"Goes along the path of the collapse of statehood": how Ukraine has changed over 30 years of independence

On August 24, Ukraine celebrates 30 years since gaining independence.

On this day in 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR announced the creation of an independent Ukrainian state and secession from the Soviet Union.

According to experts, Kiev inherited from the USSR a powerful industry and developed agriculture, which made it possible for Ukraine to develop successfully.

However, over 30 years of "independence", analysts state, the country has lost all the potential inherited from the USSR and is now in a state of deep crisis.

"Socio-demographic pit"

As analysts note, today Ukraine demonstrates one of the worst demographic indicators in the post-Soviet space.

Recall that in 1989, the last population census in the history of the Soviet state was carried out in the USSR.

According to the data obtained at that time, 51.7 million people lived in the Ukrainian SSR - the maximum figure for the republic for the entire period of conducting such calculations.

12 years later, in 2001, the first population census since independence was carried out in Ukraine.

During it, a decrease in the number of Ukrainian citizens to 48.457 million was revealed.

• 01.10.1990.

  Participants of the demonstration at the building of the Supreme Council, organized by the People's Movement of Ukraine (RUH), against the new Union Treaty

• RIA News

• © Igor Kostin

In the future, this trend continued.

In 2019, an electronic census was held in Ukraine.

According to the data received at that time, 37 million 289 thousand people lived in the country.

It should be noted that these calculations did not take into account the population of the self-proclaimed republics of Donbass.

In addition, Ukrainians, who live abroad most of the time, were not taken into account.

Thus, in total, from 1989 to 2019, the Ukrainian population decreased by about 14.5 million people (about 28%).

According to the former Minister of Economy of Ukraine Viktor Suslov, who on the 30th anniversary of the country's independence published an article in the publication Glavred “30 Years of Independence: Why Ukraine Wasted Time”, such a demographic dynamics is an alarming signal.

“This speaks of a rather deep degradation of the country and the fact that a significant part of citizens were either forced to leave the country or are dying out.

A demographic crisis has begun, and, according to the latest published data, 39 children are born per 100 deaths in Ukraine per year.

This suggests that Ukraine has become a country with an endangered population.

In these conditions, it is very difficult to talk about the prosperity of the Ukrainian nation, ”Suslov wrote.

According to Mikhail Pogrebinsky, director of the Kiev Center for Political Research and Conflictology, this demographic dynamics is explained by the failed economic policy and constant internal instability in the country.

“In Ukraine, the birth rate is falling and the death rate is increasing.

In addition, people are fleeing from Ukraine, as there is no work there.

They go to Russia and the EU to work.

The main reasons for the demographic catastrophe are unemployment and instability, especially in the past seven years, ”the analyst said in an interview with RT.

In turn, political scientist Ivan Mezyukho drew attention to the fact that over the past 20 years Ukraine has not conducted a real population census, so the real data may be even worse.

“In Ukraine, the population census is not specially conducted so that the society does not learn about the socio-demographic hole that the country has fallen into.

The demographic failure is explained by the low standard of living and problems in the economy, as well as the mass migration of citizens abroad, "the expert said to RT.

"Processes of the final de-industrialization"

After 1991, the country's economy is also experiencing a deep crisis.

For example, in December 2020, Viktor Medvedchuk, chairman of the political council of the Opposition Platform - For Life party, stated that Ukraine, unlike most of the former Soviet republics, was unable to achieve the GDP indicators that existed at the time of the collapse of the USSR.

Medvedchuk's words are confirmed by the data of the World Bank.

So, in 1990, when the Declaration of State Sovereignty was signed, Ukraine's GDP per capita was $ 3965 (WB data are calculated at the dollar rate for 2010).

By 1998, this figure was $ 1,686.

In 2020, per capita GDP in Ukraine reached $ 3115.

In addition, in recent years Ukraine has accumulated an impressive national debt.

At the end of December 2020, it reached 2.5 trillion hryvnia (about 7 trillion rubles), which is 60.8% of the country's GDP for the year.

Payments on the state debt in 2021 will amount to about 64.42% of the revenues of the general fund of the State Budget of Ukraine or 627.05 billion hryvnia (about 1.7 trillion rubles).

According to political scientists, the fate of the industry inherited from the USSR became a vivid example of the degradation of the Ukrainian economy.

• Shop SE "Antonov"

• Reuters

• © Valentyn Ogirenko

So, the legendary Soviet design bureau im.

Antonova (now State Enterprise "Antonov") is in a state of protracted crisis and since 2016 has not produced a single production aircraft.

The situation is no better with the former Soviet industrial giant Yuzhmash, which specializes in the creation of rocket and space technology.

In 2020, the Verkhovna Rada had to amend the law on the state budget in order to pay off the company's debts.

