Ukraine has been in the news for months after a whistleblower revealed that President Donald Trump had secretly blocked $400 million in military aid for the war against Russia. Careers have subsequently been derailed; others were put in jeopardy – all in the context of mind-boggling intrigue with clownish characters seeming to have come to life from a preposterous crime novel. And yet, it’s deadly serious – literally: 14,000 Ukrainians have been killed in the war in the Donbas and more are dying every week.
A century ago this January, the post-World War I Versailles Peace Conference concluded, with the map of Europe redrawn. Peoples subject to imperial rule from Berlin, Petrograd, Vienna and Istanbul (Ukrainians among them), petitioned the powers that be, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson among them, to grant their nations a sovereign state. Most succeeded, but not Ukraine.