Fragile Peace, National Identity, and the Weight of the Past

F. Pasapera & A. Mehmood & K. Bannah
Jul 25
10 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Editors: F. Pasapera & A. Mehmood & K. Bannah

To be noted:

This piece was produced by a student-led team. We are HS and pre-university students who have a keen interest in global affairs. While we are not professional analysts, our work is grounded in careful research, critical questioning, and collective insight. We don’t claim to have all the answers, but we aim to ask necessary questions and invite our peers across different backgrounds into deeper thinking. We welcome constructive feedback via email!

Editor’s note:

For our July piece, our global member body voted to cover Ukraine as well as trace the broader spider web of challenges intertwining with peace efforts across regions like the Democratic Republic of Congo, and beyond. Instead of a standalone piece, this will now form part of a new series called ‘The Elusive Way’. This explores how peace has been interpreted and failed across the globe. Alongside our ongoing Rights & Minds series ‘on Women’s Rights of Yesterday and Today’, we now have two active mini-series. The series will be published every two months to allow space for deeper reflection and editing.

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Peace is often mistaken for tranquility in the streets, for the absence of gunfire, and a handshake captured on camera. But in reality, peace is much harder to achieve. It is not only the end of violence, but the prevention of its return. It is not a ceasefire, but a system strong enough to withstand the next crisis. And perhaps most of all, peace requires a shared vision for the future, something Ukraine historically never had.

Photo by Daniele Franchi on Unsplash — *Photo by* *Daniele Franchi* on *Unsplash*

To understand the Ukraine-Russia conflict, we must look beyond 2022 and the ongoing invasion. Let it be stated plainly: Russia’s full-scale invasion that year, and its earlier acts of aggression, are obvious violations of international law. There is no other way to frame it. From breaching multilateral agreements to violating long-standing memorandums, and from occupation to carrying out massacres, Russia is to be held responsible. However, Russia did not create the cracks in Ukraine; it rather exploited vulnerabilities that had long existed. These vulnerabilities emerged after Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union. Coming out of decades of centralized rule, Ukraine inherited a fractured political system, a struggling economy, and institutions unprepared for democratic governance. Despite efforts to build a stable state, Ukraine’s progress was hindered by lingering Soviet-era legacies, including leaders who still held on to outdated ways of thinking. Such internal deficiencies complicated peacebuilding efforts and left the country open to external manipulation.

Click: Relevant Timeline of Ukraine’s Internal Challenges

1991- Ukraine Gained Independence

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine declared independence. Along with its new sovereignty, Ukraine inherited a large Russian-speaking population and Soviet-era institutions, including deep-rooted corruption and oligarchic influence.

Of these latter two, it was corruption that would later pull Ukraine deeper into internal crises.

1994 - Budapest Memorandum

Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

This agreement, known as the Budapest Memorandum and registered with the United Nations Secretariat, included a clear commitment from Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and borders.

2004 - Orange Revolution

A democratic movement in 2004 sparked mass protests over election fraud. This nationwide uprising, known as the Orange Revolution, led to a re-run of the presidential election between a pro-Russian candidate and a pro-Western one, ultimately resulting in the victory of Viktor Yushchenko (pro-West).

Ukraine began turning more toward the West, which increased tensions with Russia. While this shift towards Europe held long-term promise, such as reducing corruption and decentralizing power, it also revealed just how deep the country’s political divisions and corruption truly were.

2010 – Pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych Elected

In the years that followed, Ukraine shifted back toward Russia, which led to renewed internal tensions i.e., public trust in the democratic process began to weaken.

President Viktor Yanukovych, who came to power promising political stability and economic growth, reversed many anti-corruption reforms and steadily centralized authority. During his presidency, he reinstated a strong semi-presidential system, disregarding the previous democratic gains.

2013–2014 – Euromaidan Revolution

A nationwide protest against the regime of President Yanukovych and its deep corruption in Ukraine’s political system.

On 21 November 2013, Yanukovych abruptly suspended trade and association talks with the European Union, choosing instead to revive economic ties with Russia. This decision triggered mass protests in Kyiv, which caused public outrage over the government's rejection of the EU agreement.
This revolution united Ukrainians to demand an end to corruption, authoritarianism, and the return of democratic values.

