SOVIET UKRAINE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 228, 23 June 1941, Page 7

SOVIET UKRAINE

Immense Economic Value STRATEGIC GATEWAY From two points of view the Ukraine, the big Soviet Republic in south-western Russia, is a territory of the-greatest strategic importance in the Russo-German conflict, first because it is the granary of the Soviet Union, the loss of which would mean a crippling blow to Russia’s staple food supplies, and second because it is a gateway to the Soviet’s largest industrial and oil-producing areas east of the Urals. It will be recalled that the annexation of Soviet Ukraine was prominently included in Hitler’s territorial ambitions as set out in “Mein Kampf.” The Ukraine, which is one of the largest and most prosperous republics of the Soviet Union, has a population of 26,000,000. With the taking over by the Soviet Union of East Galicia after the German penetration of Poland and the subsequent annexation of Bessarabia from Rumania, a further 7,000.000 Ukrainians came under the Russian Government. Spread over eastern Europe and of Slav origin, the Ukrainians for centuries were under the domination of the Polish and Russian empires. Collectively they have had no frontiers, their homelands extending from the Carpathians to the Black Sea. Tlie centuries of revolts and suppres sion had not clarified the position of the Ukrainians by the 20th century In 1914 Galicia and Bukovina were provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Bessarabia and East -Ukraine, also the greater part of the old Kingdom of Poland, were incorporated in the Russian Empire. Effects of Great War.

The Great War. which saw the defeat of Germany and the collapse of both Tsarist Russia and Austria Hungary, had profound effects on t-be Ukrainian people, and Bukovina came under the Rumanian Government. The Ukraine fell Into confusion. It became first the battlefield of Bolsheviks and “White” Russians and later the scene of warfare between Russians, Poles and others. Ultimately the Ukraine was partitioned between Poland and Soviet Russia, since when the two sections of the Ukrainian people have followed different destinies. . The Soviet Union as a whole, according to the census of 1939, had a population of 170.467,000 ISI ,663,000 males), this excluding the populations added during the present war. The full name of the entire territory is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, comprising Russia proper (the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist. Republic), and other republics, including the Ukraine.