Kiev has been the spiritual center of the rus people for hundreds of years. It was not the political center, however. The Ukraine was part of Russia for 200 years. The US, on the other hand, unilaterally annexed Hawaii, declared wars against
Iraq (second war) and Iran (put the Shah in control), and has rarely seen a dictatorship it wouldn’t support. (Batista in Cuba, 1979 civil war in El Salvador)...
The way you cite Batistia and El Salvador, you sound strangely like a Soviet propagandist. Batista had Castro’s forces surrounded, and we told him that if you move into to capture or kill Castro’s forces, we’d cut off aid to him. So he let them go, just forcing them to give up their arms. And then we cut off aid anyway. And then we did absolutely nothing while the Soviets re-armed Castro’s forces.