In December 2017, Finland will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its independence. Next year, the same grand jubilees will be marked in Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, and Latvia, which all emerged on the ruins of the Russian Empire. Ukraine, on the contrary, has just observed its 26th Independence Day, though in January 1918 the sovereignty of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (known after the acronym UNR) was proclaimed in Kyiv.
OP-ED
Ihor Vynokurov: Illusion of a friendly empire – Russia, the West, and Ukraine’s independence a century ago
(Archive photo) Young Ukrainians lay a wreath on Jan. 22, 2004 in Kyiv, at the monument of Mikhail Grushevskiy, who became the first Ukrainian President after the union of Ukrainian Peoples Republic and Western Ukrainian Peoples Republic Jan. 22, 1918.
