Sunday, May 04, 2014

These Maps Will Help You Better Understand the Ukraine Conflict

  1. If there's one thing the current situation in Ukraine is lacking, it's clarity. The dearth of properly verified knowledge goes right down to the absurd debates of whether troops wearing Russian uniforms and driving Russian vehicles are actually Russian or just Crimean self-defense units. Or something else entirely. 
  2. While maps can't help with that question, they can illuminate many other aspects of the current crisis. Which is why we have compiled this collection to show some underlying truths about the conflict that the world is watching.

    1. Language and identity
  3. Ukraine is, in many ways, a divided country. Some of that is reflected in the language spoken by its people, as this illustration shows:
  5. A different twist on the same data, the next map illustrates the percentage of people for whom Russian is their mother tongue. In most of the country's west, including the capital, Kiev, it's less than 10 percent. Go further east, though, and percentages rise until one out of every two people is a native Russian speaker. This, by the way, is also the situation in Crimea.
  7. 2. Ethnicity and nationality
  8. The figures about language correlate with other aspects of Ukrainians' identity. Look at this map of how many of them were ethnic Russians in 2001, and it's the same east-west-divide again:
  10. Ten years later and the data tells a similar story. This time, the figures are for Russian passport holders among Ukraine's citizens. The national average is 17.3 percent, but Crimea comes in at 58.3 percent, with the city of Sevastopol even reaching 71.6 percent.
  12. 3. Voting history
  13. By now the east-west pattern should be familiar. Here's how it plays out in recent voting history. Supporting former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko? Very much a West Ukrainian phenomenon. Ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's strongholds, meanwhile, are in the south and the east of the country.
  15. 4. Military forces
  16. The proportions on this map appear to be a little warped, but it still gets the salient points across, showing where various military units are stationed on Ukrainian territory.
  18. Combine that with this map of where Russian forces are based in Crimea (and we're talking about their regular positions, not the current ones), and you can see why the international community is keeping a close watch on everything happening in Ukraine these days.
  20. 5. Energy interests
  21. How does Russian gas reach buyers in Europe? The answer is, unsurprisingy, through Ukraine. This map shows how dependent Russia is on Ukraine to trade its gas.
  23. Finally, here are two maps showing an outside view of Ukraine. The first, compiled by the data analytics team at Twitter, shows where in the world the situation in Ukraine was being discussed in February. The focus is clearly on Europe and the U.S., and it's worth remembering that other regions, like South America, had their own troubles at the same time.
  25. The other map is roughly 500 years old. Drawn by Ottoman admiral Piri Reis, it shows Crimea and the surrounding waters. With its intricate shorelines and gilt accents, it is a thing of beauty.
    If only everything was so simple.
  26. Reference: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/495846.html
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