The cultural and political differences besetting Ukraine are the product of very different patterns of regional settlement. Among these, the settlement of eastern and southern Ukraine stands out, for in these traditionally Russophone regions, political conflict has arisen whenever the legitimacy of Russian culture in Ukraine has been challenged.

A Very Brief History of Russian Settlement

After the destruction of Kiev by Batu Khan in 1240, the land 'beyond the rapids' [za porog] of the Dnieper River became a no man's land disputed by the Kingdom of Muscovy, the Tatar Khanate, and the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom. It is in this region (shown in Figure 1 in yellow) that the political life of the Ukrainian people begins, as the settlers known to history as Cossacks sought to preserve their independence, while defending their traditional Orthodox Christian faith.

One of the earliest distinctions that arose among them is the geographic distinction between those who settled west of the Dnieper River, known as the Right Bank as the river flows, and those who settled east of the river, known as the Left Bank.

Figure 1: Simplified historical map of Ukrainian borders: 1654-2014.[1]

The Left Bank, which includes the current regions of Crimea, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkov, Kherson, Lugansk, Odessa, Nikolayevsk, and Zaporozhye, forms a relatively compact ethnic and cultural community that is distinguished by the strong influence of Russian culture, even where the majority of the population defines itself as Ukrainian.

In the eastern regions that supported Viktor Yanukovych in the 2004 elections, for example, the percentage of the population that considered itself 'Russian' was only 34.5 percent, but the percentage of those who considered themselves to be primarily 'Russian speakers' was 82.1 percent (see Table 1).

Table 1. Percentage of Russians and Russian speakers in regions that supported V. Yanukovych.