DISINFO: Ukraine is a failed state 30 years since its existence
SUMMARY
For 30 years, Ukraine has failed as a state. The reason for this is the extremely unfortunate format of state-building, the artificial concept “Ukraine is not Russia”, which is oriented towards confronting Russia in everything. Instead of building a multinational state, Ukrainians began to create “not Russia”, a state that was supposed to demonstrate its non-Russianness as much as possible. Accordingly, history was rewritten in which Ukraine existed as a separate subject of international relations. As a result, this only split Ukrainian society into Russian-speaking and non-Russian-speaking sides.
After the Maidan, the Ukrainian authorities only boosted the intensity of this wrong policy which also is denying its Russianness and opposing and conflicting with all Russianness.
The result of such a policy is clear: Ukraine is undergoing deindustrialisation, depopulation, civil war, an economically permanent crisis dependent on the International Monetary Fund and Europe.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives designed to denigrate the history of Ukraine, Ukrainian statehood and its independence, claiming that Ukraine is a failed state.
The claim that Ukraine is a failed state is unsubstantiated. Pro-Kremlin media outlets often cast doubts on Ukrainian statehood and claim that Ukraine either does not exist as a state or is going to tumble down very soon. In reality, present-day Ukraine has been on the world map since 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated. It has elected six presidents since then and changed parties in government several times which illustrates political diversity and democratic dynamics even during economic hardship in the wake of Russian aggression in 2014. Ukraine's Western partners have been providing it with financial and technical assistance.
Moreover, the history of Ukraine dates back to the era of the Kyivan Rus’ in the 9th-13th centuries. A fully independent Ukraine only emerged in the 20th century, after long periods of successive domination by Poland-Lithuania, Russia, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Under Lenin's leadership at the beginning of the 20th century, Ukraine was occupied by the Bolsheviks and for decades was under communist control. When the Soviet Union began to unravel in 1990–91, the legislature of the Ukrainian S.S.R. declared sovereignty (July 16, 1990) and then outright independence (August 24, 1991).
Ukrainians and Russians belong to the Slavs ethnolinguistic group but they are not a single nation. For further reading on the history of Ukraine see The Gates of Europe, A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy.
Ukraine is not a Russophobic, anti-Russian country. The relations between the countries only worsened after Russia occupied Crimea in 2014. Russia has also been involved in the destabilisation of Eastern Ukraine, the creation of DNR and LNR and the supply of personnel and weapons. The destabilisation of Eastern Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea have been condemned by the Council of the European Union and led to restrictive measures since 2014.