Ukraine is literally a country without history. Its name alone points to its status as a krajina (borderland), i.e. a Russian krajina. On the other hand, that radical Ukrainian nationalism arose again in the territory that belonged to Poland and the Habsburg Empire. In the end, only that will remain of Ukraine.
When Lenin supported the recognition of the Ukrainian nation and state, of course within the USSR, he was severely criticized by Rosa Luxemburg. She was of the opinion that Ukrainian nationalism (or the national movement) has no historical background except for a couple of cheesy poems by Taras Shevchenko. First, in 1922, Donbass and the southeastern parts were annexed to Ukraine, so that the otherwise economically backward country would get industry and thus be able to stand on its own two feet. The territory that makes up western Ukraine today is owed to Stalin. In 1954, Khrushchev annexed Crimea to them, of course without asking anyone if they wanted it. Today, Ukrainians express their gratitude by tearing down Soviet monuments and erasing all traces of Soviet and Russian culture. Why aren't they completely consistent with their "rebranding" and give up those territories that are actually Soviet heritage? In Odesa, they demolished the monument to Catherine the Great, the founder of that city. All the cities in the east and along the Black Sea were founded by Russians. Even Donetsk was not founded by Ukrainians, but by Welshman John Hughes, who founded the metal industry there in 1869.
Kievan Rus', the Cossack Hetmanate of Zaporozhye and the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia are not the forerunners of Ukraine, which was created in completely different historical circumstances. It is certainly true that the roots of the Russian state are in Kievan Rus, but that too was a unique Eastern Slavic state of which today's Russia is only the successor, but not the continuation. In any case, Russia has more to do with it than the territory of the Russian Empire called Ukraine.
Ukraine is a textbook example of imperialist manipulations. As you yourself state, Ukrainian nationalism/separatism was first promoted by the A-H authorities against Poland and Russia. Later, the German Reich continued the same policy. At the peace negotiations in 1918, the Americans explicitly rejected any recognition of Ukraine, calling it "a fabrication of the German General Staff." In World War II, the Germans continued the same policy of supporting Ukrainian nationalism in the war against the Soviet Union. Stepan Bandera and his OUN thought that the Germans would bring them independence, but the former ended up in prison very quickly, because the Germans were not interested in any Ukrainian independence. For them, Ukraine had the exclusive function of a source of raw materials and cannon fodder and slave labour. Ukrainian Nazi collaborators stood out as the most bloodthirsty in World War II. Half of them later fled to the USA and Canada. The other day I read a comment by an American who said that his father grew up in a neighborhood in Chicago where mostly Ukrainians lived. His father told him that every other "older uncle" was a war criminal who was welcomed with open arms in America as a fighter against communism. In 1989, Costa-Gavras made the film Music Box in which Armin Mueller-Stahl plays a Hungarian war criminal from Chicago, but the character he plays is actually based on the Ukrainian war criminal John Demjanjuk.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk
It is not my intention to portray Ukrainians as a people of enraged Nazis, but behind the coup in 2014 were the Banderists and their neocon sponsors in the State Department and the entire Ukrainian diaspora created by Nazi collaborators from the Second World War. These were not people who thought that by joining the EU their salaries would be higher. Ukraine is a huge country with huge economic potential and an educated workforce. It should be among the richest countries in Europe. Instead, it is the most corrupt and among the poorest. Why? Because there is still an oligarchy there like the one that ruled Russia in the 90s. In Russia, Putin broke their backbone and established some kind of order, while in Ukraine they do whatever they want. They rule the areas like mafia dons from the movies. They turned that country into a hotbed of crime, prostitution, corruption and human trafficking. It is the only country in Europe where surrogacy is legal. Of course, many people desperately hoped for a better life if they became part of the EU. But Romania, Bulgaria, and even Croatia should be enough of a warning for them. Those countries were literally emptied by Western EU members in the eternal search for cheap labor. In 2009, about 90,000 Romanians lived in Germany. In 2015, there were close to 600,000 of them. Over one and a half million Romanians live in Italy. Imagine what kind of wave of emigration would have started if Ukraine had joined the EU then. Anyway, they flooded Europe as refugees, among them many fake refugees who arrived here where I live in the most expensive Porsches, Mercedes, Maseratis, Lexuses and who were immediately "accommodated" in the most expensive hotels in the city center. They are still collecting social benefits and even enjoyed free parking. Switzerland has just made a decision that all Ukrainians who receive social welfare and who own expensive vehicles must sell them.
