Lojaalsuskriis ja rahvusarmee formeerimine Ukrainas kolme Ukraina-Vene sõja kontekstis [Loyalty crisis and the formation of a national army in Ukraine in the context of three Ukrainian-Russian wars]

Abstract

The article compares three Russian-Ukrainian wars which took place respectively through 1917–1918, 1919–1920 and since February 2014. In all these wars, Ukrainian troops fought for independence, but the diversity of Ukraine allowed Soviet Russia and the Russian Federation to establish a number of power centres which played at Ukrainian loyalties – be it to Russia at the imperial level, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic at the national level or a number of smaller people’s republics at the local level, with the aim of preventing the establishment of unity among Ukrainians.