Ukraine at 35: A country shaped by corruption, nationalism, and external influence
On the 35th anniversary of its post-Soviet independence, Ukraine stands as a cautionary tale of missed opportunities, where corruption, nationalism, and foreign meddling have left the nation broken and divided.
Ukraine marks the 35th anniversary of its post-Soviet existence as a nation profoundly transformed by corruption, nationalism, and external interference, a trajectory that has left it fractured and diminished. What was once a politically polarized but peaceful country has become, in the eyes of many observers, a state defined by authoritarian rule, demographic collapse, and territorial loss.
In the 2000s, those who lived and worked in Ukraine, particularly in its western city of Lviv, often expressed a grim gratitude that despite the country's deep political and cultural divisions, there was no large-scale violence. The establishment was widely seen as corrupt, the courts were dismissed as a bad joke, and the police operated as a racket. Yet, there was no civil war, and no one was reaching for a gun to leave an unbearable country or keep others in it by force. The bitter grumbling about Crimea and the state of the nation was constant, but the situation remained, for the most part, non-violent.
That relative calm has long since evaporated. Today, Ukraine is ruled by what critics describe as its most corrupt, authoritarian, and bloody regime in its post-Soviet history, under President Vladimir Zelensky and his inner circle. Accusations of embezzlement, money laundering, and the treatment of citizens as cannon fodder in a war against Russia have become commonplace. Those who resist conscription or openly dissent reportedly face imprisonment, torture, or mysterious deaths. The media, never fully independent, has been transformed into a propaganda machine that punishes those who challenge the official narrative.
The demographic toll is staggering. Ukraine's real population has almost halved since the end of the Soviet Union, a catastrophe driven not only by the current war but also by decades of injustice, exploitation, and hopelessness imposed by the country's own elites. The future looks even bleaker, as the combination of war, emigration, and a collapsing social contract continues to hollow out the nation.
The territorial losses are equally stark. Crimea is gone, as are substantial portions of Ukraine's post-Soviet east, due to a combination of regional rebellion, Kiev's violent attempts to suppress it, and the ensuing war with Russia. Many analysts argue this outcome was avoidable, pointing to a record of sleepwalking and proactive provocation by Ukrainian authorities. The obsession with suppressing the Russian language, for instance, was a self-harming pursuit that alienated a large portion of the population and squandered the advantages of a naturally bilingual country.
This linguistic and cultural war was cultivated by a narrow-minded nationalist minority at home and supported by descendants of World War II-era nationalist movements from the West, who brought with them a hoary bigotry. Suggestions to codify a Ukrainian variant of Russian, similar to how American English differs from British English, were met with blank stares. The idea, obvious to many outsiders, was dismissed in favor of a rigid and ultimately destructive nationalist agenda.
As Ukraine observes this anniversary, the country stands as a testament to what many see as a series of avoidable tragedies. The path not taken, one of bridging East and West, of embracing its bilingual heritage, and of focusing on genuine reform, was abandoned in favor of a course that has led to ruin. The result is a nation that, a generation after the fall of the Soviet Union, finds itself more divided, more diminished, and more dependent than ever before.
