From the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the Euromaidan Revolution in 2013-14, to the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022, Ukraine has been perpetually caught in a battle for self-determination while outside forces vie over its future. As Sean Guillory succinctly put it in a recent episode of the SRB podcast sponsored by Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, the story of this war in many ways depends on who’s telling it and when they begin that story. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Dr. William Risch about where that story begins and what onlookers need to understand about the political and geopolitical history that paved the way to the horrific war in Ukraine, including the fallout from post-Soviet deindustrialization, the Euromaidan Revolution, and the Russian annexation of Crimea.

Dr. Risch is a professor of history at Georgia College who spent four years living in Ukraine and teaches on the history and politics of modern Eastern Europe. He is the author of The Ukrainian West: Culture and the Fate of Empire in Soviet Lviv, and he is currently working on a new book entitled One Step from Madness: Power and Disillusionment in Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution.

Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/from-the-euromaidan-revolution-to-russian-invasion-how-ukraine-was-ripped-apart

Pre-Production/Studio/Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

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41 thoughts on “War in Ukraine: From Euromaidan Revolution to Russian invasion”
  1. so many angry real russian nazis here, commenting about this revolution where puppet pro russian dictatorship was sacked by the people of ukraine, now the war is raging and razzia is losing hard, matter of time, razzia will lose and ukraine will get rid of razzian imperialism once and for all, into NATO and democracy.

  2. Such a pity the video hasn't got many views. I have watched many many hours of videos on Ukraine war and I have to sax this material is really well prepared.

  3. Extremely rare I don't take notes from vids featuring top specialists. But, Risch seems to bend over backwards to "stay safe."

  4. NULA/ ND/ pozri sa na prácu UA a USA ti mŕtvi ta budú prenasledovat
    celý tvoj zvyšok života Komu budeš rozdávať almužnu aby nezomrel od hladu?

  5. Apart from simple facts, there are different versions of how post-Soviet Ukraine has come to this, and Dr. Risch is reasonably balanced in his narrative. Old events and issues are better understood, and Putin is more truthful and/or knowledgeable on Ukraine as part of the Russian Empire and the Ukrainian SSR. Ukraine was a region of the Russian Empire, not a culturally distinct separate nation within. Georgians, Poles or us Finns are examples of such. Finnish autonomy worked very well, apart from two brief periods of "Russification" at the turn of the century. Poles had a more difficult relationship with the Empire. When Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government of the Russian Republic, their only concern was to retain power at any cost. They did not overthrow the autocracy. They did not have popular support. They were surrounded by both internal and external enemies. They amplified or even created divisive nationalist sentiments in order to claim that problems existed and they should be trusted to solve those. To be fair, Eastern Slavs of present-day Ukraine, at least some of them, did present demands for wide autonomy after the February revolution. Putin may have left that part out from his narrative. But Kerensky's foreign minister Tereshchenko (finance minister under Georgy Lvov), whose family we would now consider as Ukrainian, had only lukewarm support for that. I don't think he considered himself anything except Russian.

  6. What I did not hear in this interview with prof. Hirsh is the role of US, the role of Victoria Neuland in fostering a Coup against a democratically elected in Ukraine. The role of the neo- nazis in trying to erase Russian as a language from Ukraine. 😮

  7. He hasn't mentioned anything about the 8 year bombing and attacking by Ukrainians on the Donbas. Or the union of Zelensky with Nazis. Can he answer those questions?

  8. This guy is an audacious liar. What's wrong with Real News? I'm unsubscribing. What hap in 2014 was a coup. Read Ivan Katchanovski's "The Snipers Massacre…"

  9. Alot of what this guy said was interesting & all but he completely glossed over anything to do with Victoria Nuland's actions in what many people call the 2014 coup. He completely avoided the subject about the Azov Battalion. He only mentioned the corruption under pro Russian govts but none of that under Pro Western govts since 2014, including of course Poroshenko who is himself a billionaire Oligarch. Nor does he mention the ongoing corruption in the burgeoning oil & gas sector, including of course that linked to Hunter Biden.. There's so many angles & reasons for this conflict & things that led up to it. There's so many complexities, but to barely touch one side of those complexities & causes is disingenuous bordering on pushing a narrative..

