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Ukraine invasion — explained

The roots of Russia's invasion of Ukraine go back decades and run deep. The current conflict is more than one country fighting to take over another; it is — in the words of one U.S. official — a shift in "the world order." Here are some helpful stories to make sense of it all.

Russia's at war with Ukraine. Here's how we got here

Becky Sullivan

Demonstrators wave Ukrainian flags as they gather in central Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, on Oct. 6, 2019, to protest against broader autonomy for separatist territories. Protesters chanted, "No to surrender!" and some held placards critical of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Police said the crowd swelled to around 10,000 people. Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Demonstrators wave Ukrainian flags as they gather in central Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, on Oct. 6, 2019, to protest against broader autonomy for separatist territories. Protesters chanted, "No to surrender!" and some held placards critical of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Police said the crowd swelled to around 10,000 people.

As Russian forces begin an all-out assault on Ukraine after months of troop buildup and failed diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and its European allies to head off conflict, the situation for Kyiv is the most high-stakes in the country's 30-year history.

Since breaking from the Soviet Union, Ukraine has wavered between the influences of Moscow and the West, surviving scandal and conflict with its democracy intact.

Now it faces its biggest test as Russia threatens its very existence as an independent country.

Since the illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, many Ukrainians have turned away from Moscow and toward the West, with popular support on the rise for joining Western alliances such as NATO and the European Union.

Why Luhansk and Donetsk are key to understanding the latest escalation in Ukraine

But along the country's eastern border with Russia, separatists backed by Moscow took control of two regions in 2014 . Violence in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 14,000 people in the years since, according to International Crisis Group research. Russia's recognition of the two regions' independence set the stage for moving its troops into Ukraine.

Read on to understand how Ukraine came to where it is today.

The 1990s: Independence from the Soviet Union

1989 and 1990

Anti-communist protests sweep central and Eastern Europe, starting in Poland and spreading throughout the Soviet bloc. In Ukraine, January 1990 sees more than 400,000 people joining hands in a human chain stretching some 400 miles from the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk to Kyiv, the capital, in the north-central part of Ukraine. Many wave the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag that had been banned under Soviet rule.

Representatives of the Ukrainian Catholic Church protest the visit of Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Alexi II to Kyiv on Oct. 29, 1990. Efrem Lucatsky/AP hide caption

July 16, 1990

The Rada, the new Ukrainian parliament formed out of the previous Soviet legislature, votes to declare independence from the Soviet Union. Authorities recall Ukrainian soldiers from other parts of the USSR and vote to shut down the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine.

Following a failed coup in Moscow, the Ukrainian parliament declares independence a second time on Aug. 24, a date that is still celebrated as Ukraine's official Independence Day. In December, Ukrainians vote to make their independence official when they approve the declaration by a landslide 92% of votes in favor. The Soviet Union officially dissolves on Dec. 26.

Ukrainians demonstrate in front of the Communist Party's Central Committee headquarters in Kyiv on Aug. 25, 1991, the day after Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union. Anatoly Sapronenko/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

As NATO allies contemplate adding central and Eastern European members for the first time, Ukraine formally establishes relations with the alliance, though it does not join. NATO's secretary-general visits Kyiv, and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk visits NATO headquarters in Brussels.

December 1994

After the Soviet Union's collapse, Ukraine is left with the world's third-largest nuclear stockpile. In a treaty called the Budapest Memorandum , Ukraine agrees to trade away its intercontinental ballistic missiles, warheads and other nuclear infrastructure in exchange for guarantees that the three other treaty signatories — the U.S., the U.K. and Russia — will "respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine."

President Bill Clinton (from left), Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk join hands in 1994 after signing a nuclear disarmament agreement. Under the agreement, Ukraine, the world's third-largest nuclear power at the time, said it would turn all its strategic nuclear arms over to Russia for destruction. Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

1994 to 2004

In 10 years as president, Leonid Kuchma helps transition Ukraine from a Soviet republic to a capitalist society, privatizing businesses and working to improve international economic opportunities. But in 2000, his presidency is rocked by scandal over audio recordings that reveal he ordered the death of a journalist. He remains in power about four more years.

The 2000s: Wavering between the West and Russia

The presidential election pits Kuchma's incumbent party — led by his hand-picked successor, Viktor Yanukovych, and supported by Russian President Vladimir Putin — against a popular pro-democracy opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko.

In the final months of the campaign, Yushchenko falls mysteriously ill, is disfigured and is confirmed by doctors to have been poisoned.

Yanukovych wins the election amid accusations of rigging. Massive protests follow , and the public outcry becomes known as the Orange Revolution. After a third vote, Yushchenko prevails.

Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-Western hero of the Orange Revolution, became the third president of an independent Ukraine. Yulia Tymoshenko (left) became prime minister. Maxim Marmur/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

January 2005

Yushchenko takes office as president, with Yulia Tymoshenko as prime minister.

Following efforts by Yushchenko and Tymoshenko to bring Ukraine into NATO, the two formally request in January that Ukraine be granted a "membership action plan," the first step in the process of joining the alliance.

U.S. President George W. Bush supports Ukraine's membership, but France and Germany oppose it after Russia voices displeasure.

In April, NATO responds with a compromise : It promises that Ukraine will one day be a member of the alliance but does not put it on a specific path for how to do so.

An employee of the state-owned Russian natural gas company Gazprom works at the central control room of the company's headquarters in Moscow on Jan. 14, 2009. Yuri Kadobnov/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

January 2009

On Jan. 1, Gazprom, the state-owned Russian gas company, suddenly stops pumping natural gas to Ukraine, following months of politically fraught negotiations over gas prices. Because Eastern and central European countries rely on pipelines through Ukraine to receive gas imports from Russia, the gas crisis quickly spreads beyond Ukraine's borders .

Under international pressure to resolve the crisis, Tymoshenko negotiates a new deal with Putin, and gas flows resume on Jan. 20. Much of Europe still relies on Russian gas today .

Yanukovych is elected president in February. He says Ukraine should be a "neutral state," cooperating with both Russia and Western alliances like NATO.

Ukrainian prosecutors open criminal investigations into Tymoshenko, alleging corruption and misuse of government resources. In October, a court finds her guilty of "abuse of power" during the 2009 negotiations with Russia over the gas crisis and sentences her to seven years in prison, prompting concerns in the West that Ukrainian leaders are persecuting political opponents.

Anti-government protesters guard the perimeter of Independence Square, known as Maidan, in Kyiv on Feb. 19, 2014. Protesters were calling for the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych over corruption and an abandoned trade agreement with the European Union. Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images hide caption

2014: The Maidan revolution and Crimea's annexation

November 2013 through February 2014

Just days before it is to be signed, Yanukovych announces that he will refuse to sign an association agreement with the European Union to bring Ukraine into a free trade agreement. He cites pressure from Russia as a reason for his decision.

The announcement sparks huge protests across Ukraine — the largest since the Orange Revolution — calling for Yanukovych to resign. Protesters begin camping out in Kyiv's Maidan, also known as Independence Square, and occupy government buildings, including Kyiv's city hall and the justice ministry.

In late February, violence between police and protesters leaves more than 100 dead in the single bloodiest week in Ukraine's post-Soviet history.

Ahead of a scheduled impeachment vote on Feb. 22, Yanukovych flees, eventually arriving in Russia. Ukraine's parliament votes unanimously to remove Yanukovych and install an interim government, which announces it will sign the EU agreement and votes to free Tymoshenko from prison.

The new government charges Yanukovych with mass murder of the Maidan protesters and issues a warrant for his arrest.

Russia declares that the change in Ukraine's government is an illegal coup. Almost immediately, armed men appear at checkpoints and facilities in the Crimean Peninsula. Putin at first denies they are Russian soldiers but later admits it.

Anti-government protesters clash with police in Kyiv's Maidan despite a truce agreed between the Ukrainian president and opposition leaders on Feb. 20, 2014. Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images hide caption

With Russian troops in control of the peninsula, the Crimean parliament votes to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. A public referendum follows, with 97% of voters favoring secession, although the results are disputed.

Putin finalizes the Russian annexation of Crimea in a March 18 announcement to Russia's parliament. In response, the U.S. and allies in Europe impose sanctions on Russia. They have never recognized Russia's annexation. It remains the only time that a European nation has used military force to seize the territory of another since World War II.

With some 40,000 Russian troops gathered on Ukraine's eastern border, violence breaks out in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas — violence that continues to this day. Russian-supported separatist forces storm government buildings in two eastern regions, Donetsk and Luhansk. They declare independence from Ukraine as the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic, though they remain internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. Russia denies that its troops are on Ukrainian soil, but Ukrainian officials insist otherwise.

A man holds a Crimean flag in front of the Crimean parliament building in Simferopol, Ukraine, on March 17, 2014. People in Crimea overwhelmingly voted to secede from Ukraine during a referendum vote on March 16, 2014, and the Crimean parliament declared independence and formally asked Russia to annex Crimea. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images hide caption

The pro-West politician Petro Poroshenko, a former government minister and head of the Council of the National Bank of Ukraine, is elected Ukraine's president. He promotes reform, including measures to address corruption and lessen Ukraine's dependence on Russia for energy and financial support.

Sept. 5, 2014

Representatives from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany meet in Belarus to attempt to negotiate an end to the violence in the Donbas. They sign the first Minsk agreement, a deal between Ukraine and Russia to quiet the violence under a fragile cease-fire. The cease-fire soon breaks , and fighting continues into the new year.

