What is going on everyone? Welcome back to the world according to Briggs and today
we're gonna see what's up with the country of Ukraine. Ukraine has been in the news a
whole bunch lately so I thought maybe we could shed a little light on this amazing country
most westerners don't know much about Ukraine as a matter of fact that's like the go-to come
back for all those political junkies and zealots on the internet whenever someone brings up the
country of Ukraine do you even know where Ukraine is it's all the time they say it like you have to
be a Ukrainian historian to have any kind of concern about what's going on in the country
if you haven't watched these what's up videos before these are explainer videos where we give
you facts trivia about a city or in this case a country we look at the history the demographics
tourist spots and a few other things to give you an idea about the place Ukraine and the land that
actually is Ukraine now is a big country and it's got a long history this is a 20-minute
video we're gonna miss some stuff but we'll do what we can alright let's take a look at Ukraine
the history of ukraine is long and very interesting there's evidence of neanderthal
settlements that go as far back as 32 000 bc they were invaded by the mongols at one point so it was
russia and most of this area but they were invaded by the mongols during the middle ages the area
was a key center of the east slavic culture modern day russia got its start in the 9th century in the
area where the capital of ukraine kiev sits today more on that later the territory was split during
the 17th and 18th centuries between poland and the russian empire eventually they had a national
movement and they were recognized as the ukrainian people's republic that was declared on june 23
1917 and in 1922 ukraine joined the soviet union and that's when things got ugly stalin decided
that the farms were now owned by the soviet union and the people that owned them before had to work
them many ukrainians totally unhappy with this situation slaughtered their own livestock rather
than handing it over to the soviet union and there's a lot that goes into that but
as you can imagine stalin was not happy so he sent in the military and of course the secret police
they started resting people that weren't keen on the whole soviet union thing and
they started arresting farmers that weren't producing enough they had really unrealistic
quotas they had to meet so these people start getting arrested well that was supposed to
send a message to all the other farmers to start producing more or whatever magically
come up with whatever they're supposed to have well it backfired because they've arrested all
these farmers that knew how to work the land and production dropped even lower this led to millions
starving to death in what they called the great famine so if things weren't bad enough
then world war ii hits in 1941 the germans invaded ukraine killing millions of ukrainians by 1943
the germans were losing the war and things got a little bit better but it was still bad
ukraine lived under soviet rule until it folded in 1991 and they became an independent country
here's some quick facts about ukraine you should probably know it's the second largest country
by area in europe after russia it is one of the poorest countries in europe with a
very high poverty rate and severe corruption but it is one of the largest grain exporters
in the world so that's good that keeps their people fed it also has the third largest military
in europe after russia and france ukraine is the second most literate country in the world
nearly 100 of ukraine's adult population is literate the only country that beats
them is north korea but we're not really sure if those numbers are real north korea
actually claims everyone over the age of five in the entire country can read
ukraine's population is a little bit odd i mean besides the fact that they lost millions during
soviet rule and world war ii they've had a serious population decline it actually peaked in 1993 with
52 million residents since then they've lost almost 9 million in population they're sitting
right now at 43 million and it's estimated that in the next two decades they will continue to lose
at least 10 million every single census or whatever they call their senses there
the reason for this they have a low birth rate and a high death rate it has serious poverty
issues which has chased people out of the country and then of course they have the ongoing conflict
with russia which if it hasn't killed people it's chased a lot of people out of the country
more on that later about 67 percent of the population of ukraine lives in the urban areas
and their life expectancy is 73 years old 77.8 percent of the population is ukrainian or born
in the ukraine 17.3 percent is russian and everyone else moldovans romanians
belarus bulgarians hungarians and poles make up about four percent eighty-two percent of
ukrainians claim to be religious where only seven percent say they're atheists
when it comes to their industries ukraine is all over the map ukraine is one of the
world's largest grain exporters it produces nearly all types of transportation vehicle
and spacecraft since their independence ukraine has maintained its own space agency called the
state space agency of ukraine or ssau between 1991 when they got their independence in 2007
they've launched six self-made satellites and over 100 launch vehicles they produce and process their
own natural gas and petroleum however they import most of their energy supplies about 80 percent of
their natural gas supply is imported from russia for some freaking reason they have so much
but they still get it from russia which i'm sure has come to a halt right now they have a large
heavy industry base and is one of the largest refiners of metal products in eastern europe
they're also well known for the production of high technology goods and transportation
products they also have the largest nuclear power plant in europe now as far as it and other tech
companies there are over 1 000 it companies in ukraine and in 2017 13 of those made the list
of the 100 best outsourcing service providers in the world they have a lot of tech going on there
so this is normally where we talk about the different neighborhoods
when we're talking about the united states and cities but since we're talking about a country
we're just going to talk about their best cities first of all kiev is not a bad city at all but
probably one of the best cities to live in is harkev i'm sorry if i butchered that my russian
isn't as good as it should be but harkev is near the russian border on the east side of
the ukraine it's like directly east from kiev this is a beautiful city with amazing architecture food
parks great people right now being kind of right there near the russian border it might not be the
best place to be living but all the numbers i'm giving you are non-invasion times arkov has a
population of 1.4 million residents now i'm going to give you how much they make there and stuff in
american terms or us dollars the average salary here is about 510 american dollars and the average
rent for a one bedroom place is about 300 dollars harkov has a lot of excitement they've got great
clubs bars restaurants possible invading army just outside of town you know excitement
during normal times the tourism in Ukraine is pretty good they have
beautiful land great things to do just like any other country like I said they got bars clubs
