR: OK. All right. Well, here's the thing. They have held you off for nearly four months -- four weeks. Who knows what's going to happen in the future, but you are a much more powerful military. So that constitutes resistance and defense in most -- in most understandings of that. Can I finally ask you? Alexey Navalny has been sentenced, I believe, to nine years in maximum security. People on the streets of Russia have been hoovered up and detained somewhere in the region of, according to the CIA, some 14,000 to 15,000 Russians. You have prevented independent news organizations from calling it a war, from describing anything about it, other than the Defense Ministry line and the Kremlin line. My question is, what are you so afraid of, of Navalny, of journalists, of the truth? What is there to fear?

PESKOV: No. Well, Navalny -- Navalny is a prisoner. He's a prisoner. He had his first sentence. Now he's got his second one. And he's blamed -- and it is proven by the prosecutor's office that he's blamed for fraud. So, it's purely economical crime. He was collecting money by his foundation from citizens, regular citizens of Russia, and also from abroad, and he was spending part of that money for his personal purposes. This is fraud in our country. And he was supposed to be punished. [14:30:06] And no one is afraid of him. It's -- if people is a criminal, he should be in prison. This is the same thing that is happening in the United States and in European countries.

AMANPOUR: I know you say that. I know the prosecution says that, but the people who allegedly claim that he was taking their money and using it for himself then said on the stand they had been forced to make -- to make those testimonies. So, listen, Dmitry PESKOV, I appreciate you being with us. It gives us something of an understanding from your side. And I hope we can continue the conversation as we watch this war unfold. Thank you so much.

AMANPOUR: My next guest is one of the leaders of the open-source investigative organization known as Bellingcat. The site gathers and verifies information from public data to find things that others don't -- often miss rather. You may recall, they work in Syria where they uncovered evidence chemical weapons attacks by President Assad against his own people. And now, they're tirelessly working to track, verify or debunk information surrounding the war in Ukraine. Christo Grozev is Bellingcat's executive director and lead Russian investigator, and he's joining me now. Christo, welcome to the program. Obviously, Russia is what you work on most, and particularly now. What would you say you got from what my conversation with Dmitry PESKOV right now about what's going on the ground?

CHRISTO GROZEV, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BELLINGCAT: Well, first thing I got is that you have extreme patience, and I admire you. I would not have been able to sustain that conversation. But what I understand is that Mr. PESKOV is probably not really aware of what Russia's strategy is and what Russia's revised strategy after the initial failures is because his answers did not make any sense. And I do think that that reflects a broader understanding that only a very small group of people close to Putin, most militarized (INAUDIBLE) or power elite are aware of what he thinks, and probably that is the extent of Mr. PESKOV. But what we do is we try to track the evidence of war crimes or evidence of civilian harm. We focused nearly 100 percent of Bellingcat's activity since the start of the war into that. We sometimes divert into debunking the random claim that Russia puts or Ukraine puts out, regardless which country puts forward unsupported claims. But essentially, all after our efforts are going to focused on chronically logging and preserving for judicial investigations, evidence of civilian harm. So, that's what we do now.

AMANPOUR: So, let me -- before I get to those details, can I just ask you whether you also see what American intelligence seems to be seeing, that they say somewhere, you know, between seven and maybe 9,000 Russian soldiers have been killed. You know, they're also suggesting that a number of generals have been killed. Are you able at all to open-source or geolocate any of that?

GROZEV: This is not our main activity. We did start at the beginning tracking casualties on the Russian side. But we have to focus fully on tracking civilian harm. The numbers that are put forward by the Ukrainian side, which is about 12,500 are a bit high based on what we see. We do see numbers that are more in the 8,000 to 10,000 range. And we understand that domestically, within the Russian military command, they're also acknowledging about 5 ,000 deaths at this point. This comes from several sources inside Russia to us. And I do think that 8,000 to 9,000 is the right number at this point.

AMANPOUR: Can you talk to me about the civilian targeting? I mean, the Russians are absolutely clear in everything they tell the world, we do not target civilian infrastructure. And yet, we see before our eyes what's happened to Mariupol, what civilian targets are hit in other cities, including in Kyiv, and, you know, the number of dead and wounded. But there's a very sophisticated way that they have of saying, well, this person is a fake and that person is a fake, and it was all actors and it was all staged. Can you get beyond that given that there's not many independent journalists in Mariupol?

GROZEV: We try to. So far, we've gathered more than 400 incidents of civilian harm. Of those about 10 percent, 40 of them represent egregious civilian harm incidents, which could have been prevented, should have been prevented with care and compliance with military rules of engagement. What we're seeing is a neglect on the Russian side of the traditional military rules of engagement that are meant to avoid civilian casualties. Every war will have collateral damage of civilian casualties. What is particular here is that the Russian side does not make the effort. And one makes -- one may believe that actually is part of their strategy to terrorize the population in order for pressure to build up on the government to come to some sort of a compromise with Kremlin. [14:35:00] But what we see is not only evidence of targets that have zero military infrastructure importance such as schools, hospitals and theaters, as we have seen recently, administrative buildings, but we also see some explanation for why that is happening. There are a lot of intercepted phone calls that are being published by the Ukrainian Security Services and we were able to verify a small portion of that, the ones where they publish also the phone numbers of the calling parties. And we hear a lot of Russian officers and soldiers talking to their loved ones in Russia complaining about the plight that they're in, and actually, informing their wives, of their spouses that they have been given instructions to ignore the duty of care to civilians, to actually not even pay attention to whom they're shooting as long as somebody is in their line of view. And this would explain also the total neglect for civilian casualties when artillery or other missile shelling is taken -- is implemented.

AMANPOUR: Well, that is quite extraordinary information to be able to have. Just very briefly and finally, you did a lot of investigation, Bellingcat did, in Syria and you saw the pattern. Are we seeing some of the same pattern now?

GROZEV: Yes. We're seeing a pattern of, well, first of all, disinformation and continuous industrial scale fabrication of fakes. What we're seeing is a slightly different direction of the fakes coming from the Russian government. They're mostly meant for domestic audience. They kind of have given up on trying to convince the world. They did make some ludicrous claims such as the Russian ambassador to the Netherlands showed up on a program on Dutch TV and claimed that the two different women who were victims in the Mariupol Maternity Hospital, one of whom died, he showed the photographs of these completely two different women and claimed that both of them are a crisis actor, the same one at that. So, they're doing some ill-advised international attempts with most of the -- most of this information is targeting a domestic audience. What we see is also terrorizing civilian areas that have a particular emotional effect such as hospitals, and I think that that may be part of the strategy to terrorize the population as opposed to an incident.

AMANPOUR: Thank you for being with us. Christo Grozev, thank you very much, of Bellingcat. Too often, ordinary citizens get caught up in the days' geopolitical dramas. Take the recently released Anglo-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who was held for six years held by Tehran and the American basketball star Brittney Griner who is being detained right now in Russia since its war on Ukraine, rather a little before. Our next guest has experienced these cruel tactics firsthand. Jason Rezaian writes for the "Washington Post Global Opinions" and while serving as the paper's correspondent in Teheran, he spent 544 days unjustly imprisoned on trumped up charges by Iranian authorities. And here he with Hari Sreenivasan discussing how to help those who are too often used as bargaining chips.

*** EXTRACT END - show continued and transcript continued with other related topics ***

It is clear that Ukraine should be provided with the MIG-29 aircraft offered by Poland.

Some are suggesting that this is the start of World War III. Others are suggesting that this is the start of World War 2.5, which is really World War III but without nuclear weapons. Both are completely wrong. This is a continuation of World War II.

When World War II ended the agreements in Yalta drew artificial boundaries and tossed whole countries into the Russian Empire known as the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union collapsed many of those countries regained their independence and were able to join NATO and become part of the EU. Ukraine was unable to do that and continued to be a colony of Russia. While it is true that Russia shares many cultural elements of many countries in the region including Ukraine, there is one massive difference, Russia replaced its totalitarian rule of the Czars with totalitarian rule by dictators while all the other countries shed those cultural and political systems and instead embraced Democracy deep in the last century.

Refugees in the US thought as late as the early 1960s that the betrayal at the Yalta conference would be reversed and that they would be able to return home. By 1965 it was clear that it would not happen and they adapted as best as they could to their new homes. As difficult as it was to adapt in these new lands they had one great element in common; Democracy and the love of freedom and liberty that was part of the cultural heritage and deeply embedded in their very souls. Everywhere they went they would remind everyone including the Americans about democracy. So the words spoken by President Zelensky about Democracy are not new words. They are words that were spoken by his grand parents and deeply rooted in the Ukrainian souls.

In many ways Ukraine and Russia are like the US and Great Britain, except with the US and Great Britain they both have culture and political systems that do not accept dictators. Unfortunately for Ukraine and Russia, they have a completely different culture and political system where one embraces dictators and rejects the rule of law when it gets in the way. In many ways this is the same challenge that the West is facing with a class of super rich that thinks they are above the law and can act like dictators when it suits their needs. Until the Russian people realize that they still have not shed their Czar and they reject grand ideas and plans for Empire where only an elite few in Russia benefit, Ukraine and Russia will never reach an agreement where Russia rules over Ukraine.

The connection between the super rich in the West and Russia is very real. They have been affecting US policy towards Ukraine for decades. The most recent example is when Trump illegally compromised US policy towards Ukraine and was impeached. President Zelensky is not wrong that the Ukrainian fight is a fight about Democracy versus Totalitarianism around the world. It is not the first time the US had a serious internal split in times of very serious war. The last time was World War II when some of the US super rich sided with fascism and the Nazis. It was very difficult for the US to maintain control and that is one of the primary reasons why the US sided with Russia in World War II. They knew that they could control the communists in the US after the war but they would be unable to control the fascist and Nazis if they won the war. The American Democracy would come to an end. So the US went to bed with a demon rather than the devil.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 I shared an office with a retried US enlisted Navy person who served his country for decades around the world and in many military missions. When the topic of the Russian invasion of Ukraine surfaced I did a quick search of the military capability of Russia and Ukraine in terms of numbers of assets and my question was who will help Ukraine because they have no military assets and they gave away their nuclear weapons in exchange for protection. His response was that the US will not help because people have to be willing to fight and Ukrainians are unwilling to fight. I did not tell him about the villages, towns, and yes cities that were removed from the face of the earth during World War II and how millions died and millions of others were scattered across the globe as they fought in World War II. I did not tell him about the massive numbers of people arrested and sent to Siberia or just killed during the cold war. I just thought to myself, what a smug military person protected by massive technology and resources not really seeing the horror of massive war that destroys whole civilizations.

For those who think that the current Russian behavior is justified or new are in for a rude awakening.

After 1991, the post-communist countries of eastern Europe, particularly Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, found themselves in an uncertain security environment. Nearby Yugoslavia was falling apart, and they had their own potential border disputes. Most of all, though, they had a vivid memory of Russian imperialism. They did not believe Russia would remain weak for ever, and they wanted to align with NATO while they still could. “If you don’t let us into Nato, we’re getting nuclear weapons,” Polish officials told a team of thinktank researchers in 1993. “We don’t trust the Russians.”

A Battalion Tactical Group (BTG), is a unit deployed by the Russian Army that is kept at a high level of readiness. A BTG includes a battalion (typically mechanized infantry) of 2 to 4 companies reinforced with air-defence, artillery, engineering, and logistical support units, formed from a garrisoned army brigade. A tank company and rocket artillery also reinforce such groupings. BTGs were the mainstay of Russia's military attack in Ukraine from 2013 to 2015, particularly in the Donbass war. As of August 2021 Russia had about 170 BTGs. Each BTG has approximately 600 - 800 officers and soldiers, of whom roughly 200 are infantry, equipped with vehicles typically including roughly 10 tanks and 40 infantry fighting vehicles.

The number of confirmed deaths in the Russo-Ukrainian War (Donbas and Crimea) from the UN are 13,100 to 13,300 Ukranians with 3,393 Ukranian Civilians killed between 6 April 2014 to 31 January 2021. According to the Ukrainian government 14,000 Ukranians were killed by 13 May 2021.

It is clear that Russia does not care about any economic sanctions. They are engaged in a full out war with Ukraine and they expanded the war to include the destruction of multiple Ukrainian cities and the mass killing of civilians.

The current system being used by the West has had no effect on the Russian war machine that has attacked Ukraine. There have been multiple attempts at negotiations and the Russian demands have not changed since the start of the war. After each negotiation attempt, the war was expanded and became more brutal.

It currently appears that the West is hoping that Russia will stop its military invasions with Ukraine and that the war will not expand into NATO countries. The Ukrainians are suggesting that this war will expand and that World War III has started.

The Ukrainians are requesting weapons that the West is afraid to provide because the West does not want to provoke Russia into expanding the war to include NATO. The Ukrainians are suggesting that the only way to stop Russia from invading NATO countries is to defeat them decisively in Ukraine and that can only happen with effective weapons.

The West thinks that if Russia is bogged down in a massive generational guerilla war in Ukraine, that Russia will be unable to invade NATO countries.

Some suggest that the war will end if Russia is able to penetrate the Ukrainian capital, raise the Russian flag and President Zelensky is arrested, killed, or flees Ukraine.

The West is hoping that China, India, and or Turkey can convince Putin to stop the war. This is unlikely. At the beginning of this section are possible peace treaty terms.

The following includes media chatter as policy and Ukrainian weapons needs becomes the focus.

It is clear that Ukraine was not provided the needed military equipment to defend themselves against the Russian invasion. The question is why? History has been written. If Ukraine falls, future generations will not be kind to all the players, including those that were supposed to help them fight the Russians.

Ukraine needs missile defense systems immediately. Some have claimed that this is not possible because it would take years to establish. That is a lie. There are many mobile missile defense systems available from many countries around the world. For example, the AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radar and AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder radar. No training is required by the Ukrainians. They are smart and well versed in high technology. All these systems are intentionally designed to be operated by soldiers at the 5th grade to 9th grade level. They are available and easy to deploy because that is their purpose.

Hughes AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder weapon locating system is a mobile radar system developed in the mid-late 1970s by Hughes Aircraft Company and manufactured by Northrop Grumman and Thales Raytheon Systems, achieving initial operational capability in May, 1982. The system is a "weapon-locating radar", designed to detect and track incoming mortar, artillery and rocket fire to determine the point of origin for counter-battery fire. It is currently in service at battalion and higher levels in the United States Army, United States Marine Corps and Australian Army. Also Turkish Army, Portugal and Ukrainian Army are among the users. The radar is typically trailer-mounted and towed by a Humvee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/TPQ-36_Firefinder_radar.

FAAD C2 is a battle-proven C2 system, deployed in several theaters of operation for the C-UAS and C-RAM (Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar) missions for its proven performance and flexibility that enables easy integration with available sensors, effectors and warning systems to launch rapid, real-time defense against short range and maneuvering threats. https://asc.army.mil/web/portfolio-item/anmpq-64-sentinel-2 . https://man.fas.org/dod-101/sys/land/wsh2013/114.pdf.

The following is old information but its still applies. The companies and system names have only changed and expanded.

There are fixed site systems, land mobile systems, below sea level, and sea level systems. RCA worked on the sea level systems (things that float). Hughes did the NATO fixed site systems and the NATO mobile systems. The fixed site systems are underground and above ground with massive redundancy. Hughes also did the US JSS system. As part of these fixed site systems, the air traffic control systems can be "switched" to air defense mode. So all the sensors and command and control assets of a country merge in time of war but it is the military systems that are designed to survive and are the primary systems while the civilian components only add to the capability. Think in terms of sensors and more eyes. The US has hundreds of air traffic control sensors and ~20,000 civilian air traffic control eyes looking at the sky 24/7. This is in addition to the military staff sitting at their command and control centers using their their sensors and the merged ATC sensors.

This is why Hughes provided international air traffic control systems. These systems were designed to be air defense systems and if a country could not take delivery of the air defense elements, it could be quickly augmented with those element at the first sign of war. Most systems like Korean ATC and Japan Badge-X did / do air traffic control, but they are also full fledged air defense systems. In the 1960's Israel had this type of system and it was credited with winning the war in the 196x attack. This was for countries that could not afford separate air traffic control and air defense systems. They are also small land mass areas where it does not make sense to have 2 separate systems. Think boundaries and interior area. By the time you protect the boundary (ADIZ) the interior is covered so just use it for civilian ATC in peace time.

Aegis is designed to protect a battle group and in the end the aircraft carrier. They have long range missile defense and gun capability. So they can attack a country from the sea. Their air defense is associated with protecting the aircraft carrier, which has the lethal aircraft and weapons, and it is accomplished with the CIWS. When placed on land, its air defense is limited to a small area associated with the CIWS. So it would need to be placed in each city.

Ukrainian cities should have had multiple mobile air defense systems. They are obviously missing. The more of these systems that are activated the lower the number of successful missile strikes. So, Ukraine has been hit with 500+ missile strikes. Either the Russians launched 2,000 - 5,000 missiles or Ukraine does not have enough of these missile defense systems. A key element was for the west to educate the Ukrainians on military systems, what to expect, and the needed defense systems. That apparently did not happen, the facts are clear and now part of history.

Journalism in the West from outlets like MSNBC and CNN have started to fail and support false narratives that compromise the Ukrainians. Talking heads are appearing moving the topic to a no fly zone. None of the journalists have asked questions associated with what military equipment has been provided and what is needed. There is no LIST being shown to the people of the world. However, the Russian military knows that list. At least one Ukrainian has attempted to bring up this topic but the MSNBC host immediately switched the topic to the humanitarian crisis and then personalized it to ask about the Ukrainian persons family. The discussion was shutdown. However, the Ukrainian did say we need military equipment to protect the air and that he is not a military person and does not know what equipment is needed.

The EU is being significantly impacted with the massive entry of Ukrainian refugees, which are mostly woman and children that will not be able to easily enter a workforce and support their exile. This suggests massive social services costs for the EU. The EU has stated that they realize that Ukraine is defending them against Russia and are glad to open their borders and provide the needed assistance to refugees. The USA has adopted the same refugee policies as the EU - 3 years.

A talking head on MSNBC has suggested that Putin wants to only reconstitute Czarist Russia, which is only the country of Ukraine. This suggests that once Ukraine falls the war will end. This does not explain Georgia and Syria and it will not explain the Baltics or Poland. This is irresponsible journalism because once the statement was made, follow-up questions were not asked, instead an opinion was offered that suggests that this makes sense. Management damage control will not stop this war. Those that are not engaged in journalism must be removed from their implied journalistic roles. The obvious follow-up question are: What current countries fall into the geographic area of Czarist Russia and do you think Putin knows that map and has that list? Isn't this cultural genocide? Are you advocating for cultural genocide? Are you advocating for the resurgence of empires?

If Ukraine falls and Putin stops the Russian internal unrest, the conquest will continue into NATO starting with the Baltics. At that point it will be the EU that will be honoring NATO. The scenario is well known and is part of the WW I and WW II history. It is only if the EU starts to fall that the UK will be dragged into the war and then the USA. It is all dependent on the size and will of the Russian war machine. Is this war machine as deadly as the German war machine in the previous century? Currently there is equipment and social will supporting the Russian war machine.

Ukraine does not have adequate defense systems to protect against missile attacks. It is unclear why they have not been provided with effective air defense systems. These are the same types of systems used in Israel to defend their civilian areas from missile attacks. For example:

Media has started to ignore the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances signed by the USA, UK, and Russia, like it never existed. Others are saying that it is irrelevant and that the only agreement that matters is NATO. This is a sad and horrific turn of events. If the USA and UK walked away from the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances it is unclear what may happen if Russia enters into NATO territories associated with the new countries that recently entered into NATO. There is the original NATO block and then the new entries. President Biden has clearly stated that the USA will defend every inch of NATO territory.

Country	NATO Entry	Russian Invasion	Population (million)
Russia	NA	NA	144
Belarus	NA	NA	9.4
Ukraine	Rejected by NATO	2014 part 2022 full	44
Georgia	No	2008	10.6
Syria	No	2015	17.5
Bulgaria	2004	Risk Phase 1	7
Estonia	2004	Baltic State Risk Phase 1	1
Latvia	2004	Baltic State Risk Phase 1	2
Lithuania	2004	Baltic State Risk Phase 1	2.8
Romania	2004	Risk Phase 1	19
Slovakia	2004	Risk Phase 1	5.5
Slovenia	2004	Risk Phase 1	2
Albania	2009	Risk Phase 1	2.8
Croatia	2009	Risk Phase 1	4
Montenegro	2017	Risk Phase 1	0.6
North Macedonia	2020	Risk Phase 1	2
Poland	Yes	Risk Phase 2	38
East Germany	Yes	Risk Phase 3	16 (2016)
EU	Yes	None	447
UK	Yes	None	62
USA	Yes	None	330

It appears that US policy is to exhaust Russia, so that if Ukraine falls and Russia enters into a NATO country, the Russian military will be significantly diminished. The US has stated that they do not want to corner Putin, where the only option left is nuclear. However, the policy assumes that the military would actually follow nuclear strike orders. The policy also fails to consider that if Putin fails with an attack on a NATO country, he would feel trapped with no other option than a nuclear option. This suggests that the US strongly believes that Russia will fail in Ukraine, otherwise the next step would be a NATO strike. This is a significant cause and effect finding.

Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (September 1939 to 19 May 2017) was a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defense Forces who played a key role in the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident. On 26 September 1983, three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early warning system when the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to five more. Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm, and his decision to disobey orders, against Soviet military protocol, is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in a large scale nuclear war. An investigation confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had malfunctioned. Because of his decision not to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike, Petrov is often credited as having "saved the world" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov.

Ukrainian Constitution

The Ukrainian constitution was originally adopted on 28 June 1996. It has had several amendments including amendments to enter Ukraine into the EU and NATO.

Amended by the Laws of Ukraine
2222-IV dated December 8, 2004,
2952 -VI dated February 1, 2011,
586 -VII dated September 19, 2013,
742-VII dated February 21, 2014,
1401-VIII dated June 2, 2016 - Human Rights
2680-VIII dated February 7, 2019 - On 7 February 2019, the Verkhovna Rada voted to amend the constitution to state Ukraine's strategic objectives to join the European Union and NATO.

Operation of the Government - Changes include elected official terms, appointments, and the reduction of power of the President.

