The location of the new country of Ukraine is still in the same place, however the southern half had split off. Ukraine is near Russia, Poland, Belarus, Romania, and several other small countries. I have expanded the boundary of Russia to now cover the southern half of Ukraine. Since I did that, Russia now borders Moldova, which it hadn't before. Russia also now has access to the Black Sea. Both Russia and Ukraine are still in the northern hemisphere.
I believe that Ukraine will split up due to the lively protests taking place there right now. There is a strong cultural divide between it's people, those who side with Europe and those who side with Russia. The once peaceful protests have now taken a turn towards more violent ones, dividing Ukraine even further. There is also a lack of someone in charge since the president fled the country. These reasons are why I believe that Ukraine has a possibility of splitting.
With the newly made South Ukraine, they may not have a government ready or willing leader, and since most of them favor the Russians, Russia might then adopt South Ukraine.
The boundaries I made were cultural boundaries, for both merging and dividing. For Ukraine, I split it along the boundary of an ethnic divide and language. In the more southern parts of Ukraine, people spoke Russian and identified themselves as Russian. However, towards the North, people said that they were Ukranian and spoke their language.
With the information above, I also made the Russian merge. Since the people had already identified themselves as Russian and spoke Russian, why not unify them?
If Russia grew bigger, then it may gain more economic power in the world market. If Ukraine split, then it would be a nation-state, which brings more power to the state. It also may be able to join the European Union.
