When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the West assumed that the development of democracy and a prosperous capitalist economy for nations emerging out of the USSR would be axiomatic. This was not the case.
Take, for example, Ukraine.
In December 1991, the Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly to become independent, and Crimean residents chose to remain with Ukraine rather than Russia.
Leonid Kravchuk was then elected as the first president of Ukraine. The Ukrainians established...
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Mark Temnycky is Ukrainian-American freelance journalist covering Eastern Europe and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.