The requirement to enter the EU and NATO - Additions that the Government must work towards the requirement to become part of the EU and NATO.

Verkhovna Rada translates to Supreme Council of Ukraine. It is a unicameral Parliament of Ukraine and is composed of 450 deputies, who are presided over by a Chairman.

The Verkhovna Rada (parliament) is the sole body of legislative power in Ukraine. The Ukrainian parliament determines the principles of domestic and foreign policy, introduces amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine, adopts laws, approves the state budget, designates elections for the President of Ukraine, impeaches the president, declares war and peace, appoints the Prime Minister of Ukraine, appoints or confirms certain officials, appoints one-third of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, ratifies and denounces international treaties, and exercises certain control functions. In Ukraine there are no requirements for the minimum number of signatures (of deputies) to register a bill.

All procedural regulations are contained in the Law on Regulations of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The latest version of the document was adopted on December 16, 2012, in which through the initiative of the President of Ukraine amendments were made concerning registration and voting by parliamentarians. In 2012 there were numerous changes to the election of the chairman. Bills are usually considered following the procedure of three readings. The President of Ukraine must sign a law before it can be officially promulgated.

Until 2017 the parliament appointed and dismissed judges from their posts and permitted detention or arrest of judges (those powers were transferred to the Supreme Council of Justice).

Ukraine is a modern Democracy. A modern Democracy suggests checks and balances with distribution of power. The Rada has the power of legislation, the President is responsible for ensuring the Rada legislation is executed, and the Justice is responsible for enforcing the legislation (laws).

Currently President Zelensky is executing the Highest level law written in the latest constitution by the Rada via a constitutional amendment for Ukraine to join the EU and NATO. He has no other choice as President of Ukraine. Even as a law, the President would have no choice. The Ukrainian Parliament adopted legislation in 2017 reinstating membership in NATO as a strategic foreign and security policy objective. With the constitutional amendment in 2019, the Rada made it very clear to the world that Ukraine join the EU and NATO.

The people of Ukraine decided to have a system of government rather than a dictatorship or monarchy. The system is based on checks and balances, democratic elections, and elected representatives from multiple parties that represent the people. The President is the Executive Branch, The Rada is the Legislative Branch, and the Justice is the Judicial Branch. There is also a section associated with the Oblasts and Republic of Crimea where the powers between the Federal level, the Oblasts, and the Republic of Crimea are defined. This constitution has content that is a Modern Democracy.

Ukrainian Constitution Side By Side Comparison 1996-2019

The Ukrainian constitution was originally adopted on 28 June 1996. It has had several amendments including amendments to enter Ukraine into the EU and NATO. This is a side by side comparison of the 1996 and 2019 Ukrainian.

CONSTITUTION OF UKRAINE 1996

CONSTITUTION OF UKRAINE 2019
Showing updates from 1996

CONSTITUTION OF UKRAINE 1996

Adopted at the Fifth Session
of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
on 28 June 1996

CONSTITUTION OF UKRAINE 2019

Adopted at the Fifth Session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on June 28, 1996
Amended by the Laws of Ukraine
2222-IV dated December 8, 2004,
2952 -VI dated February 1, 2011,
586 -VII dated September 19, 2013,
742-VII dated February 21, 2014,
1401-VIII dated June 2, 2016 - Human Rights
2680-VIII dated February 7, 2019

Preamble
Chapter I General Principles
Chapter II Human and Citizen's Rights, Freedoms and Duties
Chapter III Elections. Referendum
Chapter IV Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
Chapter V President of Ukraine
Chapter VI Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Other Bodies of Executive Power
Chapter VII Procuracy
Chapter VIII Justice
Chapter IX Territorial Structure of Ukraine
Chapter X Autonomous Republic of Crimea
Chapter XI Local Self-Government
Chapter XII Constitutional Court of Ukraine
Chapter XIII Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine
Chapter XIV Final Provisions
Chapter XV Transitional Provisions

Preamble (EU and NATO Update)
Chapter I General Principles
Chapter II Human and Citizen's Rights, Freedoms and Duties
Chapter III Elections. Referendum
Chapter IV Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (Article 85 EU and NATO Update)
Chapter V President of Ukraine (Article 102 EU and NATO Update)
Chapter VI Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Other Bodies of Executive Power (Artilce 116 EU and NATO Update)
Chapter VII Prosecution Office
Chapter VIII Justice
Chapter IX Territorial Structure of Ukraine
Chapter X Autonomous Republic of Crimea
Chapter XI Local Self-Government
Chapter XII Constitutional Court of Ukraine
Chapter XIII Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine
Chapter XIV Final Provisions
Chapter XV Transitional Provisions

Preamble

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, on behalf of the Ukrainian people --- citizens of Ukraine of all nationalities,

expressing the sovereign will of the people,

based on the centuries-old history of Ukrainian state-building and on the right to self-determination realised by the Ukrainian nation, all the Ukrainian people,

providing for the guarantee of human rights and freedoms and of the worthy conditions of human life,

caring for the strengthening of civil harmony on Ukrainian soil,

striving to develop and strengthen a democratic, social, law-based state,

aware of our responsibility before God, our own conscience, past, present and future generations,

guided by the Act of Declaration of the Independence of Ukraine of 24 August 1991, approved by the national vote of 1 December 1991,

adopts this Constitution --- the Fundamental Law of Ukraine.

Preamble

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, on behalf of the Ukrainian people - citizens of Ukraine of all nationalities,

expressing the sovereign will of the people,

based on the centuries-old history of Ukrainian state-building and on the right to self-determination realised by the Ukrainian nation, all the Ukrainian people,

providing for the guarantee of human rights and freedoms and of the worthy conditions of human life,

caring for the strengthening of civil harmony on Ukrainian soil, and confirming the European identity of the Ukrainian people and the irreversibility of the European and Euro-Atlantic course of Ukraine,

striving to develop and strengthen a democratic, social, law-based state,

aware of responsibility before God, our own conscience, past, present and future generations,

guided by the Act of Declaration of the Independence of Ukraine of August 24, 1991, approved by the national vote on December 1, 1991,

adopts this Constitution - the Fundamental Law of Ukraine.

Chapter I
General Principles

Article 1

Ukraine is a sovereign and independent, democratic, social, law-based state.

Article 2

The sovereignty of Ukraine extends throughout its entire territory.

Ukraine is a unitary state.

The territory of Ukraine within its present border is indivisible and inviolable.

Article 3

The human being, his or her life and health, honour and dignity, inviolability and security are recognised in Ukraine as the highest social value.

Human rights and freedoms and their guarantees determine the essence and orientation of the activity of the State. The State is answerable to the individual for its activity. To affirm and ensure human rights and freedoms is the main duty of the State.

Article 4

There is single citizenship in Ukraine. The grounds for the acquisition and termination of Ukrainian citizenship are determined by law.

Article 5

Ukraine is a republic.

The people are the bearers of sovereignty and the only source of power in Ukraine. The people exercise power directly and through bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government.

The right to determine and change the constitutional order in Ukraine belongs exclusively to the people and shall not be usurped by the State, its bodies or officials.

No one shall usurp state power.

Article 6

State power in Ukraine is exercised on the principles of its division into legislative, executive and judicial power.

Bodies of legislative, executive and judicial power exercise their authority within the limits established by this Constitution and in accordance with the laws of Ukraine.

Article 7

In Ukraine, local self-government is recognised and guaranteed.

Article 8

In Ukraine, the principle of the rule of law is recognised and effective.

The Constitution of Ukraine has the highest legal force. Laws and other normative legal acts are adopted on the basis of the Constitution of Ukraine and shall conform to it.

The norms of the Constitution of Ukraine are norms of direct effect. Appeals to the court in defence of the constitutional rights and freedoms of the individual and citizen directly on the grounds of the Constitution of Ukraine are guaranteed.

Article 9

International treaties that are in force, agreed to be binding by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, are part of the national legislation of Ukraine.

The conclusion of international treaties that contravene the Constitution of Ukraine is possible only after introducing relevant amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine.

Article 10

The state language of Ukraine is the Ukrainian language.

The State ensures the comprehensive development and functioning of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of social life throughout the entire territory of Ukraine.

In Ukraine, the free development, use and protection of Russian, and other languages of national minorities of Ukraine, is guaranteed.

The State promotes the learning of languages of international communication.

The use of languages in Ukraine is guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine and is determined by law.

Article 11

The State promotes the consolidation and development of the Ukrainian nation, of its historical consciousness, traditions and culture, and also the development of the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of all indigenous peoples and national minorities of Ukraine.

Article 12

Ukraine provides for the satisfaction of national and cultural, and linguistic needs of Ukrainians residing beyond the borders of the State.

Article 13

The land, its mineral wealth, atmosphere, water and other natural resources within the territory of Ukraine, the natural resources of its continental shelf, and the exclusive (maritime) economic zone, are objects of the right of property of the Ukrainian people. Ownership rights on behalf of the Ukrainian people are exercised by bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government within the limits determined by this Constitution.

Every citizen has the right to utilise the natural objects of the people's right of property in accordance with the law.

Property entails responsibility. Property shall not be used to the detriment of the person and society.

The State ensures the protection of the rights of all subjects of the right of property and economic management, and the social orientation of the economy. All subjects of the right of property are equal before the law.

Article 14

Land is the fundamental national wealth that is under special state protection.

The right of property to land is guaranteed. This right is acquired and realised by citizens, legal persons and the State, exclusively in accordance with the law.

Article 15

Social life in Ukraine is based on the principles of political, economic and ideological diversity.

No ideology shall be recognised by the State as mandatory.

Censorship is prohibited.

The State guarantees freedom of political activity not prohibited by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

Article 16

To ensure ecological safety and to maintain the ecological balance on the territory of Ukraine, to overcome the consequences of the Chornobyl catastrophe --- a catastrophe of global scale, and to preserve the gene pool of the Ukrainian people, is the duty of the State.

Article 17

To protect the sovereignty and territorial indivisibility of Ukraine, and to ensure its economic and informational security are the most important functions of the State and a matter of concern for all the Ukrainian people.

The defence of Ukraine and the protection of its sovereignty, territorial indivisibility and inviolability, are entrusted to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Ensuring state security and protecting the state border of Ukraine are entrusted to the respective military formations and law enforcement bodies of the State, whose organisation and operational procedure are determined by law.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations shall not be used by anyone to restrict the rights and freedoms of citizens or with the intent to overthrow the constitutional order, subvert the bodies of power or obstruct their activity.

The State ensures the social protection of citizens of Ukraine who serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and in other military formations as well as of members of their families.

The creation and operation of any armed formations not envisaged by law are prohibited on the territory of Ukraine.

The location of foreign military bases shall not be permitted on the territory of Ukraine.

Article 18

The foreign political activity of Ukraine is aimed at ensuring its national interests and security by maintaining peaceful and mutually beneficial co-operation with members of the international community, according to generally acknowledged principles and norms of international law.

Article 19

The legal order in Ukraine is based on the principles according to which no one shall be forced to do what is not envisaged by legislation.

Bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government and their officials are obliged to act only on the grounds, within the limits of authority, and in the manner envisaged by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

Article 20

The state symbols of Ukraine are the State Flag of Ukraine, the State Coat of Arms of Ukraine and the State Anthem of Ukraine.

The State Flag of Ukraine is a banner of two equally-sized horizontal bands of blue and yellow.

The Great State Coat of Arms of Ukraine shall be established with the consideration of the Small State Coat of Arms of Ukraine and the Coat of Arms of the Zaporozhian Host, by the law adopted by no less than two-thirds of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The main element of the Great State Coat of Arms of Ukraine is the Emblem of the Royal State of Volodymyr the Great (the Small State Coat of Arms of Ukraine).

The State Anthem of Ukraine is the national anthem set to the music of M. Verbytskyi, with words that are confirmed by the law adopted by no less than two-thirds of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The description of the state symbols of Ukraine and the procedure for their use shall be established by the law adopted by no less than two-thirds of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The capital of Ukraine is the City of Kyiv.

Chapter I
General Principles

Article 1

Ukraine is a sovereign and independent, democratic, social, law-based state.

Article 2

The sovereignty of Ukraine extends throughout its entire territory.

Ukraine is a unitary state.

The territory of Ukraine within its present border is indivisible and inviolable.

Article 3

The human being, his or her life and health, honour and dignity, inviolability and security are recognised in Ukraine as the highest social value.

Article 4

There is single citizenship in Ukraine. The grounds for the acquisition and termination of Ukrainian citizenship are determined by law.

Article 5

Ukraine is a republic.

The people are the bearers of sovereignty and the only source of power in Ukraine. The people exercise power directly and through bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government.

The right to determine and change the constitutional order in Ukraine belongs exclusively to the people and shall not be usurped by the State, its bodies or officials.

No one shall usurp state power.

Article 6

State power in Ukraine is exercised on the principles of its division into legislative, executive and judicial power.

Bodies of legislative, executive and judicial power exercise their authority within the limits established by this Constitution and in accordance with the laws of Ukraine.

Article 7

In Ukraine, local self-government is recognised and guaranteed.

Article 8

In Ukraine, the principle of the rule of law is recognised and effective.

The Constitution of Ukraine has the highest legal force. Laws and other normative legal acts are adopted on the basis of the Constitution of Ukraine and shall conform to it.

The norms of the Constitution of Ukraine are norms of direct effect. Appeals to the court in defence of the constitutional human and citizen’s rights and freedoms ~~of the individual and citizen~~ directly on the grounds of the Constitution of Ukraine are guaranteed.

Article 9

International treaties that are in force, agreed to be binding by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, are part of the national legislation of Ukraine.

The conclusion of international treaties that contravene the Constitution of Ukraine is possible only after introducing relevant amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine.

Article 10

The state language of Ukraine is the Ukrainian language.

The State ensures the comprehensive development and functioning of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of social life throughout the entire territory of Ukraine.

In Ukraine, the free development, use and protection of Russian, and other languages of national minorities of Ukraine, is guaranteed.

The State promotes the learning of languages of international communication.

The use of languages in Ukraine is guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine and is determined by law.

Article 11

The State promotes the consolidation and development of the Ukrainian nation, its historical consciousness, traditions and culture, and also the development of the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of all indigenous peoples and national minorities of Ukraine.

Article 12

Ukraine provides for the satisfaction of national and cultural, and linguistic needs of Ukrainians residing beyond the borders of the State.

Article 13

The land, its mineral wealth, its subsoil, atmosphere, water and other natural resources within the territory of Ukraine, the natural resources of its continental shelf, and the exclusive (maritime) economic zone, are objects of the right of property of the Ukrainian people. Ownership rights on behalf of the Ukrainian people are exercised by bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government within the limits determined by this Constitution.

Every citizen has the right to make use of the natural objects of the people's right of property in accordance with the law.

Property entails responsibility. Property shall not be used to the detriment of the person and society.

Article 14

Land is the fundamental national wealth that is under special state protection.

The right of property to land is guaranteed. This right is acquired and realised by citizens, legal persons and the State, exclusively in accordance with the law.

Article 15

Social life in Ukraine is based on the principles of political, economic and ideological diversity.

No ideology shall be recognised by the State as mandatory.

Censorship is prohibited.

The State guarantees freedom of political activity not prohibited by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

Article 16

Article 17

The defence of Ukraine, the protection of its sovereignty, territorial indivisibility and inviolability, are entrusted to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Ensuring state security and protecting the state border of Ukraine are entrusted to the respective military units and law enforcement bodies of the State, ~~whose~~ organisation and operational procedure of which are determined by law.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military units shall not be used by anyone to restrict the rights and freedoms of citizens or with the intent to overthrow the constitutional order, subvert the bodies of power or obstruct their activity.

The State ensures the social protection of citizens of Ukraine who serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and in other military ~~formations~~ units as well as of members of their families.

The creation and operation of any armed units not envisaged by law are prohibited on the territory of Ukraine.

The location of foreign military bases shall not be permitted on the territory of Ukraine.

Article 18

Article 19

The legal order in Ukraine is based on the principles whereby no one shall be forced to do what is not envisaged by legislation.

Article 20

The state symbols of Ukraine are the State Flag of Ukraine, the State Coat of Arms of Ukraine and the State Anthem of Ukraine.

The State Flag of Ukraine is a banner of two equally-sized horizontal stripes of blue and yellow.

The main element of the Great State Coat of Arms of Ukraine is the Emblem of the Royal State of Volodymyr the Great (the Small State Coat of Arms of Ukraine).

The capital of Ukraine is the City of Kyiv.

Chapter II
Human and Citizen's Rights, Freedoms and Duties

Article 21

All people are free and equal in their dignity and rights.

Human rights and freedoms are inalienable and inviolable.

Article 22

Human and citizens' rights and freedoms affirmed by this Constitution are not exhaustive.

Constitutional rights and freedoms are guaranteed and shall not be abolished.

The content and scope of existing rights and freedoms shall not be diminished in the adoption of new laws or in the amendment of laws that are in force.

Article 23

Every person has the right to free development of his or her personality if the rights and freedoms of other persons are not violated thereby, and has duties before the society in which the free and comprehensive development of his or her personality is ensured.

Article 24

Citizens have equal constitutional rights and freedoms and are equal before the law.

Equality of the rights of women and men is ensured: by providing women with opportunities equal to those of men, in public and political, and cultural activity, in obtaining education and in professional training, in work and its remuneration; by special measures for the protection of work and health of women; by establishing pension privileges, by creating conditions that allow women to combine work and motherhood; by legal protection, material and moral support of motherhood and childhood, including the provision of paid leaves and other privileges to pregnant women and mothers.

Article 25

A citizen of Ukraine shall not be deprived of citizenship and of the right to change citizenship.

A citizen of Ukraine shall not be expelled from Ukraine or surrendered to another state.

Ukraine guarantees care and protection to its citizens who are beyond its borders.

Article 26

Foreigners and stateless persons who are in Ukraine on legal grounds enjoy the same rights and freedoms and also bear the same duties as citizens of Ukraine, with the exceptions established by the Constitution, laws or international treaties of Ukraine.

Foreigners and stateless persons may be granted asylum by the procedure established by law.

Article 27

Every person has the inalienable right to life.

No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of life. The duty of the State is to protect human life.

Everyone has the right to protect his or her life and health, the lives and health of other persons against unlawful encroachments.

Article 28

Everyone has the right to respect of his or her dignity.

No one shall be subjected to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that violates his or her dignity.

No person shall be subjected to medical, scientific or other experiments without his or her free consent.

Article 29

Every person has the right to freedom and personal inviolability.

No one shall be arrested or held in custody other than pursuant to a substantiated court decision and only on the grounds and in accordance with the procedure established by law.

In the event of an urgent necessity to prevent or stop a crime, bodies authorised by law may hold a person in custody as a temporary preventive measure, the reasonable grounds for which shall be verified by a court within seventy-two hours. The detained person shall be released immediately, if he or she has not been provided, within seventy-two hours from the moment of detention, with a substantiated court decision in regard to the holding in custody.

Everyone arrested or detained shall be informed without delay of the reasons for his or her arrest or detention, apprised of his or her rights, and from the moment of detention shall be given the opportunity to personally defend himself or herself, or to have the legal assistance of a defender.

Everyone detained has the right to challenge his or her detention in court at any time.

Relatives of an arrested or detained person shall be informed immediately of his or her arrest or detention.

Article 30

Everyone is guaranteed the inviolability of his or her dwelling place.

Entry into a dwelling place or other possessions of a person, and the examination or search thereof, shall not be permitted, other than pursuant to a substantiated court decision.

In urgent cases related to the preservation of human life and property or to the direct pursuit of persons suspected of committing a crime, another procedure established by law is possible for entry into a dwelling place or other possessions of a person, and for the examination and search thereof.

Article 31

Everyone is guaranteed privacy of mail, telephone conversations, telegraph and other correspondence. Exceptions shall be established only by a court in cases envisaged by law, with the purpose of preventing crime or ascertaining the truth in the course of the investigation of a criminal case, if it is not possible to obtain information by other means.

Article 32

No one shall be subject to interference in his or her personal and family life, except in cases envisaged by the Constitution of Ukraine.

The collection, storage, use and dissemination of confidential information about a person without his or her consent shall not be permitted, except in cases determined by law, and only in the interests of national security, economic welfare and human rights.

Every citizen has the right to examine information about himself or herself, that is not a state secret or other secret protected by law, at the bodies of state power, bodies of local self-government, institutions and organisations.

Everyone is guaranteed judicial protection of the right to rectify incorrect information about himself or herself and members of his or her family, and of the right to demand that any type of information be expunged, and also the right to compensation for material and moral damages inflicted by the collection, storage, use and dissemination of such incorrect information.

Article 33

Everyone who is legally present on the territory of Ukraine is guaranteed freedom of movement, free choice of place of residence, and the right to freely leave the territory of Ukraine, with the exception of restrictions established by law.

A citizen of Ukraine may not be deprived of the right to return to Ukraine at any time.

Article 34

Everyone is guaranteed the right to freedom of thought and speech, and to the free expression of his or her views and beliefs.

Everyone has the right to freely collect, store, use and disseminate information by oral, written or other means of his or her choice.

The exercise of these rights may be restricted by law in the interests of national security, territorial indivisibility or public order, with the purpose of preventing disturbances or crimes, protecting the health of the population, the reputation or rights of other persons, preventing the publication of information received confidentially, or supporting the authority and impartiality of justice.

Article 35

Everyone has the right to freedom of personal philosophy and religion. This right includes the freedom to profess or not to profess any religion, to perform alone or collectively and without constraint religious rites and ceremonial rituals, and to conduct religious activity.

The exercise of this right may be restricted by law only in the interests of protecting public order, the health and morality of the population, or protecting the rights and freedoms of other persons.

The Church and religious organisations in Ukraine are separated from the State, and the school --- from the Church. No religion shall be recognised by the State as mandatory.

No one shall be relieved of his or her duties before the State or refuse to perform the laws for reasons of religious beliefs. In the event that the performance of military duty is contrary to the religious beliefs of a citizen, the performance of th is duty shall be replaced by alternative (non-military) service.

Article 36

Citizens of Ukraine have the right to freedom of association in political parties and public organisations for the exercise and protection of their rights and freedoms and for the satisfaction of their political, economic, social, cultural and other interests, with the exception of restrictions established by law in the interests of national security and public order, the protection of the health of the population or the protection of rights and freedoms of other persons.