beautiful cities skiing whatever you want to do you're going to be able to find in
Ukraine but where they shine is the number of castles and ancient fortresses they have
if you are a history buff this is a great place to visit this is a country that's
been invaded by everyone from Germany to the Mongols to the soviets to Russia right now
they've built a lot of fortresses over their history and most of them are still standing
okay so now we'll get to the part where i'm gonna explain what's going on with the russia
ukraine situation and the invasion that's going on right now you have to kind of go back to the old
soviet union days that's a good place to start the soviet union was russia and then they expanded to
include a whole bunch of other countries ukraine georgia belarus uzbekistan armenia azerbaijan
kazakhstan latvia lithuania estonia the list goes on and in 1991 the soviet union collapsed and
all these countries became independent and went their own way well for a lot of Russians that was
perfectly fine I guess because they were you know the whole soviet thing had played out and Russia
wanted to be their own people again and these countries wanted to be their own countries again
but the thing is with Ukraine. Ukraine was the most closely tied to russia than any other country
in the soviet union so it kind of stung when they decided they wanted to be their own thing i mean
at the time miguel gorbachev he was the leader of the soviet union when it faded and his mother was
actually ukrainian and this is the makeup of a lot of families in both Ukraine and russia these two
countries are intertwined in many ways not just economically in a lot of different ways so to
a lot of russians and a lot of Ukrainians russia and Ukraine are just one thing and it's hard for
a lot of them to accept that it's two different countries one of those people that finds it
extremely hard to accept is vladimir putin in this like state of the union thing he did back in 2005
he called the collapse of the soviet union as the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century in that
speech he went on to make it sound like there's a whole bunch of russians being held captive in
the ukraine or you know they're the other side of this border and they can't get back home to
the motherland type thing so vladimir putin has always had it bad for ukraine he wants them back
in 2004 ukraine had a very pro-russia president and in true fashion they had a rigged election
remember ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world there were protests
and everything went crazy then the supreme court of the ukraine said no this was a rigged election
and the guy who would run against him was placed in office of course he had to recover
from being poisoned at this point the poison guy stays president until 2010 when the pro-russia
guy gets re-elected as the president of the ukraine and then protests start in 2013 because
the president yokovich decides he wants to quit doing business with the european union and start
dealing with russia more closely well this goes against what the people had wanted about 63
percent of the population said they were on board with doing business with the european union and
not with russia so these protests turned ugly and the military got involved the president passed
some anti-protest laws and one thing leads to another and 98 protesters die 15 000 are injured
and more than 100 go missing who goes missing in a protest you either go home get arrested or
get killed in this case and then they find you on the street so after that goes down the parliament
removes the pro-russia president and they call for new elections russia takes this opportunity
to go into crimea which is part of ukraine and basically says this is ours now there's a
whole bunch that goes into this but i'm just highlighting some of the weird crap that was
happening during this time so 2014 russia is in crimea they basically annexed it and it is for all
intents and purposes russia's at this point well here we are in 2022 they're doing the same thing
russia continues to carve out portions of ukraine and fold it back into russia the two areas that he
sent troops into yesterday and today are what he called separatist groups these are part of
ukraine that don't want to be in the ukrainian where they want to come to russia at least that's
what they're saying so if vladimir putin gets his way ukraine will just become part of russia like
it was in the old soviet union days part of soviet union not russia you know what i mean in a lot of
ways i get this feeling because if you look at it from his point of view it's sort of like this if
it was happening in the united states let's say the soviet union here in the united states would
look like the united states canada and mexico all together we become one big country years go by and
we decide to split well you know that sucks and we wish it was back to normal but canada's doing
their own thing now mexico's doing their own thing but why is texas leaving that's how vladimir putin
and a lot of russians see the ukraine like it was a state and now it's gone so of all the countries
that left the soviet union the ukraine is like if we lost texas and he wants it back vladimir putin
feels the only reason that ukraine is separate from russia right now is because of outside forces
like the european union or the united states nato whatever putin feels that they've been coaxed away
from russia now if you look at it from another angle he doesn't want ukraine joining nato that's
like putting the enemy in your backyard so as of right now that's kind of the situation with russia
and ukraine where it goes tomorrow the next day by the time you watch this three weeks from now we
could be in a full-blown war with it but right now that's where it stands russia's gone into ukraine
to kind of carve it up they like cut out a piece of pie in 2014 here in 22 they're back for seconds
a lot of famous people have come out of the ukraine most of them came out when it was still
part of the soviet union here's a few as far as sports go you've got fedor emilianenko who is one
of the best ufc or mma fighters ever to fight you have the klitschko brothers who are big in boxing
mila jovovich who played a great part in joan of arc by the way the nazi hunter simon wiesenthal
golden maier who was the fourth prime minister of israel they have a whole bunch of hockey players
and football or soccer players also which i can't pronounce half their names so i'm not even gonna
try so my take on ukraine is it's a beautiful country with amazing people and it is rich in
history they're in a really bad place right now and we hope it works itself out something
good happens with this whole thing but right now things look pretty bleak in the ukraine i follow
one girl who is a lives in kiev and she's a youtuber she took her three-year-old to stay with
family in pole and now she's back in kiev she's gonna get some more stuff and leave if it starts
getting ugly but yeah let's just hope for the best for ukraine maybe it'll work itself out without a
whole bunch of people getting killed all right everyone so that's this video uh you know it's
i'm there's a lot of holes in this video and i understand but it's a less than
20 minute video about a subject that needs about three hours honestly and i'd still be scratching
the surface at a three hour video alright everyone have a great day be nice to each other