The Cold War and Ukraine

The Cold War and Ukraine: East-Central Europe and Ukraine in the Soviet security system

This lecture explores how WWII reshaped East-Central Europe and how Ukraine became a key Soviet outpost in the emerging Cold War order.

📌 Key topics include:
– Ukraine’s role as a Soviet buffer zone after 1945
– Soviet repressions in Western Ukraine and UPA resistance
– Deportations (Operation West) and population exchanges with Poland
– Stalin’s antisemitic campaign and the “Doctors’ Plot”
– Border settlements with Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary
– Incorporation of Transcarpathia into Soviet Ukraine
– Creation of the Soviet bloc and Warsaw Pact

⚠️ Critical insights:
– The USSR sought security through ethnic homogenisation and authoritarian control
– Ukraine’s formal “sovereignty” in international law was symbolic under Stalin
– Repressions, deportations, and manipulation of minority groups defined Soviet security strategy

The lecture closes by linking this Cold War order to the modern era: the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine shattered the postwar security system born at Yalta and Potsdam.

📚 This lecture is part of the course Ukraine: The (Un)finished Second World War — exploring Ukraine in WWII, global conflict, historical narratives, and modern “memory wars” over the “Ukrainian question.” The full course with additional teaching materials and tests is available here:
https://www.udemy.com/course/ukraine-the-unfinished-second-world-war/?srsltid=AfmBOoqrwFcB17zFLVFpLttL_IT942c4rpfa5Anar_RlF9a6XQG2vzjx

#ColdWar #UPA #OperationWest #Transcarpathia #SovietSecurity #Stalinism #PostwarEurope