Political parties in Ukraine promote the formation and expression of the political will of citizens, and participate in elections. Only citizens of Ukraine may be members of political parties. Restrictions on membership in political parties are established exclusively by this Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

Citizens have the right to take part in trade unions with the purpose of protecting their labour and socio-economic rights and interests. Trade unions are public organisations that unite citizens bound by common interests that accord with the nature of their professional activity. Trade unions are formed without prior permission on the basis of the free choice of their members. All trade unions have equal rights. Restrictions on membership in trade unions are established exclusively by this Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

No one may be forced to join any association of citizens or be restricted in his or her rights for belonging or not belonging to political parties or public organisations.

All associations of citizens are equal before the law.

Article 37

The establishment and activity of political parties and public associations are prohibited if their programme goals or actions are aimed at the liquidation of the independence of Ukraine, the change of the constitutional order by violent means, the violation of the sovereignty and territorial indivisibility of the State, the undermining of its security, the unlawful seizure of state power, the propaganda of war and of violence, the incitement of inter-ethnic, racial, or religious enmity, and the encroachments on human rights and freedoms and the health of the population.

Political parties and public associations shall not have paramilitary formations.

The creation and activity of organisational structures of political parties shall not be permitted within bodies of executive and judicial power and executive bodies of local self-government, in military formations, and also in state enterprises, educational establishments and other state institutions and organisations.

The prohibition of the activity of associations of citizens is exercised only through judicial procedure.

Article 38

Citizens have the right to participate in the administration of state affairs, in All-Ukrainian and local referendums, to freely elect and to be elected to bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government.

Citizens enjoy the equal right of access to the civil service and to service in bodies of local self-government.

Article 39

Citizens have the right to assemble peacefully without arms and to hold meetings, rallies, processions and demonstrations, upon notifying in advance the bodies of executive power or bodies of local self-government.

Restrictions on the exercise of this right may be established by a court in accordance with the law and only in the interests of national security and public order, with the purpose of preventing disturbances or crimes, protecting the health of the population, or protecting the rights and freedoms of other persons.

Article 40

Everyone has the right to file individual or collective petitions, or to personally appeal to bodies of state power, bodies of local self-government, and to the officials and officers of these bodies, that are obliged to consider the petitions and to provide a substantiated reply within the term established by law.

Article 41

Everyone has the right to own, use and dispose of his or her property, and the results of his or her intellectual and creative activity.

The right of private property is acquired by the procedure determined by law.

In order to satisfy their needs, citizens may use the objects of the right of state and communal property in accordance with the law.

No one shall be unlawfully deprived of the right of property. The right of private property is inviolable.

The expropriation of objects of the right of private property may be applied only as an exception for reasons of social necessity, on the grounds of and by the procedure established by law, and on the condition of advance and complete compensation of their value. The expropriation of such objects with subsequent complete compensation of their value is permitted only under conditions of martial law or a state of emergency.

Confiscation of property may be applied only pursuant to a court decision, in the cases, in the extent and by the procedure established by law.

The use of property shall not cause harm to the rights, freedoms and dignity of citizens, the interests of society, aggravate the ecological situation and the natural qualities of land.

Article 42

Everyone has the right to entrepreneurial activity that is not prohibited by law.

The entrepreneurial activity of deputies, officials and officers of bodies of state power and of bodies of local self-government is restricted by law.

The State ensures the protection of competition in entrepreneurial activity. The abuse of a monopolistic position in the market, the unlawful restriction of competition, and unfair competition, shall not be permitted. The types and limits of monopolies are determined by law.

The State protects the rights of consumers, exercises control over the quality and safety of products and of all types of services and work, and promotes the activity of public consumer associations.

Article 43

Everyone has the right to labour, including the possibility to earn one's living by labour that he or she freely chooses or to which he or she freely agrees.

The State creates conditions for citizens to fully realise their right to labour, guarantees equal opportunities in the choice of profession and of types of labour activity, implements programmes of vocational education, training and retraining of personnel according to the needs of society.

The use of forced labour is prohibited. Military or alternative (non-military) service, and also work or service carried out by a person in compliance with a verdict or other court decision, or in accordance with the laws on martial law or on a state of emergency, are not considered to be forced labour.

Everyone has the right to proper, safe and healthy work conditions, and to remuneration no less than the minimum wage as determined by law.

The employment of women and minors for work that is hazardous to their health, is prohibited.

Citizens are guaranteed protection from unlawful dismissal.

The right to timely payment for labour is protected by law.

Article 44

Those who are employed have the right to strike for the protection of their economic and social interests.

The procedure for exercising the right to strike is established by law, taking into account the necessity to ensure national security, health protection, and rights and freedoms of other persons.

No one shall be forced to participate or not to participate in a strike.

The prohibition of a strike is possible only on the basis of the law.

Article 45

Everyone who is employed has the right to rest.

This right is ensured by providing weekly rest days and also paid annual vacation, by establishing a shorter working day for certain professions and industries, and reduced working hours at night.

The maximum number of working hours, the minimum duration of rest and of paid annual vacation, days off and holidays as well as other conditions for exercising this right, are determined by law.

Article 46

Citizens have the right to social protection that includes the right to provision in cases of complete, partial or temporary disability, the loss of the principal wage-earner, unemployment due to circumstances beyond their control and also in old age, and in other cases established by law.

This right is guaranteed by general mandatory state social insurance on account of the insurance payments of citizens, enterprises, institutions and organisations, and also from budgetary and other sources of social security; by the establishment of a network of state, communal and private institutions to care for persons incapable of work.

Pensions and other types of social payments and assistance that are the principal sources of subsistence, shall ensure a standard of living not lower than the minimum living standard established by law.

Article 47

Everyone has the right to housing. The State creates conditions that enable every citizen to build, purchase as property, or to rent housing.

Citizens in need of social protection are provided with housing by the State and bodies of local self-government, free of charge or at a price affordable for them, in accordance with the law.

No one shall be forcibly deprived of housing other than on the basis of the law pursuant to a court decision.

Article 48

Everyone has the right to a standard of living sufficient for himself or herself and his or her family that includes adequate nutrition, clothing and housing.

Article 49

Everyone has the right to health protection, medical care and medical insurance.

Health protection is ensured through state funding of the relevant socio-economic, medical and sanitary, health improvement and prophylactic programmes.

The State creates conditions for effective medical service accessible to all citizens. State and communal health protection institutions provide medical care free of charge; the existing network of such institutions shall not be reduced. The State promotes the development of medical institutions of all forms of ownership.

The State provides for the development of physical culture and sports, and ensures sanitary-epidemic welfare.

Article 50

Everyone has the right to an environment that is safe for life and health, and to compensation for damages inflicted through the violation of this right.

Everyone is guaranteed the right of free access to information about the environmental situation, the quality of food and consumer goods, and also the right to disseminate such information. No one shall make such information secret.

Article 51

Marriage is based on the free consent of a woman and a man. Each of the spouses has equal rights and duties in the marriage and family.

Parents are obliged to support their children until they attain the age of majority. Adult children are obliged to care for their parents who are incapable of work.

The family, childhood, motherhood and fatherhood are under the protection of the State.

Article 52

Children are equal in their rights regardless of their origin and whether they are born in or out of wedlock.

Any violence against a child, or his or her exploitation, shall be prosecuted by law.

The maintenance and upbringing of orphans and children deprived of parental care is entrusted to the State. The State encourages and supports charitable activity in regard to children.

Article 53

Everyone has the right to education.

Complete general secondary education is compulsory.

The State ensures accessible and free pre-school, complete general secondary, vocational and higher education in state and communal educational establishments; the development of pre-school, complete general secondary, extra-curricular, vocational, higher and post-graduate education, various forms of instruction; the provision of state scholarships and privileges to pupils and students.

Citizens have the right to obtain free higher education in state and communal educational establishments on a competitive basis.

Citizens who belong to national minorities are guaranteed in accordance with the law the right to receive instruction in their native language, or to study their native language in state and communal educational establishments and through national cultural societies.

Article 54

Citizens are guaranteed the freedom of literary, artistic, scientific and technical creativity, protection of intellectual property, their copyrights, moral and material interests that arise with regard to various types of intellectual activity.

Every citizen has the right to the results of his or her intellectual, creative activity; no one shall use or distribute them without his or her consent, with the exceptions established by law.

The State promotes the development of science and the establishment of scientific relations of Ukraine with the world community.

Cultural heritage is protected by law.

The State ensures the preservation of historical monuments and other objects of cultural value, and takes measures to return to Ukraine the cultural treasures of the nation, that are located beyond its borders.

Article 55

Human and citizens' rights and freedoms are protected by the court.

Everyone is guaranteed the right to challenge in court the decisions, actions or omission of bodies of state power, bodies of local self-government, officials and officers.

Everyone has the right to appeal for the protection of his or her rights to the Authorised Human Rights Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

After exhausting all domestic legal remedies, everyone has the right to appeal for the protection of his or her rights and freedoms to the relevant international judicial institutions or to the relevant bodies of international organisations of which Ukraine is a member or participant.

Everyone has the right to protect his or her rights and freedoms from violations and illegal encroachments by any means not prohibited by law.

Article 56

Everyone has the right to compensation, at the expense of the State or bodies of local self-government, for material and moral damages inflicted by unlawful decisions, actions or omission of bodies of state power, bodies of local self-government, their officials and officers during the exercise of their authority.

Article 57

Everyone is guaranteed the right to know his or her rights and duties.

Laws and other normative legal acts that determine the rights and duties of citizens shall be brought to the notice of the population by the procedure established by law.

Laws and other normative legal acts that determine the rights and duties of citizens, but that are not brought to the notice of the population by the procedure established by law, are not in force.

Article 58

Laws and other normative legal acts have no retroactive force, except in cases where they mitigate or annul the responsibility of a person.

No one shall bear responsibility for acts that, at the time they were committed, were not deemed by law to be an offence.

Article 59

Everyone has the right to legal assistance. Such assistance is provided free of charge in cases envisaged by law. Everyone is free to choose the defender of his or her rights.

In Ukraine, the advocacy acts to ensure the right to a defence against accusation and to provide legal assistance in deciding cases in courts and other state bodies.

Article 60

No one is obliged to execute rulings or orders that are manifestly criminal.

For the issuance or execution of a manifestly criminal ruling or order, legal liability arises.

Article 61

For one and the same offence, no one shall be brought twice to legal liability of the same type.

The legal liability of a person is of an individual character.

Article 62

A person is presumed innocent of committing a crime and shall not be subjected to criminal punishment until his or her guilt is proved through legal procedure and established by a court verdict of guilty.

No one is obliged to prove his or her innocence of committing a crime.

An accusation shall not be based on illegally obtained evidence as well as on assumptions. All doubts in regard to the proof of guilt of a person are interpreted in his or her favour.

In the event that a court verdict is revoked as unjust, the State compensates the material and moral damages inflicted by the groundless conviction.

Article 63

A person shall not bear responsibility for refusing to testify or to explain anything about himself or herself, members of his or her family or close relatives in the degree determined by law.

A suspect, an accused, or a defendant has the right to a defence.

A convicted person enjoys all human and citizens' rights, with the exception of restrictions determined by law and established by a court verdict.

Article 64

Constitutional human and citizens' rights and freedoms shall not be restricted, except in cases envisaged by the Constitution of Ukraine.

Under conditions of martial law or a state of emergency, specific restrictions on rights and freedoms may be established with the indication of the period of effectiveness of these restrictions. The rights and freedoms envisaged in Articles 24, 25, 2 7, 28, 29, 40, 47, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62 and 63 of this Constitution shall not be restricted.

Article 65

Defence of the Motherland, of the independence and territorial indivisibility of Ukraine, and respect for its state symbols, are the duties of citizens of Ukraine.

Citizens perform military service in accordance with the law.

Article 66

Everyone is obliged not to harm nature, cultural heritage and to compensate for any damage he or she inflicted.

Article 67

Everyone is obliged to pay taxes and levies in accordance with the procedure and in the extent established by law.

All citizens annually file declarations with the tax inspection at their place of residence, on their property status and income for the previous year, by the procedure established by law.

Article 68

Everyone is obliged to strictly abide by the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine, and not to encroach upon the rights and freedoms, honour and dignity of other persons.

Ignorance of the law shall not exempt from legal liability.

Chapter II
Human and Citizen's Rights, Freedoms and Duties

Article 21

All people are free and equal in their dignity and rights.

Human rights and freedoms are inalienable and inviolable.

Article 22

Human and citizen’s rights and freedoms enshrined by this Constitution are not exhaustive.

Constitutional rights and freedoms are guaranteed and shall not be abolished.

The content and scope of existing rights and freedoms shall not be diminished in the adoption of new laws or in the amendment of laws that are in force.

Article 23

Every person has the right to free development of his or her personality if the rights and freedoms of other persons are not violated thereby, and has duties before the society in which free and comprehensive development of his or her personality is ensured.

Article 24

Citizens have equal constitutional rights and freedoms and are equal before the law.

There shall be no privileges or restrictions based on race, colour of skin, political, religious and other beliefs, sex, ethnic and social origin, property status, place of residence, linguistic or other characteristics.

Equality of the rights of women and men is ensured: by providing women with opportunities equal to those of men, in public and political, and cultural activity, in obtaining education and in professional training, in work and its remuneration; by special measures for the protection of work and health of women; by establishing pension privileges, by creating conditions that allow women to combine work and motherhood; by legal protection, material and moral support of motherhood and childhood, including the provision of granting paid leaves and other privileges to pregnant women and mothers inclusive.

Article 25

A citizen of Ukraine shall not be deprived of citizenship and of the right to change citizenship.

A citizen of Ukraine shall not be expelled from Ukraine or extradited to another state.

Ukraine guarantees care and protection to its citizens who stay beyond its borders.

Article 26

Foreigners and stateless persons may be granted asylum by the procedure established by law.

Article 27

Every person has the inalienable right to life.

No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of life. The duty of the State is to protect human life.

Everyone has the right to protect his or her life and health, the lives and health of other persons against unlawful encroachments.

Article 28

Everyone has the right to respect of his or her dignity.

No one shall be subjected to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that violates his or her dignity.

No person shall be subjected to medical, scientific or other experiments without his or her free consent.

Article 29

Every person has the right to freedom and personal inviolability.

No one shall be arrested or held in custody other than pursuant to a substantiated court decision and only on the grounds and in accordance with the procedure established by law.

Everyone arrested or detained shall be informed without delay of the reasons for his or her arrest or detention, explained his or her rights, and from the moment of detention shall be given the opportunity to personally defend himself or herself, or to have the legal assistance of a defender.

Everyone detained has the right to challenge his or her detention in court at any time.

Relatives of an arrested or detained person shall be informed immediately of his or her arrest or detention.

Article 30

Everyone is guaranteed the inviolability of his or her dwelling place.

Entry into a dwelling place or other possessions of a person, and the examination or search thereof, shall not be permitted, other than pursuant to a substantiated court decision.

Article 31

Article 32

No one shall be subject to interference in his or her personal and family life, except in cases envisaged by the Constitution of Ukraine.

Everyone is guaranteed judicial protection of the right to refute incorrect information about himself or herself and members of his or her family, and of the right to demand that any type of information be expunged, and also the right to compensation for material and moral damages inflicted by the collection, storage, use and dissemination of such incorrect information.

Article 33

Everyone who lawfully stays on the territory of Ukraine is guaranteed freedom of movement, free choice of place of residence, and the right to freely leave the territory of Ukraine, with the exception of restrictions established by law.

A citizen of Ukraine may not be deprived of the right to return to Ukraine at any time.

Article 34

Everyone is guaranteed the right to freedom of thought and speech, and to the free expression of his or her views and beliefs.

Everyone has the right to freely collect, store, use and disseminate information by oral, written or other means of his or her choice.

The exercise of these rights may be restricted by law in the interests of national security, territorial indivisibility or public order, with the purpose of preventing disturbances or crimes, protecting the health of the population, the reputation or rights of other persons, preventing the disclosure of information received confidentially, or supporting the authority and impartiality of justice.

Article 35

Everyone has the right to freedom of personal philosophy and religion. This right includes the freedom to profess or not to profess any religion, to perform alone or collectively and unimpededly religious rites and ceremonial rituals, and to conduct religious activity.

The Church and religious organisations in Ukraine are separated from the State, and the school - from the Church. No religion shall be recognised by the State as mandatory.

No one shall be relieved of his or her duties before the State or refuse to perform the laws for reasons of religious beliefs. In the event that the performance of military duty is contrary to the religious beliefs of a citizen, the performance of this duty shall be replaced by alternative (non-military) service.

Article 36

Citizens have the right to take part in trade unions with the purpose of protecting their labour and social and economic rights and interests. Trade unions are public organisations that unite citizens bound by common interests according to their professional activity. Trade unions are formed without prior permission on the basis of the free choice of their members. All trade unions have equal rights. Restrictions on membership in trade unions are established exclusively by this Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

No one may be forced to join any association of citizens or be restricted in his or her rights for belonging or not belonging to political parties or public organisations.

All associations of citizens are equal before the law.

Article 37

Political parties and public associations shall not have paramilitary units.

The creation and activity of organisational structures of political parties shall not be permitted within bodies of executive and judicial power and executive bodies of local self-government, in military units, and also in state enterprises, educational establishments and other state institutions and organisations.

The prohibition of the activity of associations of citizens is exercised only through judicial procedure.

Article 38

Citizens enjoy the equal right of access to the civil service and to service in bodies of local self-government.

Article 39

Article 40

Everyone has the right to file individual or collective written petitions, or to personally appeal to bodies of state power, bodies of local self-government, and to the officials and officers of these bodies, that are obliged to consider the petitions and to provide a substantiated reply within the term established by law.

Article 41

Everyone has the right to own, use and dispose of his or her property, and the results of his or her intellectual and creative activity.

The right of private property is acquired by the procedure determined by law.

In order to satisfy their needs, citizens may use the objects of the right of state and communal property in accordance with the law.

No one shall be unlawfully deprived of the right of property. The right of private property is inviolable.

Confiscation of property may be applied only pursuant to a court decision, in the cases, in the extent and by the procedure established by law.

The use of property shall not cause harm to the rights, freedoms and dignity of citizens, the interests of society, aggravate the ecological situation and the natural qualities of land.

Article 42

Everyone has the right to entrepreneurial activity that is not prohibited by law.

The entrepreneurial activity of deputies, officials and officers of bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government is restricted by law.

The State protects the rights of consumers, exercises control over the quality and safety of products and of all types of services and work, and promotes the activity of public consumer associations.

Article 43

Everyone has the right to labour, including the possibility to earn one's living by labour that he or she freely chooses or to which he or she freely agrees.

Everyone has the right to proper, safe and healthy work conditions, and to remuneration no less than the minimum wage as determined by law.

The employment of women and minors for work that is hazardous to their health, is prohibited.

Citizens are guaranteed protection from unlawful dismissal.

The right to timely payment for labour is protected by law.

Article 44

Those who are employed have the right to strike for the protection of their economic and social interests.

The procedure for exercising the right to strike is established by law, taking into account the necessity to ensure national security, health protection, and rights and freedoms of other persons.

No one shall be forced to participate or not to participate in a strike.

The prohibition of a strike is possible only on the basis of the law.

Article 45

Everyone who is employed has the right to rest.

This right is ensured by providing weekly rest days and also paid annual vacation, by establishing a shorter working day for certain professions and industries, and reduced working hours at night.

The maximum number of working hours, the minimum duration of rest and of paid annual vacation, days off and holidays as well as other conditions for exercising this right, are determined by law.

Article 46

Citizens have the right to social protection that includes the right to social provision in cases of complete, partial or temporary disability, the loss of the principal wage-earner, unemployment due to circumstances beyond their control and also in old age, and in other cases established by law.

Article 47

Everyone has the right to housing. The State creates conditions that enable every citizen to build, purchase as property, or to rent housing.

Citizens in need of social protection are provided with housing by the State and bodies of local self-government, free of charge or at a price affordable for them, in accordance with the law.

No one shall be forcibly deprived of housing other than on the basis of the law pursuant to a court decision.

Article 48

Everyone has the right to a standard of living sufficient for himself or herself and his or her family that includes adequate nutrition, clothing and housing.

Article 49

Everyone has the right to health protection, medical care and medical insurance.

Health protection is ensured through state funding of the relevant social and economic, medical and sanitary, health improvement and prophylactic programmes.

The State provides for the development of physical culture and sports, and ensures sanitary and epidemic welfare.

Article 50

Everyone has the right to an environment that is safe for life and health, and to compensation for damages inflicted through the violation of this right.

Article 51

Marriage is based on the free consent of a woman and a man. Each of the spouses has equal rights and duties in the marriage and family.

Parents are obliged to support their children until they attain the age of majority. Adult children are obliged to care for their parents who are incapable of work.

The family, childhood, motherhood and fatherhood are under the protection of the State.

Article 52

Children are equal in their rights regardless of their origin and whether they are born in or out of wedlock.

Any violence against a child, or his or her exploitation, shall be prosecuted by law.

The maintenance and upbringing of orphans and children deprived of parental care is entrusted to the State. The State encourages and supports charitable activity in regard to children.

Article 53

Everyone has the right to education.

Complete general secondary education is compulsory.

The State ensures accessible and free pre-school, complete general secondary, vocational and higher education in state and communal educational establishments; the development of pre-school, complete general secondary, extra-curricular, vocational, higher and post-graduate education, various forms of instruction; provision of state scholarships and privileges to pupils and students.

Citizens have the right to obtain free higher education in state and communal educational establishments on a competitive basis.

Article 54

Every citizen has the right to the results of his or her intellectual, creative activity; no one shall use or distribute them without his or her consent, with the exceptions established by law.

The State promotes the development of science and the establishment of scientific relations of Ukraine with the world community.

Cultural heritage is protected by law.

Article 55

Human and citizen’s rights and freedoms are protected by the court.

Everyone is guaranteed the right to challenge in court the decisions, actions or omission of bodies of state power, bodies of local self-government, officials and officers.

Everyone has the right to appeal for the protection of his or her rights to the Authorised Human Rights Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Everyone shall be guaranteed the right to lodge a constitutional complaint to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on grounds defined in this Constitution and under the procedure prescribed by law.

