How the country has transformed from a Russian client state to a would-be EU nation where liberals and nationalists have found common cause

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest developments

Ukraine has been an independent country for more than half Vladimir Putin’s adult life (he turns 70 this year). It’s been a free republic for more than 30 years, long enough for the first generation of Ukrainians born since independence to have school-age children of their own. It’s had seven different leaders, all of them still alive.

It would be sentimental – and patronising – to talk about a country having “grown up”. But 30 years is long enough for countries to change, for better or for worse; long enough for countries to have eras. Ukraine was well into its second era, its European era, when Putin invaded last month. Putin never accepted the right of post-Soviet Ukraine to exist in independent Ukraine’s first era. In terms of understanding the country, that’s the period he’s stuck in; Putin doesn’t acknowledge that a second era began.

Continue reading…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You May Also Like

UK weather: hottest day of year so far as temperature hits 28.6C

Measurement at Heathrow airport in west London beats previous high of 28.2C…

Stock markets rise as Nvidia surges on generative AI boom – business live

Rolling live coverage of business, economics and financial markets as hopes for…