For the Soviets, and for Putin today, the most important fact about the Ukrainians during the war was not their victimhood but their alleged collabor… - Anna Reid

The idea that Ukrainians are too weak and divided to stand up for themselves is one they are magnificently disproving on the battlefield.

As during the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013–14 Maidan protests, which came to be known as the Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine’s fierce self-defense today is a defense of values, not of ethnic identity or of some imagined glorious past.

In 2010, Yanukovych finally won the presidency, after the pro-European bloc rancorously split. For the next four years, he devoted himself to looting the Ukrainian treasury. But in November 2013, he went a step too far: just as Ukraine was about to ink a long-planned and widely popular trade deal with the European Union, he abruptly canceled it and, under pressure from Putin, announced a partnership with Russia instead.