Everyone has the right to protect his or her rights and freedoms from violations and illegal encroachments by any means not prohibited by law.

Article 56

Article 57

Everyone is guaranteed the right to know his or her rights and duties.

Laws and other normative legal acts that determine the rights and duties of citizens shall be brought to the notice of the population by the procedure established by law.

Laws and other normative legal acts that determine the rights and duties of citizens, but that are not brought to the notice of the population by the procedure established by law, are not in force.

Article 58

Laws and other normative legal acts have no retroactive force, except in cases where they mitigate or annul the responsibility of a person.

No one shall bear responsibility for acts that, at the time they were committed, were not deemed by law to be an offence.

Article 59

Everyone has the right to professional legal assistance. Such assistance is provided free of charge in cases envisaged by law. Everyone is free to choose the defender of his or her rights.

In Ukraine, the advocacy acts to ensure the right to a defence against accusation and to provide legal assistance in deciding cases in courts and other state bodies.

Article 60

No one is obliged to execute rulings or orders that are manifestly criminal.

For the issuance or execution of a manifestly criminal ruling or order, legal liability arises.

Legal liability arises for the issuance or execution of a manifestly criminal ruling or order.

Article 61

For one and the same offence, no one shall be brought twice to legal liability of the same type.

The legal liability of a person is of an individual character.

Article 62

No one is obliged to prove his or her innocence of committing a crime.

An accusation shall not be based on illegally obtained evidence as well as on assumptions. All doubts in regard to the proof of guilt of a person are interpreted in his or her favour.

In the event that a court verdict is revoked as unjust, the State compensates the material and moral damages inflicted by the groundless conviction.

Article 63

A person shall not bear responsibility for refusing to testify or to explain anything about himself or herself, members of his or her family or close relatives in the degree determined by law.

A suspect, an accused, or a defendant has the right to a defence.

A convicted person enjoys all human and citizens' rights, with the exception of restrictions determined by law and established by a court verdict.

Article 64

Constitutional human and citizen’s rights and freedoms shall not be restricted, except in cases envisaged by the Constitution of Ukraine.

Under conditions of martial law or a state of emergency, specific restrictions on rights and freedoms may be established with the indication of the period of effect of these restrictions. The rights and freedoms envisaged in Articles 24, 25, 2 7, 28, 29, 40, 47, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62 and 63 of this Constitution shall not be restricted.

Article 65

Defence of the Motherland, of the independence and territorial indivisibility of Ukraine, and respect for its state symbols, are the duties of citizens of Ukraine.

Citizens do military service in accordance with the law.

Article 66

Everyone is obliged not to harm nature, cultural heritage and to compensate for any damage he or she inflicted.

Article 67

Everyone is obliged to pay taxes and levies in accordance with the procedure and in the extent established by law.

All citizens annually file declarations with the tax inspection at their place of residence, on their property status and income for the previous year, by the procedure established by law.

Article 68

Everyone is obliged to strictly abide by the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine, and not to encroach upon the rights and freedoms, honour and dignity of other persons.

Ignorance of the law shall not exempt from legal liability.

Chapter III
Elections. Referendum

Article 69

The expression of the will of the people is exercised through elections, referendum and other forms of direct democracy.

Article 70

Citizens of Ukraine who have attained the age of eighteen on the day elections and referendums are held, have the right to vote at the elections and referendums.

Citizens deemed by a court to be incompetent do not have the right to vote.

Article 71

Elections to bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government are free and are held on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage, by secret ballot.

Voters are guaranteed the free expression of their will.

Article 72

An All-Ukrainian referendum is designated by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine or by the President of Ukraine, in accordance with their authority established by this Constitution.

An All-Ukrainian referendum is called on popular initiative on the request of no less than three million citizens of Ukraine who have the right to vote, on the condition that the signatures in favour of designating the referendum have been collected i n no less than two-thirds of the oblasts, with no less than 100 000 signatures in each oblast.

Article 73

Issues of altering the territory of Ukraine are resolved exclusively by an All-Ukrainian referendum.

Article 74

A referendum shall not be permitted in regard to draft laws on issues of taxes, the budget and amnesty.

Chapter III
Elections. Referendum

Article 69

The expression of the will of the people is exercised through elections, referendum and other forms of direct democracy.

Article 70

Citizens of Ukraine who have attained the age of eighteen on the day elections and referendums are held, have the right to vote at the elections and referendums.

Citizens deemed by a court to be legally incompetent do not have the right to vote.

Article 71

Elections to bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government are free and are held on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage, by secret ballot.

Voters are guaranteed the free expression of their will.

Article 72

An All-Ukrainian referendum is designated by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine or by the President of Ukraine, in accordance with their authority established by this Constitution.

An All-Ukrainian referendum is called on popular initiative on the request of no less than three million citizens of Ukraine who have the right to vote, on the condition that the signatures in favour of designating the referendum have been collected in no less than two-thirds of the oblasts, with no less than 100 000 signatures in each oblast.

Article 73

Altering the territory of Ukraine IS resolved exclusively by an All-Ukrainian referendum.

Article 74

A referendum shall not be permitted in regard to draft laws on taxes, budget and amnesty.

Chapter IV
Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine

Article 75

The sole body of legislative power in Ukraine is the Parliament --- the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 76

The constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine consists of 450 National Deputies of Ukraine who are elected for a four-year term on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage, by secret ballot.

A citizen of Ukraine who has attained the age of twenty-one on the day of elections, has the right to vote, and has resided on the territory of Ukraine for the past five years, may be a National Deputy of Ukraine.

A citizen who has a criminal record for committing an intentional crime shall not be elected to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine if the record is not cancelled and erased by the procedure established by law.

The authority of National Deputies of Ukraine is determined by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

Article 77

Regular elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine take place on the last Sunday of March of the fourth year of the term of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Special elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine are designated by the President of Ukraine and are held within sixty days from the day of the publication of the decision on the pre-term termination of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The procedure for conducting elections of National Deputies of Ukraine is established by law.

Article 78

National Deputies of Ukraine exercise their authority on a permanent basis.

National Deputies of Ukraine shall not have another representative mandate or be in the civil service.

Requirements concerning the incompatibility of the mandate of the deputy with other types of activity are established by law.

Article 79

Before assuming office, National Deputies of Ukraine take the following oath before the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine:

"I swear allegiance to Ukraine. I commit myself with all my deeds to protect the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, to provide for the good of the Motherland and for the welfare of the Ukrainian people.

I swear to abide by the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine, to carry out my duties in the interests of all compatriots."

The oath is read by the eldest National Deputy of Ukraine before the opening of the first session of the newly-elected Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, after which the deputies affirm the oath with their signatures below its text.

The refusal to take the oath results in the loss of the mandate of the deputy.

The authority of National Deputies of Ukraine commences from the moment of the taking of the oath.

Article 80

National Deputies of Ukraine are guaranteed parliamentary immunity.

National Deputies of Ukraine are not legally liable for the results of voting or for statements made in Parliament and in its bodies, with the exception of liability for insult or defamation.

National Deputies of Ukraine shall not be held criminally liable, detained or arrested without the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 81

The authority of National Deputies of Ukraine terminates simultaneously with the termination of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The authority of a National Deputy of Ukraine terminates prior to the expiration of the term in the event of:

1) his or her resignation through a personal statement;

2) a guilty verdict against him or her entering into legal force;

3) a court declaring him or her incompetent or missing;

4) termination of his or her citizenship or his or her departure from Ukraine for permanent residence abroad;

5) his or her death.

The decision about the pre-term termination of authority of a National Deputy of Ukraine is adopted by the majority of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

In the event a requirement concerning incompatibility of the mandate of the deputy with other types of activity is not fulfilled, the authority of the National Deputy of Ukraine terminates prior to the expiration of the term on the basis of the law pursuant to a court decision.

Article 82

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine works in sessions.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is competent on the condition that no less than two-thirds of its constitutional composition has been elected.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine assembles for its first session no later than on the thirteenth day after the official announcement of the election results.

The first meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is opened by the eldest National Deputy of Ukraine.

The operational procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is established by the Constitution of Ukraine and the law on the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 83

Regular sessions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine commence on the first Tuesday of February and on the first Tuesday of September each year.

Special sessions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, with the stipulation of their agenda, are convoked by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, on the demand of no fewer National Deputies of Ukraine than one-third of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, or on the demand of the President of Ukraine.

In the event of the introduction of martial law or of a state of emergency in Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine assembles within a period of two days without convocation.

In the event that the term of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine expires while martial law or a state of emergency is in effect, its authority is extended until the day of the first meeting of the first session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine , elected after the cancellation of martial law or of the state of emergency.

Article 84

Meetings of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine are conducted openly. A closed meeting is conducted on the decision of the majority of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Decisions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine are adopted exclusively at its plenary meetings by voting.

Voting at the meetings of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is performed by a National Deputy of Ukraine in person.

Article 85

The authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine comprises:

1) introducing amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine within the limits and by the procedure envisaged by Chapter XIII of this Constitution;

2) designating an All-Ukrainian referendum on issues determined by Article 73 of this Constitution;

3) adopting laws;

4) approving the State Budget of Ukraine and introducing amendments to it; controlling the implementation of the State Budget of Ukraine and adopting decisions in regard to the report on its implementation;

5) determining the principles of domestic and foreign policy;

6) approving national programmes of economic, scientific and technical, social, national and cultural development, and the protection of the environment;

7) designating elections of the President of Ukraine within the terms envisaged by this Constitution;

8) hearing annual and special messages of the President of Ukraine on the domestic and foreign situation of Ukraine;

9) declaring war upon the submission of the President of Ukraine and concluding peace, approving the decision of the President of Ukraine on the use of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations in the event of armed aggression against Ukraine;

10) removing the President of Ukraine from office in accordance with the special procedure (impeachment) established by Article 111 of this Constitution;

11) considering and adopting the decision in regard to the approval of the Programme of Activity of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine;

12) giving consent to the appointment of the Prime Minister of Ukraine by the President of Ukraine;

13) exercising control over the activity of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in accordance with this Constitution;

14) confirming decisions on granting loans and economic aid by Ukraine to foreign states and international organisations and also decisions on Ukraine receiving loans not envisaged by the State Budget of Ukraine from foreign states, banks and international financial organisations, exercising control over their use;

15) appointing or electing to office, dismissing from office, granting consent to the appointment to and the dismissal from office of persons in cases envisaged by this Constitution;

16) appointing to office and dismissing from office the Chairman and other members of the Chamber of Accounting;

17) appointing to office and dismissing from office the Authorised Human Rights Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; hearing his or her annual reports on the situation of the observance and protection of human rights and freedoms in Ukraine;

18) appointing to office and dismissing from office the Chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine on the submission of the President of Ukraine;

19) appointing and dismissing one-half of the composition of the Council of the National Bank of Ukraine;

20) appointing one-half of the composition of the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting;

21) appointing to office and terminating the authority of the members of the Central Electoral Commission on the submission of the President of Ukraine;

22) confirming the general structure and numerical strength, and defining the functions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine and other military formations created in accordance with the laws of Ukraine, and also the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine;

23) approving decisions on providing military assistance to other states, on sending units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to another state, or on admitting units of armed forces of other states on to the territory of Ukraine;

24) granting consent for the appointment to office and the dismissal from office by the President of Ukraine of the Chairman of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, the Chairman of the State Property Fund of Ukraine and the Chairman of the State Committee on Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine;

25) granting consent for the appointment to office by the President of Ukraine of the Procurator General of Ukraine; declaring no confidence in the Procurator General of Ukraine that has the result of his or her resignation from office;

26) appointing one-third of the composition of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine;

27) electing judges for permanent terms;

28) terminating prior to the expiration of the term of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, based on the opinion of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine that the Constitution of Ukraine or the laws of Ukraine have been violated by the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea; designating special elections to the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;

29) establishing and abolishing districts, establishing and altering the boundaries of districts and cities, assigning inhabited localities to the category of cities, naming and renaming inhabited localities and districts;

30) designating regular and special elections to bodies of local self-government;

31) confirming, within two days from the moment of the address by the President of Ukraine, decrees on the introduction of martial law or of a state of emergency in Ukraine or in its particular areas, on total or partial mobilisation, and on the announcement of particular areas as zones of an ecological emergency situation;

32) granting consent to the binding character of international treaties of Ukraine within the term established by law, and denouncing international treaties of Ukraine;

33) exercising parliamentary control within the limits determined by this Constitution;

34) adopting decisions on forwarding an inquiry to the President of Ukraine on the demand of a National Deputy of Ukraine, a group of National Deputies or a Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, previously supported by no less than one-third of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

35) appointing to office and dismissing from office the Head of Staff of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; approving the budget of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the structure of its staff;

36) confirming the list of objects of the right of state property that are not subject to privatisation; determining the legal principles for the expropriation of objects of the right of private property.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine exercises other powers ascribed to its competence in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine.

Article 86

At a session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, a National Deputy of Ukraine has the right to present an inquiry to the bodies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, chief officers of other bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government, and also to the chief executives of enterprises, institutions and organisations located on the territory of Ukraine, irrespective of their subordination and forms of ownership.

Chief officers of bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government, chief executives of enterprises, institutions and organisations are obliged to notify a National Deputy of Ukraine of the results of the consideration of his or her inquiry.

Article 87

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, on the proposal of no fewer National Deputies of Ukraine than one-third of its constitutional composition, may consider the issue of responsibility of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and adopt a resolution of no confidence in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine by the majority of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The issue of responsibility of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine shall not be considered by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine more than once during one regular session, and also within one year after the approval of the Programme of Activity of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Article 88

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine elects from among its members the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the First Deputy Chairman and the Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and recalls them.

The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine:

1) presides at meetings of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

2) organises the preparation of issues for consideration at the meetings of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

3) signs acts adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

4) represents the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in relations with other bodies of state power of Ukraine and with the bodies of power of other states;

5) organises the work of the staff of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine exercises authority envisaged by this Constitution, by the procedure established by law on the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 89

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine confirms the list of Committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and elects Chairmen to these Committees.

The Committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine perform the work of legislative drafting, prepare and conduct the preliminary consideration of issues ascribed to the authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, within the limits of its authority, may establish temporary special commissions for the preparation and the preliminary consideration of issues.

To investigate issues of public interest, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine establishes temporary investigatory commissions, if no less than one-third of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has voted in favour thereof.

The conclusions and proposals of temporary investigatory commissions are not decisive for investigation and court.

The organisation and operational procedure of Committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and also its temporary special and temporary investigatory commissions, are established by law.

Article 90

The authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is terminated on the day of the opening of the first meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of a new convocation.

The President of Ukraine may terminate the authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine prior to the expiration of term, if within thirty days of a single regular session the plenary meetings fail to commence.

The authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, that is elected at special elections conducted after the pre-term termination by the President of Ukraine of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the previous convocation, shall not be terminate d within one year from the day of its election.

The authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall not be terminated prior to the expiration of term within the last six months of the term of authority of the President of Ukraine.

Article 91

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopts laws, resolutions and other acts by the majority of its constitutional composition, except in cases envisaged by this Constitution.

Article 92

The following are determined exclusively by the laws of Ukraine:

1) human and citizens' rights and freedoms, the guarantees of these rights and freedoms; the main duties of the citizen;

2) citizenship, the legal personality of citizens, the status of foreigners and stateless persons;

3) the rights of indigenous peoples and national minorities;

4) the procedure for the use of languages;

5) the principles of the use of natural resources, the exclusive (maritime) economic zone and the continental shelf, the exploration of outer space, the organisation and operation of power supply systems, transportation and communications;

6) the fundamentals of social protection, the forms and types of pension provision; the principles of the regulation of labour and employment, marriage, family, the protection of childhood, motherhood and fatherhood; upbringing, education, culture and health care; ecological safety;

7) the legal regime of property;

8) the legal principles and guarantees of entrepreneurship; the rules of competition and the norms of antimonopoly regulation;

9) the principles of foreign relations, foreign economic activity and customs;

10) the principles of the regulation of demographic and migration processes;

11) the principles of the establishment and activity of political parties, other associations of citizens, and the mass media;

12) the organisation and activity of bodies of executive power, the fundamentals of civil service, the organisation of state statistics and informatics;

13) the territorial structure of Ukraine;

14) the judicial system, judicial proceedings, the status of judges, the principles of judicial expertise, the organisation and operation of the procuracy, the bodies of inquiry and investigation, the notary, the bodies and institutions for the execution of punishments; the fundamentals of the organisation and activity of the advocacy;

15) the principles of local self-government;

16) the status of the capital of Ukraine; the special status of other cities;

17) the fundamentals of national security, the organisation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and ensuring public order;

18) the legal regime of the state border;

19) the legal regime of martial law and a state of emergency, zones of an ecological emergency situation;

20) the organisation and procedure for conducting elections and referendums;

21) the organisation and operational procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the status of National Deputies of Ukraine;

22) the principles of civil legal liability; acts that are crimes, administrative or disciplinary offences, and liability for them.

The following are established exclusively by the laws of Ukraine:

1) the State Budget of Ukraine and the budgetary system of Ukraine; the system of taxation, taxes and levies; the principles of the formation and operation of financial, monetary, credit and investment markets; the status of the national currency and also the status of foreign currencies on the territory of Ukraine; the procedure for the formation and payment of state domestic and foreign debt; the procedure for the issuance and circulation of state securities, their types and forms;

2) the procedure for deploying units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to other states; the procedure for admitting and the terms for stationing units of armed forces of other states on the territory of Ukraine;

3) units of weight, measure and time; the procedure for establishing state standards;

4) the procedure for the use and protection of state symbols;

5) state awards;

6) military ranks, diplomatic and other special ranks;

7) state holidays;

8) the procedure for the establishment and functioning of free and other special zones that have an economic and migration regime different from the general regime.

Amnesty is declared by the law of Ukraine.

Article 93

The right of legislative initiative in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine belongs to the President of Ukraine, the National Deputies of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the National Bank of Ukraine.

Draft laws defined by the President of Ukraine as not postponable, are considered out of turn by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 94

The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine signs a law and forwards it without delay to the President of Ukraine.

Within fifteen days of the receipt of a law, the President of Ukraine signs it, accepting it for execution, and officially promulgates it, or returns it to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with substantiated and formulated proposals for repeat consideration.

In the event that the President of Ukraine has not returned a law for repeat consideration within the established term, the law is deemed to be approved by the President of Ukraine and shall be signed and officially promulgated.

If a law, during its repeat consideration, is again adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by no less than two-thirds of its constitutional composition, the President of Ukraine is obliged to sign and to officially promulgate it within ten days.

A law enters into force in ten days from the day of its official promulgation, unless otherwise envisaged by the law itself, but not prior to the day of its publication.

Article 95

The budgetary system of Ukraine is built on the principles of just and impartial distribution of social wealth among citizens and territorial communities.

Any state expenditures for the needs of the entire society, the extent and purposes of these expenditures, are determined exclusively by the law on the State Budget of Ukraine.

The State aspires to a balanced budget of Ukraine.

Regular reports on revenues and expenditures of the State Budget of Ukraine shall be made public.

Article 96

The State Budget of Ukraine is annually approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for the period from 1 January to 31 December, and under special circumstances for a different period.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine submits the draft law on the State Budget of Ukraine for the following year to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine no later than on 15 September of each year. The report on the course of the implementation of the State Budget of Ukraine in the current year is submitted together with the draft law.

Article 97

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine submits the report on the implementation of the State Budget of Ukraine to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in accordance with the law.

The submitted report shall be made public.

Article 98

The Chamber of Accounting exercises control over the use of finances of the State Budget of Ukraine on behalf of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 99

The monetary unit of Ukraine is the hryvnia.

To ensure the stability of the monetary unit is the major function of the central bank of the State --- the National Bank of Ukraine.

Article 100

The Council of the National Bank of Ukraine elaborates the basic principles of monetary and credit policy and exercises control over its execution.

The legal status of the Council of the National Bank of Ukraine is determined by law.

Article 101

The Authorised Human Rights Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine exercises parliamentary control over the observance of constitutional human and citizens' rights and freedoms.

Chapter IV
Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine

Article 75

The sole body of legislative power in Ukraine is the Parliament - the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 76

The constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine consists of 450 People’s Deputies of Ukraine who are elected for a five-year term on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage, by secret ballot.

A citizen of Ukraine who has attained the age of twenty-one on the day of elections, has the right to vote, and has resided on the territory of Ukraine for the past five years, may be a People’s Deputy of Ukraine.

A citizen who has a criminal record for committing an intentional crime shall not be elected to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine if the conviction is not spent and released by the procedure established by law.

The authority of People’s Deputies of Ukraine is determined by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

The term of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is five years.

Article 77

Regular elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine take place on the last Sunday of October of the fifth year of the term of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The procedure for conducting elections of National People’s Deputies of Ukraine is established by law.

Article 78

National People’s Deputies of Ukraine exercise their authority on a permanent basis.

National People’s Deputies of Ukraine shall not have another representative mandate, be in the civil service, hold any other paid offices, engage in other paid or entrepreneurial activity (except academic, teaching or creative activity), enter a governing body or a supervisory board of enterprise or organisation that is aimed at making profit.

Requirements concerning the incompatibility of the deputy mandate with other types of activity are established by law.

Where there emerge circumstances infringing requirements concerning the incompatibility of the deputy's mandate with other types of activity, the People's Deputy of Ukraine shall within twenty days from the date of the emergence of such circumstances discontinue such activity or lodge a personal statement on withdrawing People's Deputy authority.

Article 79

Before assuming office, People’s Deputies of Ukraine take the following oath before the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine:

I swear to abide by the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine, to carry out my duties in the interests of all compatriots."

The oath is read by the eldest People’s Deputy of Ukraine before the opening of the first session of the newly-elected Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, after which the deputies affirm the oath with their signatures below its text.

The refusal to take the oath results in the loss of the deputy mandate.

The authority of People’s Deputies of Ukraine commences from the moment of taking the oath.

Article 80

People’s Deputies of Ukraine are guaranteed parliamentary immunity.

People’s Deputies of Ukraine are not legally liable for the results of voting or for statements made in the Parliament and in its bodies, with the exception of liability for insult or defamation.

