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 leaders of democratic countries, which works to strengthen democratic governance and leadership. Gorbachev was co-chair of Earth Charter International Commission. Gorbachev was a socialist. His friend Mlynář, with whom he studied at university, related that in the early 1950s "Gorbachev, like everyone else at the time, was a Stalinist." Mlynář added that "Unlike most Soviet students, [Gorbachev] did not see Marxist theory as a collection of axioms to be committed to memory." Biographers Doder and Branson related that after Stalin's death, Gorbachev's "ideology would never be doctrinal again", but noted that he remained "a true believer" in the Soviet system.