Post-Soviet transition in Ukraine Post-Soviet transition in Ukraine The post-Soviet transition in Ukraine was established following the country's independence in 1991 up until the adoption of its constitution in 1996. Ukraine's territory (including the Crimean Peninsula) was the same as that of the Ukrainian SSR with a land area of about 603,700 km. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of the founding states of the Soviet Union (USSR). In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became head of state of the USSR and introduced a number of policies, such as the perestroika and glasnost. Instead of saving the Soviet regime, the reforms triggered a number of
Mikhail Gorbachev had worked together to seize the TV tower in Vilnius; Gorbachev asked the heads of the KGB and military if they had approved such action, and there is no evidence that they, or Gorbachev, ever did. Gorbachev cites documents found in the RSFSR Prokuratura after the August coup, which only mentioned that "some 'authorities'" had sanctioned the actions. The book "Alpha – the KGB's Top Secret Unit" also suggests that a "KGB operation co-ordinated with the military" was undertaken by the KGB Alpha Group. Archie Brown, in "The Gorbachev Factor", uses the memoirs of many people around Gorbachev and in