People’s Deputies of Ukraine shall not be held criminally liable, detained or arrested without the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 81

The authority of People's Deputies of Ukraine terminates simultaneously with the termination of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The authority of a People's Deputy of Ukraine terminates prior to the expiration of the term in the event of:

1) his or her resignation through a personal statement;

2) a guilty verdict against him or her entering into legal force;

3) a court declaring him or her incompetent or missing;

4) termination of his or her citizenship or his or her departure from Ukraine for permanent residence abroad;

5) his or her failure, within twenty days from the date of the emergence of circumstances leading to the infringement of requirements concerning the incompatibility of the deputy mandate with other types of activity, to remove such circumstances;

6) his or her failure, as having been elected from a political party (an electoral bloc of political parties), to join the parliamentary faction representing the same political party (the same electoral bloc of political parties) or his or her exit from such a faction;

7) his or her death.

The decision about the pre-term termination of authority of a National Deputy of Ukraine is adopted by the majority of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The authority of a People's Deputy of Ukraine shall be also early terminated in case of early termination, under the Constitution of Ukraine, of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, with such termination of the Deputy's authority taking effect on the date when the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of a new convocation opens its first meeting.

A decision on pre-term termination of the authority of a People's Deputy of Ukraine on grounds referred to in subparagraphs 1, 4 of the second paragraph of this Article shall be made by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, while the ground referred to in subparagraph 5 of the second paragraph of this Article shall be a matter to be decided by court.

Where a guilty verdict against a People's Deputy of Ukraine becomes legally effective or where a court declares a People's Deputy of Ukraine legally incompetent or missing, his or her powers terminate on the date when the court decision becomes legally effective, while in the event of the People's Deputy's death - on the date of his or her death as certified by the relevant document.

Where a People's Deputy of Ukraine, as having been elected from a political party (an electoral bloc of political parties), fails to join the parliamentary faction representing the same political party (the same electoral bloc of political parties) or exits from such a faction, his or her authority shall be early terminated on the basis of a law upon the decision of the highest steering body of the respective political party (electoral bloc of political parties) from the date of adoption of such decision.

Article 82

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine works in sessions.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is competent on the condition that no less than two-thirds of its constitutional composition has been elected.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine assembles for its first session no later than on the thirtieth day after the official announcement of the election results.

The first meeting of the newly elected Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is opened by the eldest People’s National Deputy of Ukraine.

The operational procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is established by the Constitution of Ukraine and the law on the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 83

Regular sessions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine commence on the first Tuesday of February and on the first Tuesday of September each year.

Special sessions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, with the stipulation of their agenda, are convoked by the Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, on the demand of the President of Ukraine or on the demand of no fewer People's Deputies of Ukraine than one-third of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

In the event of the introduction of martial law or of a state of emergency in Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine assembles within a period of two days without convocation.

In the event that the President of Ukraine declares, by proclaiming a decree, a state of martial law or of emergency upon the whole territory of Ukraine in some areas of the State, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall assemble within two days without convocation.

In the event that the term of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine expires while a state of martial law or of emergency is in effect, its powers are extended until the day when the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine elected after the cancellation of the state of martial law or of emergency convenes its first meeting of the first session.

Rules on the conduct of work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall be laid down in the Constitution of Ukraine and the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

According to election results and on the basis of a common ground achieved between various political positions, a coalition of parliamentary factions shall be formed in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to include a majority of People's Deputies of Ukraine of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

A coalition of parliamentary factions in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall be formed within one month from the date of the first meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to be held following regular or special elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, or within one month from the date when activities of a coalition of parliamentary factions in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine were terminated.

A coalition of parliamentary factions in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine submits to the President of Ukraine, in accordance with this Constitution, proposals concerning a candidature for the office of the Prime Minister of Ukraine and also, in accordance with this Constitution, submits proposals concerning candidatures for the membership of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Framework for forming, organising, and terminating activities of a coalition of parliamentary factions in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall be established by the Constitution of Ukraine and the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

A parliamentary faction in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine which members make up a majority of People's Deputies of Ukraine of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall enjoy the same rights under this Constitution as a coalition of parliamentary factions in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 84

Meetings of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine are open. A closed meeting is conducted on the decision of the majority of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Decisions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine are adopted exclusively at its plenary meetings by voting.

Voting at the meetings of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is performed by a People’s Deputy of Ukraine in person.

Article 85

The authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine include:

1) introducing amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine within the limits and under the procedure specified in Chapter XIII of this Constitution;

2) designating an All-Ukrainian referendum on issues referred to in Article 73 of this Constitution;

3) adopting laws;

4) approving the State Budget of Ukraine and introducing amendments thereto; exercising control over the implementation of the State Budget of Ukraine and adopting decision in regard to the report on its implementation;

5) determining the principles of domestic internal and foreign policy, realization of the strategic course of the state on acquiring full-fledged membership of Ukraine in the European Union and in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization;

6) approving national programmes of economic, scientific and technical, social, national and cultural development, and of the protection of the environment;

7) designating calling elections of the President of Ukraine within the terms specified in this Constitution;

8) hearing annual and special messages of the President of Ukraine on the internal and external situation of Ukraine;

9) declaring war upon the submission by the President of Ukraine and concluding peace; approving a decision by the President of Ukraine on the use of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military units in the event of armed aggression against Ukraine;

10) removing the President of Ukraine from office under a special procedure (impeachment) as provided for in Article 111 of this Constitution;

11) considering and adopting a decision in regard to the approval of the Programme of Activity of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine;

12) giving consent to the appointment of the Prime Minister of Ukraine by the President of Ukraine;

12) appointing to office - upon the submission by the President of Ukraine - the Prime Minister of Ukraine, the Minister of Defence of Ukraine, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine; appointing to office - upon the submission by the Prime Minister of Ukraine - other members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the Chairperson of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, the Head of the State Committee on Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, and the Head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine; dismissing from office the officials mentioned above; deciding on the resignation of the Prime Minister of Ukraine and of members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine;

121) appointing to office and dismissing from office - upon the submission by the President of Ukraine - the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine;

13) exercising control over activities of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, in accordance with this Constitution and law;

14) confirming decisions on loans and economic aid to be granted by Ukraine to foreign states and international organisations and also decisions on the receipt by Ukraine of loans not envisaged by the State Budget of Ukraine from foreign states, banks and international financial organisations; exercising control over the use of such funds;

15) appointing or electing to office, dismissing from office, granting consent to the appointment to and the dismissal from office of persons in cases envisaged by this Constitution;

15) adopting the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukrane;

16) appointing to office and dismissing from office the Chairperson and other members of the Chamber of Accounting;

17) appointing to office and dismissing from office the Authorised Human Rights Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; hearing his or her annual reports on the situation with regard to the observance and protection of human rights and freedoms in Ukraine;

18) appointing to office and dismissing from office the Head of the National Bank of Ukraine upon the submission by the President of Ukraine;

19) appointing to office and dismissing one-half of the membership of the Council of the National Bank of Ukraine;

20) appointing one-half of the composition of the to office and dismissing one-half of the membership of the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting;

21) appointing to office and terminating the authority of the members of the Central Electoral Commission on the submission of the President of Ukraine;

21) appointing to office and dismissing from office, upon the submission of the President of Ukraine, the members of the Central Electoral Commission;

22) approving the general structure and numerical strength of the Security Service of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, other military units created in accordance with laws of Ukraine, and of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, as well as defining their functions;

23) approving decisions on providing military assistance to other states, on sending units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to a another foreign state, or on admitting units of armed forces of other foreign states onto the territory of Ukraine;

24) establishing national symbols of Ukraine;

25) granting consent for appointment to office and dismissal by the President of Ukraine of the Prosecutor General; expressing no-confidence in the Prosecutor General resulting in his or her dismissal from office:

(26) appointment of one-third of the composition of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine;

27) electing judges for permanent terms;

27) deleted;

28) early termination of the authority of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea where the Constitutional Court of Ukraine finds that the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea has violated the Constitution of Ukraine or laws of Ukraine; calling special elections to the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;

30) calling regular and special elections to bodies of local self-government;

31) giving its approval to decrees by the President of Ukraine - within two days from the moment of the President's address - on introducing a state of martial law or of emergency in Ukraine or in its some areas, on declaring total or partial mobilisation, and on declaring particular areas to be ecological emergency zones;

32) granting consent - by adopting a law - to the binding nature of international treaties of Ukraine and denouncing international treaties of Ukraine;

33) exercising parliamentary control within the scope provided for by this Constitution and law;

34) adopting decisions on forwarding an inquiry to the President of Ukraine at request by a People's Deputy of Ukraine, a group of People's Deputies of Ukraine or by a Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, provided that such a request has been previously supported by no less than one- third of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

35) appointing to office and dismissing the Head of Staff of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; approving the budget of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the structure of its staff;

36) approving the list of objects owned by the State that are not subject to privatisation; establishing legal principles of the expropriation of objects of private ownership;

37) approving by law of the Constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and amendments thereto.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall also exercise other powers falling within its competence under the Constitution of Ukraine.

Article 86

At a session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, a People’s Deputy of Ukraine has the right to present an inquiry to the bodies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, chief officials of other bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government, and also to the chief executives of enterprises, institutions and organisations located on the territory of Ukraine, irrespective of their subordination and forms of ownership.

Chief officials of bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government, chief executives of enterprises, institutions and organisations are obliged to notify a People’s Deputy of Ukraine of the results of the consideration of his or her inquiry.

Article 87

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, on the proposal of no fewer National Deputies of Ukraine than one-third of its constitutional composition the President of Ukraine or no fewer People's Deputies of Ukraine than one-third of its constitutional composition, may consider the issue of responsibility of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and adopt a resolution of no confidence in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine by the majority of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 88

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine elects from among its members the Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the First Deputy Chairperson and the Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and recalls them from these offices.

The Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine:

1) presides at meetings of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

2) organises the preparation of issues for consideration at the meetings of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

2) organises work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and co-ordinates activities of its bodies;

3) signs acts adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

4) represents the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in relations with other bodies of state power of Ukraine and with the bodies of power of other states;

5) organises the work of the staff of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine exercises authority envisaged by this Constitution, by the procedure established by the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 89

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine confirms the list of Committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and elects Chairmen to these Committees.

To perform the law-drafting work, to prepare and conduct the preliminary consideration of issues ascribed to its authority as well as to exercise control functions according to the Constitution of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine establishes committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine from People's Deputies of Ukraine, and elects Chairpersons to these Committees, their First Deputies, Deputies and Secretaries.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, within the limits of its authority, may establish temporary special commissions for the preparation and the preliminary consideration of issues.

The conclusions and proposals of temporary investigatory commissions are not decisive for investigation and court.

The organisation and operational procedure of committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and also its temporary special and temporary investigatory commissions, are established by law.

Article 90

The authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is terminated on the day of the opening of the first meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of a new convocation.

1) failure to form within one month a coalition of parliamentary factions in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as provided for in Article 83 of this Constitution;

2) failure, within sixty days following the resignation of the Cabinet of

Ministers of Ukraine, to form the personal composition of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine;

3) failure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, within thirty days of a single regular session, to commence its plenary meetings.

The early termination of powers of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall be decided by the President of Ukraine following relevant consultations with the Chairperson, Deputy Chairpersons of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and with Chairpersons of Verkhovna Rada parliamentary factions.

The authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall not be early terminated during the last six months of the term of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine or the President of Ukraine.

Article 91

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopts laws, resolutions and other acts by the majority of its constitutional composition, except in cases envisaged by this Constitution.

Article 92

The following are determined exclusively by the laws of Ukraine:

1) human and citizen's rights and freedoms, the guarantees of these rights and freedoms; the main duties of the citizen;

2) citizenship, legal capacity of citizens, the status of foreigners and stateless persons;

3) the rights of indigenous peoples and national minorities;

4) the procedure for the use of languages;

7) the legal regime of property;

8) the legal principles and guarantees of entrepreneurship; the rules of competition and the norms of antimonopoly regulation;

9) the principles of foreign relations, foreign economic activity and customs;

10) the principles of the regulation of demographic and migration processes;

11) the principles of the establishment and activity of political parties, other associations of citizens, and the mass media;

12) the organisation and activity of bodies of executive power, the fundamentals of civil service, the organisation of state statistics and informatics;

13) the territorial structure of Ukraine;

14) the judiciary, the judicial proceedings, the status of judges; the principles of judicial expertise; the organisation and operation of the prosecution, the notary, the bodies of inquiry and pre-trial investigation, the notary, the bodies and institutions for the execution of punishments; the procedure for enforcement of the court decisions; the fundamentals of the organisation and functioning of the bar;

15) the principles of local self-government;

16) the status of the capital of Ukraine; the special status of other cities;

17) the fundamentals of national security, the organisation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and ensuring public order;

18) the legal regime of the state border;

19) the legal regime of martial law and a state of emergency, zones of an ecological emergency situation;

20) the organisation and procedure for conducting elections and referendums;

21) the organisation and operational procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the status of National People's Deputies of Ukraine;

22) the principles of civil legal liability; acts that are crimes, administrative or disciplinary offences, and liability for them.

The following are established exclusively by the laws of Ukraine:

3) units of weight, measure and time; the procedure for establishing state standards;

4) the procedure for the use and protection of state symbols;

5) state awards;

6) military ranks, diplomatic and other special ranks;

7) state holidays;

8) the procedure for the establishment and functioning of free and other special zones that have an economic and migration regime different from the general regime.

Amnesty is declared by the law of Ukraine.

Article 93

The right of legislative initiative in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine belongs to the President of Ukraine, the People’s Deputies of Ukraine, and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the National Bank of Ukraine.

Draft laws defined by the President of Ukraine as not postponable urgent, are considered out of turn by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 94

The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine signs a law and forwards it without delay to the President of Ukraine.

If Where a law, during its repeat consideration, is again adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by no less than two-thirds of its constitutional composition, the President of Ukraine is obliged to sign and to officially promulgate it within ten days. In the event that the President of Ukraine does not sign such a law, it shall be without delay promulgated officially by the Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and published under his or her signature.

A law enters into force in ten days from the day of its official promulgation, unless otherwise envisaged by the law itself, but not prior to the day of its publication.

Article 95

The budgetary system of Ukraine is built on the principles of just and impartial distribution of social wealth among citizens and territorial communities.

Any state expenditures for the needs of the entire society, the extent and purposes of these expenditures, are determined exclusively by the law on the State Budget of Ukraine.

The State aspires to a balanced budget of Ukraine.

Regular reports on revenues and expenditures of the State Budget of Ukraine shall be made public.

Article 96

The State Budget of Ukraine is annually approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for the period from January 1 to December 31, and under special circumstances for a different period.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine submits the draft law on the State Budget of Ukraine for the following year to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine no later than on 15 September 15 of each year. The report on the course of the implementation of the State Budget of Ukraine in the current year is submitted together with the draft law.

Article 97

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine submits the report on the implementation of the State Budget of Ukraine to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in accordance with the law.

The submitted report shall be made public.

Article 98

The Chamber of Accounting exercises control over the receipt of finances to the State Budget of Ukraine and their use on behalf of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The organisation, authority and operational procedure of the Chamber of Accounting shall be determined by law.

Article 99

The monetary unit of Ukraine is the hryvnia.

To ensure the stability of the monetary unit is the major function of the central bank of the State - the National Bank of Ukraine.

Article 100

The Council of the National Bank of Ukraine elaborates the basic principles of monetary and credit policy and exercises control over its execution.

The legal status of the Council of the National Bank of Ukraine is determined by law.

Article 101

The Authorised Human Rights Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine exercises parliamentary control over the observance of constitutional human and citizen's rights and freedoms.

Chapter V
President of Ukraine

Article 102

The President of Ukraine is the Head of State and acts in its name.

The President of Ukraine is the guarantor of state sovereignty and territorial indivisibility of Ukraine, the observance of the Constitution of Ukraine and human and citizens' rights and freedoms.

Article 103

The President of Ukraine is elected by the citizens of Ukraine for a five-year term, on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage, by secret ballot.

A citizen of Ukraine who has attained the age of thirty-five, has the right to vote, has resided in Ukraine for the past ten years prior to the day of elections, and has command of the state language, may be elected as the President of Ukraine.

One and the same person shall not be the President of Ukraine for more than two consecutive terms.

The President of Ukraine shall not have another representative mandate, hold office in bodies of state power or in associations of citizens, and also perform any other paid or entrepreneurial activity, or be a member of an administrative body or board of supervisors of an enterprise that is aimed at making profit.

Regular elections of the President of Ukraine are held on the last Sunday of October of the fifth year of the term of authority of the President of Ukraine. In the event of pre-term termination of authority of the President of Ukraine, elections of t he President of Ukraine are held within ninety days from the day of termination of the authority.

The procedure for conducting elections of the President of Ukraine is established by law.

Article 104

The newly-elected President of Ukraine assumes office no later than in thirty days after the official announcement of the election results, from the moment of taking the oath to the people at a ceremonial meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine administers the oath to the President of Ukraine.

The President of Ukraine takes the following oath:

"I, (name and surname), elected by the will of the people as the President of Ukraine, assuming this high office, do solemnly swear allegiance to Ukraine. I pledge with all my undertakings to protect the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, to provide for the good of the Motherland and the welfare of the Ukrainian people, to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens, to abide by the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine, to exercise my duties in the interests of all compatriots, and to enhance the prestige of Ukraine in the world."

The President of Ukraine, elected by special elections, takes the oath within five days after the official announcement of the election results.

Article 105

The President of Ukraine enjoys the right of immunity during the term of authority.

Persons guilty of offending the honour and dignity of the President of Ukraine are brought to responsibility on the basis of the law.

The title of President of Ukraine is protected by law and is reserved for the President for life, unless the President of Ukraine has been removed from office by the procedure of impeachment.

Article 106

The President of Ukraine:

1) ensures state independence, national security and the legal succession of the state;

2) addresses the people with messages and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with annual and special messages on the domestic and foreign situation of Ukraine;

3) represents the state in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the State, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties of Ukraine;

4) adopts decisions on the recognition of foreign states;

5) appoints and dismisses heads of diplomatic missions of Ukraine to other states and to international organisations; accepts credentials and letters of recall of diplomatic representatives of foreign states;

6) designates an All-Ukrainian referendum regarding amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine in accordance with Article 156 of this Constitution, proclaims an All-Ukrainian referendum on popular initiative;

7) designates special elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine within the terms established by this Constitution;

8) terminates the authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, if the plenary meetings fail to commence within thirty days of one regular session;

9) appoints the Prime Minister of Ukraine with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; terminates the authority of the Prime Minister of Ukraine and adopts a decision on his or her resignation;

10) appoints, on the submission of the Prime Minister of Ukraine, members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, chief officers of other central bodies of executive power, and also the heads of local state administrations, and terminates their authority in these positions;

11) appoints the Procurator General of Ukraine to office with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and dismisses him or her from office;

12) appoints one-half of the composition of the Council of the National Bank of Ukraine;

13) appoints one-half of the composition of the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting;

14) appoints to office and dismisses from office, with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Chairman of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, the Chairman of the State Property Fund of Ukraine and the Chairman of the State Committee on Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine;

15) establishes, reorganises and liquidates, on the submission of the Prime Minister of Ukraine, ministries and other central bodies of executive power, acting within the limits of funding envisaged for the maintenance of bodies of executive power;

16) revokes acts of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and acts of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;

17) is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; appoints to office and dismisses from office the high command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations; administers in the spheres of national security and defence of the State;

18) heads the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine;

19) forwards the submission to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on the declaration of a state of war, and adopts the decision on the use of the Armed Forces in the event of armed aggression against Ukraine;

20) adopts a decision in accordance with the law on the general or partial mobilisation and the introduction of martial law in Ukraine or in its particular areas, in the event of a threat of aggression, danger to the state independence of Ukraine;

21) adopts a decision, in the event of necessity, on the introduction of a state of emergency in Ukraine or in its particular areas, and also in the event of necessity, declares certain areas of Ukraine as zones of an ecological emergency situation --- with subsequent confirmation of these decisions by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

22) appoints one-third of the composition to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine;

23) establishes courts by the procedure determined by law;

24) confers high military ranks, high diplomatic and other high special ranks and class orders;

25) confers state awards; establishes presidential distinctions and confers them;

26) adopts decisions on the acceptance for citizenship of Ukraine and the termination of citizenship of Ukraine, and on the granting of asylum in Ukraine;

27) grants pardons;

28) creates, within the limits of the funds envisaged in the State Budget of Ukraine, consultative, advisory and other subsidiary bodies and services for the exercise of his or her authority;

29) signs laws adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

30) has the right to veto laws adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with their subsequent return for repeat consideration by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

31) exercises other powers determined by the Constitution of Ukraine.

The President of Ukraine shall not transfer his or her powers to other persons or bodies.

The President of Ukraine, on the basis and for the execution of the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine, issues decrees and directives that are mandatory for execution on the territory of Ukraine.

Acts of the President of Ukraine, issued within the limits of authority as envisaged in subparagraphs 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23 and 24 of this Article, are co-signed by the Prime Minister of Ukraine and the Minister responsible for the act and its execution.

Article 107

The Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine is the co-ordinating body to the President of Ukraine on issues of national security and defence.

The Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine co-ordinates and controls the activity of bodies of executive power in the sphere of national security and defence.

The President of Ukraine is the Chairman of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine.

The President of Ukraine forms the personal composition of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine, the Minister of Defence of Ukraine, the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, are ex officio members of the Council of Nation al Security and Defence of Ukraine.

The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine may take part in the meetings of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine.

Decisions of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine are put into effect by decrees of the President of Ukraine.

The competence and functions of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine are determined by law.

Article 108

The President of Ukraine exercises his or her powers until the assumption of office by the newly-elected President of Ukraine.

The powers of the President of Ukraine terminate prior to the expiration of term in cases of:

1) resignation;

2) inability to exercise his or her powers for reasons of health;

3) removal from office by the procedure of impeachment;

4) death.

Article 109

The resignation of the President of Ukraine enters into force from the moment he or she personally announces the statement of resignation at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 110

The inability of the President of Ukraine to exercise his or her powers for reasons of health shall be determined at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and confirmed by a decision adopted by the majority of its constitutional composition on the basis of a petition of the Supreme Court of Ukraine â¬“ on the appeal of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and a medical opinion.

