“The Ukraine IS part of Russia! It’s the breadbasket of Russia!” Those words, or something similar, were spoken by my late father-in-law, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. We were watching one of the cable news channels where a talking head was discussing the then-current crisis in Eastern Europe. My father-in-law died in May of 2014 so it must have been the so-called “Russian Spring” when protests broke out throughout Ukraine in the wake of the recent Maidan Revolution and the removal of the duly elected president from office. My father-in-law was born in 1932 and grew up during World War II when newsreels in the theaters he visited every Saturday touted the heroic struggles of “the Russians”, as most people referred to the USSR, battled Hitler’s invading forces as they fought back and forth across the Ukraine, as the rich agricultural region was commonly known. (Famous for its wheat. Ukraine was called “the breadbasket of Europe.) I mentioned that Ukraine had become an independent nation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union two decades before and left it at that.
Ukraine Confusion
This is well-researched, informative and accurate. Thanks.