Ukrainian troops train with small arms on March 13, 2015, outside Mariupol, Ukraine. The Minsk II cease-fire agreement, which continued to hold despite being violated more than 1,000 times, was nearing the one-month mark. Andrew Burton/Getty Images hide caption

2015 through 2020: Russia looms

February 2015

The Minsk group meets again in Belarus to find a more successful agreement to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine, resulting in the Minsk II agreement . It too has been unsuccessful at ending the violence. From 2014 through today, more than 14,000 people have been killed, tens of thousands wounded and more than a million displaced.

Together, the annexation of Crimea and the Russian-backed violence in the east have pushed Ukrainian public sentiment toward the West, strengthening interest in joining NATO and the EU.

2016 and 2017

As fighting in the Donbas continues, Russia repeatedly strikes at Ukraine in a series of cyberattacks, including a 2016 attack on Kyiv's power grid that causes a major blackout. In 2017, a large-scale assault affects key Ukrainian infrastructure , including the National Bank of Ukraine and the country's electrical grid. (Cyberattacks from Russia have continued through the present; the latest major attack targeted government websites in January 2022.)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy greets lawmakers during the solemn opening and first sitting of the new parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, in Kyiv on Aug. 29, 2019. Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

In April, comedian and actor Volodymyr Zelenskyy is elected president in a landslide rebuke of Poroshenko and the status quo, which includes a stagnating economy and the conflict with Russia.

During his campaign, Zelenskyy vowed to make peace with Russia and end the war in the Donbas.

His early efforts to reach a solution to the violence are slowed by U.S. President Donald Trump, who briefly blocks U.S. military aid to Ukraine and suggests to Zelenskyy that he should instead work with Putin to resolve the crisis .

In a phone call with Trump in July 2019, Zelenskyy requests a visit to the White House to meet with Trump about U.S. backing of Ukraine's efforts to push off Russia. Trump asks Zelenskyy for "a favor" : an investigation into energy company Burisma and the Bidens. A White House whistleblower complains, leading to Trump's first impeachment in December 2019.

Several U.S. officials later testify that Zelenskyy was close to announcing such an investigation, though he ultimately demurs, saying Ukrainians are "tired" of Burisma .

Russian troops take part in drills at the Kadamovskiy firing range in the Rostov region of southern Russia on Dec. 14, 2021. AP hide caption

2021: The crisis escalates

Russia sends about 100,000 troops to Ukraine's borders, ostensibly for military exercises. Although few analysts believe an invasion is imminent, Zelenskyy urges NATO leadership to put Ukraine on a timeline for membership. Later that month, Russia says it will withdraw the troops , but tens of thousands remain.

Two years after his entanglement with Trump, Zelenskyy visits the White House to meet with President Biden . Biden emphasizes that the U.S. is committed to "Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression" but repeats that Ukraine has not yet met the conditions necessary to join NATO.

Russia renews its troop presence near the Ukraine-Russia border , alarming U.S. intelligence officials, who travel to Brussels to brief NATO allies on the situation. "We're not sure exactly what Mr. Putin is up to, but these movements certainly have our attention," says U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Biden, speaking with Putin on a phone call, urges Russia not to invade Ukraine , warning of "real costs" if Russia does so.

Putin issues a contentious set of security demands . Among them, he asks NATO to permanently bar Ukraine from membership and withdraw forces stationed in countries that joined the alliance after 1997, including Romania and Balkan countries. Putin also demands a written response from the U.S. and NATO.

2022: Russia moves in

Leaders and diplomats from the U.S., Russia and European countries meet repeatedly to avert a crisis. In early January , Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov tells U.S. officials that Russia has no plans to invade Ukraine.

The State Department orders the families of embassy staff to leave Ukraine on Jan. 23. NATO places forces on standby the next day, including the U.S. ordering 8,500 troops in the United States to be ready to deploy.

Representatives from the U.S. and NATO deliver their written responses to Putin's demands on Jan. 26. In the responses, officials say they cannot bar Ukraine from joining NATO, but they signal a willingness to negotiate over smaller issues like arms control.

French President Emmanuel Macron (right) meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Feb. 7, 2022, for talks in an effort to find common ground on Ukraine and NATO. Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Diplomatic efforts pick up pace across Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz travel between Moscow and Kyiv. Biden orders the movement of 1,000 U.S. troops from Germany to Romania and the deployment of 2,000 additional U.S. troops to Poland and Germany.

Russia and Belarus begin joint military exercises on Feb. 10, with some 30,000 Russian troops stationed in the country along Ukraine's northern border.

The U.S. and the U.K. urge their citizens to leave Ukraine on Feb. 11. Biden announces the deployment of another 2,000 troops from the U.S. to Poland.

In mid-February, the fighting escalates between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces in the two eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Separatist leaders call for evacuations. "In our view, what is happening in Donbas today is, in fact, genocide," says Putin on Feb. 15 — a false claim that Western officials say Putin is using to create a pretext for an invasion.

Russia continues to build its troop presence on its border with Ukraine. Estimates range from 150,000 to 190,000 troops . U.S. officials, including Biden, increase the urgency of their warnings, saying that Russia has decided to invade.

On Feb. 21, Putin formally recognizes the independence of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic — including territory claimed by separatists but controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces. He orders Russia's military to deploy troops there under the guise of a "peacekeeping" mission.

In response, Biden declares the move " the beginning of a Russian invasion ." Together, the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union enact a broad set of sanctions targeting Russian banks and oligarchs.

On Feb. 24, Russian forces launch a devastating assault on Ukrainian territory — the largest such military operation in Europe since the end of World War II. Missiles rain down on Ukraine's cities and columns of Russian troops from neighboring Belarus and from Russian-held Crimea reportedly begin streaming into the countryside. Ukrainian forces reportedly try to hold back the Russian advance on several fronts.

Located in eastern Europe, Ukraine is the second-largest country on the European continent after Russia.

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Follow Ukraine’s 30-year struggle for independence with this visual timeline

Since the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse, Ukraine has had to contend with neighboring Russia’s tightening grip and expanding power.

Russian forces invaded Ukraine early on February 24, 2022, following an ominous yearlong military buildup and 30 years of Ukrainian independence after the Soviet Union fell apart in December 1991. The country of nearly 45 million people, assaulted from Belarus to the north, Russia to the east, and Russian-controlled Crimea in the south, is strategically positioned between Russia and the rest of Europe—including a swath of eastern European nations once under the Soviet sphere that have since joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an expansion of the Western defensive alliance that Russia views as a profound threat.

Russian interventions in other former Soviet-bloc countries have led to several still disputed regions known as “frozen conflict” zones, including along Ukraine’s border. Ukraine has deep historical and cultural ties with Russia. But its efforts to throw off Russian domination in recent years have resulted in losses of Ukrainian lives and territory. This includes the Crimean Peninsula, annexed in 2014, followed soon after by Russian seizures of large regions of eastern Ukraine—and, in early 2022, an assault on the entire country.

Ukraine declares independence as the Soviet Union is collapsing in 1991.

Ukraine joins a collaborative partnership with NATO. It gives up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for a signed agreement from Russia, the U.S., and the U.K. to protect its sovereignty.

Disputed elections in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004 set off Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” and Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” protesting corruption and Russian influence.

Ukraine and Georgia begin to pursue membership in the NATO alliance. Later that summer, Russia backs separatists in breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Ukraine begins talks to form ties with the European Union.

Protests erupt in Kyiv’s Maidan Square over the government’s withdrawal from EU talks. More than 100 protestors are killed; the Moscow-backed Ukrainian president flees to Russia.

Russia seizes control of the Crimean Peninsula and annexes the territory.

Pro-Russian separatists seize control of parts of Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk; the 2015 Minsk II peace agreement quells some of the violence, but the region suffers more than 13,000 casualties by the end of 2021.

In 2019 Ukraine passes a constitutional amendment to pursue NATO and EU membership. The following year it becomes a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner, cooperating on missions and exercises.

2021-February 2022

Russia builds up a massive military presence along Ukraine’s border. Russian president Vladimir Putin orders troops into separatist-held parts of Donetsk and Luhansk and recognizes the regions as independent. On February 24, 2022, Russia began a full assault on Ukraine by land, air, and sea.

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Historical Background and General Information

Primer on the War in Ukraine

TCUP Director Emily Channell-Justice’s presentation, “ Russia’s War in Ukraine: What Everyone Should Know ,” covers the key facts about the war and historical context. This presentation was given on 4/21/22 at an event hosted by Flint Memorial Library in North Reading, MA.

Understanding Ukraine-Russia: A Thousand Years of History

Historian Kimberly St. Julian Varnon joins TCUP Director Emily Channell-Justice and Averpoint’s Shouvik Banerjee to discuss Ukraine’s historical relationship with Russia and the world and how this shapes present-day events. Audio event; listen here

The Frontline: Essays on Ukraine’s Past and Present

Serhii Plokhy, 2021

The Frontline  addresses key events in Ukrainian history, including Ukraine’s complex relations with Russia and the West, the burden of tragedies such as the Holodomor and World War II, the impact of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and Ukraine’s contribution to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Juxtaposing Ukraine’s history to the contemporary politics of memory, this volume provides a multidimensional image of a country that continues to make headlines around the world. The essays collected here reveal the roots of the ongoing political, cultural, and military conflict in Ukraine, the largest country in Europe.