Article 111

The President of Ukraine may be removed from office by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by the procedure of impeachment, in the event that he or she commits state treason or other crime.

The issue of the removal of the President of Ukraine from office by the procedure of impeachment is initiated by the majority of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

To conduct the investigation, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine establishes a special temporary investigatory commission whose composition includes a special procurator and special investigators.

The conclusions and proposals of the temporary investigatory commission are considered at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

For cause, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, by no less than two-thirds of its constitutional composition, adopts a decision on the accusation of the President of Ukraine.

The decision on the removal of the President of Ukraine from office by the procedure of impeachment is adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by no less than three-quarters of its constitutional composition, after the review of the case by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the receipt of its opinion on the observance of the constitutional procedure of investigation and consideration of the case of impeachment, and the receipt of the opinion of the Supreme Court of Ukraine to the effect that the acts, of which the President of Ukraine is accused, contain elements of state treason or other crime.

Article 112

In the event of the pre-term termination of authority of the President of Ukraine in accordance with Articles 108, 109, 110 and 111 of this Constitution, the execution of duties of the President of Ukraine, for the period pending the elections and the assumption of office of the new President of Ukraine, is vested in the Prime Minister of Ukraine. The Prime Minister of Ukraine, for the period of executing the duties of the President of Ukraine, shall not exercise the powers envisaged by subparagraphs 2, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 22, 25 and 27 of Article 106 of the Constitution of Ukraine.

Chapter V
President of Ukraine

Article 102

The President of Ukraine is the Head of State and acts in its name.

The President of Ukraine is the guarantor of state sovereignty and territorial indivisibility of Ukraine, the observance of the Constitution of Ukraine and human and citizen’s rights and freedoms.

The President of Ukraine is a guarantor of the implementation of the strategic course of the state for gaining full-fledged membership of Ukraine in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Article 103

The President of Ukraine is elected by the citizens of Ukraine for a five-year term, on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage, by secret ballot for a five-year term.

One and the same person shall not be the President of Ukraine for more than two consecutive terms.

Regular elections of the President of Ukraine are held on the last Sunday of March of the fifth year of the term of authority of the President of Ukraine. In the event of pre-term termination of authority of the President of Ukraine, elections of the President of Ukraine are held within ninety days from the day of termination of the authority.

The procedure for conducting elections of the President of Ukraine is established by law.

Article 104

The Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine administers the oath to the President of Ukraine.

The President of Ukraine takes the following oath:

The President of Ukraine, elected at extraordinary elections, takes the oath within five days after the official announcement of the election results.

Article 105

The President of Ukraine enjoys the right of immunity during the term of authority.

Persons guilty of offending the honour and dignity of the President of Ukraine are brought to responsibility on the basis of the law.

The title of President of Ukraine is protected by law and is reserved for the President for life, unless the President of Ukraine has been removed from office by the procedure of impeachment.

Article 106

The President of Ukraine:

1) ensures state independence, national security and the legal succession of the state;

2) addresses the people with messages and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with annual and special messages on the domestic and foreign situation of Ukraine;

3) represents the state in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the State, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties of Ukraine;

4) adopts decisions on the recognition of foreign states;

7) designates extraoedinary elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine within the terms established by this Constitution;

8) terminates the authority of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, if the plenary meetings fail to commence within thirty days of one regular session in cases specified by this Constitution;

9) appoints the Prime Minister of Ukraine with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; terminates the authority of the Prime Minister of Ukraine and adopts a decision on his or her resignation;

9) puts forward, upon the proposal of the parliamentary coalition formed in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as provided for by Article 83 of the Constitution of Ukraine, the submission on the appointment by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the Prime Minister of Ukraine, no later than fifteen days after the receipt of such a proposal;

10) puts forward to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine the submission on the appointment of the Minister of Defence of Ukraine and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine;

11) appoints the Procurator General of Ukraine to office with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and dismisses him or her from office;

11) appoints to office and dismisses the Prosecutor General upon the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

12) appoints to office and dismisses one-half of the composition of the Council of the National Bank of Ukraine;

13) appoints to office and dismisses one-half of the composition of the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting;

14) puts forward to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine the submission on the appointment to office and dismissal of the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine;

15) suspends the effect of acts by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on grounds of their inconsistency with this Constitution and challenges concurrently the constitutionality of such acts before the Constitutional Court of Ukraine;

16) revokes acts of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and acts of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;

17) is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; appoints to office and dismisses from office the high command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military units; administers in the spheres of national security and defence of the State;

18) heads the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine;

19) puts forward to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine the submission on the declaration of a state of war, and, in case of armed aggression against Ukraine, adopts a decision on the use of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military units established in accordance with laws of Ukraine;

21) adopts a decision, in the event of necessity, on the introduction of a state of emergency in Ukraine or in its particular areas, and also, in the event of necessity, declares certain areas of Ukraine as zones of an ecological emergency situation - with subsequent confirmation of these decisions by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

22) appoints to office one-third of the composition to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine;

23) establishes courts by the procedure determined by law;

23) excluded;

24) confers high military ranks, high diplomatic and other high special ranks and class orders;

25) confers state awards; establishes presidential distinctions and confers them;

26) adopts decisions on the acceptance for citizenship of Ukraine and the termination of citizenship of Ukraine, and on the granting of asylum in Ukraine;

27) grants pardons;

28) creates, within the limits of the funds envisaged in the State Budget of Ukraine, consultative, advisory and other subsidiary bodies and services for the exercise of his or her authority;

29) signs laws adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

30) has the right to veto laws adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (except for laws on amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine) with their subsequent return for repeat consideration by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

31) exercises other powers authority determined by the Constitution of Ukraine.

The President of Ukraine shall not transfer his or her authority to other persons or bodies.

The President of Ukraine, on the basis and in the execution of the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine, issues decrees and directives that are mandatory for execution on the territory of Ukraine.

Acts of the President of Ukraine, issued within the limits of authority as envisaged in subparagraphs 5, 18, 21 of this Article, are countersigned by the Prime Minister of Ukraine and the Minister responsible for the act and its execution.

Article 107

The Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine is the co-ordinating body to the President of Ukraine on national security and defence.

The Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine co-ordinates and controls the activity of bodies of executive power in the sphere of national security and defence.

The President of Ukraine is the Chairman of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine.

The President of Ukraine forms the personal composition of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine, the Minister of Defence of Ukraine, the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine are ex officio members of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine.

The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine may take part in the meetings of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine.

Decisions of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine are put into effect by decrees of the President of Ukraine.

The competence and functions of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine are determined by law.

Article 108

The President of Ukraine exercises his or her authority until the assumption of office by the newly-elected President of Ukraine.

The authority of the President of Ukraine are early terminated in cases of:

1) resignation;

2) inability to exercise his or her powers for reasons of health;

3) removal from office by the procedure of impeachment;

4) death.

Article 109

The resignation of the President of Ukraine enters into force from the moment he or she personally announces the statement of resignation at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 110

The inability of the President of Ukraine to exercise his or her authority for reasons of health shall be determined at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and confirmed by a decision adopted by the majority of its constitutional composition on the basis of a petition of the Supreme Court - on the appeal of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and a medical opinion.

Article 111

The President of Ukraine may be removed from office by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by the procedure of impeachment, in the event that he or she commits state treason or other crime.

The issue of the removal of the President of Ukraine from office by the procedure of impeachment is initiated by the majority of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

To conduct the investigation, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine establishes a special temporary investigatory commission which composition includes a special prosecutor and special investigators.

The conclusions and proposals of the temporary investigatory commission are considered at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

For cause, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, by no less than two-thirds of its constitutional composition, adopts a decision on the accusation of the President of Ukraine.

Where there are grounds, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, by no less than two-thirds of its constitutional composition, adopts a decision on the accusation of the President of Ukraine.

Article 112

In the event of the pre-term termination of authority of the President of Ukraine in accordance with Articles 108, 109, 110 and 111 of this Constitution, the execution of duties of the President of Ukraine, for the period pending the elections and the assumption of office of the new President of Ukraine, shall be vested in the Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, for the period of executing the duties of the President of Ukraine, shall not exercise the authority envisaged by subparagraphs 2, 6-8, 10-13, 22, 24, 25, 27 and 28 of Article 106 of the Constitution of Ukraine.

Chapter VI
Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Other Bodies of Executive Power

Article 113

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is the highest body in the system of bodies of executive power.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is responsible to the President of Ukraine and is under the control of and accountable to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine within the limits envisaged in Articles 85 and 87 of the Constitution of Ukraine.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is guided in its activity by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine and by the acts of the President of Ukraine.

Article 114

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is composed of the Prime Minister of Ukraine, the First Vice Prime Minister, three Vice Prime Ministers and the Ministers.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine is appointed by the President of Ukraine with the consent of more than one-half of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The personal composition of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is appointed by the President of Ukraine on the submission of the Prime Minister of Ukraine.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine manages the work of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and directs it for the implementation of the Programme of Activity of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine forwards a submission to the President of Ukraine on the establishment, reorganisation and liquidation of ministries and other central bodies of executive power, within the funds envisaged by the State Budget of Ukraine f or the maintenance of these bodies.

Article 115

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine tenders its resignation to the newly-elected President of Ukraine.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine, other members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, have the right to announce their resignation to the President of Ukraine.

The resignation of the Prime Minister of Ukraine results in the resignation of the entire Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

The adoption of a resolution of no confidence in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine results in the resignation of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

The Cabinet of Ministers, whose resignation is accepted by the President of Ukraine, continues to exercise its powers by commission of the President, until a newly-formed Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine commences its operation, but no longer than for sixty days.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine is obliged to submit a statement of resignation of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to the President of Ukraine following a decision by the President of Ukraine or in connection with the adoption of the resolution of n o confidence by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 116

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine:

1) ensures the state sovereignty and economic independence of Ukraine, the implementation of domestic and foreign policy of the State, the execution of the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine, and the acts of the President of Ukraine;

2) takes measures to ensure human and citizens' rights and freedoms;

3) ensures the implementation of financial, pricing, investment and taxation policy; the policy in the spheres of labour and employment of the population, social security, education, science and culture, environmental protection, ecological safety and the utilisation of nature;

4) elaborates and implements national programmes of economic, scientific and technical, and social and cultural development of Ukraine;

5) ensures equal conditions of development of all forms of ownership; administers the management of objects of state property in accordance with the law;

6) elaborates the draft law on the State Budget of Ukraine and ensures the implementation of the State Budget of Ukraine approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and submits a report on its implementation to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

7) takes measures to ensure the defence capability and national security of Ukraine, public order and to combat crime;

8) organises and ensures the implementation of the foreign economic activity of Ukraine, and the operation of customs;

9) directs and co-ordinates the operation of ministries and other bodies of executive power;

10) performs other functions determined by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine, and the acts of the President of Ukraine.

Article 117

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, within the limits of its competence, issues resolutions and orders that are mandatory for execution.

Acts of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine are signed by the Prime Minister of Ukraine.

Normative legal acts of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, ministries and other central bodies of executive power, are subject to registration through the procedure established by law.

Article 118

The executive power in oblasts, districts, and in the Cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol is exercised by local state administrations.

Particular aspects of the exercise of executive power in the Cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol are determined by special laws of Ukraine.

The composition of local state administrations is formed by heads of local state administrations.

Heads of local state administrations are appointed to office and dismissed from office by the President of Ukraine upon the submission of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

In the exercise of their duties, the heads of local state administrations are responsible to the President of Ukraine and to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, and are accountable to and under the control of bodies of executive power of a higher level.

Local state administrations are accountable to and under the control of councils in the part of the authority delegated to them by the respective district or oblast councils.

Local state administrations are accountable to and under the control of the bodies of executive power of a higher level.

Decisions of the heads of local state administrations that contravene the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine, other acts of legislation of Ukraine, may be revoked by the President of Ukraine or by the head of the local state administration of a higher level, in accordance with the law.

An oblast or district council may express no confidence in the head of the respective local state administration, on which grounds the President of Ukraine adopts a decision and provides a substantiated reply.

If two-thirds of the deputies of the composition of the respective council express no confidence in the head of a district or oblast state administration, the President of Ukraine adopts a decision on the resignation of the head of the local state administration.

Article 119

Local state administrations on their respective territory ensure:

1) the execution of the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine, acts of the President of Ukraine, acts of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and other bodies of executive power;

2) legality and legal order; the observance of laws and freedoms of citizens;

3) the implementation of national and regional programmes for socio-economic and cultural development, programmes for environmental protection, and also --- in places of compact residence of indigenous peoples and national minorities --- programmes for their national and cultural development;

4) the preparation and implementation of respective oblast and district budgets;

5) the report on the implementation of respective budgets and programmes;

6) interaction with bodies of local self-government;

7) the realisation of other powers vested by the state and also delegated by the respective councils.

Article 120

Members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and chief officers of central and local bodies of executive power do not have the right to combine their official activity with other work, except teaching, scholarly and creative activity outside of work ing hours, or to be members of an administrative body or board of supervisors of an enterprise that is aimed at making profit.

The organisation, authority and operational procedure of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, and other central and local bodies of executive power, are determined by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

Chapter VI
Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Other Bodies of Executive Power

Article 113

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is the highest body in the system of bodies of executive power.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is responsible to the President of Ukraine and is the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as well as under the control of and accountable to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine within the limits envisaged in Articles 85 and 87 of the provided for by this Constitution of Ukraine.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is guided in its activity by this Constitution and the laws of Ukraine and by the acts also by decrees of the President of Ukraine and resolutions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted in accordance with the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

Article 114

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is composed of the Prime Minister of Ukraine, the First Vice Prime Minister, Vice Prime Ministers and Ministers.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine is appointed by the President of Ukraine with the consent of more than one-half of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine is appointed by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine upon the submission of the President of Ukraine.

The personal composition of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is appointed by the President of Ukraine on the submission of the Prime Minister of Ukraine.

A candidate for the office of the Prime Minister of Ukraine is put forward by the President of Ukraine upon the proposal by the parliamentary coalition formed in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as provided for in Article 83 of the Constitution of Ukraine or by a parliamentary faction whose People's Deputies of Ukraine make up a majority of the constitutional compostition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The Minister of Defence of Ukraine and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine are appointed by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine upon the submission by the President of Ukraine; the other members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine are appointed by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine upon the submission of the Prime Minister of Ukraine.

Article 115

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine tenders its resignation to the newly-elected President of Ukraine divests itself of its authorities before the newly-elected Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine, other members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine have the right to announce their resignation to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The resignation of the Prime Minister of Ukraine results, the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of a resolution of no confidence in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine shall result in the resignation of the entire Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

The adoption of a resolution of no confidence in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine results in the resignation of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

In such cases, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall form a new Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine within the terms and under the procedure provided for by this Constitution.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine that has divested itself of its authorities before the newly-elected Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine or which resignation has been accepted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall continue to exercise its authority until the newly-formed Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine starts its work.

Article 116

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine:

1¹) provides the implementation of the strategic course of the state for gaining full-fledged membership of Ukraine in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

2) takes measures to ensure human and citizen's rights and freedoms;

4) elaborates and implements national programmes of economic, scientific and technical, and social and cultural development of Ukraine;

5) ensures equal conditions of development of all forms of ownership; administers the management of objects of state property in accordance with the law;

7) takes measures to ensure the defence capability and national security of Ukraine, public order and to combat crime;

8) organises and ensures the implementation of the foreign economic activity of Ukraine, and the operation of customs affairs;

9) directs and co-ordinates the operation of ministries and other bodies of executive power;

91) sets up, re-organises, and liquidates, in accordance with law, ministries and other central bodies of executive power, acting within the limits of funds allocated for the maintenance of bodies of executive power;

92) appoints to office and dismisses from office, upon the submission of the Prime Minister of Ukraine, the heads of central bodies of executive power who are not members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine;

10) performs other functions determined by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

Article 117

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, within the limits of its competence authority, issues resolutions and orders that are mandatory for execution.

Acts of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine are signed by the Prime Minister of Ukraine.

Normative legal acts of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, ministries and other central bodies of executive power, are subject to registration according to the procedure established by law.

Article 118

The executive power in oblasts, districts, and in the Cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol is exercised by local state administrations.

Particular aspects of the exercise of executive power in the Cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol are determined by special laws of Ukraine.

The composition of local state administrations is formed by heads of local state administrations.

Heads of local state administrations are appointed to office and dismissed by the President of Ukraine upon the submission of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Local state administrations are accountable to and under the control of councils in the part of the authority delegated to them by the respective district or oblast councils.

Local state administrations are accountable to and under the control of the bodies of executive power of a higher level.

Article 119

Local state administrations on their respective territory ensure:

1) the execution of the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine, acts of the President of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and other bodies of executive power;

2) legality and legal order; the observance of laws and freedoms of citizens;

3) the implementation of national and regional programmes for social and economic and cultural development, programmes for environmental protection, and also - in places of compact residence of indigenous peoples and national minorities - also programmes for their national and cultural development;

4) the preparation and implementation of respective oblast and district budgets;

5) the report on the implementation of respective budgets and programmes;

6) interaction with bodies of local self-government;

7) the realisation of other authorities vested by the state and also delegated by the respective councils.

Article 120

Members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and chief officials of central and local bodies of executive power do not have the right to combine their official activity with other work (except teaching, academic and creative activity outside of working hours), or to be members of an administrative body or board of supervisors of an enterprise that is enter the management body or supervisory board of an enterprise or organisation aimed at making profit.

The organisation, authority and operational procedure of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, and other central and local bodies of executive power, are determined by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

Chapter VII
Procuracy

Article 121

The Procuracy of Ukraine constitutes a unified system that is entrusted with:

1) prosecution in court on behalf of the State;

2) representation of the interests of a citizen or of the State in court in cases determined by law;

3) supervision of the observance of laws by bodies that conduct detective and search activity, inquiry and pre-trial investigation;

4) supervision of the observance of laws in the execution of judicial decisions in criminal cases, and also in the application of other measures of coercion related to the restraint of personal liberty of citizens.

Article 122

The Procuracy of Ukraine is headed by the Procurator General of Ukraine, who is appointed to office with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and dismissed from office by the President of Ukraine. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine may express no confidence in the Procurator General of Ukraine that results in his or her resignation from office.

The term of authority of the Procurator General of Ukraine is five years.

Article 123

The organisation and operational procedure for the bodies of the Procuracy of Ukraine are determined by law.

Chapter VII
Prosecution Office

Article 121 to 123 excluded under the Law of Ukraine No.1401-VIII dated June 2, 2016.

Chapter VIII
Justice

Article 124

Justice in Ukraine is administered exclusively by the courts. The delegation of the functions of the courts, and also the appropriation of these functions by other bodies or officials, shall not be permitted.

The jurisdiction of the courts extends to all legal relations that arise in the State.

Judicial proceedings are performed by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and courts of general jurisdiction.

The people directly participate in the administration of justice through people's assessors and jurors.

Judicial decisions are adopted by the courts in the name of Ukraine and are mandatory for execution throughout the entire territory of Ukraine.

Article 125

In Ukraine, the system of courts of general jurisdiction is formed in accordance with the territorial principle and the principle of specialisation.

The Supreme Court of Ukraine is highest judicial body in the system of courts of general jurisdiction.

The respective high courts are the highest judicial bodies of specialised courts.

Courts of appeal and local courts operate in accordance with the law.

The creation of extraordinary and special courts shall not be permitted.

Article 126

The independence and immunity of judges are guaranteed by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

Influencing judges in any manner is prohibited.

A judge shall not be detained or arrested without the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, until a verdict of guilty is rendered by a court.

Judges hold office for permanent terms, except judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, and judges appointed to the office of judge for the first time.

A judge is dismissed from office by the body that elected or appointed him or her in the event of:

1) the expiration of the term for which he or she was elected or appointed;

2) the judge's attainment of the age of sixty-five;

3) the impossibility to exercise his or her authority for reasons of health;

4) the violation by the judge of requirements concerning incompatibility;

5) the breach of oath by the judge;

6) the entry into legal force of a verdict of guilty against him or her;

7) the termination of his or her citizenship;

8) the declaration that he or she is missing, or the pronouncement that he or she is dead;

9) the submission by the judge of a statement of resignation or of voluntary dismissal from office.

The authority of the judge terminates in the event of his or her death.

The State ensures the personal security of judges and their families.

Article 127

Justice is administered by professional judges and, in cases determined by law, people's assessors and jurors.

Professional judges shall not belong to political parties and trade unions, take part in any political activity, hold a representative mandate, occupy any other paid positions, perform other remunerated work except scholarly, teaching and creative activity.

A citizen of Ukraine, not younger than the age of twenty-five, who has a higher legal education and has work experience in the sphere of law for no less than three years, has resided in Ukraine for no less than ten years and has command of the state language, may be recommended for the office of judge by the Qualification Commission of Judges.

Persons with professional training in issues of jurisdiction of specialised courts may be judges of these courts. These judges administer justice only as members of a collegium of judges.

Additional requirements for certain categories of judges in terms of experience, age and their professional level are established by law.

Protection of the professional interests of judges is exercised by the procedure established by law.

Article 128

The first appointment of a professional judge to office for a five-year term is made by the President of Ukraine. All other judges, except the judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, are elected by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for permanent terms by the procedure established by law.

The Chairman of the Supreme Court of Ukraine is elected to office and dismissed from office by the Plenary Assembly of the Supreme Court of Ukraine by secret ballot, by the procedure established by law.

Article 129

In the administration of justice, judges are independent and subject only to the law.

Judicial proceedings are conducted by a single judge, by a panel of judges, or by a court of the jury.

The main principles of judicial proceedings are:

1) legality;

2) equality before the law and the court of all participants in a trial;

3) ensuring that the guilt is proved;

4) adversarial procedure and freedom of the parties to present their evidence to the court and to prove the weight of evidence before the court;

5) prosecution by the procurator in court on behalf of the State;

6) ensuring the right of an accused person to a defence;

7) openness of a trial and its complete recording by technical means;

8) ensuring complaint of a court decision by appeal and cassation, except in cases established by law;

9) the mandatory nature of court decisions.

