[Lukasz]

Ukraine is a primarily example of a nation run by treasonous elite which doesn’t care about their country even a little bit.

In 1992 they were better off than Poland and ten years later Mexico was doing better than them. In another ten years they were on par with Iraq and now there is Congo in sight.

They were not better off than Poland. Anyway, I'm not going to make excuses for their political elites but to the large extend this is fault of Russian influence over there.

As for comment you could easily switch Ukraine for Russia. Without its natural resources Russia would fall down completely. Some oil and gas rich countries have ability to improve standards of living of their citizens and Russia struggle with this so much.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia had the unique opportunity at least to improve relations with its neighbors. Unfortunately, nothing like that happened.

[NorseViking]

What Russian influence? Yankovich wasn’t elected till 2010. Also he was as pro-Russian as Karzai is pro-American.

[Cronos]

in 1992 Poland and Ukraine’s GDP was the same, with Ukraine slightly ahead. Now Poland has double the GDP with a lower population.