Chapters available online (open access):

• Russia and Ukraine: Did They Reunite in 1654?
• The Russian Question

Watch : “ The Frontline: A Conversation on Ukraine’s Past and Present ” with Serhii Plokhy and Oleh Kotsyuba.

Teaching and Studying Ukraine: List of Resources

At the start of the COVID pandemic, HURI compiled  this list of online resources  that may be useful to those studying and teaching Ukraine. Although it extends beyond the current crisis, it may be of interest to those who want to learn more about Ukraine in general or identify core sources for ongoing information.

History | March 4, 2022

The 20th-Century History Behind Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

During WWII, Ukrainian nationalists saw the Nazis as liberators from Soviet oppression. Now, Russia is using that chapter to paint Ukraine as a Nazi nation

Katya Cengel

Before Russian forces fired rockets at the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv; seized Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident; and attacked Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, Russian President Vladimir Putin shared some choice words.

In an essay published on the Kremlin’s website in Russian, Ukrainian and English last July, Putin credited Soviet leaders with inventing a Ukrainian republic within the Soviet Union in 1922, forging a fictitious state unworthy of sovereignty out of historically Russian territory . After Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, the president argued, Ukrainian leaders “began to mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united [Russia and Ukraine], and refer to the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an occupation.”

The “historical reality” of modern-day Ukraine is more complex than Putin’s version of events, encompassing “a thousand-year history of changing religions, borders and peoples,” according to the New York Times . “[M]any conquests by warring factions and Ukraine’s diverse geography … created a complex fabric of multiethnic states.”

Over the centuries , the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, Poland, and Lithuania have all wielded jurisdiction over Ukraine, which first asserted its modern independence in 1917, with the formation of the Ukrainian People’s Republic . Russia soon wrested back control of Ukraine, making it part of the newly established Soviet Union and retaining power in the region until World War II, when Germany invaded. The debate over how to remember this wartime history, as well as its implications for Ukrainian nationalism and independence, are key to understanding the current conflict.

In Putin’s telling, the modern Ukrainian independence movement began not in 1917 but during World War II. Under the German occupation of Ukraine, between 1941 and 1944, some Ukrainian independence fighters aligned themselves with the Nazis, whom they viewed as saviors from Soviet oppression. Putin has drawn on this period in history to portray any Ukrainian push for sovereignty as a Nazi endeavor, says Markian Dobczansky , a historian at Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute . “It’s really just a stunningly cynical attempt to fight an information war and influence people's opinions,” he adds.

Dobczansky is among a group of scholars who have publicly challenged Putin’s version of the Nazi occupation of Ukraine and the years of Soviet rule it’s sandwiched between. Almost all of these experts begin their accounts with the fall of the Russian Empire, when tens of thousands of Ukrainians fought against the Bolshevik Red Army to establish the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Ukrainians continued to fight for independence until 1922, when they were defeated by the Soviets and became the Ukrainian Soviet Republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). By leaving out Ukraine’s short-lived but hard-fought period of independence in the early 20th century, Putin overlooks the country’s sovereignty, says Dobczansky.

Also omitted from this version of events are the genocide and suppression that took place under Soviet rule—most famously the Great Famine. Holodomor , which fuses the Ukrainian words for starvation and inflicting death, claimed the lives of around 3.9 million people, or approximately 13 percent of the Ukrainian population, in the early 1930s. A human-made famine, it was the direct result of Soviet policies aimed at punishing Ukrainian farmers who fought Soviet mandates to collectivize. The Soviets also waged an intense “ Russification ” campaign, persecuting Ukraine’s cultural elite and elevating Russian language and culture above all others.

When Germany invaded in 1941, some Ukrainians, especially those in western Ukraine, saw them as liberators, says Oxana Shevel , a political scientist at Tufts University. The Ukrainians didn’t particularly want to live under the Germans so much as escape the Soviets, adds Shevel, who is the president of the nonprofit educational organization American Association for Ukrainian Studies .

“The broader objective was to establish an independent state, but in the process, [Ukrainians] also engaged in participation in the Holocaust ,” she says.

The question for Shevel is how to treat this history. From the Soviet point of view that Putin still embraces, it’s simple, she says: The Holocaust aside, Ukrainian nationalists were “bad guys” because “they fought the Soviet state.” Putin and other critics often draw on Ukrainians’ wartime collaboration with the Nazis to baselessly characterize the modern country as a Nazi nation ; in a February 24 speech, the Russian president deemed the “demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine” key goals of the invasion.

From the Ukrainian side of the debate, the country’s wartime history is more complex. Are the nationalists “bad guys” because they participated in the Holocaust, Shevel asks, or “good guys” because they fought for independence?

For Putin, even raising this question is inflammatory. “Any kind of reevaluation of the Soviet treatment of history is what Putin would consider [a] Nazi approach or Nazification,” says Shevel.

To deny the claim that Ukraine is a Nazi state isn’t to downplay the Nazis’ wartime actions in Ukraine. Natalie Belsky , a historian at the University of Minnesota Duluth, points out that one of the biggest massacres of the Holocaust took place just outside of Kyiv. Between 1941 and 1943, the Nazis—aided by local collaborators —shot around 70,000 to 100,000 people, many of them Jews, at Babyn Yar , a ravine on the outskirts of Kyiv. According to the National WWII Museum , one in every four Jewish victims of the Holocaust was murdered in Ukraine.

While Germans often think of World War II as a fight against the Russians, the majority of the fighting actually took place in modern-day Ukraine and Belarus , as well as large parts of western Russia, says Dobczansky. Under the German occupation, several million Ukrainians were sent to Germany to work on farms and in factories. Still, because the Nazi racial hierarchy placed Ukrainians above Russians, the Nazis made a limited attempt to promote Ukrainian national culture in occupied territories—a move that, in turn, helped bring some of the Ukrainian nationalist movement to the German side.

“Those [nationalist] groups certainly had anti-Semitic elements,” says Belsky. “But [they] essentially felt that, or judged that, they were more likely to get Ukrainian independence under Nazi occupation than under Soviet occupation.”

The Nazis, she says, promised Ukrainian nationalists as much—at least after the war. But even before their defeat by the Allies in 1945, the Germans turned on some of their Ukrainian allies, including one of the country’s most famous independence fighters, Stepan Bandera . In his fight against the Soviets, Bandera aligned himself with the Germans, only to end up in a concentration camp after he refused to rescind a proclamation of Ukrainian statehood in 1941. Released in 1944 to help the Nazis battle the Soviets again, Bandera survived the war, only to be poisoned by the KGB in 1959. In 2010, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the title of “ Hero of Ukraine ,” but the honor was annulled a year later.

“This [re-examination of Ukrainian participation in wartime atrocities] has prompted a relatively difficult dialogue in Ukraine about the issue of complicity,” says Belsky.

Putin has referenced Ukrainian nationalists in service of his own political agenda of portraying modern Ukrainians as Nazis. Prior to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea , many Ukrainians viewed Bandera and other freedom fighters in a less favorable light, says Shevel. After, however, she noticed a shift, with these individuals, some of whom fought alongside the Nazis, being called heroes. The Soviets, once held up as liberators from the Nazis, were now the bad guys again.

Bandera may no longer be an official hero of Ukraine, but his memory and those of other 20th-century independence fighters endure. In 2015, Ukraine passed a series of decommunization laws calling for the removal of communist monuments and the renaming of public spaces in honor of Ukrainian nationalists and nationalist organizations, including those known to have participated in the Holocaust. The legislation has received pushback from scholars who see it as whitewashing, or ignoring the dark sides of these movements and their activities.

Shevel agrees that a complete reversal in framing is “probably not the best outcome.” Although the previous Soviet narrative was very one-sided, she cautions against replacing it with an equally one-sided narrative that labels Ukrainian nationalists unconditional good guys. Either way, Shevel says, the issue is one that should be debated internally, not by a foreign invader: “It’s problematic, but it’s a domestic debate.”

Dobczansky, for his part, believes Ukraine is entitled to its own version of history and that Ukrainians should be allowed to choose how to present their own experiences. He praises local researchers’ efforts to study the Holocaust and open their archives and notes that Ukraine’s current president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy , is Jewish.

“Ukraine has begun the process of confronting the darkest pages of its past,” he says.

In today’s charged atmosphere, saying anything critical about Ukrainian nationalism or calling attention to Ukrainian nationalists’ involvement with the Nazis can be seen as supporting Russia’s depiction of Ukraine as a Nazi nation, Belsky notes.

This Russian narrative is nothing new. Instead, says Dobczansky, it’s part of a long-term Russian information war on Ukraine. Putin’s ahistorical justifications of the invasion doesn’t surprise the scholar. What does surprise him is the outpouring of support he’s seen for Ukraine, with even “ Saturday Night Live ” paying tribute to the beleaguered nation.

Dobczansky theorizes that the outraged response to the invasion is tied to society’s relatively recent reexamination of colonialism. Because Ukraine was successfully integrated into the Soviet Union after World War II, Dobczansky doesn’t see the period leading up to Ukrainian independence in 1991 as an occupation so much as a relationship between a colony and a colonizer. By waging war on Ukraine, Putin is, in essence, trying to hold onto a colony.

“[Russian leaders] basically don’t recognize any Ukrainian historical agency except the agency that they imagined for them,” says Dobczansky.

Ukraine—and the world—seem to be imagining something different.

