What a lot of people do not know is they spent sixty years under Russian control…
Stalin starved millions.
Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union when dictator Josef Stalin seized the rich, fertile land from the local farmers in the early 1930s and forced them into a collectivized, state-run agricultural system.
The result: one of the worst famines of the 20th century. The death toll is still debated, but mainstream historians put the figure at 3 million to 5 million deaths in Ukraine alone, and a few million more in other parts of the Soviet Union.
And only became free in
1991: Leonid Kravchuk, leader of the Soviet republic of Ukraine, declares independence from Moscow. In a referendum and presidential election, Ukrainians approve independence and elect Kravchuk president.