2014 – Crimea Annexation & Donbas War

In early 2014, Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum, which guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity, by annexing Crimea. However, this violation was not a single blunt act. The annexation unfolded through a series of calculated steps:

27 February 2014: Seizure of Crimea Begins Just days after President Yanukovych fled during the Euromaidan Revolution, Russian special forces seized government buildings in Crimea and raised the Russian flag. This was the beginning of Russia’s military operation in the region.
1 March 2014: Russian Parliament Approves Military Force President Vladimir Putin requested and received authorization from the Russian parliament to use military force in Ukraine, citing the need to protect Russian-speaking citizens.
16 March 2014: Crimea Referendum A controversial referendum was held in Crimea under Russian occupation. While many pro-Russian Ukrainians claimed overwhelming support for joining the Russian Federation, the vote was widely regarded as illegitimate.
21 March 2014: Formal Annexation of Crimea President Putin signed a law formally annexing Crimea into the Russian Federation.

More detailed key events can be found here: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9476/CBP-9476.pdf

2014–2015 – Minsk I & II Agreements

The main objectives of the Minsk agreements were to establish a ceasefire and provide a roadmap for resolving the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. However, both frameworks were dense and flawed by design, i.e., vague timelines and a lack of enforceable mechanisms.

Ceasefires were repeatedly broken, and neither side fully respected their terms. While Minsk II offered a more detailed framework than its predecessor, it still lacked enforcement, clarity, and genuine commitment from the involved parties.

2016–2019 - Peace talks stall & Zelensky elected

Zelensky promised peace during his campaign, but did not deliver breakthroughs.

Internally, public opposition wanted to grant autonomy to Russian-backed regions, a key demand in the Minsk agreements.

February 2022 – Full-Scale Russian Invasion

2022–present – Ongoing War, Failed Peace Talks

Civilian deaths rose.

Russia held elections in occupied territories to fabricate legitimacy. Meanwhile, internal challenges grew, including war fatigue, economic pressure, and urgent rebuilding needs.

Disclaimer: The timeline above offers a brief overview of Ukraine’s internal challenges. While the article does not reference each event directly, this chronology is provided to give readers essential context on the country’s political history and governance struggles. Readers are encouraged to explore further for a fuller understanding of the ongoing conflict.

Over the past few years, Ukrainian voices have faded into the background noise of global discourse, but this wasn’t the case in early 2022. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in Ukraine, the world was captivated. War in Europe. Ukraine sat on a golden pedestal of global attention. From Monday to Sunday, the headlines were relentless. The images (though devastating) flooded our screens and clung to bus stops and newsstands: cities bombed, families torn apart, and civilians under the rubble. Ukrainians and foreign volunteers alike armed themselves in desperation. The international response was instant: condemnation, sanctions, weapons.

Three years on, a quiet fatigue has set in. Military aid is delayed, and peace talks are vague. The phrase “We must support Ukraine” has become a toneless chant, stripped out of urgency.

What changed? Where did the momentum go? Was Ukraine ever truly at peace, or was the world simply mistaking the absence of war for stability? And if peace is more than just silence between gunshots, what conditions must be met for it to last?

But before we answer those, we must lay the foundation of ‘What is peace?’

‘Peace’ is a simple word, yet filled with complexity. Dictionaries define peace as "freedom from disturbance" and "everything coexisting in perfect harmony”. While true, peace also requires addressing underlying social factors like terror, corruption, and weak internal governance in order to pave the path to that definition. A nation with high levels of these issues cannot be considered peaceful, even in the absence of war.

Regardless of the lack of definition, it is crucial to interpret peace as maintaining conditions that "do not produce wars in the first place, or—as some forms of peace have failed previously—not repeating the same failures" (Wallensteen, 2015: 6-7).

Therefore, by using Wallensteen’s statement as an insight base for this series, peace must assimilate from previous failures. Yet again, across the globe, nations continue to fall into the same cycles of systemic issues: fragile ceasefires in Palestine, resource exploitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and fractured governance in Eastern-Europe. For the latter sentence, Ukraine's past is a salient example of how fractured governance can lead to substantial problems.

Victory as Camouflage for Conquest

To further open, although Ukraine gained independence in 1991, it remained vulnerable to outdated forces, especially Soviet-era influences that continued to shape future discourse. So, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was not just dealing with corruption or weak governance. It was navigating a fractured national identity. One half looked westward toward Europe, while the other half, particularly in eastern regions like Donbas and Crimea, looked east toward Russia, due to a shared language, historical ties, and a sense of post-Soviet familiarity. These weren’t just political differences. They were cultural, historical, and even existential differences in the way life was understood and lived. What did it mean to be Ukrainian? What future was the nation building?

