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 law and ignoring the will of the people, even the American people", he said. That same year, he visited New Orleans, a city hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina, and promised he would return in 2011 to personally lead a local revolution if the U.S. government had not repaired the levees by that time. He said that revolutionary action should be a last resort. In May 2008, "The Telegraph" (UK) published an article, "Gorbachev: US could start new Cold War," which quotes Gorbachev saying, "The Americans promised that NATO wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now