Ukraine/Russia: A Reflection

Throughout the semester, the Ukraine/Russia conflict group covered everything from the beginning Euromaidan Protests, The downing of MH17, economic sanctions, and the military equipment that had ended up in the hands of the rebels. Ukraine is in the midst of one of the biggest political changes since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992, and one of the biggest invasions of a sovereign nation since Germany invaded Poland in 1939. The Eastern Bloc has always been of interest since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Empire, of which Ukraine was a part of until its demise. Ukraine has been the center of European news, due to its proximity to the rest of Europe, making the opinions of their news outlets more interesting and relevant.

Gathering information and data for our blog posts was fairly easy due to the relevance that it has to the European countries that surround Ukraine. In terms of coverage, once the MH17 Disaster occurred, the Western nations were more keenly aware of the dire situation, and were more willing to cover the developments of Ukraine in depth. Working in a group made me keenly aware of deadlines, and allowed corroboration with others to not only discuss what was happening, but allowed for my analysis to be skewed by different views rather than simply my own central idea. Our research was based from historical ties of Russia and Ukraine, but also from the leading news organizations in Europe. The BBC, The Telegraph, Deutsche Welle, and The New York Times all provided different viewpoints from different political vantage points, from state run media to the liberal western media. The diverse attention to news was definitely a benefit, and we were lucky enough that it was able to be encompassed by all these organizations.

The Ukraine/Russia project was interesting,

In that it was my first collaborative project at USF. Group work is demanding because it relies on everyone as cogs in a machine, if one person doesn’t do their work, it jams up everyone else. Learning about the topic was the greatest reward of the blog in general. Being from Russia, this was a topic that was relevant to myself, and I feel that I was able to contribute particular insights into the discussion. The blog was not meant to only inform, it was written as a platform to incite informed discussion with others. I think we were able to have a good balance between information and analysis, and leaving open ended questions for the reader to answer and question themselves. I greatly enjoyed working with my groupmate, and had fun doing it.

Image Citations:

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/headline/public/2014/04/22/2014/04/14/4085-4-18-fe0216-chernobyl-01.jpg?itok=azWaXC-n

http://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.1578440!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/image.jpg