The Territorial-Political Situation in Southern and Eastern Macro-Districts of Ukraine in the Context of Problems of National Security
Myroslav Dnistryanskyi
Doctor of Geographical Sciences, Professor
The territorial-political differentiation of Ukraine should be studied in the context of the country’s macro-districts, which differ by historical-geographical and socio-economic development, ethnic and religious composition of the population, as these factors are crucial in differentiating political and geographical sentiments in Ukraine. While the territorial-political situation in each of the 12 macro-districts, which manifests itself first of all in regional peculiarities of geopolitical consciousness and electoral and political activity of the population, due to internal instability and external destructive influences, is quite complicated, in southern and eastern macro-districts (Odesa (Odesa region), Central Black Sea (Mykolaiv and Kherson regions), Dnieper-Kharkiv (Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia and Kharkiv regions), Donetsk (Donetsk and Luhansk regions), Crimean (the Crimea) tendencies of its development are extremely threatening and directly are one of the main problems of national security.
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Finally, let’s point out that the specific features of political relations in southern and eastern macro-districts of Ukraine, and their complications at the beginning of the 19th century were caused by both, some objective historical and cultural conditions and by the absence of effective internal Ukrainian geopolitics in the 1990s, as well as by Russia’s targeted large-scale geopolitical pressure. Along with external factors, no less a threat of further political developments in these macro-districts is insufficient establishment of national political identity against the background of the preserved Soviet identity, wide spread of Russian geopolitical projects and the extensive network of anti-Ukrainian political centers. The reintegration of the occupied territories into Ukraine is possible only through peaceful means as a result of consolidation of the Ukrainian society, international pressure, changes in the socio-political and economic situation in Russia.
