Post-Soviet transition in Ukraine became "Ukraine" instead of "Republic of 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
Mikhail Gorbachev by the increasingly problematic question of nationalities and the dramatic fragmentation of the Eastern Bloc. Despite unprecedented international détente, due to Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan completed in January and continuing talks between Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush, domestic reforms suffered from increasing divergence between reformists, who wanted faster change, and conservatives, who wanted to limit change. Gorbachev states that he tried to find middle ground between both groups, but this would draw more criticism towards him. The story from this point on moves away from reforms and becomes one of the nationalities question and the eventual dissolution of the