These unanswered questions made Ukraine deeply vulnerable not just to war, but to manipulation. In Donbas, for instance, some Ukrainians felt neglected by the central government. Russia capitalized on this by stoking separatist sentiment, exploiting years of institutional inaction and political neglect. Previous governments had either ignored eastern frustration or suppressed it, hoping national unity would be imposed by force rather than dialogue. This fragmentation hindered Ukraine’s ability to present a unified front in peace negotiations.

While this lack of national cohesion in no way justifies the invasion, it did provide Russia with a pretext for future actions. In Crimea, the presence of a large Russian-speaking population with historical ties to Russia was used by Moscow to justify its intervention under the guise of “protecting Russian speakers.” However, this justification was widely viewed as a reason for territorial expansion. What began as a land grab later led to occupation, which then turned into stalled negotiations that never truly progressed. This fragmentation isn’t unique to Ukraine. Across other regions, breakdowns in governance and national identity have left countries exposed to external powers. A parallel akin to Ukraine can be drawn with Palestine and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Historical Parallels with Palestine

In the early years of occupation, Palestinians, too, lacked a unified and institutional body to represent their interests. This absence was particularly evident during the late Ottoman period and under the British Mandate (1917–1948), when Zionist immigration increased and Jewish institutions such as the Jewish Agency were highly organized and politically active.

British authorities often favored these well-structured Zionist institutions in political and administrative matters. Following the Ottoman Empire’s collapse and the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the League of Nations divided the region into the British and French mandates. Palestinians were left with significantly less autonomy than their counterparts in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon (countries where nationalist movements gained institutional strength). This is not to suggest that Palestinians lacked identity or resistance. On the contrary, those efforts existed but were often fragmented and actively suppressed by colonial policies. What ought to be highlighted from this is that, the absence of a unified political body during critical periods had long-term consequences for Palestinian national aspirations, much like how the early neglect of Russian speakers in Donbas and Crimea enabled external manipulation in Ukraine.

Achieving Peace as a Shared Struggle

What Ukraine’s history reveals is not just a lack of peace, but the illusion of it. Prior to 2022, many considered Ukraine as “peaceful”, simply because the violence had not yet erupted. But beneath the surface, internal displeasure, regional divides, and the absence of a shared national vision had already fractured the state. Peace existed on paper, but not in the lived experiences of its people. This is the illusion: mistaking the absence of immediate war and gunfire for the presence of justice, inclusion, and stability.

As the UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in 2018, “Peace remains elusive, because we fail to act boldly in the face of worsening inequality,[...] and disillusionment with governance.”

From Ukraine to Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and beyond, peace remains an elusive goal, not simply because of internal challenges such as corruption or human rights abuses, but because global standards for peace are often set dangerously low. Even when nations take sincere steps, like: reducing corruption, prioritizing human rights, and improving one's living standards beyond what is expected of them, they remain vulnerable to external forces capable of undoing that progress in a matter of weeks. A salient example of this type of intervention is Belgium’s involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Belgian army intervened twice to support Mobutu’s regime in suppressing Lumumbist resistance. Just months later, Congo’s first democratically elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, was brutally murdered. According to extensive research by Belgian sociologist Ludo De Witte, detailed in his 2003 book The Assassination of Lumumba, Belgian officers played a direct role in his execution. His body was reportedly sawed and dissolved in sulfuric acid in a remote forest. Whether such under-the-table interventions still take place today remains unclear, but one thing is certain: they rarely end on a quiet Monday night.

As we conclude the opening series of The Elusive Way, which aims to showcase and lay the foundation for understanding the global web of challenges to achieving peace, we want to remind our readers that this is only the beginning. In the months ahead, we will revisit regions such as Palestine and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), among others, to explore how focus on peace needs to shift. Rather than pinpointing the problems on the surface, we must re-direct our focus to the root causes.

Message from Rights and Minds:

As part of this article, we reached out to members within Rights and Minds and beyond who either still reside in Ukraine or have migrated due to the ongoing conflict. We asked them:

What do you hope for in the future?

Olenka, one of our members currently living in Ukraine, told us:

“Even if we find a way to move on from this war, there will be other obstacles that weigh us down.” And then, jokingly, added: “But I’m confident [those] won’t kill us.”

Anastasiia, a university student of international relations currently residing in Poland, shared:

“I want people to know that our identity isn’t defined solely by conflict; we’re musicians, artists, students, friends… ordinary people placed into extraordinary circumstances.”