“Since the mid-19th century, dominating Ukraine and denying Ukrainians an independent identity, let alone a state, have been the cornerstone of imperial, Soviet, and, eventually, post-Soviet Russian policies,” Finkel writes. He adds: “Nothing scares a Russian autocrat more than a democratic and free Ukraine, because if Ukrainians can build a democracy, then the supposedly fraternal Russians might too.” The rot, Finkel argues, goes back nearly 1,000 years, to when Kyiv, not Moscow, was the capital of the ancient state “Rus”. After Kyiv was destroyed by the Mongols, Moscow gained the upper hand, from then on viewing Ukraine as its backyard, be it as a wheat-growing breadbasket or buffer zone against Europe. Stalin...felt that Ukrainianisation had become a movement “against Russians in general”. Stalin responded with the Holodomor, or “Death by Hunger” in 1932-1933, the Kremlin-orchestrated operation to dispossess Ukrainians of their land and grain. In the cities where educated Russophiles lived, food was kept available. But in rural areas, five million starved to death. Today, Ukrainians regard it as their genocide.