Katya Cengel writes about her time reporting from Ukraine earlier this century in her award-winning 2019 memoir , From Chernobyl with Love .

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/a-historical-timeline-of-post-independence-ukraine

A historical timeline of post-independence Ukraine

Ukraine has been dogged by corruption scandals, economic mismanagement, and Russian interference since it achieved independence in 1991. Russian threats have intensified as Ukraine’s ties with the United States and Europe have improved in recent years.

Below is a timeline of major historical events over the last 30 years:

December 1, 1991: Ukraine Votes for Independence

Amid the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine votes for independence in a referendum, with 92 percent of Ukrainians supporting independence, and elects Leonid Kravchuk as president. Ukraine had the second-largest population and economy of the fifteen Soviet republics.

January 14, 1994: Securing Nuclear Warheads

The Russian, Ukrainian, and U.S. presidents sign a statement that reaffirms Ukraine’s commitment to transfer all strategic nuclear warheads to Russia and dismantle strategic launchers in its territory. The statement also confirms Russian readiness to compensate Ukraine for the value of the highly enriched uranium in the warheads, notes U.S. readiness to assist Ukraine in dismantling the launchers, and specifies security assurances Ukraine will receive once it accedes to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non–nuclear weapons state.

READ MORE: A Historical Timeline of Afghanistan

February 8, 1994: Ukraine Joins NATO’s Partnership for Peace

The  North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)  welcomes Ukraine into its Partnership for Peace, a collaborative arrangement open to all non-NATO European countries and post-Soviet states. Ukraine and Hungary become the fifth and sixth  members of the partnership . Russia becomes a member that June and conducts various cooperative activities with NATO, including joint military exercises, until 2014, when NATO formally suspends ties. As the Cold War ended, Russia had opposed the eastern expansion of NATO. However, thirteen former partnership members eventually join the alliance.

July 10, 1994: Kuchma Becomes President

Former Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma defeats incumbent President Leonid Kravchuk. It is the first time an incumbent has been defeated in a presidential election in a former Soviet republic. Kuchma’s presidency is marked by slow growth, several economic crises, and charges of rampant corruption.

December 5, 1994: Budapest Memorandum Signed

The  Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances  [PDF] is signed by Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States, following Ukraine’s accession to the NPT as a non–nuclear weapons state. Russia, the UK, and the United States commit to respecting Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence, and promise to not threaten or use force against Ukraine.

June 28, 1996: New Constitution Ratified

The Ukrainian parliament ratifies a  new constitution  [DOC]. It theoretically has separation of powers, but the president holds significant sway. He or she can dismiss the prime minister and rescind acts of the cabinet, for instance. Among other things, the constitution guarantees free speech and private-property ownership and recognizes Ukrainian as the sole state language.

July 9, 1997: NATO, Ukraine Deepen Partnership

Kuchma meets with NATO leaders in Madrid, where they sign a document establishing a distinctive partnership between Ukraine and the defense alliance. Under this partnership, a NATO-Ukraine commission will meet at least twice per year to discuss the relationship.

September 2000 – November 2000: Gongadze Scandal Prompts Protests

On September 16, Heorhiy Gongadze, a Ukrainian journalist investigating alleged corruption in the Kuchma administration, disappears. His beheaded body is found two months later in a forest outside of Kyiv. Audio recordings eventually surface that purport to show Kuchma ordering subordinates to kill Gongadze. The scandal spurs public discontent about corruption among Ukraine’s elites, leading to street protests. Western countries reconsider their support of Kuchma’s government.

April 2001: Prime Minister Yushchenko Ousted Amid Reform Moves

The parliament passes a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, who steps down. The vote is carried out by parties allied with Kuchma, who had surprised observers when he nominated Yushchenko to be prime minister in 1999. Yushchenko and his deputy Yulia Tymoshenko had been pushing through energy sector reforms that became unpopular with many of Kuchma’s oligarch supporters.

November 2004 – December 2004: Orange Revolution Overturns Flawed Election

The 2004 presidential race pits Western-oriented Yushchenko against Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych is Kuchma’s preferred choice and the candidate supported by Moscow. The election is a tug-of-war between those who seek closer ties with the European Union (EU), NATO, and the West and those who favor closer alignment with Russia. Yushchenko mysteriously suffers dioxin poisoning in September; he survives but with his face disfigured. After two flawed rounds of voting award the election to Yanukovych,  protesters dressed in orange , Yushchenko’s campaign color, take to the streets in large numbers and force a revote in December, which Yushchenko wins. The second so-called color revolution in a post-Soviet state—a year after Georgia’s Rose Revolution— sets off alarm bells in Moscow.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko signs an Orange flag, a symbol of 2004’s Orange Revolution, in his office in Kiev November 21, 2005. Photo by Gleb Garanich/REUTERS

January 2006: Russia Shuts Off Gas

A pricing and transit dispute between the Yushchenko government and Russia’s state-owned Gazprom results in a gas cutoff, lasting a couple of days and quickly causing supply drops in European countries that import Russian gas via Ukraine. The dispute underscores the energy interdependence between Russia and Ukraine, with 80 percent of Russia’s gas exports to Europe passing through the country. At the same time, Ukraine relies on Russia for much of its own natural gas supply, for which it has historically paid below-market rates. The shutdown occurs amid an  economic slowdown that begins to dent Yushchenko’s popularity.

April 3, 2008: NATO Expansion Bid Meets Opposition

NATO begins its twenty-second summit amid a debate about whether it should offer Membership Action Plans (MAPs)—forerunners to membership—to Croatia, Georgia, and Ukraine. But in discussions between NATO officials and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Putin expresses opposition to extending MAPs to Georgia and Ukraine. Unable to reach a consensus, NATO members decline to offer a MAP to either. During a separate meeting, Putin reportedly tells U.S. President George W. Bush that Ukraine is “not even a real nation-state.”

August 2008: Russia Invades Georgia

Russian troops invade Georgia following a Georgian military operation against a South Ossetian separatist stronghold. The invasion leads to a five-day war and results in an increased Russian presence in the breakaway Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which represent roughly one-fifth of Georgian territory. Yushchenko sides with Georgia, further increasing tensions between Kyiv and Moscow. Russia subsequently recognizes both republics as independent states, though neither is recognized as an independent state by most countries.

September 2008: Talks Open on New EU Relationship

The EU and Ukraine begin talks on a new “association agreement” and issue a communiqué that “Ukraine’s future is in Europe.” The EU considers such agreements to be legally binding contracts that commit countries to developing closer political, legal, and trading ties with the EU and sometimes lead to accession to the bloc. Implementation of the association agreement could mean major changes in Ukraine that would bring it closer to EU standards.

February 7, 2010: Yanukovych Elected President

Yanukovych narrowly defeats Tymoshenko, prime minister at the time, in a presidential election that most international observers view as free and fair. Aided by political consultants from the United States, Yanukovych recasts himself as more open to EU integration. His victory is a sign of voter disillusionment with Tymoshenko and Yushchenko after several years of economic trouble.

May 2011 – December 2011: Tymoshenko Sentenced, Brussels Freezes Agreement

Yanukovych has Tymoshenko arrested for “abuse of office,” and she is sentenced to seven years in prison. International observers see the prosecution as a politically motivated way for Yanukovych to sideline his main opponent, and the U.S. ambassador calls the trial a farce, a view shared by many. The jailing stalls negotiations with the European Union over improving trade and political ties. Brussels refuses to finalize the association agreement at the December EU-Ukraine summit in Kyiv.

November 21, 2013: Yanukovych Withdraws From EU Talks

The Ukrainian government states that it will not sign the association agreement at an upcoming EU-Ukraine summit in Lithuania. Yanukovych’s administration announces it will resume dialogue with Russia about joining the Eurasian Customs Union. Protests begin in Kyiv almost immediately.

2013 – 2014

November 2013 – february 2014: euromaidan protests lead to government collapse.

Ukrainians turn out in large numbers to protest Yanukovych’s announcement on EU ties. Mostly peaceful demonstrations continue for two months in Kyiv’s main Maidan square. They turn violent after the government moves to break up protesters, and the ensuing crackdown kills more than one hundred people. On February 21, Yanukovych and opposition leaders reach a settlement that includes plans for presidential elections before the end of the year. Soon after, Yanukovych flees to Russia. He leaves behind a lavishly decorated palace, which protesters see as evidence of his corruption. Ukraine’s acting president and acting prime minister make it clear that a top priority will be to bring Ukraine closer to Europe.

February 2014 – March 2014: Russia Seizes Crimea, Holds Referendum

Pro-Russia forces, including so-called little green men—Russian soldiers in Russian uniforms, but with identifying insignia removed—seize control of Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula where the majority of residents are ethnically Russian. Soon after, authorities hold a disputed referendum in which Crimean voters choose to secede and join Russia. Brussels calls the referendum “illegal and illegitimate,” and Washington promises it will never be accepted. Russia annexes Crimea on March 21, though the UN General Assembly votes 100–11 against recognizing the referendum result and Russia is  expelled from the Group of Eight . A month later, Putin admits that Russian soldiers were involved in the annexation and justifies it as  a way to protect ethnic Russians  allegedly threatened by violence from Kyiv.

April 2014: Russia Backs Bloody Separatist War

Russia provokes an armed separatist movement to seize government buildings across eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. Ukrainian forces resist but are wary of sparking a much wider war, with Russian troop buildups reported along the border. By early 2022, fighting has resulted in more than fourteen thousand deaths, a quarter of them civilians, and two million internally displaced Ukrainians. Parts of two regions—Donetsk and Luhansk—declare themselves independent republics.