The law may also determine other principles of judicial proceedings in courts of specific judicial jurisdiction.

Persons guilty of contempt of court or of showing disrespect toward the judge are brought to legal liability.

Article 130

The State ensures funding and proper conditions for the operation of courts and the activity of judges.

Expenditures for the maintenance of courts are allocated separately in the State Budget of Ukraine.

Judges' self-management operates to resolve issues of the internal affairs of courts.

Article 131

The High Council of Justice operates in Ukraine, whose competence comprises:

1) forwarding submissions on the appointment of judges to office or on their dismissal from office;

2) adopting decisions in regard to the violation by judges and procurators of the requirements concerning incompatibility;

3) exercising disciplinary procedure in regard to judges of the Supreme Court of Ukraine and judges of high specialised courts, and the consideration of complaints regarding decisions on bringing to disciplinary liability judges of courts of appeal an d local courts, and also procurators.

The High Council of Justice consists of twenty members. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the President of Ukraine, the Congress of Judges of Ukraine, the Congress of Advocates of Ukraine, and the Congress of Representatives of Higher Legal Educational Establishments and Scientific Institutions, each appoint three members to the High Council of Justice, and the All-Ukrainian Conference of Employees of the Procuracy --- two members of the High Council of Justice.

The Chairman of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, the Minister of Justice of Ukraine and the Procurator General of Ukraine are ex officio members of the High Council of Justice.

Chapter VIII
Justice

Article 124

Justice in Ukraine is administered exclusively by courts.

Delegation of court's functions as well as appropriation of these functions by other bodies or officials is not permitted.

The jurisdiction of the courts extends to all legal relations that arise in the State.

Judicial proceedings are performed by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and courts of general jurisdiction.

The jurisdiction of the courts covers any legal dispute and any criminal charge. Courts consider also other matters in cases prescribed by the law.

Mandatory pre-trial dispute resolution procedures may be provided for in the law.

The people directly participate in the administration of justice through people's assessors and jurors.

Judicial decisions are adopted by the courts in the name of Ukraine and are mandatory for execution throughout the entire territory of Ukraine.

Ukraine may recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court as provided for by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (paragraph six of Article 124 becomes effective from June 30, 2019).

Article 125

In Ukraine, the system of courts of general jurisdiction is formed in accordance with the territorial principle and the principle of specialisation.

The judiciary system in Ukraine is based on the principles of territoriality and specialisation and is defined by the law.

Court is established, reorganised and dissolved by law, which draft shall be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by the President of Ukraine after consultation with the High Council of Justice.

The Supreme Court is the highest judicial body in the system of courts of general jurisdiction court in the system of judiciary in Ukraine.

The respective high courts are the highest judicial bodies of specialised courts.

Courts of appeal and local courts operate in accordance with the law.

Higher specialised courts may function in accordance with the law.

Administrative courts function to protect human rights, freedoms, and interests of a person in the sphere of public law.

The creation Establishment of extraordinary and special courts is not permitted.

Article 126

Independence and inviolability of a judge are guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine.

Any influence on a judge is prohibited.

A judge shall not be detained or arrested without the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, until a verdict of guilty is rendered by a court.

Judges hold office for permanent terms, except judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, and judges appointed to the office of judge for the first time.

A judge is dismissed from office by the body that elected or appointed him or her in the event of:

1) the expiration of the term for which he or she was elected or appointed;

2) the judge's attainment of the age of sixty-five;

3) the impossibility to exercise his or her authority for reasons of health;

4) the violation by the judge of requirements concerning incompatibility;

5) the breach of oath by the judge;

6) the entry into legal force of a verdict of guilty against him or her;

7) the termination of his or her citizenship;

8) the declaration that he or she is missing, or the pronouncement that he or she is dead;

9) the submission by the judge of a statement of resignation or of voluntary dismissal from office.

The authority of the judge terminates in the event of his or her death.

The State ensures the personal security of judges and their families.

Judge shall not be detained or kept under custody or under arrest without the consent of the High Council of Justice until a guilty verdict is rendered by a court, except for detention of a judge caught committing serious or grave crime or immediately after it.

Judge is not held liable for the court decision rendered by him or her, except the cases of committing a crime or a disciplinary offence.

Judge holds an office for an unlimited term.

The grounds to dismiss a judge are the following:

1) inability to exercise his or her authority for health reasons;

2) violation by a judge of the incompatibility requirements;

3) commission by him or her of a serious disciplinary offence, flagrant or permanent disregard of his or her duties incompatible with the status of judge or reveal his or her non-conformity with being in the office;

4) submission of a statement of resignation or voluntary dismissal from office;

5) refusal to be removed from one court to another in case the court in which a judge holds the office is to be dissolved or reorganised;

6) violation of the obligation to justify the legality of the origin of property.

The powers of a judge shall be terminated in case of:

1) the judge's attainment of the age of sixty-five;

2) termination of Ukraine 's citizenship or acquiring by a judge citizenship of another state;

3) taking effect of a court decision on recognition or declaration of a judge missing or dead, or on recognition of a judge to be legally incapable or partially legally incapable;

4) death of a judge;

5) taking effect of a guilty verdict against him or her for committing a crime.

The State ensures the personal security of a judge and members of his or her family.

Article 127

Justice is administered by judges. In cases prescribed by law justice is administered with participation of jurors.

Professional judges Judge shall not belong to political parties, trade unions, take part in any political activity, hold a representative mandate, occupy any other paid office, perform other remunerated work engage in other paid work except academic, teaching or creative activity.

A citizen of Ukraine, not younger than the age of twenty-five thirty and not older than sixtyfive, who has a higher legal education and has work professional experience in the sphere of law for no less than three five years, has resided in Ukraine for no less than ten years is competent, honest and has command of the state language may be recommended appointed to the office of a judge by the Qualification Commission of Judges. Additional requirements to be appointed to the office of a judge may be provided for in the law.

Persons with professional training in issues of jurisdiction of specialised courts may be judges of these courts. These judges administer justice only as members of a collegium of judges.

Additional requirements for certain categories of judges in terms of experience, age and their professional level are established by law.

Protection of the professional interests of judges is exercised by the procedure established by law.

As for judges of specialised courts other requirements with regard to education and professional experience may be provided by law.

Article 128

Judge is appointed to offcie by the President of Ukraine on submission of the High Council of Justice according to the procedure prescribed by law.

Judge is appointed on competition basis, except the cases provided for in the law.

The Chairperson of the Supreme Court is elected to office and dismissed by the at the Plenary Assembly Sitting of the Supreme Court of Ukraine by secret ballot, by according to the procedure established prescribed by law.

Article 129

In the administration of While administering justice, a judges is independent and subject only to the governed by the rule of law.

Judicial proceedings are conducted by a single judge, by a panel of judges, or by a court of the jury.

The main principles of justice are:

1) legality;

2) equality before the law and the court of all participants in a trial;

1) equality of all participants in a trial before the law and the court;

2) ensuring the guilt to be proved;

3) adversarial procedure and freedom of the parties to present their evidence to the court and to prove the weight of evidence before the court;

5) prosecution by the procurator in court on behalf of the State;

4) exercising public prosecution by the prosecutor in court;

5) ensuring to an accused the right to defence;

6) openness of a trial and its complete recording by technical means;

7) reasonable time of case consideration by a court;

8) ensuring the right to appeal and, in cases prescribed by law, the right to cassation of court decision;

8) ensuring complaint of a court decision by appeal and cassation, except in cases established by law;

9) the mandatory nature of court decisions.

9) the legally binding nature of a court decision.

The law may also determine other principles of judicial proceedings in courts of specific judicial jurisdiction.

Persons guilty of contempt of court or of showing disrespect toward the judge are brought to legal liability.

Other principles of justice can be determined by law.

Justice is administered by a single judge, by a panel of judges, or by jurors. Persons found guilty of contempt of court or against a judge shall be held legally liable".

Article 129¹

A court renders the decision in the name of Ukraine. The court decision is legally binding and is to be enforced.

The State ensures that a court decision is enforced according to the procedure prescribed by law.

The court supervises the enforcement of the court decision.

Article 130

The State ensures funding and proper conditions for the operation of courts and the activity of judges.

Expenditures for the maintenance of courts are allocated separately in the State Budget of Ukraine, taking into account proposals of the High Council of Justice.

Judges' self-management operates to resolve issues of the internal affairs of courts.

Remuneration of judges is defined by the law on judiciary.

Article 130¹

Judicial self-governance operates pursuant to the law protecting professional interests of judges and deciding internal activity of the courts.

Article 131

The High Council of Justice operates in Ukraine, whose competence comprises:

1) forwarding submissions on the appointment of judges to office or on their dismissal from office;

2) adopting decisions in regard to the violation by judges and procurators of the requirements concerning incompatibility;

The Chairman of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, the Minister of Justice of Ukraine and the Procurator General of Ukraine are ex officio members of the High Council of Justice.

In Ukraine, the High Council of Justice functions which:

1) presents submission for the appointment of a judge to office;

2) decides on the violation by a judge or a prosecutor of the incompatibility requirements;

3) reviews complaints on decisions of the relevant body imposing disciplinary liability on a judge or a prosecutor;

4) decides on dismissal of a judge from office;

5) grants consent for detention of a judge or keeping him or her under custody;

6) decides on temporal withdrawal of the authority of a judge to administer justice;

7) takes measures to ensure independence of judges;

8) decides on transfer of a judge;

9) exercises other powers defined by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine.

The High Council of Justice consists of twenty-one members: ten of them are elected by the Congress of Judges of Ukraine among judges or retired judges; two of them are appointed by the President of Ukraine; two of them are elected by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; two of them are elected by the Congress of Advocates of Ukraine; two of them are elected by the All-Ukrainian Conference of Public Prosecutors; two of them are elected by the Congress of Representatives of Law Schools and Law Academic Institutions.

The procedure for election (appointment) of members of the High Council of Justice to office is prescribed by law.

The Chairperson of the Supreme Court is a member of the High Council of Justice ex officio.

Term of the office for elected (appointed) members of the High Council of Justice is four years. The same person cannot hold the office of a member of the High Council of Justice for two consecutive terms.

A member of the High Council of Justice shall not belong to political parties, trade unions, take part in any political activity, hold a representative mandate, occupy any other paid office (except for the office of the Chairperson of the Supreme Court), engage in other paid work except academic, teaching or creative activity.

Member of the High Council of Justice shall be a legal professional and meet the requirement of political neutrality.

Additional requirements for member of the High Council of Justice may be provided for in the law.

The High Council of Justice is competent if not less than fifteen its members, the majority of whom being judges, are elected (appointed).

In the system of the judiciary, according to the law, there are established bodies and institutions which provide selection of judges, prosecutors, their professional training, assessment, consider disciplinary responsibility cases, provide financial and organisational support for the courts.

Article 131¹

In Ukraine, public prosecutor's office functions which exercises:

1) public prosecution in the court;

2) organisation and procedural leadership during pre-trial investigation, decision of other matters in criminal proceeding in accordance with the law, supervision of undercover and other investigative and search activities of law enforcement agencies;

3) representation of interests of the State in the court in exceptional cases and under procedure prescribed by law.

Organisation and functioning of the public prosecutor's office is determined by law.

Public prosecutor's office in Ukraine is headed by the Prosecutor General who is appointed to office and dismissed by the President of Ukraine on the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The term of the office of the Prosecutor General is six years. The same person can not hold the office of the Prosecutor General for two consecutive terms.

The Prosecutor General is early dismissed from his or her office exclusively in cases and on grounds prescribed by this Constitution and law.

Article 131²

In Ukraine, the bar is functioning to provide professional legal assistance.

The independence of the bar is guaranteed.

The fundamentals of organisation and functioning of the bar and advocates' activity in Ukraine is defined by law.

Only an advocate represents another person before the court and defends a person against prosecution.

Exceptions for representation before the court in labour disputes, social rights protection disputes, disputes related to elections and referendums or in disputes of minor importance, and for representation before the court of minors or adolescents, declared by court legally incapable or partially legally incapable can be determined by law.

Chapter IX
Territorial Structure of Ukraine

Article 132

Article 133

The system of the administrative and territorial structure of Ukraine is composed of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, oblasts, districts, cities, city districts, settlements and villages.

The Cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol have special status that is determined by the laws of Ukraine.

Chapter IX
Territorial Structure of Ukraine

Article 132

The territorial structure of Ukraine is based on the principles of unity and indivisibility of the state territory, the combination of centralisation and decentralisation in the exercise of state power, and the balanced social and economic development of regions with account of their historical, economic, ecological, geographical and demographic characteristics, and ethnic and cultural traditions.

Article 133

The system of the administrative and territorial structure of Ukraine is composed of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, oblasts, districts, cities, city districts, settlements and villages.

Ukraine is composed of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Vinnytsia Oblast, Volyn Oblast, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Donetsk Oblast, Zhytomyr Oblast, Zakarpattia Oblast, Zaporizhia Oblast, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Kyiv Oblast, Kirovohrad Oblast, Luhansk Oblast, Lviv Oblast, Mykolayiv Oblast, Odesa Oblast, Poltava Oblast, Rivne Oblast, Sumy Oblast, Ternopil Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, Kherson Oblast, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Cherkasy Oblast, Chernivtsi Oblast and Chernihiv Oblast, and the Cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol.

The Cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol have special status which is determined by the laws of Ukraine.

Chapter X
Autonomous Republic of Crimea

Article 134

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is an inseparable constituent part of Ukraine and decides on the issues ascribed to its competence within the limits of authority determined by the Constitution of Ukraine.

Article 135

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea has the Constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea that is adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by no less than one-half of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Normative legal acts of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and decisions of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea shall not contradict the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine and are adopted in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine, the laws of Ukraine, acts of the President of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, and for their execution.

Article 136

The Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, within the limits of its authority, is the representative body of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

The Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea adopts decisions and resolutions that are mandatory for execution in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

The Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is the government of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The Head of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is appointed to office and dismissed from office by the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea with the consent of the President of Ukraine.

The authority, the procedure for the formation and operation of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, are determined by the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine, and by normative legal acts of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea on issues ascribed to its competence.

In the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, justice is administered by courts that belong to the unified system of courts of Ukraine.

Article 137

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea exercises normative regulation on the following issues:

1) agriculture and forestry;

2) land reclamation and mining;

3) public works, crafts and trades; charity;

4) city construction and housing management;

5) tourism, hotel business, fairs;

6) museums, libraries, theatres, other cultural establishments, historical and cultural preserves;

7) public transportation, roadways, water supply;

8) hunting and fishing;

9) sanitary and hospital services.

For reasons of nonconformity of normative legal acts of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea with the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine, the President of Ukraine may suspend these normative legal acts of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea with a simultaneous appeal to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in regard to their constitutionality.

Article 138

The competence of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea comprises:

1) designating elections of deputies to the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, approving the composition of the electoral commission of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;

2) organising and conducting local referendums;

3) managing property that belongs to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;

4) elaborating, approving and implementing the budget of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea on the basis of the uniform tax and budget policy of Ukraine;

5) elaborating, approving and realising programmes of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea for socio-economic and cultural development, the rational utilisation of nature, and environmental protection in accordance with national programmes;

6) recognising the status of localities as resorts; establishing zones for the sanitary protection of resorts;

7) participating in ensuring the rights and freedoms of citizens, national harmony, the promotion of the protection of legal order and public security;

8) ensuring the operation and development of the state language and national languages and cultures in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea; protection and use of historical monuments;

9) participating in the development and realisation of state programmes for the return of deported peoples;

10) initiating the introduction of a state of emergency and the establishment of zones of an ecological emergency situation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea or in its particular areas.

Other powers may also be delegated to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea by the laws of Ukraine.

Article 139

The Representative Office of the President of Ukraine, whose status is determined by the law of Ukraine, operates in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

Chapter X
Autonomous Republic of Crimea

Article 134

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is an inseparable constituent part of Ukraine and decides on the issues ascribed to its competence authority within the limits of authority determined by the Constitution of Ukraine.

Article 135

Article 136

The Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, within the limits of its authority, is the representative body of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

The Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea adopts decisions and resolutions that are mandatory for execution in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

In the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, justice is administered by courts that belong to the unified system of courts of Ukraine.

The representative body of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the deputies of which are elected on the basis of general, equal, direct vote by secret ballot. The term of authority of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the deputies of which are elected at regular elections, is five years. The suspension of the authority of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea results in the termination of the authorities of deputies.

The next election to the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is held on the last Sunday of October of the fifth year of the authority the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, elected at regular election.

The Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea within the limits of its authority adopts decisions and resolutions that are mandatory for execution in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

The Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is the government of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The Head of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is appointed to office and dismissed by the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea upon the consent of the President of Ukraine.

In the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, justice is administered by courts of Ukraine.

Article 137

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea exercises normative regulation on the following issues:

1) agriculture and forestry;

2) land reclamation and mining;

3) public works, crafts and trades; charity;

4) city construction and housing management;

5) tourism, hotel business, fairs;

6) museums, libraries, theatres, other cultural establishments, historical and cultural preserves;

7) public transportation, roadways, water supply;

8) hunting and fishing;

9) sanitary and hospital services.

For reasons of non-conformity of normative legal acts of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea with the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine, the President of Ukraine may suspend the effect of these normative legal acts of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea with a simultaneous appeal to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in regard to and challenge concurrently their constitutionality at the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

Article 138

The competence of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea comprises:

1) designating elections of deputies to the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, approving the composition of the electoral commission of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;

2) organising and conducting local referendums;

3) managing property that belongs to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;

4) elaborating, approving and implementing the budget of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea on the basis of the uniform tax and budget policy of Ukraine;

5) elaborating, approving and implementing programmes of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea for socio-economic and cultural development, the rational environmental management, and environmental protection in accordance with national programmes;

6) recognising the status of localities as resorts; establishing zones for the sanitary protection of resorts;

7) participating in ensuring the rights and freedoms of citizens, national harmony, the promotion of the protection of legal order and public security;

8) ensuring the operation and development of the state language and national languages and cultures in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea; protection and use of historical monuments;

9) participating in the development and implementation of state programmes for the return of deported peoples;

10) initiating the introduction of a state of emergency and the establishment of zones of an ecological emergency situation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea or in its particular areas.

Other authoeities may also be delegated to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea by the laws of Ukraine.

Article 139

The Representative Office of the President of Ukraine, which status is determined by the law of Ukraine, operates in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

Chapter XI
Local Self-Government

Article 140

Local self-government is the right of a territorial community --- residents of a village or a voluntary association of residents of several villages into one village community, residents of a settlement, and of a city --- to independently resolve issues o f local character within the limits of the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.

Particular aspects of the exercise of local self-government in the Cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol are determined by special laws of Ukraine.

Local self-government is exercised by a territorial community by the procedure established by law, both directly and through bodies of local self-government: village, settlement and city councils, and their executive bodies.

District and oblast councils are bodies of local self-government that represent the common interests of territorial communities of villages, settlements and cities.

The issue of organisation of the administration of city districts lies within the competence of city councils.

Village, settlement and city councils may permit, upon the initiative of residents, the creation of house, street, block and other bodies of popular self-organisation, and to assign them part of their own competence, finances and property.

Article 141

A village, settlement and city council is composed of deputies elected for a four-year term by residents of a village, settlement and city on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage, by secret ballot.

Territorial communities elect for a four-year-term on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage, by secret ballot, the head of the village, settlement and city, respectively, who leads the executive body of the council and presides at its meetings.

The status of heads, deputies and executive bodies of a council and their authority, the procedure for their establishment, reorganisation and liquidation, are determined by law.

The chairman of a district council and the chairman of an oblast council are elected by the respective council and lead the executive staff of the council.

Article 142

The material and financial basis for local self-government is movable and immovable property, revenues of local budgets, other funds, land, natural resources owned by territorial communities of villages, settlements, cities, city districts, and also objects of their common property that are managed by district and oblast councils.

On the basis of agreement, territorial communities of villages, settlements and cities may join objects of communal property as well as budget funds, to implement joint projects or to jointly finance (maintain) communal enterprises, organisations and establishments, and create appropriate bodies and services for this purpose.

The State participates in the formation of revenues of the budget of local self-government and financially supports local self-government. Expenditures of bodies of local self-government, that arise from the decisions of bodies of state power, are compensated by the state.

Article 143

Territorial communities of a village, settlement and city, directly or through the bodies of local self-government established by them, manage the property that is in communal ownership; approve programmes of socio-economic and cultural development, and control their implementation; approve budgets of the respective administrative and territorial units, and control their implementation; establish local taxes and levies in accordance with the law; ensure the holding of local referendums and the implementation of their results; establish, reorganise and liquidate communal enterprises, organisations and institutions, and also exercise control over their activity; resolve other issues of local importance ascribed to their competence by law.

Oblast and district councils approve programmes for socio-economic and cultural development of the respective oblasts and districts, and control their implementation; approve district and oblast budgets that are formed from the funds of the state budget for their appropriate distribution among territorial communities or for the implementation of joint projects, and from the funds drawn on the basis of agreement from local budgets for the realisation of joint socio-economic and cultural programmes, and control their implementation; resolve other issues ascribed to their competence by law.

Certain powers of bodies of executive power may be assigned by law to bodies of local self-government. The State finances the exercise of these powers from the State Budget of Ukraine in full or through the allocation of certain national taxes to the local budget, by the procedure established by law, transfers the relevant objects of state property to bodies of local self-government.

Bodies of local self-government, on issues of their exercise of powers of bodies of executive power, are under the control of the respective bodies of executive power.

Article 144

Bodies of local self-government, within the limits of authority determined by law, adopt decisions that are mandatory for execution throughout the respective territory.

Decisions of bodies of local self-government, for reasons of nonconformity with the Constitution or the laws of Ukraine, are suspended by the procedure established by law with a simultaneous appeal to a court.

Article 145

The rights of local self-government are protected by judicial procedure.

Article 146

Other issues of the organisation of local self-government, the formation, operation and responsibility of the bodies of local self-government, are determined by law.

Chapter XI
Local Self-Government

Article 140

Particular aspects of the exercise of local self-government in the Cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol are determined by special laws of Ukraine.

District and oblast councils are bodies of local self-government that represent the common interests of territorial communities of villages, settlements and cities.

The issue of organisation of the administration of city districts lies within the competence of city councils.