As one of the authors of the bill, Dmitry Kisilevsky, noted, we are talking about about two billion hryvnia in arrears to the state budget.

At the time of the amendments, 6,000 Yuzhmash employees had not received their salaries for 11 months, Kisilevsky added.

In 2017, another industrial giant of the USSR, the Lviv Bus Plant, ceased to exist.

Its former buildings and equipment were put up for sale.

And in 2021, the Black Sea shipyard in Nikolaev was officially liquidated.

All Soviet aircraft-carrying heavy cruisers were built at his shipyards.

• Ukrainian SSR.

  Black Sea Shipyard.

  Welding team

• RIA News

• © Lev Ustinov

Similar problems can also be observed at the Kremenchug Steel Plant, the Azovmash Machine-Building Plant and the Odessa Port Plant.

The Zaporozhye Automobile Building Plant (ZAZ), which during the years of the USSR was one of the largest in the country, was a little more fortunate.

On December 6, 2018, the bankruptcy procedure began, and in May 2019, ZAZ property was put up for auction.

However, the enterprise was saved from complete liquidation - it will now be engaged in the assembly of foreign cars.

Moreover, in addition to Renault cars, ZAZ will also assemble Russian Lada cars.

In 2020, AvtoVAZ officially confirmed the delivery of assembly kits to the enterprise.

According to the former Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov, one of the reasons for the degradation of Ukrainian industry was the severance of economic ties with the Russian Federation.

“70% of products, especially in the high-tech industry, in the space industry and aircraft construction, were produced in cooperation with enterprises located on the territory of the USSR.

The loss of cooperation led to the deepest economic crisis after the declaration of independence.

We have lost 60% of our own GDP.

This was primarily due to this gap.

There was a break in the single market, ”the politician said in an interview with RT.

Political scientist Ivan Mezyukho adheres to a similar position.

“From the first days of independence, Kiev took the path of breaking economic ties with Russia.

This was a mistake, since the Ukrainian economy worked in close cooperation with Russian enterprises.

Naturally, one cannot speak of any economic growth in such a situation.

In fact, Ukrainian politicians shot themselves in the foot when they stopped concluding profitable economic agreements with the Russian Federation to please the West.

The West did everything to break these close relations, ”the expert said.

• LAZ plant building

• © wikimapia.org

According to Mezyuho, Ukraine is gradually turning into a "raw material appendage" of Europe.

“For 30 years Ukraine has lost its high-tech production.

Moreover, it is increasingly turning into a raw material appendage of the West.

The Ukrainian state is largely incapable of developing complex sectors of the economy.

Ukraine has lost its status as a space power.

The country used to have its own satellites, but today no one seriously talks about this.

After the coup in 2014, they even managed to ruin the aircraft industry in Ukraine, ”he says.

In turn, Oleg Nemensky, a leading researcher at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, believes that Ukraine is unlikely to be able to restore its economic potential.

“The country is undergoing a process of final de-industrialization.

All economic life is shifting to the rails of a purely agrarian system.

Only agriculture and extractive industries work in Ukraine now.

For such an economy, a large population is not required, so it will continue to decline, people will leave.

The introduction of a land market will exacerbate this trend, hitting the population even harder.

So we are dealing with a catastrophe of the Ukrainian statehood and the Ukrainian people, "the analyst said in an interview with RT.

War and nationalist terror

According to analysts, during the years of independence, Ukraine has not been able to create a stable political system.

For ten years, from 2004 to 2014, there have been two "color revolutions".

The last one had the most disastrous consequences.

The nationalists who came to power as a result of a coup d'etat in 2014 immediately launched attacks on the Russian language, which provoked the secession of Crimea.

When rallies against the "Maidan" authorities began to be organized in Donbass, Kiev threw troops and battalions of nationalist militants against them.

As a result, a civil war broke out in the region, which has not ended until now.

According to experts, from the first days of independence, Ukraine was actually divided into two parts: the western, where nationalist and pro-Western sentiments reigned, and the southeastern, where the Russian-speaking population sympathizing with the Russian Federation always prevailed.

• 02.07.2014.

  A local resident in the village of Luganskaya, which was subjected to an air strike by the armed forces of Ukraine

• RIA News

• © Valery Melnikov

This division was reflected in the elections as well.

Thus, the West of the country has always voted for nationalists and pro-European politicians, and the South-East for pro-Russian ones.

Analysts believe that maintaining civil peace in such a situation was extremely difficult, but possible.

According to them, it was possible to do this with more or less success until 2014.

However, the rise to power of the right-wing radicals upset the delicate balance.

After 2014, the level of politically motivated violence also increased in Ukraine.

Over the past seven years, three members of the Party of Regions, Oleg Kalashnikov, Stanislav Melnik, and Sergei Walter, have been killed or died under unknown circumstances in the country.

