The Ukraine (or Ukraine) is one of those areas that has had a little more
history than is advisable, and a lot of the present conflict comes from
that. The dividing line is along the Dnipr river, with the area to the east
called the Left Bank (though it is on the right if you look at a map), and
the area to the west called the Right Bank (think about coming downriver
from Moscow, if that helps).
Ukraine means 'border', and although the area was the centre of the original
Russian civilisation, Kievan Rus', it was laid waste by the Mongols under
Chingis Khan, and never really recovered.
In early modern times, the south of the modern Ukraine was inhabited by
Moslem Crimean Tatars, who were deported to central Asia by the tidy-minded
Stalin. The northern areas were controlled first by the Grand Duchy of
Lithuania, and then by the unified Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania. The
large Polish and Jewish communities of the area that were wiped out by
Stalin and Hitler respectively date from that period.
Poland's name for Ukraine in that era was "Dzikie pole" - the wild fields,
and the territory was controlled by powerful and cruel Ruthenian (Ukrainian)
magnates like Jarema Wisniowiecki, and the Cossack raiders of the
Zaporozhian Sich (Zaoporozhia = beyond the waterfalls, Sich = habitation).
The Cossacks rebelled against Polish rule in the 1640s, under Bohdan
Chmielnicki, the national founder in the Ukrainian mythos, and fell under
the influence of Moscow. For several hundred years, the Left (East) bank was
under Russian rule, and the Right (West) bank was under Polish rule.
This led to differences in language (Ukrainian spoken in the Polish areas,
Russian in the Russian areas), and religion (Orthodox in Russia, Uniate
(Greek-rite Catholics) in the Polish areas). There were also differences in
political tradition - one old rhyme from Ukraine runs "Musi na Rusi, a w
Polsce, jak to chce" (In Russia, one must; in Poland, it's however you
want).
After the collapse of the Commonwealth in the 1790s, modern Ukraine was
divided between Austria (which took over part of the Polish territories in
the west) and Russia. When Austria and Russia collapsed in 1918 and 1917,
Ukraine had a brief period of national independence, which was quickly
squashed by the Red Army. When Poland won the 1920 Polish-Soviet war ('the
miracle on the Vistula'), it gained large parts of the former Commonwealth
in the peace settlement. So from 1920 to 1939, Poland controlled a large
part of the Right (West) bank, particularly the mainly-Polish cities of Lviv
(Lwow) and Volin (Wolyn). The area was known collectively as the Kresy
(borderlands) and was home to some vicious partisan warfare between Polish
and Ukrainian nationalists, whose scars still linger.
When the USSR invaded Poland in Sept. 1939, a large swathe of Polish
territory was taken into the new Ukrainian SSR, and Lviv and Volin became
Ukrainian cities. After the war, Stalin forcibly deported all Poles and the
few surviving Jews (Ukraine had a bad war, its nationalists sided with
Hitler against Stalin).
The result has been that places like Lviv still retain historical and
cultural links with the West, in a way that places closer to Russia never
can. Add to that the influence of the EU - whose border is only a few miles
from Lviv, and the religious orientation towards Rome, and it's clear that
western Ukraine and eastern Ukraine are very different beasts.
These historical divisions are perfectly reflected in the two candidates,
even though both come from Russian areas. Yushchenko (opposition leader) is
pro-EU, pro-western, and is seen as the good guy by most Europeans, and
particularly Poles. Yanukovych, the prime minister, is seen as a Russifier, who will keep the country firmly oriented to Moscow, and equally firmly in the pockets of the oil and gas barons - whose assets lie mainly in the east.
8:21:54 PM 
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