the washington post. and that time i would go to ukraine, and by 1989 i was able to meet with people who are independent activists. and it was a very small number, they were very brave, they all had been sent to prison at one time or another during the soviet period. and these were meetings in 1989, 1990, and they were looking at what was happening in the baltic states, is tony a, lot trio, luke wayne era. and they were really independence movements that were active there. by 1990, the group called the roof had developed and they were the independent movements grew and grew. what collapse the soviet union? many factors, principally economic, a technological, social. but in 1991, the ukrainian people were given a referendum, whether they wanted to be independent or not. over 90% of ukrainians, not just people in the west and in lviv, or intellectuals in kyiv, but all over the country including the east, which