Another former "regional" - ex-mayor of Kharkov Gennady Kernes - was assassinated, as a result of which he became disabled.

In addition, the mayor of Kremenchug Oleg Babaev, adviser to ex-president Viktor Yanukovych Mikhail Chechetov, ex-head of the State Property Fund Valentina Semenyuk-Samsonenko, politician and businessman Igor Yeremeyev were killed in Ukraine.

After the "Maidan" cases of attempts on the lives of journalists became more frequent. So, in recent years in Ukraine, Russian journalists of the VGTRK holding Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin, photojournalist of the International news agency "Russia Segodnya" Andrey Stenin and operator of Channel One Anatoly Klyan, Ukrainian journalists Olga Moroz ("Netishinsky Vestnik"), Sergei Sukhobok ( co-founder of ProUA and Obkom publications), Alexander Kuchinsky (Crime Express), Vladimir Martishevsky (Kamenyari-info), Vasily Sergienko (Nadrossya), Dmitry Karpov (Radio on Troitskaya), an Italian journalist from photo association Cesuralab Andrea Rocchelli and his translator Andrei Mironov, writer Oles Buzina, as well as Russian journalist Pavel Sheremet (“Ukrainian Truth”) who moved to Ukraine.

According to analysts, the events of May 2, 2014 in Odessa became the main symbol of the repression carried out by the new Ukrainian regime.

Then radical nationalists, with the connivance of the authorities, set fire to the city House of Trade Unions, where opponents of the "Euromaidan" tried to escape.

As a result, 48 people died.

• Burning House of Trade Unions in Odessa.

  May 2, 2014

• Reuters

• © Yevgeny Volokin

It is worth noting that during the investigation of these crimes, members of nationalist groups or participants in the hostilities in Donbass were often listed as suspects, but in most cases it was not possible to bring them to justice.

According to analysts, Ukraine “could have avoided a civil war and nationalist terror” if the leaders who ruled the country until 2014 had timely suppressed the activities of right-wing radical groups, which later became the main driving force of the “Maidan”.

“If the Ukrainian state had shown legal force against the radicals, they would not have behaved so brazenly and in the end would not have taken over the whole country.

In percentage terms, the nationalists in Ukraine are a minority, but they have a huge influence on the government.

Moreover, even in those regions where people consider it necessary to restore good-neighborly relations with Russia, ”stated Ivan Mezyukho.

"Destructive tendencies"

According to Oleg Nemensky, after 30 years of independence, it can be stated that the Ukrainian state did not take place.

“Ukraine has actually failed as a state.

And this is entirely the fault of the country's leadership and its citizens, who elected this leadership.

Such a failure of the Ukrainian statehood was a big surprise, since 30 years ago it was predicted the greatest success in building its own state, because of all the republics of the USSR, its starting positions were among the best, ”the expert said.

• Smoke from fires and opposition supporters on Independence Square in Kiev, where clashes between protesters and police officers began

• RIA News

• © Andrey Stenin

In turn, Mykola Azarov believes that under the current regime in Kiev, Ukraine has no development prospects.

“We gained independence, and then what?

If there was a single economic space (with the RF. -

RT

), then there would be a development perspective.

And so it only led to significant degradation.

Today Ukraine is under external control, there is no independent Ukrainian leadership.

American governance presupposes a different development of the country, this has now become quite obvious.

They need a poor country whose population is zombified and believes that all problems stem from the fact that Russia is an "aggressor".

With today's policy, Ukraine is doomed, ”the ex-prime minister said.

Mikhail Pogrebinsky adheres to a similar point of view.

“The country's future is too uncertain.

I have no optimistic expectations.

I believe that the sluggish dying of Ukrainian statehood can continue for quite a long time, ”the analyst said.

Political analysts note that the course towards the EU, for the sake of which Kiev broke off relations with the Russian Federation in 2014, also does not benefit the country.

Moreover, Ukraine's accession to the European Union is unlikely in the foreseeable future, experts say.

This opinion is confirmed by the position of Brussels.

So, on August 23, the Vice-President of the European Commission and European Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis stated that Ukraine's membership in the EU in the coming years is hardly possible.

In this situation, the salvation for Ukraine could be a return to close economic ties with Russia, but such a scenario today is unlikely, says Ivan Mezyukho.

“Today Ukraine is following the path of the collapse of statehood, it is not even a vassal, but a colony of the West. The only opportunity for the development of Ukrainian statehood is integration with Russia. But talking about it today is ridiculous given the current level of Russophobia in Kiev. Consequently, Ukraine is following the path of collapse. I am convinced that the destructive tendencies towards the collapse of statehood will continue, ”the analyst concluded.