On the morning of April 26, 1986, reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, 80 miles north of Kiev exploded, in the process sending radioactive particles 3 miles up into the atmosphere and out over portions of Europe, Asia, and even North America. Ukraine was in the history books as the country that suffered the world's worst recorded nuclear accident.
Not only did Ukraine suffer nuclear meltdown, it somehow experienced another meltdown, though this time its political. On December 1991, 90% of Ukrainians voted for independence, and in effect dissolving the Soviet Union. With the changing of the guards, Ukraine now faces the possibility of eventually facing the Russian Military head-on as it has an ongoing border dispute with Russia.
The
USSR flag has now been replaced with the official
Ukraine national flag that was used for the first time in 1918 by a short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic. Article 20 of the New Constitution defines "the State Flag of Ukraine as a banner of two equally sized horizontal bands of blue and yellow in color." These colors had always been Ukraine's symbols that had its origins even before Christian times when yellow and blue were popular during traditional ceremonies, suggesting fire and water.
With a fresh start, the new millennium brought Ukraine economic growth, with a vigorous industrial output and had curbed inflation. And in 2001, the country dismantled its last Soviet-era nuclear missile silo, paving the way for its plans to join NATO in 2002.
Ukraine's steppe, the rich flatland that stretches for 1,600miles once made it as the breadbasket of the USSR, but also had large coal and iron deposits that feed heavy industry, particularly those of the Donbas (Donets Basin) and Kryvyy Rih regions.
by:
The Flagman
