I know that a lot of those Baltic Sea countries engage in human trafficking and slavery.

@jca Ukraine isn’t on the Baltic Sea.

@Kropotkin: I was mistaken about that but correct in the part about human trafficking. Read more: Ukraine leads in number of victims in human trafficking:

http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Ukraine.htm

They have been under the thumb of Russia for centuries, but distinct and separate none-the-less. Wheat basket of Eastern Europe, pillaged by the Soviets and left to glow in the dark by Chernobyl.

Bordered and bullied by Russia.
Capital Kiev.
Seems to have lost Crimea to Russia, with little but lip service from allies.
Host of Chernobyl.
Likely now lost to the EU.

Not a lot, honestly.

The “human trafficking” moral panic is racist and ugly propaganda. The last time this moral panic rolled through, it was called “white slavery,” and carried the same connotation of swarthy foreign men stealing away blonde-haired, blue-eyed white women.

The current population of Ukraine was not its original contingent. After Peter the Great finally conquered the Cossacks, they had been so fierce and had cost him so many resources and so many men, that he got the bright idea to use them as a shield. He picked up three entire tribes of Cossacks, moved them to Ukraine, and bid them be fruitful and multiply. He knew that anyone from Europe trying to invade Russia would have to fight their way through the fiercely war-like Cossacks first. And indeed, this worked perfectly, but ended up biting the Czarists in the ass.

After the Russian Revolution, Lenin signed away Ukraine to Germany at the Treaty of Brest-Livosk in exchange for peace with Europe. Nestor Makhno, the great Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary and my personal hero, had been freed from prison during the general amnesty for political prisoners. He returned to Ukraine, raised an army of 30 men and precisely one gun. He and his met crept into a nearby town square under cover of darkness, set up his gun, and proceeded to massacre the 1000 sleeping German soldiers bivouacked there. The few who escaped were hunted down by townsmen with gardening implements and killed. Not one single German escaped. Ukraine rose to join Makhno after this and the anarchist Black Army of Nestor Makhno, the Makhnovshchina, was born.

The Makhnovshchina never had more than 50,000 men at its largest, and they had no equipment other than what they could capture from the enemy, yet they managed to defeat 600,000 German soldiers and drive them out of Ukraine. Then the White Army—the Czarist forces in Europe trying to overthrow the Soviet Union—tried to march on Moscow and got stopped dead in their tracks by the Makhnovshchina, who cut off their supply lines and caused their defeat.

After saving the whole Soviet Union, they were ordered by Trostky to lay down their guns. The Makhnovshchina responded by having the Bolshevik messanger shot. The Soviets invited the officers of the Makhnovshchina to Crimea for peace talks and then machinegunned the whole lot of them, hoping to break the back of the organization. A single man escaped on horseback to tell the tale of what had happened. Makhno never trusted the Bolsheviks and hadn’t gone to the supposed peace talks. When the Soviets invaded Ukraine with millions of soldiers, Makhno began a spirited defence. Unfortunately, after four years, Makhno simply ran out of men and was forced to flee to Paris, where he spent the rest of his life.

Makhno and the anarchists terrified Stalin so badly that he proceeded to murder 10 million Ukrainians to keep the Makhnovshchina from reforming. The net result is that an entire generation of Ukrainian men were exterminated, and those who live in Ukraine today are the descendants of those who were either too cowardly to fight or sided with the foreign invaders or both. This is why Ukraine has become Russia’s punching bag.

I had heard it described as the ‘West Virginia’ of Russia. Just as Belgium is of Europe. I don’t know if it’s true or not. Just that is what I’ve been told. Basically I know very little of substance though.

Bread basket (wheat grower) of the Soviet Union
The Soviets populated the east with Russians, which is why the country is divided today
Home of Antonov aircraft
Home of the Russian then Soviet and now Russian warm-water navy
The main religion is Orthodox Christianity
There’s a Ukrainian Village neighborhood in Chicago. When I lived there in the 1980s there were many elderly “Ukies” who did not speak English.
Stalin killed a lot of Ukrainians in the 1930s
The Germans killed a lot of Ukranian Jews and a lot of Ukranians were happy to help

Sergei Bubka
Vladimir/Vitali Klitschko
Andrei Shevchenko
Dynamo Kiev
Yellow

@SmashTheState Thanks for a masterful rendition.

Radio Roks

Oksana Baiul, a famous Olympic figure skater, is from the Ukraine. Shamefully, that’s about it.

Shamefully speaking, too, but I gotta say you guys are pretty homophobic

@wsxwh111 Where was the homophobia?

I agree. What’s the left field homophobia statement have to do with any of these answers?

1. The capital is Kiev.
2. It is located in Eastern Europe.
3. Pripyat is an abandoned city due to radiation from Chernobyl. There’s a ferris wheel here.
4. There was some kind of riot going on not too long ago there. It may still be going on, I don’t know.

Wasn’t @wsxwh111 saying Ukraine is pretty homophobic?
Or did I miss something?

No, it was you guys are pretty homophobic.

i ain’t afraid of no queers… Nope… Not one bit…

@ibstubro I took the statement to be directed at we who answered the question. In fact, that’s the only logical assumption unless the question is from someone known to be Ukranian.

@Adirondackwannabe: @wsxwh111 said “you guys are pretty homophobic” which I take to mean “us who answered this question” unless I’m mistaken. Can @wsxwh111 please clarify?

@Adirondackwannabe @stanleybmanly @ibstubro @majorrich @jca Oh I’m so sorry I meant Ukraine is a little homophobic, I really didn’t mean people who answer this question. Actually it is Fluther and plenty of people here gave me much hope, encouragement and inspiration that I really needed when I was down and bothered by my own sexual orientation, you guys are the best(okay now I see it ><). Sorry for all the misunderstanding I caused, I’m just really bad at English..lol

@Adirondackwannabe @stanleybmanly @ibstubro @majorrich @jca

I got that, @wsxwh111.
No worries.

Ditto (now)

Here are some interesting facts about Ukraine:
• The world’s first Constitution was introduced in Ukraine in the year 1710
• It used to be the largest state situated entirely in Europe, before the international community reorganized and disintegrated it.
• It is the third largest grain exporter in the world.
• In Ukraine wedding rings are worn on the ring finger of the right hand.

Is the term ‘Slavic’ insulting?