May 25, 2014: Poroshenko Elected President

Petro Poroshenko, a pro-West oligarch, wins an outright majority in the first round of Ukraine’s presidential election, surprising many. Poroshenko promises to fix the economy by aligning Ukraine with Europe and to root out corruption that has trailed Ukraine since its independence. U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration signals interest in helping Poroshenko battle corruption and assigns Vice President Joe Biden  as its chief envoy  for Ukraine.

July 17, 2014: Passenger Jet Shot Down With Russian Missile

A Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur is shot down by a surface-to-air missile  over eastern Ukrainian territory  controlled by Russian and Russian proxy forces, resulting in the death of all 298 people onboard. A  Dutch-led investigation  later finds that Russia bears responsibility, with the missile having been provided by a Russian army brigade, but Russia denies responsibility.

An Emergencies Ministry member walks at a site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014. The Malaysian airliner flight MH17 was brought down over eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 295 people aboard and sharply raising the stakes in a conflict between Kiev and pro-Moscow rebels in which Russia and the West back opposing sides. Photo by Maxim Zmeyev/REUTERS

September 5, 2014: First Minsk Agreement Signed

Russian units enter Ukraine to push back Ukrainian forces that were on the verge of regaining control of Donbas. Shortly after, negotiators conclude the first Minsk Agreement, aimed at ending the fighting. However, its terms are not implemented, and fighting continues along the line of contact.

February 11 – 12, 2015: Second Minsk Agreement Signed

Putin and Poroshenko meet in Minsk to negotiate a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine. They reach an agreement, shepherded by French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, that  outlines thirteen steps  to end the war, including an immediate cease-fire and the withdrawal of all heavy weaponry in order to create a “security zone.” Fighting and shelling along the line of contact still flare up from time to time. Both sides trade accusations on violations of the deal, though international observers place more blame on Russian and Russian proxy forces.

TIMELINE: Key events in the Trump-Ukraine story

December 2017: Lethal U.S. Arms Sales Allowed

Under President Donald J. Trump, the United States approves lethal arms sales to Ukraine,  moving beyond  the nonlethal military assistance that the Obama administration had allowed. That summer, Trump had named Kurt Volker as his special envoy for Ukraine negotiations. Prior to that, the U.S. Congress created the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which authorized hundreds of millions of dollars in additional military aid for Ukraine.

January 2019: Schism Emerges in Orthodox Church

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the leading authority for Orthodox Christianity, recognizes the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, formally severing it from the Russian Orthodox Church, which has  close reported ties to the Kremlin  and had overseen the Ukrainian church for centuries. Russia accuses the United States of encouraging the break in order to weaken Moscow, and a Kremlin spokesperson reissues a promise to defend “the interests of Russians and Russian-speakers.”

April 21, 2019: Volodymyr Zelensky Elected

Volodymyr Zelensky, a  television comedian and political novice , wins a presidential runoff with more than 70 percent of the vote, defeating Poroshenko. Two months later, Zelensky’s party also wins a majority of parliamentary seats, marking the first time since independence that Ukraine’s president has a majority party in the parliament. Zelensky had campaigned against corruption and poverty, and pledged to end the war in the east; many saw the vote as a rejection of Poroshenko and his failure to root out corruption.

July 25, 2019: A Phone Call Reverberates

Trump and Zelensky  have a phone conversation  that later becomes the focus of an impeachment inquiry by the U.S. Congress into abuse of power and obstruction of justice. A U.S. government whistleblower expresses concern about Trump’s alleged effort during the call to enlist Zelensky to investigate Biden, a leading Democratic candidate in the 2020 presidential election. In November, several former and current U.S. officials testify before lawmakers that the Trump administration postponed a Trump-Zelensky meeting and held up congressionally approved military assistance to get Kyiv to investigate Biden. White House officials dismiss the complaints as politically motivated, and   in January 2020 Trump is acquitted in a Senate vote mostly along party lines.

June 2020: Making a Deeper Commitment to NATO

Ukraine is named a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner in June, joining Australia, Georgia, Finland, Jordan, and Sweden as countries with deeper cooperation on NATO-led missions and exercises. The alliance says the new status “does not prejudge any decisions on NATO membership.” In September, Zelensky approves Ukraine’s new National Security Strategy, which provides for the development of a distinctive partnership with NATO with the aim of gaining membership. The previous year, Zelensky’s predecessor signed a constitutional amendment committing Ukraine to become a member of NATO and the EU.

February 2021: Zelensky Cracks Down on Pro-Moscow Oligarchs

Zelensky orders a series of measures against oligarchs, notably Viktor Medvedchuk, a businessman, chairman of Ukraine’s largest pro-Russia political party, and close friend of Putin’s. The government freezes his financial assets for three years and shuts down three pro-Russia TV channels that Medvedchuk controls, alleging that they broadcast “misinformation.” That May, authorities lodge treason charges against Medvedchuk, claiming that he transferred oil and gas production licenses in Crimea to Russian authorities. Zelensky says the moves are necessary to defend the country, while Putin blasts them as motivated by anti-Russia bias.

April 2021: Russian Military Buildup Raises Alarms

Officials from Ukraine and EU member states warn about recent Russian deployments near Ukrainian border areas and in Crimea. Adding up to more than a hundred thousand troops, along with tanks, rocket launchers and other weaponry, analysts call it the largest troop buildup since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Biden, now U.S. president, and Putin agree to a June summit to discuss a range of contentious issues, including Ukraine, and launch dialogues on strategic stability and cybersecurity. The following month, Putin publishes an article titled “ On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians ,” in which he questions the legitimacy of Ukraine’s borders, asserts that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people,” and blames the collapse in bilateral ties on foreign plots and anti-Russia conspiracies.

September 2021: Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Completed

The Russian energy firm Gazprom finishes construction of the Nord Stream 2, a pipeline that is set to deliver natural gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany and could cut off a major source of income for Ukraine, a current transit country. Leaders in Kyiv protest that Moscow will use the pipeline, which could double gas deliveries to the rest of Europe, as a geopolitical weapon. The Biden administration opposes the pipeline but agrees to hold off on sanctions and reaches a deal with Germany to fund alternative energy projects for Ukraine. Amid the Russian military buildup near Ukraine, Germany says a German-based firm involved in the project must take administrative steps before any gas can flow, a process that could take until mid-2022.

2021 – 2022

December 2021 – january 2022: russia demands security concessions.

As Russia continues to mobilize tens of thousands of troops along the border with Ukraine, the Putin government demands a  set of security guarantees  from the United States and NATO. This includes a draft treaty calling for tight restrictions on U.S. and NATO political and military activities, notably a ban on NATO expansion. The Biden administration delivers written responses in January; few details are made public, but it rejects Russia’s insistence that Ukraine never be accepted into NATO and proposes new parameters for security in the region.

READ MORE: White House calls Russian moves on Ukraine an ‘invasion’

February 2022: Russia Recognizes Breakaway Regions, Sends Troops

Putin deploys Russian forces to Ukraine’s separatist regions of Luhansk and Donetsk after the Kremlin recognizes them as independent. The military action raises concerns that Russia will try to assert full control over the regions, which are partially governed by Ukraine, and use the move as a pretext for a broader invasion of the country. In an address to Russia, Putin says the government in Kyiv is a “ puppet regime ” run by foreign powers and that NATO ignored Moscow’s security demands. In response to Russia’s moves, Germany announces the suspension of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, while the United States, EU, and UK pledge  additional financial sanctions  against Russian entities.

This timeline originally ran on the Council on Foreign Relations website.

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Putin orders Russian troops into Ukraine’s separatist regions as the West levies sanctions

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The real and imagined history of Ukraine

Vladimir Putin says Ukraine isn’t a country. Yale historian Timothy Synder explains why he’s wrong.

by Noel King , Lauren Katz , and Miles Bryan

Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t been coy about why he invaded Ukraine : He says it isn’t a “real” country. He claims Ukraine is a fiction , created by communist Russia.

As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp explained , Putin’s central “claim — that there is no historical Ukrainian nation worthy of present-day sovereignty — is demonstrably false .” But “this does not mean Putin is lying: In fact, Russia experts generally saw his speech as an expression of his real beliefs.”

So it’s worth digging into the political and historical ties between Russia and Ukraine to better understand just what’s going on, as Russia closes in on Kyiv .

Ukraine has a long history of what a Poynter fact-check called an “extended tug-of-war over religion, language and political control” with Russia, but starting in 1917 when the Russian empire collapsed, some Ukrainians called for independence. They wanted a republic . And for the next 100-plus years, the relationship between Russia and Ukraine has been marked by animosity over at least some Ukrainians’ desire to be a nation, and Russia’s desire for it ... not to be.

Today, Explained co-host Noel King spoke with Yale historian Timothy Snyder to understand the background that led up to this point in history. A partial transcript of their conversation , edited for length and clarity, is below. (A full transcript of the show is available here .)

You wrote an essay recently in which you called Ukraine, over and over again, a normal country. Why did you frame it that way?

Timothy Snyder

When we listen to other people’s propaganda, it enables us to make exceptions in our own minds. Now, if we listen to what Mr. Putin says about Ukraine, we start to think, “Oh, there’s some reason why we shouldn’t be treating the country of Ukraine, the state of Ukraine, the people of Ukraine, like everybody else.”

