Josef Stalin caused a famine when he tried to remake Ukraine's farms. Vladimir Putin is threatening to invade Ukraine — again. For a century, Ukraine has been trying to escape Moscow's grip.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Back in 2021, long before Russian troops began massing on the borders of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin published a long and rambling essay. His writing referred to centuries of history. And he argued that Russians and Ukrainians are essentially the same people. He also suggested that the Ukrainians did not deserve to keep their current borders. Putin was at least correct that Russians and Ukrainians share a lot of history. But Ukrainians have a very different view of the past. NPR's Greg Myre reports.

GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, when Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin seized the rich, fertile land from the local farmers. They were forced into a collectivized, state-run agricultural system.

JOHN VSETECKA: So these farmers had something that the Soviet Union considered to be too much. And oftentimes, this was something like they had a cow or, you know, a little bit of land. It doesn't mean that they were rich.

MYRE: John Vsetecka is a Fulbright scholar. He's been in Ukraine studying this period for his doctorate in history at Michigan State.

VSETECKA: They are working in the fields. And they are producing everything for the state. And the state is giving them, really, nothing to eat.

MYRE: The result? One of the worst famines of the 20th century.

VSETECKA: Between three and 5 million people died.

MYRE: Survivors protested and rebelled for the next 20 years. They were crushed. But those events still resonate with Ukrainians when they talk about today's crisis.

VSETECKA: And Ukrainians - and especially the ones I talked to - it comes up often. It's a point of reference. Well, look what happened to my grandmother in 1932, '33, or look what happened to my family.

MYRE: I reached John Vsetecka as he was reluctantly packing to leave Ukraine for neighboring Poland due to the threat of a Russian invasion. The U.S. State Department told him to leave. He's unsure when he might return. When the Soviet Union was falling apart back in 1991, Ukraine held a referendum on independence. A whopping 92% voted in favor, accelerating the collapse of the Soviet Union. Professor Serhii Plokhii heads the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard. He said some were surprised by that lopsided vote. He wasn't.

SERHII PLOKHII: That was the fifth attempt in Ukraine to declare and maintain independence in the 20th century.

MYRE: Just last month, Ukraine marked 30 years of independence. But, Plokhii says...

PLOKHII: The sad irony of the situation is that we see Ukraine under attack.

MYRE: Ukraine's independence has been rocky, plagued by weak governments, rampant corruption and a feeble economy. Putin has made it even harder by repeatedly meddling in Ukrainian politics, seeking to keep pro-Russian leaders in power. In 2004, Ukrainians pushed back with massive protests, the so-called Orange Revolution. And a decade later, in 2014, another round of demonstrations sent the country's president fleeing to Russia.

ANDREW WEISS: Putin has been a serial bungler when it comes to Ukraine.

MYRE: Andrew Weiss is with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He says Putin's moves in Ukraine have often produced the opposite of what he wanted.

WEISS: He's reanimated the NATO alliance. He's given Ukraine more national cohesion and a stronger national identity, and framed that identity on an anti-Russian trajectory.

MYRE: When Putin lost out politically in Ukraine in 2014, he sent the Russian military to seize Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. Today, he's massed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine's borders. He claims he's not planning to invade, but also says he doesn't consider Ukraine a real country. Scholar Serhii Plokhii says Putin should ask Ukrainians how they feel.

PLOKHII: The answer of the Ukrainian people will be, we are Ukrainians. We want to live in Ukraine. And we want this nightmare to end.

MYRE: For now, they're waiting for Putin's next move.

Greg Myre, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF AK'S "23 01 2018" Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Tags: ukraine famine  Russia Ukraine