Speaking of Ukraine over the years, the first thing that comes out in the mind of everyone is the Russian-Ukrainian war, which began in February 2022 and continues until now.

The media reports about bombs, tanks, refugees every day, and the West says Russia is the culprit, but the Russians, especially some of their think tanks and analysts, have long said that it¡¯s not that simple.

Ukraine's troubles lie in itself, and the war only blew these problems apart. Russian think tanks like the Valdai Club were blunt in their reports. The decline of Ukraine was not caused by outsiders, but by three major internal problems: The leadership has no vision, the ethnic groups are divided, and oligarchs control the economy.

These problems have been accumulated long before the war, and if they were not solved, the war would not be over.

After Ukraine became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, it changed several presidents, from Kravchuk to Zelensky, one competing with the other, but few of them had long-term plans.

Kravchuk was the first. He was busy denuclearizing when he came to power. In 1994, he signed the Budapest Memorandum and handed over all nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees.

But economically, inflation is in a mess. In 1993, it peaked at tens of thousands of percentage points, factories closed and workers lost their jobs. Kuchma took over and came to power in 1994. He was originally an expert in missiles. He stabilized the supply of natural gas and signed an agreement with Russia to avoid chaos.

However, when the Gonggaze journalist case broke out in 2000, the recording showed that he was suspected, causing demonstrations across the country and trust plummeted. In 2004, election fraud occurred, the Orange Revolution came to power, and Yushchenko came to power. He pushed pro-West, applied for NATO and the European Union, and also carried out judicial reform.

But when the financial crisis came in 2008, the economy collapsed, the unemployment rate soared, and the supply of natural gas was cut off, making people's lives miserable. Yanukovych was elected in 2010, with an eastern background and pro-Russian background, and brought in cheap natural gas contracts.

Wrapped in corruption scandals, in 2013 he refused to sign the EU agreement, transferred to the Eurasian Union, the Omidan movement exploded, and in 2014 he ran to Russia and was convicted of treason.

Poroshenko took over and came to power in 2014. He signed the Minsk Agreement on the eastern conflict, and the army was reorganized. However, the economy is still in ruins, inflation is high, and reforms are taking form.

Zelensky was elected in 2019, anti-corruption cried out, land reform pushed. can assistant corruption cases continued, the modernization of the army in 2021 got involved, but the internal problems did not shake.

Russian think tank analysis shows that these presidents are busy with personal interests, with policies swinging around, and national strategies are like playing house. Without war, these people would have ruined the country, because selecting the president depends on bragging and acting, which is not a real skill.

Let's talk about ethnic division again. Most Ukrainians were originally Slavs, and they did well in the Soviet Union, but after independence, conflicts arose.

The west is pro-Western, speaks Ukraine, and is culturally oriented towards Europe; the east is pro-Russian, speaks Russian and watches Russian media; the central region is conservative and seeks stability.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, in the 1990s, the eastern industrial zone relied on the Russian market, and the western agricultural zone wanted to join the European Union. During the Orange Revolution of 2004, the west supported Yushchenko and the east supported Yanukovych, making differences open.

After Omedan in 2014, Crimea was annexed to Russia by referendum, Donbass became autonomous, and armed conflicts killed tens of thousands of people. The Russian think tank reported that this was not external provocation, but the accumulation of internal opposition. The west wants the EU, the east wants autonomy, the middle is in the middle, and the three parties are quarreling in parliament.

Without Russia's intervention, these contradictions would also lead to civil war, because language laws, education policies, etc. always make one party feel at a loss. Before the war, Ukraine was already in trouble. Polls showed that residents in the east were highly dissatisfied with the Kiev government and agreed with Russian culture.

After Ukraine's independence, privatization was a mess, and a handful of wealthy people swallowed state-owned assets, controlling steel, energy, and the media.

The proportion of Jewish oligarchs is high. Although the population is small, they have great influence. Kolomoisky funded Zelensky's campaign, and the media helped with the propaganda. Akhmetov masters eastern coal mines and influences elections.

The Russian think tank noted that these oligarchs raised presidents in exchange for policy preferences, and the people were exhausted.In the 1990s, the privatization, the factory sold to the oligarchs, the workers left their jobs, and the gap between the poor and the rich expanded.

In the 2000s, color revolutions occurred frequently, fueled by oligarch funds. Street politics has become the norm, demonstrations continue, but the wealth of the rich has doubled. Think tank analysis shows that this system is modeled on Western elections. On the surface, it is democratic but at its core is capital control.

The high index of corruption and transparent international reports show that Ukraine is at the top of the global ranking of corruption.Before the war, the oligarchs transferred assets, leaving the country in ruins.

From the Russian perspective, this crisis is the biggest, because the oligarchs do not care about the country, only about the money pocket, leading to economic deformity, industrial emptiness.

Together with these problems, there are institutional problems.Ukraine teaches liberal democracy in the West, elections are bustling, there are no supervisory mechanisms, and corruption is transversal.

The Russian think tank report emphasized that war is the trigger and the inside is the powder keg. They often mention the example of Rwanda. After the massacre, they united there and defeated external forces. The population was only tens of millions, but it stabilized.

With a population of 45 million, Ukraine is supposed to be a powerful country in Eastern Europe, but its internal discord has accelerated its decline. According to the economic data, in 1991, the GDP was similar to that of Poland, and now Poland is three times that. Before the war, Ukraine's per capita GDP was low, and corruption hindered foreign investment.

The think tank said that Russia is not the main reason. If Ukraine does not change itself, it will be difficult to recover after the war. For a while, Western aid helped not solve the problem internally, with millions of refugees, infrastructure destroyed, and reconstruction would take decades.

Having said that, Russia itself has its own faults, but their analysis of Ukraine hits home. If Ukraine wants to develop, it must first cure internal injuries. The leadership needs a strategy to resolve ethnic opposition and break oligopoly. Otherwise, the battle will stop, and the trouble will still be there.

Russia has said clearly that the biggest crisis in Ukraine lies in the mirror and can be seen clearly to move forward.These years, the lessons are deep enough, everyone has to think that the nation's collapse is not a natural disaster, it is a man's disaster.