Demise of Soviet Union Seen as Net Positive in Ukraine

Four months before the legal dissolution of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR) in 1991, Ukraine had already passed its own declaration of independence with a vast parliamentary majority. This marked the first of many steps from a socialist state to a pro-European, pro-Western nation. A recent analysis by an independent Ukrainian think tank shows that not all of Ukraine's residents see this development as positive.

In a joint survey by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Razumkov Center conducted in August 2023, Ukrainians living in the Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil, Chernivtsi regions overwhelmingly thought the dissolution of the Soviet Union was positive, with only 4.2 percent saying it was a bad event. In southern oblasts closer to Russian-annexed Crimea and tied up in daily combat like Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kherson, the perspective is decidedly different. Here, only 42 percent saw the demise of the USSR as a good event, while almost one quarter thought the fall of the Soviet Union was a negative outcome. Overall, the move towards independence was seen as positive, with 69 percent of all respondents countrywide saying it was "rather good" that the USSR was dissolved.

Ukraine can be considered one of the most important post-Soviet countries, both from a Western and a Russian perspective. For example, it's crucial to global food production, being the fifth-largest wheat exporter worldwide in 2020. Russia's alleged plans to reconstitute its former empire also aren't possible without Ukraine. In terms of population the Eastern European country was the second-largest of all 15 Soviet republics, in terms of land mass it came in third after Russia and Kazakhstan.