Using Government Documents and Open Resources to Understand the Conflict in Ukraine
By Brian Garrison, University of North Dakota, TECHSERT/GODORT
Although attention by the news on Ukraine has fluctuated after the sustained attention during the first month of the conflict, the battle for Ukraine’s sovereignty still rages. Here, we have gathered a mixture of government documents and free resources that detail Ukraine’s history and the conflict....
A good starting place to learn the basic facts about Ukraine - or most countries for that matter - is the CIA World Factbook. This online resource is one of the most used government publications. The database, “produced for US policymakers and coordinated throughout the US Intelligence Community, presents the basic realities about the world in which we live.” Through browsing the CIA World Factbook you can learn many of the basic statistics along various dimensions that enable you to see Ukraine’s uniqueness.
The United States Department of State keeps a news feed and several informational websites updated to let the American public know how the office of the United States’ chief diplomat is framing the recent European conflict.
The State Department’s Office of the Historian produced a Guide to Countries. Among them, the official recognition of Ukraine as a country by the United States is recorded in A Guide to the United States’ History of Recognition, Diplomatic, and Consular Relations, by Country, since 1776: Ukraine.
In 1997, the US Census produced a report detailing how the population of Ukraine self-identified based upon how they reported the identity of their children at birth. The report outlines uncertainty about the future of Ukraine but explains that trends indicate the population moving toward “a stronger attachment to Ukraine.”
The Congressional Research Service authors well-researched reports for members of congress to easily understand and digest issues. By doing a simple search for Ukraine, you may find a series of relevant reports detailing the last several months and years of tension building. The service adds a clock iconto many reports with historical versions that may be compared to understand how an issue has developed over a period of months or even days.
Maps offer a means of understanding all the ways cartographers have represented the geography of the region through time. The David Rumsey Georeferencer enables users to zoom in or out on any area of the world and overlay maps onto the globe at whatever scale a map is available. From continents to cities, one can explore Ukraine in many incarnations. The Library of Congress also offers a wealth of maps in their collections.
Finally, several countries have asserted their intentions to join NATO because of the conflict. NATO has two research guides that detail NATO-Ukraine relations and the recent invasion by Russia.