And my point was to say, “No, it’s a state, it’s a country, it’s a people very much like other peoples.” And if anything, it’s more interesting,

The propaganda you’re referring to, in part, is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that Ukraine is not a country, that it was entirely created by Russia. What is the argument that he is making?

I’ll address it, but I would first just suggest that it’s much more a framing device than it is an argument. You know, it’s like if I say that Canada is not a country, it’s just a creation of the United Kingdom. It’s going to sound ridiculous.

But [Putin’s] technical argument is that when the Soviet Union was created, a Ukrainian republic was established. In that sense, Ukraine was created by the Soviet Union.

There are three terribly wrong things about this argument. No. 1, the Soviet Union is not the same thing as Russia. It was established deliberately as non-Russian, as an internationalist project.

No. 2, he’s got it completely backward because the Soviet Union was created as a federation of national units. That was precisely because everybody, including internationalists like Lenin, understood in 1917, ’18, ’19, ’20, ’21, ’22, that the Ukrainian question was real. A century ago, this was not actually a big debate, even on the far left. Several years of watching people being willing to fight and die for Ukraine convinced the Communists who founded the Soviet Union that there was a real question here, and they had to have a real answer for it. So in that sense, it would be truer to say, “Ukraine created the Soviet Union,” because without the general acknowledgment of a Ukrainian question, the Soviet Union wouldn’t have been set up the way that it was.

But then the third point, I mean, the third way this is just absurd is that, of course, Ukrainian history goes way back before 1918. I mean, there are medieval events which flow into it, early modern events that flow into it. There was a national movement in the 19th century. All of that is, going back to your earlier question, all that falls into completely normal European parameters.

So Ukraine didn’t get created in any sense when the Soviet Union was created. It was already there, and it already had an extremely interesting history.

And during the time of the Soviet Union, was Ukraine allowed to be its own country in terms of language and culture?

It goes back and forth.

When they set up the Soviet Union in 1922, the initial idea is: We’re going to win over Ukraine. And the way we’re going to win over Ukraine is we’re going to have policies of affirmative action where we will recruit Ukrainian elites into the Soviet Union by promoting them, by opening up Ukrainian culture, by opening up jobs in the bureaucracy. That goes on through the end of the 1920s. But then when Stalin comes to power in 1928, he sees the situation differently. He is trying to transform the Soviet Union economically.

He carries out a policy called collectivization, which basically means the state taking control of agriculture. Ukraine is the most important agricultural center in the Soviet Union. It’s the breadbasket of Eurasia, basically. When his collectivization policy fails and starts starving people to death, Stalin says, “No, no, this problem is caused by Ukraine. It’s caused by Ukrainian nationalists. It’s caused by Ukrainian agents funded from abroad,” which is all complete nonsense.

But what it does is that it turns the Ukrainian question around, and suddenly all of these people who’d been promoted through the 1920s are put in show trials, are committing suicide, or executed in the great terror. Suddenly, Ukrainian traditional village life has been wiped out by a famine which was not only entirely preventable but which was basically not just allowed but determined to happen in 1932 and 1933. So Ukraine is allowed to rise in a certain way, and then it’s crushed.

Can you tell us about the famine in Ukraine? Give us a sense of what happened and what the outcomes were for people who lived in Ukraine.

The five-year plan from 1928 to 1933 was to turn the Soviet Union, which was basically a country of peasants and nomads, into a country of workers. And an essential part of that was to get agriculture away from private farmers, from smallholders, who were very common in Ukraine, and get it under control of the state because that would allow the state to control a source of capital, which you could then divert toward industrialization.

So the peasants would be put under control, the land would be put under control, the food would be put under control. And the idea was that this would allow the state to divert resources to what it really wanted to do, which was build up the cities, build up the mines, build up the factories.

So that’s 1928, ’29, ’30. It doesn’t really work very well. Collectivized agriculture doesn’t work in general very well, and the transition to it can be particularly horrifying. In 1931 and especially in 1932, there’s a transition to collectivization in Ukraine; there is a bad harvest. And what Stalin does is he interprets it politically.

He says this is the fault of the Ukrainian Communist Party. In other words, he gives a highly politicized interpretation of a failure which is basically about his own policy. And then he tries to make reality match his interpretation. So the famine is not treated as real or it’s treated as the fault of the Ukrainians.

Grain is confiscated from Ukrainians in 1932 and even into 1933, when it’s clear that hundreds of thousands of people or even millions of people are going to die. In November-December of 1932 especially, Moscow pushes through a series of extremely harsh policies — for example, that peasants are not allowed to go to the cities and beg. No one is allowed to leave the Ukrainian Republic. You know, things like this, which basically make a kind of prison of the entire republic so that starving people have nothing to do and nowhere to go.

The result of all of this is the greatest political atrocity in Europe in the 20th century up to that point and a nationally and politically directed famine in which I think, by the best estimates currently, about 3.9 million people die who did not need to die.

Oh my God, 3.9 million people die who did not need to die. And at that point is Ukraine essentially beaten into submission? I mean, how do people respond?

It happens over weeks and months. And as it happens, people lose their ability to behave politically or in a way that they could protect themselves. They very often, you know, lose the elemental aspects of what we would think of as human morality and decency. So it’s a very, very heavy weight on Ukrainian society. It’s an unforgettable episode, and it is one of the things that marks Ukrainians now off from Russians. And so if a foreign government, you know, tries to deny [that historical episode] or minimize it or spin it in some way, as the Russian government has been doing, that causes a good deal of resentment and alienation.

What happens to Ukraine?

Ukraine is a constitutive part of the Soviet Union from its establishment in 1922 to its disintegration in 1991. The back-and-forth of how the Ukrainian question is treated continues after the Second World War, if in a less violent way.

So during the Second World War, for a while, Ukraine is praised by Stalin, and that’s because the war is being fought largely in Ukraine. And by the way, Ukrainians suffer more than Russians in that war, not just relatively, but also in absolute terms. The civilians suffer more in Ukraine than in Russia. But during the war, because the Germans are trying to control Ukraine, Stalin praises Ukraine. But when it’s over, that all turns around again, and the fact that Ukraine was occupied by the Germans is turned against Ukraine. Now, Ukrainians are suspected of being collaborators. They’re more suspicious than Russians are.

When Stalin dies, there’s a certain loosening, which comes to its apex in the 1960s, where there’s a certain relaxation and Ukrainian culture is allowed to flourish a bit. But when Brezhnev takes control from the late ’60s and especially from the early ’70s forward, you have a policy of a very deliberate Russification in Ukraine.

And it’s that moment — the 1970s — that are so important for understanding the present because that’s when people like Putin grew up. So Putin’s perspective — that everything is basically Russian and like, you know, everyone really speaks Russian, and even if they seem not to, they really want to — that’s a very 1970s perspective on all of this. From the Ukrainian point of view, the 1970s were very much a down point.

It’s really only after Chernobyl, when Gorbachev and the Soviet leadership don’t say anything about the spread of radioactive material, that things start to move in Ukraine. And a new kind of politics emerges in Ukraine, which starts to talk about Ukrainian autonomy or even Ukrainian independence.

The Soviet Union comes to an end in 1991. Contemporaneous with that, there’s a referendum in Ukraine about independence, in which there’s not only a very large majority across the country for independence, there’s also a majority in every region of Ukraine, including the ones that Russia claims, or occupies, or says it’s fighting for right now. So after that, Ukraine has to build everything anew. It has to build a state, it has to build an economy, it has to build a political system. And that’s the phase of history that we’re in right now.

Listen to the full episode wherever you get podcasts. And find more coverage from Today, Explained , The Weeds , and more Vox podcasts on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in this Spotify playlist :

• Russia-Ukraine war
• Today, Explained podcast
• World Politics

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A short history of Ukraine’s relationship with the European Union

Professor in Contemporary European History, University of Stirling

Disclosure statement

Holger Nehring receives funding from the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council for the project 'Materialising the Cold War' (Project Reference: AH/V001078/1). This essay is not part of the research for this project.

University of Stirling provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine on February 24 2022 and the war that has ensued are part of the history of what happened in eastern Europe in the years following the cold war. As the European Union is debating what to do about Russian aggression, it is important to remind ourselves of that complex history of relations between the bloc and the nations on its borders.

This war is part of a story of how eastern European countries rebuilt nation-states after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. And it is about the role successive versions of the European Union’s neighbourhood policy played in this process of state-building – and how Russia responded. It is a story about how, in Ukraine, the project of state building came to be tied to European integration. Russia’s attack on Ukraine is also an attack on the idea of European integration.

For a long time, for many Europeans, Ukraine has been a country without much agency. It was deemed to lie outside Europe. And it was often seen as a mere geopolitical bridge between the EU and Russia.

This debate about Ukraine’s place in the European international order after the end of the cold war was connected with Ukrainian domestic politics. There were questions of corruption and of mass poverty. Some regions in Ukraine were steaming ahead, beginning to produce hi-tech computer games and apps, while others were left behind, relying on the decaying infrastructure of the old heavy industries.

Those in the European Union who were sceptical of bringing Ukraine further into the fold cited these issues as reasons for why this was not prudent. For many Ukrainians, by contrast, European integration offered one way to address the structural problems in Ukraine’s politics, society and economy. Russia’s path towards authoritarianism and centralisation of political control offered another model.

At some point between 2004 and 2013, Putin decided that he perceived the Europeanisation of Ukraine as a threat – a fundamental challenge to his model of authoritarian rule.

