The 'New' Ukraine: A State of Regions

This chapter focuses on the politicization of Ukraine's regional diversity, most notably in Zakarpattya, the Donbas and Crimea, the latter being the greatest ethno-regional challenge to post-Soviet Ukraine. In Ukraine the most serious political regional mobilizations occurred in the Donbas, Zakarpattya and, most importantly, in Crimea. Given that Crimea was considered Ukraines biggest potential ethno-regional flashpoint, the prevention of conflict here puts the debate about conflict in other Ukrainian regions and the prognoses about the fracturing of the Ukrainian state in perspective. The institutionalization of Crimean autonomy has strengthened the notion of a civic Ukrainian state- and nation-building project. The most outspoken proponent of federalism in this period was Volodymyr Hrynov, the leader of the MBR. The way in which it dealt with its ethnic and regional diversity and, above all, with its most precarious region Crimea, belongs to its political achievement.