Point Guard

Nearly a century as a Soviet satellite nation was difficult and often brutal for Ukrainians, and the past decade of independence has not been much easier. With the help of the U.S. National Guard, however, life in Ukraine is getting easier -- and safer.

More than 85 years ago, while caught in the upheaval of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Ukraine struggled to remain independent, but eventually withered under the Red Army's dominance and became one of the original constituent states of the U.S.S.R.

Soviet authority proved fickle for the region.

Although Vladimir Lenin allowed a certain amount of autonomy, Josef Stalin's heavy fist came down hard on Ukraine. The dictator requisitioned all the area's grain for other Soviet nations, which caused famine in Ukraine, leading to millions of deaths.

World War II proved no less devastating to the nation, with the area serving as the main battleground for the German advance during 1941 and 1942, and the Russian advance of 1943 and 1944. Further trauma swept across the ravaged landscape as 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews were systematically massacred by invading Nazi troops.

Things seemed to improve in the post-war years and into the 1960s when Leonid Brezhnev -- a native Ukrainian -- served as Soviet president. But the region once again suffered stunning and unprecedented devastation in 1986 when a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station exploded, causing widespread contamination and issuing a long-term health and environmental crisis.

In 1991, just months after the U.S.S.R. began to crumble, Ukraine declared its independence, became a charter member of the Commonwealth of Independent States and began to slowly shrug off the shrouds of oppression and economic depression.


Building Relations
A year after the Soviet Union shattered, the United States initiated the National Guard State Partnership Program, which paired certain states with specific countries -- particularly non-NATO nations -- with the deceptively simple goal of improving bilateral relations.

As part of the program, California's National Guard was aligned with Ukraine.

Although Guard members received "something of a cold response in the beginning," according to Lt. Col. Terry Knight, director of pubic affairs for the California National Guard, the situation has drastically improved.

In fact, the program is now celebrating a decade of interaction addressing the environmental, security and infrastructure issues that continue to cripple socio-economic progress in the region.

As a part of the effort, new technologies that in the United States have allowed for better mobile communication between security personnel and emergency agencies; safer examination of cargo entering and leaving ports; and efficient and thorough environmental cleanup, are finding their way to Ukraine.

During the past 10 years, delegations of Guardsmen and various volunteer experts have made several trips to Ukraine, and last year, a small contingent of Ukrainians spent two weeks in California.

The Ukrainians stayed at the California Highway Patrol's training academy in Sacramento, and visits to the United States-Mexico border in San Ysidro and the Port of Oakland were included in their extremely busy agenda.

In the Ukraine, national security is in its infancy and organized crime is rife. Security and border issues continue to be of great concern for the country, which is surrounded by Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Moldova.

Tensions along the Ukraine-Transnistria border are especially high, due in large part to a vast cache of arms currently under the tenuous control of the former Russian 14th Army, which was deployed in the region for years. Following the U.S.S.R.'s collapse, most conscripted members of the unit headed home, but others stayed on as a kind of nonaligned, ungoverned, mercenary force.

Ostensibly providing protection to the Slavic people of Transnistria -- a rebel state in eastern