Modern Ukraine: A history in conflict (Part 1)

Before launching his latest military attack on Ukraine last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin waged a counterfactual war on a century of the country’s history. In a nearly hour-long address, Putin claimed that modern Ukraine was an invention of founding Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, and that Soviet Moscow gave Ukraine its independence in a historic mistake. Ukraine overwhelmingly voted for its own independence in a referendum in 1991. While Ukraine’s modern history has since been marked by corruption, Russian influence and episodes of violence, its people have also staged protests and even revolutions to protect their independence. Today on Front Burner, what two decades of Ukraine’s struggles with Russia tell us about why Ukrainians are still fighting today. Former NPR Moscow correspondent and current Wilson Center fellow Lucian Kim brings us the key events, many of which he reported on from Russia and Ukraine.