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 the superiority of socialist over bourgeois democracy". Gorbachev had remained close to his parents; after his father he became terminally ill in 1974, Gorbachev travelled to be with him in Privolnoe shortly before his death. His daughter, Irina, married fellow student Anatoly Virgansky in April 1978. In November 1974, Gorbachev was appointed as a Secretary of the Central Committee; he was the youngest man to ever hold such a position. His appointment had been approved unanimously by the Central Committee's members. To fill this position, Gorbachev and his wife moved to Moscow, where they were initially given an old dacha