As Putin has made clear in numerous interventions since the late 1990s, he questions the principles of democracy and national sovereignty on which the European international order rests. For example, in his speech on the “historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians” on July 12 2021, Putin argued that the fulfilment of Russian nationhood lay in the occupation of the territory of another nation – Ukraine. Reminiscent of early 20th-century mystical nationalists, Putin claimed that “Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole.”

Looking west

Since the early 2000s, Ukraine responded to such Russian threats to its sovereignty by debating moves towards the EU. In 1994, Ukraine had already signed a partnership and co-operation agreement with the EU. It now wanted to build on this.

The debate between the Russian and the European model of state-building unfolded especially since Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004. Most Ukrainians decided then that they wanted to follow the course of other East European countries towards democracy rather than the Russian model of autocratic control. The perception in Ukraine at the time was that EU policymakers were rebutting their efforts .

As he tightened his grip on his domestic power base, Putin interfered in Ukrainian domestic politics and tried, unsuccessfully, to support the pro-Russian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych. The man who beat Yanukovych to the presidency, Viktor Yushchenko, was quick to ask the EU for an association agreement once in power. Negotiations began in 2008, but soon slowed down. Yuschenko’s own power base was not strong enough.

The slow progress weakened Yushchenko’s standing further. In 2010, the pro-Russian Yanukovich won the elections and subsequently ran a corrupt regime based on oligarchic power. The popular politician Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko’s rival, was arrested on spurious grounds . In response, the EU slowed negotiations down further. It warned Ukraine to abide by the rule of law.

At around the same time, in 2011, Putin founded the Eurasian Customs Union which was supposed to make an anti-EU offer to the states on Russia’s borders . This spurned the EU into action to accelerate the signing of an association agreement with Ukraine.

In autumn 2013, Yanukovich refused to sign that agreement. In light of the dire economic situation and his government’s blatant corruption, tens of thousands of Ukrainians, mainly students, protested against it.

When Yanukovich ordered the use of massive violence against the protesters on November 30 2013, more than half a million people risked their lives and came out against the regime on Kyiv’s central square, the Maidan . This led to the spread and growth of the protests.

It was the beginning of a revolution that led to Yanukovich’s toppling. The protests in favour of Europeanisation, known as Euromaidan, appealed to a broad cross section of Ukrainian society, including far-right nationalists . In Ukraine, “Europe” now unmistakably stood for a state that fostered democracy, pluralism, and civil society engagement.

Power struggle

But support for Europeanisation was not spread evenly across the country – a situation which Putin was quick to exploit. In spring 2014, Putin illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula following a fake referendum, and he installed two puppet governments in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas, a region in eastern Ukraine in 2014: the so-called “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Widespread corruption and poverty in a region dominated by decaying heavy industry formed the social conditions that generated support for Putin’s occupation. Around 10,300 people have died, and 24,000 have been injured in the war between Russia and Ukraine that resulted from this occupation.

Euromaidan formed the starting point of a broader process of political and social transformation. This process provided the foundation for successive pro-European governments, culminating in the coming into force of the association agreement in September 2017 and the landslide victory of the former TV comedian Volodymyr Zelensky in the presidential elections in 2019. On February 28 2022, four days after Russia’s unprovoked attack on his country, President Zelensky formally applied for EU membership .

It has been popular to sell European integration as a peace project . Many have taken the conditions for this peace for granted: Nato provided it during the cold war. And economic and financial integration and regulation seemed to fulfil that role since the 1990s. But Russia’s attack on Ukraine illustrates painfully that the EU and its member states have not thought enough about the conditions that guaranteed that peace.

This has had dramatic consequences for Ukraine. The British historian Alan Milward has called European integration a project for the “European rescue of the nation state”. For Ukrainians today this is true in an existential way: Ukraine will be European – or it will not be.

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Ukraine Has Seen Centuries of Conflict

By: Jesse Greenspan

Updated: July 11, 2023 | Original: October 5, 2022

The land within the borders of modern Ukraine, a Texas-sized nation often called the “breadbasket of Europe,” has long been coveted by the region’s powers. During Antiquity, the Greeks, Romans and Huns, along with a slew of lesser-known empires, from the Scythians to the Sarmatians, each established a presence there at one point or another.

More recently, from the Middle Ages to the present, the Vikings, Mongols, Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Ottomans, Swedes, French, Austrians, Germans, Romanians and Czechoslovakians have all marched in, with some staying far longer than others.

Never fully independent until the collapse of the Soviet Union , though there were periods of semi-autonomy, Ukraine has been divided up and stuck back together several times. (Fittingly, the name “Ukraine” means “on the edge” or “borderland,” and its national anthem declares, “Ukraine has not yet perished.”) Through it all, Ukrainian history and identity has been a highly contentious topic, particularly in the context of the 2022 Russian invasion .

Russian leader Vladimir Putin , for example, has stated that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people” and that Ukraine isn’t a real state , an echo of when earlier generations of Russians referred to Ukraine as “Little Russia.” Yet many Ukrainians vehemently disagree with these characterizations, pointing to their country’s distinct language, culture, traditions and shared civic principles.

“A lot of really important history that Putin and Russian nationalists see as their ancestry happened in Ukraine,” says Stephen Brain , an associate professor at Mississippi State University, who specializes in Russian history. He adds that “for very long periods” Russia and Ukraine were “part of the same state.”

“On the other hand,” Brain says, “Kiev was the capital of its own state before Moscow existed.” Ukraine spent long stretches outside Russian control, and, according to Brain, “Ukrainians increasingly do perceive themselves as a separate nationality.”

Below is a timeline, dating back a millennium, showing how Ukraine arrived at this point.

Vikings, Mongols, Lithuania, Poland

1037: Kievan Rus - Construction of Saint-Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, which, in refurbished form, still stands today, marks a high point of the Kievan Rus principality. Purportedly founded by Vikings in the 9th century, Kievan Rus grew to encompass present-day Ukraine, Belarus and part of Russia. As historian Anna Reid writes, it constituted “the eastern Slavs’ first great civilization,” and at the time was the “largest kingdom in Europe.”

Modern Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians all trace their heritage to Kievan Rus, leading to fierce, unanswerable debates about whether “Ukraine was once part of Russia, or Russia once part of Ukraine,” says Yoshiko Herrera , a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert on Russian and post-Soviet politics.

1240: Mongol Invasion - A Mongol army commanded by Batu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan , thunders into Europe and captures Kiev (along with many other nearby lands). Much of present-day Ukraine and Russia subsequently comes under the control of the so-called Golden Horde, a segment of the vast Mongol Empire.

1363: Lithuania - Lithuanian forces defeat the Mongols at the Battle of Blue Waters and incorporate much of present-day Ukraine into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For the next several hundred years, Lithuania and its ally Poland, with whom it would gradually unify, hold dominant sway in the area.

1476: Ivan III - Ivan III of Muscovy, as Russia was then called, declares his independence from the Golden Horde by refusing to pay tribute. (Previously, as Brain points out, the Muscovites had “cooperated with” and “emulated the Mongols.”) Ivan likewise claims a portion of present-day Ukraine—the first Russian leader to do so—leading him into direct conflict with Lithuania.

1569: Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth - Lithuania and Poland officially complete their merger, in part to combat Russia, forming the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

1648: Cossack Rebellion - A Cossack rebellion against Polish-Lithuanian rule scores a surprise number of initial victories, which results in the formation of a semi-autonomous state known as the Hetmanate, an inspiration to future Ukrainian nationalists. However, the Cossacks also participate in pogroms that kill an estimated 14,000 to 20,000 Jews over the course of just a few months. As historian Serhii Plokhy writes, “entire communities [were] all but wiped from the map.”

1654: The Ruin - Abandoned by their Crimean Tatar allies, the Cossacks turn for protection to Russia, which they perceive as more amenable to their interests than Poland-Lithuania. “They took the best deal that was available,” Brain says. “They didn’t think they’d subsumed their will to anyone else…but, over time, Moscow didn’t see it that way.” Years of fighting subsequently ensue, with Russian, Polish, Ottoman and Cossack armies battling it out for control of present-day Ukraine in what’s sometimes referred to as “The Ruin.”

1667: Divided - Without consulting the Cossacks, who nonetheless retain a degree of autonomy, Russia and Poland-Lithuania sign a truce dividing Ukraine between them with the Dnieper River as the boundary.

Birth of Russian Empire

1708: Russia Wins Control of Eastern Ukraine - During the Great Northern War, King Charles XII of Sweden detours into Ukraine as part of his ill-fated invasion of Russia and secures the support of the main Cossack leader at the time (though other Cossacks fight for Russia). The following year, Charles XII’s force is crushed at the Battle of Poltava, thereby cementing Russian control over the eastern half of Ukraine and, as Brain explains, marking the birth of the Russian empire.

1783: Catherine the Great Annexes Crimea - After a series of wars with the Ottoman Empire, Russian Czarina Catherine the Great annexes the Crimean peninsula and secures access to the strategically important Black Sea. At roughly the same time, Catherine finishes dissolving the Cossack Hetmanate (state) as part of what would become a long-running campaign to “Russify” Ukraine.

1795: Russia Gains Majority of Ukrainian Land - Poland and Lithuania cease to exist after a third and final partition divides up their lands between the Prussian, Austrian and Russian empires. Austria grabs a chunk of present-day Ukraine in the southwest, but Russia gains the vast majority of Ukrainian lands for the first time.