  10. First 2 laws passed after the illegitimate violent takeover of power in 2014 was to ban the use of Russian and to legalize NAZ1$. That regime was very clear that they were Russian-hating NAZ1$ and people of Southeast Ukraine legitimately resisted the illegitimate government in Kiev.

  11. I think its insane that normal everyday people are being duped into fighting a war – that the west is pushing for, as oil and weapons' stocks sky rocket – that could end the world.

  12. soo much plot hole here, he not mention about C14, he avoid talk about nazi, he said literally donbas was war with russian army, he didn't say that putin already asking help for these people in UN for 8 years and nobody cares. look if you see, you ethnic, basically. asking help, being killed, rape by nazi (there is video where they telling they love killing, killing people is fun), and now fact refeal there was nazi, there was bio lab with US funded, putin already said, but all over the world say he just sick paranoia. one by one his claim is real, and you still believe he is madman.? ask snowden,ask assange, ask JFK. ask classified document in pentagon. other country is ruled by dictator but we are not, we are free country, people have their own freedom in here. except freedom to gain information. nope, gov must decide what information you can get and what is dangerous for you and better to keep hidden.

  13. Russia always admited that President Yanukovych was corrupt politician and were getting Russian Gas on subsidy and stealing it too on the pipe lines towards Europe and the fact the Crimea region was Russian land given by the Ukrainian President Of the USSR of that time to Ukrain and how dare this channel deceiving people by such craps , look at the western allies destruction of Lybia Iraq Afghanistan Vietnam and they don't do their people no favour but only pleasing the IMF who they are subservient to and Russia has had people life improving by 10 fold far the passed 20 years until nor the evil sanction And the encyrclement by NATO !!! And suddenly the west is Angel!? And Russia is bad😁

  14. It's funny how this channel did shows about the nazi funded battalions murdering civilians a couple of years ago but seem to have forgotten!!

  15. Ukraine was doing just fine … UNTIL #CorruptedUSAPoliticians (Obama/Biden) demanded that Ukraine join the EU, then overthrew the Democratically ElectedPresident with a Coup in late 2013/early 2014. NOW Putin has to go in and clean up the mess the #CorruptedUSA & British Politicians have made, by arming the Hired Thug Fascists who have been killing Russians with arms supplied to them by the USA, Britain & others. END OF STORY

  16. President V Zelensky, Ukrainian men who voted for the 2014 elections are being targeted for murder in the 'killing bowl' you created!
    We are on the cusp of the most dangerous action that can be taken. WE are supplying mercenaries to the Ukrainian war for the one single purpose of killing Ukrainians that supported the 2014 democratic election overturned by western paid thugs. The massive weapons cache will be used for stalking the Ukrainian men who are not allowed to leave. This is a well guarded secret in the wars the US has fought. Not just Saddam and Khadafi but now the citizens of the Ukraine are going to be eliminated by mercenaries targeting Ukrainians that support Russia. The two sides that exist will be winnowed to one by assassins targeting Ukrainian men.
    The 'fish bowl' created by the Ukrainian President's decree that no man should leave has created a 'shooting gallery' targeting Ukrainian men that will be hidden in the 'war' deaths.
    From the assassination of Pakistani elected President to the killing of the opposition leader in protests of farmers against land acquisition in the capitol of Ethiopia, this 'selective' murder hs now become the operation of choice and why the US now proposes to fund and supply weapons for 'street fighting' in the Ukraine. Undetected assassins among the ground forces will eliminate the pro Unkainian just as the Partisans were in Greece and Italy in the WWII. The Nazi did not kill them, their fellow country men did.
    Ask yourself I the Ukrainian President should be President if he sanctions the killing of his countrymen by using hidden weapons caches and mercenaries to eliminate Ukrainian men who voted for the overthrown 2014 election.
    WAR has come to sanctioning individuals for elimination. The street fighting is a stage for killing Ukrainians. And no one will know

  17. Pretty disappointing video. Guy is common propagandist which succeeded to avoid all most important facts about his and theirs (and your country's) role in rising nazi movement bringing them on power and starting attack on eastern Ukrainians – domicile Russians. It is shame to bring guy like this on your channel and treat him as some respectable source. As he confirmed that he had part in bringing Bandera Nazis on power he have to be sentenced to prison, not giving lessons about his role in crime.

