Alexander J. Motyl: 25 years of Ukraine’s independence
Pro-European protesters wave Ukrainian flags during a rally in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on November 28, 2013.
Ukraine's biggest achievement since independence in 1991 is to have confounded its critics, ill-wishers, and the Kremlin by surviving as a democratic state. Many expected Ukraine to be short-lived. And many others expected it to follow in the footsteps of its post-Soviet neighbors and abandon democracy. Instead, 25 years after independence, Ukraine survives as a democratic state, albeit an imperfect one.
