Serhii Plokhy: History of Ukraine, Russia, Soviet Union, KGB, Nazis & War | Lex Fridman Podcast #415

Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy argues Ukraine’s 1991 independence vote directly dissolved the Soviet Union and that Putin’s war logic mirrors 19th-century Russian imperial mythology.

• The US actively tried to prevent Soviet collapse: Bush’s August 1991 ‘Chicken Kyiv’ speech warned Ukrainians against independence.
• Yeltsin told Bush that without Ukraine, Russia would be outvoted by Muslim republics — Ukraine’s Dec 1 vote triggered dissolution one week later.
• Bandera spent fewer than 2 years total in Ukraine; his brothers died in Auschwitz while he was in Sachsenhausen for refusing to revoke Ukraine’s independence declaration.
• Ukraine’s far-right won 2.15% in 2019 elections — already a wartime election — and no far-right party holds parliament seats, unlike Germany or France.
• Holodomor’s Dec 1932 decree simultaneously ordered grain requisition and banned Ukrainian-language publications, linking famine to cultural suppression; ~4 million deaths.
• Chernobyl protests — demanding radiation data — were Ukraine’s first mass independence mobilization, predating linguistic or political autonomy demands.
• Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant faced Fukushima-equivalent conditions multiple times during the war; none of the world’s 440 reactors were designed for direct missile attack.
• Cuban Missile Crisis nearly triggered war when a Soviet commander shot down a US plane without Moscow’s authorization — top leaders do not control events on the ground.

Guests: Serhii Plokhy — Ukrainian historian, Harvard University, director of the Ukrainian Research Institute · 2024-03-04 · Watch on YouTube