  18. Blahblahblah blahblahblah blahblahblah… As if history lessonsw mske any difference to Lockheed Martin stock prices (+300%) and every major western selling weapons toe Ukraine… Nor does this verbiage make any difference to thug bastardx warmonkeys like Putin and Joe Thug Biden

  19. Well, given there are (azov battalion) Nazis in the Ukrainian military, who wouldn’t be a separatist? Hmm?

  20. I, and many communists like Rosa Luxembourg, reject Lenins "we are all Russians" and his stand of Ukraine being a "country". Chi Jinpin makes the same wrong policy today and butchers all cultural identity of his minorities to make the country "all Chinese". That leads always to tensions while implementing more and more repressive measures. You can't make a Russ out of an Ukrainian, even if they spare cultural and other habits. This war isn't even a war between Russians and Ukrainians, in majority both wont this war. Putin bombs both peoples in the Ukraine, Kharkiv is in majority a Russian speaking town and region. Putin doesn't care about his own and certainly not about other ethnicities. Speaking of Neo-nazis, they are fighting on both sides. Only the Kremlin points tirelessly out that Neo-nazis dominate the Ukraine, what's wrong. The influence f. e. the Neo-nazis in the Ukraine have is grown over time due to US influence and Zelensky "earned" that awful tendency within Ukraine and doesn't back those people. The political influence of those right-wing forces (5% in the Duma) is now marginal. Besides the Asov battalion, which can't be dismantled by now, Ukrainians are everything but Nazis. How awful that may sounds, Zelinskyy needs them to fight the Russian army. There's never black or white and this war is Putins war.

  21. This was a pretty good sum up of the latest history of the Ukraine, even if some events weren't told. One can see them, and I think he does, not as important.

  22. It is quite clear that both speakers are alike in two matters. First, they really should use points focus notes. The repetition is very notable but becomes a distraction. Then there is the simple fact that many peoples of the Donbass region patently feel no real link with 'Western' Ukraine. If they had become joint Ukraine-Russian Protectorates, or something similar, this conflict would have not inflamed. The US may wish to impose its will on eastern Ukraine but it cannot change the fact that Donbass is different, it is separate. The two 'rebel' regions are shooting at the Ukraine Army, not the Russians. We, the West, have interfered in countless countries for commodities and for strategic reasons. The last time this worked at all was Iraq 1. How the people fare is patently not as much as the reason as an excuse. We have little mention of decades of Nazi activities in Ukraine. We are seeing non-white refugees being treated as second class, the blond haired, blue eyed White population being prioritized is a racism shared by some of the very far Right groups of Western Ukraine. Nothing is simple. But attempting to de-stabilize Russia would be a Pandora's box from Hell. Time for talk and less provocation by the US. Quote: "Mr Putin says he would deploy nuclear weapons. He should put up or shut up". This was an apparently indisposed US Senator. No wonder things have got so bad. From failure to recognise Russia's WW2 importance to constant verbal sniping between the US and Russia, and China. Only Arms manufacturers win in the end.

  23. A case study against the Left and Right (Separationist) movements here at home in the US. At least that is what I got out of this.

  24. You say the country was ripped apart. I was looking for video footage.None. Just a talking head interview. We are told there is a Russian convoy miles long heading to Kyiv, but no resistance from the Ukrainian army whatsoever. If anyone has a link to footage, please let me know.

  25. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfaAyiP8Wuc Check this out. This is the truth!
    As I've mentioned earlier, originally I am from Ukraine and I do know the political situation in MY country. I do know who is who and do NOT need to listen to such "experts" like Dr. Risch who is basically misleading here the whole picture. Despite the fact I do not like what Russia has done with my country, I do understand that Neo-Naziz is very powerful in Ukraine. This fact is very scary.

  26. You're going to get ratio'd badly on this one. This man's take is no different than the MSM & every politician/Hollywood type/sports star/blue-check mark/Military Indust Complex. You may seriously want to consider taking it down while you have time & your reputation is still intact.

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