Background of the War in Ukraine

I want to commend Peter Nimitz’s lengthy history of Ukraine to your attention:

History is a complex tapestry with many threads, and is constantly rewoven. Sometimes threads decay and disappear. Other times old threads are strengthened. Some threads are ripped out, and replaced with new threads. The shapes made on the tapestry are usually agreed upon, but the story they tell is usually disputed.

To understand the roots of the Donbass Wars and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, one must first identify the important historical threads. Some such as the recent growth of Protestantism in Ukraine are quite new. Others are very old, and to understand them one must go back deep in the past.

I found it fair, balanced, and amazingly complete given that it’s only a couple of thousand words long. The TL;DR version is:

• Many countries and people have ruled the territory within Ukraine’s present borders over the last thousand years or so including Poland, Lithuania, Russia, the Turks, the Mongols, and the Greeks.
• Prior to 1954 no country with borders approximating those of present day Ukraine had ever existed.
• Without substantial ethnic cleansing bringing peace and order to eastern Ukraine within a united Ukraine is unlikely.