1812: Napoleon Invades - French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte marches though present-day Ukraine as part of his disastrous invasion of Russia.

Ukrainian Nationalist Movement

1800s: Ukrainian Nationalist Movement - Nationalist movements spring up throughout Europe, and Ukraine is no exception. Pro-independence forerunners begin codifying and promoting the Ukrainian language, stressing Ukraine’s distinct culture and history, referring to themselves as Ukrainians for the first time, and, eventually, calling for self-rule. Russia responds with a series of repressive measures, including a decree that bans the publication of Ukrainian-language books and newspapers. “A Little Russian language never existed, does not exist, and never shall exist. Its dialects as spoken by the masses are the same as the Russian language,” a Russian directive declares in the 1860s.

1917: Ukraine Council Proclaims Right to ‘Order Their Own Lives’ - When the Russian Revolution breaks out, Ukraine’s newly formed Central Rada, a council of elected delegates, proclaims Ukraine to be a state within Russia, whose people should “have the right to order their own lives in their own land.”

1918: Short-Lived Independence - As Bolshevik forces close in, the Central Rada declares full independence for Ukraine. “The genie of independence was now out of the imperial bottle,” Plokhy writes. Ukraine then signs a peace treaty with the Central Powers in which it agrees to German and Austrian military intervention. As the Ukrainian government hoped, the Germans and Austrians succeed in driving back the Bolsheviks—at least until the signing of the World War I armistice compels their exit. 

But they also meddle in Ukrainian affairs, overthrowing the Central Rada  ("Council")and installing a pro-German puppet leader. That same year, a second, short-lived independence attempt fails in western Ukraine, this one quashed by newly re-formed Poland.

1919: Ukraine Divided Into Four Parts - In the aftermath of World War I , present-day Ukraine gets split into four parts. Russia retains by far the biggest share, while smaller bits are handed out to Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia.

1921: End of Civil War - The Bolsheviks emerge victorious from a brutal civil war in which the Red Army, the White Army, Polish troops, Ukrainian nationalist troops and unaffiliated peasant militias run roughshod over present-day Ukraine, with Kiev changing hands multiple times and massacres committed on all sides.

Era of Soviet Union, Great Famine, Chernobyl

1922: Incorporated Into Soviet Union - Ukraine is incorporated into the newly established Soviet Union .

1932-33: Ukrainian Famine - Seeking to assert his control over Ukraine, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin engineers a famine, known as the Holodomor , which results in an estimated 3.9 million Ukrainian deaths. Most scholars consider this to be a premeditated act of genocide. “The historical record is very clear,” Herrera says. “There’s a lot of documentation that Moscow knew exactly what was happening.”

1936-38: Great Purge - Stalin initiates a large-scale purge of perceived enemies from throughout the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, either executing them outright or shipping them off to Gulag labor camps.

1941: Nazi Germany Invades - In violation of a nonaggression pact , Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union and, by year’s end, has seized almost all of Ukraine. Some Ukrainians initially welcome the Germans as liberators, even going so far as to serve in the Nazis’ notorious Waffen-SS units . But most soon sour on the Nazis, in part because they mass deport Ukrainian civilians back to Germany to serve as slave laborers. One of the worst massacres of the Holocaust takes place this September, when Nazi death squads, assisted by Ukrainian police, murder some 34,000 Jews in a ravine outside Kiev.

1944: Stalin Deports Crimean Tartars - Stalin deports the entire population of Crimean Tatars , some 200,000 people altogether, nearly half of whom purportedly die of starvation or disease while in exile. Meanwhile, Soviet troops recapture Ukraine, from which they forcibly deport hundreds of thousands of ethnic Poles as they march west towards Germany.

1945: 1 Million Ukrainian Jews Lost in WWII - World War II finally comes to a close. All told, Ukraine suffers an estimated 5 million to 7 million deaths, or roughly 16 percent of its pre-war population, including around 1 million Ukrainian Jews.

1954: Khrushchev Transfers Crimea to Ukraine - The Soviet government under Nikita Krushchev   transfers Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in a gesture of “eternal friendship,” a move that receives little attention at the time since it remains within the borders of the Soviet Union.

1986: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster - A safety test goes awry at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, leading to a deadly reactor meltdown that the Soviet authorities initially try to cover up. The disaster, considered history’s worst nuclear accident, is often blamed for hastening the Soviet Union’s demise.

Ukrainian Independence

1991: Ukraine Declares Independence - With the Soviet Union in its death throes, Ukraine’s parliament declares independence, a decision that’s overwhelmingly approved by Ukrainian voters in a national referendum . Ukraine is now fully independent for the first time.

1994: Ukraine Gives Up Nuclear Weapons - Negotiations between the United States, Russia and Ukraine result in a deal under which Ukraine gives up its inherited nuclear weapons in exchange for, among other things, a Russian vow to respect “existing borders.” Thereafter, Ukraine becomes a major recipient of U.S. foreign aid.

2004: The Orange Revolution - Disgusted with an election widely viewed as fraudulent, Ukrainian protesters rally in Kiev’s Independence Square in what’s known as the Orange Revolution . A re-run vote subsequently reverses the results, with pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko, who survived a near-fatal poisoning attempt during the campaign, defeating pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych. In 2010, after Yushchenko struggled with infighting, Yanukovych mounts a comeback and wins the presidency.

2014: Protestors Oust Russia-Backed President -   Government-backed forces open fire on protestors who have once again flocked to Kiev’s Independence Square, this time in support of closer ties to the European Union. Though over 100 people die in the melee, they succeed in forcing out the notoriously corrupt Yanukovych, who flees to Russia. 

2014: Russian Annexes Crimea - Putin responds by immediately occupying and annexing Crimea . He also promotes a separatist revolt in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, a conflict that would claim some 14,000 lives over the next several years. “One of the key issues is that Ukraine has chosen Europe instead of Russia,” Herrera says. “And for Putin that’s unacceptable.”

2019: Zelensky Elected President - Volodymyr Zelensky , a former comedian who once played Ukraine’s president on television, wins a landslide election to become Ukraine’s actual president. Just a couple of months into the job, he takes a phone call from U.S. President Donald Trump that serves as the basis for Trump’s first impeachment  (Trump was later acquitted by the Senate).

2022: Russia Invades Ukraine - Russia launches a full-scale invasion of Ukraine but meets heavier resistance than expected. The invasion, says Herrera, “comes back to Russia wanting to assert control over Ukraine and thinking they could get away with it."

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Ukraine possesses a wealth of cultural talent and a considerable cultural legacy . Numerous writers have contributed to the country’s rich literary history. Impressive monuments of architecture and museums displaying works by generations of Ukrainian artists can be found throughout the country, and art galleries featuring contemporary Ukrainian artists have become commonplace in larger urban centres. The country’s strong tradition of folk art also continues to this day. In addition, high-calibre performing artists and ensembles appear regularly in Ukraine’s numerous theatres and concert halls.

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Because of the country’s geographical location, Ukrainian culture has been influenced by the cultures of both western Europe and Russia . Although these influences are particularly evident in the western and eastern halves of the country, respectively, there is no strict geographical division. For example, Russian is spoken in the streets and in many homes and institutions throughout the country; it also is used in national publications, radio broadcasts, and popular music . The country’s other ethnic minorities contribute to a measure of cultural diversity as well.

The social changes brought about by Ukrainian independence are most evident in the cities, particularly Kyiv . The country’s capital now boasts high-end stores catering to a moneyed class, and a fashionable strip of contemporary art galleries and cafés winds its way down the historical street of Andriyivskyi Uzviz. The capital’s renovated airport stands in striking contrast to its decidedly dour appearance in Soviet times.

The cities, with their broad sidewalks and extensive greenery, are eminently suited for walking. Ukrainians generally do a considerable amount of walking, either to get around or simply for enjoyment. Parks are plentiful and popular for strolling or picnicking, a common pastime among city dwellers, most of whom live in apartments. The cities also feature numerous kiosks , which sell all manner of wares.

Cultural pursuits and entertainment are widespread. Most of Ukraine’s major cities have ornate theatres with their own opera or ballet companies. Song-and-dance ensembles, most notably the Verovka State Chorus and the Virsky Dance Ensemble, have made Ukrainian folk music and dance into an impressive stage art. Though classical music remains popular, contemporary Western-style music has expanded its audience considerably and now dominates the airwaves on numerous commercial radio stations. Street concerts and club performances are common, as are dance clubs and cabarets. Imported television soap operas have developed a dedicated following, and cinemas show American blockbusters.

The country offers a variety of restaurants that serve Chinese, Greek, Continental, or other foreign cuisine. Pizza bars and other fast-food restaurants are increasingly common as well. Many Ukrainians, however, still prefer such traditional Ukrainian foods as borscht , cabbage rolls, varenyky (dumplings), studynets (a form of headcheese), and shashlyky (kebabs). On festive occasions these dishes are accompanied by vodka or champagne and eloquent toasts. The dish known as chicken Kiev, though commonly served in Ukraine, likely originated elsewhere.

In the countryside, horse-drawn carts with rubber wheels have not quite disappeared. The khata (“house”), made of mud and thatch and typically whitewashed, is still found as well. These homes often contain such traditional handiwork as embroideries, weavings, and handmade feather duvets and oversized pillows. Their inhabitants are predominantly elderly Ukrainians.