Article 141

A village, settlement, city, district and oblast council is composed of deputies elected for a five-year term by residents of a village, settlement, city, district and oblast on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage, by secret ballot. The term of the authority village, settlement, city, district and oblast council, the deputies of which are elected at regular election is five years. The suspension of the term of the authority of village, settlement, city, district and oblast councils have consequences of suspension of the authority of the appropriate council deputies.

Territorial communities elect for a four-year-term on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage, by secret ballot, the village, settlement and city head, respectively, who leads the executive body of the council and presides at its meetings. The term of authority of the Head of village, settlement, city, district and oblast council, elected at regular election is five years.

The regular election of the village, settlement, city, district and oblast councils, village, settlement, city heads are held on the last Sunday of October of the fifth year of authority of the respective Council or the respective Head, elected at regular election.

The status of heads, deputies and executive bodies of a council and their authority, the procedure for their establishment, reorganisation and liquidation, are determined by law.

The chairperson of a district council and the chairperson of an oblast council are elected by the respective council and lead the executive staff of the council.

Article 142

Article 143

Bodies of local self-government, on issues of their exercise of powers of bodies of executive power, are under the control of the respective bodies of executive power.

Article 144

Bodies of local self-government, within the limits of authority determined by law, adopt decisions that are mandatory for execution throughout the respective territory.

Article 145

The rights of local self-government are protected by judicial procedure.

Article 146

Other issues of the organisation of local self-government, the formation, operation and responsibility of the bodies of local self-government, are determined by law.

Chapter XII
Constitutional Court of Ukraine

Article 147

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine is the sole body of constitutional jurisdiction in Ukraine.

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine decides on issues of conformity of laws and other legal acts with the Constitution of Ukraine and provides the official interpretation of the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine.

Article 148

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine is composed of eighteen judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

The President of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Congress of Judges of Ukraine each appoint six judges to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

A citizen of Ukraine who has attained the age of forty on the day of appointment, has a higher legal education and professional experience of no less than ten years, has resided in Ukraine for the last twenty years, and has command of the state language, may be a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

A judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is appointed for nine years without the right of appointment to a repeat term.

The Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is elected by secret ballot only for one three-year term at a special plenary meeting of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine from among the judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

Article 149

Article 150

The authority of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine comprises:

1) deciding on issues of conformity with the Constitution of Ukraine (constitutionality) of the following:

laws and other legal acts of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

acts of the President of Ukraine;

acts of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine;

legal acts of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

These issues are considered on the appeals of: the President of Ukraine; no less than forty-five National Deputies of Ukraine; the Supreme Court of Ukraine; the Authorised Human Rights Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;

2) the official interpretation of the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine;

On issues envisaged by this Article, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine adopts decisions that are mandatory for execution throughout the territory of Ukraine, that are final and shall not be appealed.

Article 151

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine, on the appeal of the President of Ukraine or the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, provides opinions on the conformity with the Constitution of Ukraine of international treaties of Ukraine that are in force, or the international treaties submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for granting agreement on their binding nature.

On the appeal of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine provides an opinion on the observance of the constitutional procedure of investigation and consideration of the case of removing the President of Ukraine from office b y the procedure of impeachment.

Article 152

Laws and other legal acts, by the decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, are deemed to be unconstitutional, in whole or in part, in the event that they do not conform to the Constitution of Ukraine, or if there was a violation of the procedure established by the Constitution of Ukraine for their review, adoption or their entry into force.

Laws and other legal acts, or their separate provisions, that are deemed to be unconstitutional, lose legal force from the day the Constitutional Court of Ukraine adopts the decision on their unconstitutionality.

Material or moral damages, inflicted on physical and legal persons by the acts or actions deemed to be unconstitutional, are compensated by the State by the procedure established by law.

Article 153

The procedure for the organisation and operation of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, and the procedure for its review of cases, are determined by law.

Chapter XII
Constitutional Court of Ukraine

Article 147

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine is the sole body of constitutional jurisdiction in Ukraine.

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine decides on compliance of laws of Ukraine with the Constitution of Ukraine and, in cases prescribed by this Constitution, of other acts, provides official interpretation of the Constitution of Ukraine as well as exercises other authority in accordance with this Constitution.

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine acts on the basis of the principles of the rule of law, independence, collegiality, transparency, reasonableness and binding nature of its decisions and opinions.

Article 148

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine is composed of eighteen judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

The President of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Congress of Judges of Ukraine each appoint six judges to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

Selection of candidates for the office of judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is conducted on competitive basis under the procedure prescribed by the law.

A judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is appointed for nine years without the right of appointment to a repeat term.

A citizen of Ukraine who has command of the state language, attained the age of forty on the day of appointment, has a higher legal education and professional experience in the sphere of law no less than fifteen years, has high moral values and is a lawyer of recognised competence may be a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

A judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine can not belong to political parties, trade unions, take part in any political activity, hold a representative mandate, occupy any other paid offices, perform other paid work, except academic, teaching or creative activities.

A judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is appointed for nine years without the right of reappointment.

A judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine steps in his or her office as of the date of taking the oath at the special plenary sitting of the Court.

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine elects the Chairman among the judges of the Court at a special plenary sitting of the Court by secret ballot for one three-year term only.

Article 148¹

The State ensures funding and proper conditions for operation of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. Expenditures for operation of the Court are allocated separately in the State budget of Ukraine, with account of the proposals of its Chairman.

Remuneration of judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is defined by the law on the Constitutional Court of Ukraine

Article 149

Judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine are subject to the guarantees of independence and immunity and to the grounds for dismissal from office envisaged by Article 126 of this Constitution, and the requirements concerning incompatibility as determined in Article 127, paragraph two of this Constitution.
Independence and inviolability of a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine are guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine.

Any influence on a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is prohibited.

Judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine may not be detained or kept under custody or under arrest without the consent of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine until a guilty verdict is rendered by a court, except for detention of a judge caught committing serious or grave crime or immediately after it.

Judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine may not be held legally liable for voting on decisions or opinions of the Court, except the cases of committing a crime or a disciplinary offence.

The State ensures the personal security of a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and members of his or her family.

Article 149¹

The authority of a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine shall be terminated in case of:

1) termination of the term of his or her office;

2) his or her attainment of the age of seventy;

3) termination of Ukraine's citizenship or acquiring by him or her the citizenship of another state;

4) taking effect of a court's decision on recognition him or her missing or declaration him or her dead, or on recognition to be legally incapable or partially legally incapable;

5) taking effect of a guilty verdict against him or her for committing a crime; 6) death of a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

The grounds for dismissal of a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine are the following:

1) inability to exercise his or her authority for health reasons;

2) violation by him or her of incompatibility requirements;

3) commission by him or her of a serious disciplinary offence, flagrant or permanent disregard of his or her duties which are incompatible with the status of judge of the Court or has proved non-conformity with being in the office;

4) submission by a judge of statement of resignation or of voluntary dismissal from office.

Dismissal of a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine from his or her office is decided by not less than two-thirds of its constitutional composition.

Article 150

The authority of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine includes:

1) deciding on conformity to the Constitution of Ukraine (constitutionality) of:

laws and other legal acts of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

acts of the President of Ukraine;

acts of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine;

legal acts of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

2) official interpretation of the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine;

3) exercising other authority defined by the Constitution of Ukraine.

Matters under sub-paragraphs 1, 2 of paragraph one of this Article are considered upon the constitutional petitions of: the President of Ukraine; not less than fortyfive People's Deputies of Ukraine; the Supreme Court; Authorised Human Rights Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

Article 151

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine, upon submission of the President of Ukraine or not less than forty-five People's Deputies of Ukraine, or the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, provides opinions on compliance with the Constitution of Ukraine of international treaties of Ukraine that are in effect, or the international treaties submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for granting agreement on their binding nature.

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine upon submission of the President of Ukraine or not less than forty-five People's Deputies of Ukraine provides opinions on compliance with the Constitution of Ukraine (constitutionality) of questions that are proposed to be put for the all-Ukrainian referendum upon people's initiative.

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine upon the submission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine provides an opinion on the observance of the constitutional procedure of investigation and consideration of the case on removing the President of Ukraine from office by the impeachment procedure.

Article 151¹

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine decides on compliance with the Constitution of Ukraine (constitutionality) of a law of Ukraine upon constitutional complaint of a person alleging that the law of Ukraine applied to render a final court decision in his or her case contravenes the Constitution of Ukraine. A constitutional complaint may be lodged after exhaustion of all other domestic legal remedies.

Article 151²

Decisions and opinions adopted by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine shall be binding, final and may not be challenged.

Article 152

Laws and other acts, are declared unconstitutional in whole or in part by the decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, are deemed to be unconstitutional, in whole or in part, in the event that they do not conform to the Constitution of Ukraine, or if there was a violation of the procedure established for their consideration, adoption or their entry into force established by the Constitution of Ukraine for their review, adoption or their entry into force.

Laws, other acts, or their separate provisions, deemed to be declared unconstitutional, lose legal force from the day the Constitutional Court of Ukraine adopts the decision on their unconstitutionality unless otherwise established by the decision itsef but not earlier that the day of its adoption.

Material or moral damages, inflicted on natural or legal persons by the acts and actions deemed to be declared unconstitutional, are compensated by the State under the procedure established by law.

Article 153

The procedure for the organisation and operation of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, and the procedure for its review of cases, are determined by law.

Organisation and operation of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, status of judges of the Court, grounds to apply to the Court and application procedure, procedure of case consideration and enforcement of decisions of the Court are defined by the Constitution of Ukraine and law.

Chapter XIII
Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine

Article 154

A draft law on introducing amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine may be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by the President of Ukraine, or by no fewer National Deputies of Ukraine than one-third of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Article 155

A draft law on introducing amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine, with the exception of Chapter I --- "General Principles," Chapter III --- "Elections. Referendum," and Chapter XIII --- "Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine," previously adopted by the majority of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, is deemed to be adopted, if at the next regular session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, no less than two-thirds of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine have voted in favour thereof.

Article 156

A draft law on introducing amendments to Chapter I --- "General Principles," Chapter III --- "Elections. Referendum," and Chapter XIII --- "Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine," is submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by the President of Ukraine, or by no less than two-thirds of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and on the condition that it is adopted by no less than two-thirds of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and is approved by an All-Ukrainian referendum designated by the President of Ukraine.

The repeat submission of a draft law on introducing amendments to Chapters I, III and XIII of this Constitution on one and the same issue is possible only to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the next convocation.

Article 157

The Constitution of Ukraine shall not be amended, if the amendments foresee the abolition or restriction of human and citizens' rights and freedoms, or if they are oriented toward the liquidation of the independence or violation of the territorial indivisibility of Ukraine.

The Constitution of Ukraine shall not be amended in conditions of martial law or a state of emergency.

Article 158

The draft law on introducing amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine, considered by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and not adopted, may be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine no sooner than one year from the day of the adoption of the decision on this draft law.

Within the term of its authority, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall not amend twice the same provisions of the Constitution.

Article 159

A draft law on introducing amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine is considered by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine upon the availability of an opinion of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on the conformity of the draft law with the requirements of Articles 157 and 158 of this Constitution.

Chapter XIII
Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine

Article 154

Article 155

A draft law on introducing amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine, with the exception of Chapter I - "General Principles," Chapter III - "Elections. Referendum," and Chapter XIII --- "Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine," previously adopted by the majority of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, is deemed to be adopted, if at the next regular session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, no less than two-thirds of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine have voted in favour thereof.

Article 156

A draft law on introducing amendments to Chapter I - "General Principles," Chapter III - "Elections. Referendum," and Chapter XIII - "Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine," is submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by the President of Ukraine, or by no less than two-thirds of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and on the condition that it is adopted by no less than two-thirds of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and is approved by an All-Ukrainian referendum designated by the President of Ukraine.

Article 157

The Constitution of Ukraine shall not be amended, if the amendments foresee the abolition or restriction of human and citizen’s rights and freedoms, or if they are oriented toward the liquidation of the independence or violation of the territorial indivisibility of Ukraine.

The Constitution of Ukraine shall not be amended in conditions of martial law or a state of emergency.

Article 158

Within the term of its authority, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall not amend twice the same provisions of the Constitution.

Article 159

Chapter XIV
Final Provisions

Article 160

The Constitution of Ukraine enters into force from the day of its adoption.

Article 161

The day of adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine is a national holiday --- the Day of the Constitution of Ukraine.

Chapter XIV
Final Provisions

Article 160

The Constitution of Ukraine enters into force from the day of its adoption.

Article 161

The day of adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine is a national holiday - the Day of the Constitution of Ukraine.

Chapter XV
Transitional Provisions

1. Laws and other normative acts, adopted prior to this Constitution entering into force, are in force in the part that does not contradict the Constitution of Ukraine.

2. After the adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine exercises the authority envisaged by this Constitution.

Regular elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine shall be held in March 1998.

3. Regular elections of the President of Ukraine shall be held on the last Sunday of October 1999.

4. The President of Ukraine, within three years after the Constitution of Ukraine enters into force, has the right to issue decrees approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and signed by the Prime-Minister of Ukraine on economic issues not regulated by laws, with simultaneous submission of the respective draft law to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, by the procedure established by Article 93 of this Constitution.

Such a decree of the President of Ukraine takes effect, if within thirty calendar days from the day of submission of the draft law (except the days between sessions), the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine does not adopt the law or does not reject the submitted draft law by the majority of its constitutional composition, and is effective until a law adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on these issues enters into force.

5. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is formed in accordance with this Constitution within three months after its entry into force.

6. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine is formed in accordance with this Constitution, within three months after its entry into force. Prior to the creation of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, the interpretation of laws is performed by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

7. Heads of local state administrations, upon entry of this Constitution into force, acquire the status of heads of local state administrations in accordance with Article 118 of this Constitution, and after the election of chairmen of the respective councils, tender resignations from office of the chairmen of these councils.

8. Village, settlement and city councils and the chairmen of these councils, upon entry of this Constitution of Ukraine into force, exercise the authority as determined by it, until the election of the new composition of these councils in March 1998.

District and oblast councils, elected prior to the entry of this Constitution into force, exercise the authority as determined by it, until the formation of the new composition of these councils in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine.

City district councils and their chairmen, upon entry of this Constitution into force, exercise their authority in accordance with the law.

9. The procuracy continues to exercise, in accordance with the laws in force, the function of supervision over the observance and application of laws and the function of preliminary investigation, until the laws regulating the activity of state bodies in regard to the control over the observance of laws are put into force, and until the system of pre-trial investigation is formed and the laws regulating its operation are put into effect.

10. Prior to the adoption of laws determining the particular aspects of the exercise of executive power in the Cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol in accordance with Article 118 of this Constitution, the executive power in these cities is exercised by the respective city administrations.

11. Article 99, paragraph one of this Constitution shall enter into force after the introduction of the national monetary unit --- the hryvnia.

12. The Supreme Court of Ukraine and the High Court of Arbitration of Ukraine exercise their authority in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine that is in force, until the formation in Ukraine of a system of courts of general jurisdiction, in accordance with Article 125 of this Constitution, but for no more than five years.

Judges of all courts in Ukraine, elected or appointed prior to the day of entry of this Constitution into force, continue to exercise their authority in accordance with the legislation in force, until the expiration of the term for which they were elected or appointed.

Judges whose authority has terminated on the day this Constitution enters into force, continue to exercise their authority for the period of one year.

13. The current procedure for arrest, holding in custody and detention of persons suspected of committing a crime, and also for the examination and search of a dwelling place or other possessions of a person, is preserved for five years after this Constitution enters into force.

14. The use of existing military bases on the territory of Ukraine for the temporary stationing of foreign military formations is possible on the terms of lease, by the procedure determined by the international treaties of Ukraine ratified by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Official English translation.
The only authentic text is the text in the state language of Ukraine.

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Chapter XV
Transitional Provisions

1. Laws and other normative acts, adopted prior to this Constitution entering into force, are in force in the part that does not contradict the Constitution of Ukraine.

2. After the adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine exercises the authority envisaged by this Constitution.

Regular elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine are held in March 1998.

3. Regular elections of the President of Ukraine are held on the last Sunday of October 1999.

4. The President of Ukraine, within three years after the Constitution of Ukraine enters into force, has the right to issue decrees approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and signed by the Prime-Minister of Ukraine on economic issues not regulated by laws, with simultaneous submission of the respective draft law to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, by under the procedure established by Article 93 of this Constitution.

5. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is formed in accordance with this Constitution within three months after its entry into force.

6. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine is formed in accordance with this Constitution, within three months after its entry into force. Prior to the establishment of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, the interpretation of laws is performed by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

7. Heads of local state administrations, upon entry of this Constitution into force, acquire the status of heads of local state administrations in accordance with Article 118 of this Constitution, and after the election of chairmen of the respective councils, resign from office of the chairmen of these councils.

City district councils and their chairmen, upon entry of this Constitution into force, exercise their authority in accordance with the law.

9. The Prosecution Office, in accordance with effective laws, continues to perform the function of pre-trial investigation until the agencies, to which the function is transferred under the law, will have been launched, and continue to perform the function of supervision the observance of laws while enforcing court decisions in criminal cases, while application of other measures of coercion related to the restraint of personal freedom of citizens, until the law on establishment of a dual system of regular penitentiary inspections takes effect.

11. Paragraph one of Article 99 of this Constitution shall enter into force after the introduction of the national monetary unit - the hryvnia.

Judges whose authority has terminated on the day this Constitution enters into force, continue to exercise their authority for the period of one year.

14. Missing from the update. [editor comment]

15. Regular elections of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine after restoration of provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine in the wording of June 28, 1996 upon the Decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine dated September 30, 2010 No. 20rp/2010 in the case on observance of the procedure of introducing amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine are held on the last Sunday of October of 2012.

16. Regular elections of the President of Ukraine after restoration of the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine in the wording of June 28, 1996 upon the Decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine dated September 30, 2010 No. 20-rp/2010 in the case on observance of the procedure of introducing amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine are held on the last Sunday of March of 2015.

16¹. Upon taking effect of the Law of Ukraine "On Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine (as to justice):

1) prior to the establishment of the High Council of Justice (Vyshcha Rada Pravosuddia) its authority is exercised by the High Council of Justice (Vyshcha Rada Yustytsii). The High Council of Justice (Vyshcha Rada Pravosuddia) is established through reorganising of the High Council of Justice (Vyshcha Rada Yustytsii). Prior to election (appointment) of members of the High Council of Justice (Vyshcha Rada Pravosuddia) it is composed of members of the High Council of Justice (Vyshcha Rada Yustytsii) during their term in office, but no longer than by April 30, 2019. Election (appointment) of members of the High Council of Justice (Vyshcha Rada Pravosuddia) is conducted not later than by April 30, 2019;

2) authority of judges appointed for a five-year term terminate with the expiration of the term for which they were appointed. Such judges may be appointed to the office of judge according to the procedure prescribed by law;

3) judges who were elected for unlimited term shall exercise their authority until dismissal or termination of their authority on grounds defined in the Constitution of Ukraine;

4) conformity with being in the office of a judge, who was appointed to the office for a five-year term or elected for unlimited term, before the Law of Ukraine "On Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine (as to justice)" taking effect, should be assessed according to the procedure prescribed by law. Nonconformity of the judge with being in the office based on criteria of competence, professional ethics, or honesty, or refusal of the judge from such assessment shall constitute the ground to dismiss a judge. Procedure and exclusive grounds for appeal against the decision on dismissal of a judge resulted from the assessment shall be established by law;

5) in cases of reorganisation or dissolution of particular courts, established before the Law of Ukraine "On Introduing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine (as to justice)" taking effect, judges concerned have the right to retire or apply for a new position through a competition according to the procedure prescribed by law. Specifics of the transfer of a judge to another court may be prescribed by law;

6) until new administrative and territorial system of Ukraine is implemented according to the amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine as to decentralisation, but not later than by December 31, 2017, the establishment, reorganisation, and dissolution of courts is conducted by the President of Ukraine on the basis and under the procedure prescribed by the law;

7) within two years transfer of judge to another court shall be exercised by the President of Ukraine on the basis of the submission by the High Council of Justice (Vyshcha Rada Pravosuddia);

8) judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, appointed before the Law of Ukraine "On Introducing Amendemnts to the Constitution of Ukraine (as to justice)" taking effect, exercise their authority until termination of their authority or dismissal in accordance with the procedure prescribed in Article 1491 of the Constitution of Ukraine and without right to reappointment. Authority of a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, who as of the day the Law of Ukraine "On Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine (as to justice)" taking effect has attained the age of sixty-five, but the decision on his or her dismissal from office has not been taken, are terminated;

9) the representation of citizens before courts by the public prosecution according to the law in cases in which proceedings had been initiated prior to the Law of Ukraine "On Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine (as to justice)" taking effect, are exercised according to the rules have been effective prior to this Law taking effect, - until rendering the final court decisions that can not be challenged;

10) the Prosecutor General of Ukraine appointed to the office prior to the Law of Ukraine "On Introducing Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine (as to justice)" taking effect exercises authority of the Prosecutor General until dismissal under the procedure prescribed by law but no longer within the term for which he or she was appointed, and may not hold the office for two consecutive terms;

11) in accordance with the sub-paragraph 3 paragraph one Article 1311 and Article 1312 of this Constitution representation before the Supreme Court and the courts of cassation shall be exercised exclusively by public prosecutors and advocates as from January 1, 2017; before the appellate courts - as from January 1, 2018; before the first instance courts - as from January 1, 2019.

Representation of bodies of state power and local self-government before courts shall be exercised exclusively by public prosecutors and advocates as from January 1, 2020.

Representation before courts in cases pending prior to the Law of Ukraine "On Introducing Amendmenta to the Constitution of Ukraine (as to justice)" taking effect shall be exercised according to the rules have been effective prior to this Law taking effect, - until rendering the final court decisions that cannot be challenged.

***

The Constitution of Ukraine
Adopted at the fifth session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine June 28, 1996

This is the Ukrainian constitution that was originally adopted on 28 June 1996. This text was accessed from the Internet on December 28, 2005