A "Ukrainian state" was created by the [[Bolshevik]]s with remnants of the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires. No entity known as "Ukraine" existed prior to 1918. Other territories were seized by Stalin from Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia - countries that provided troops to the German invasion of Russia during World War II. Later the Ukrainian-born Soviet communist and premier [[Nikita Khruschev]] severed the [[Crimean Peninsula]] from Russia proper, which had been a Russian territory for 400 years. The word itself, "Ukraine" literally means "border" or "borderlands". | A "Ukrainian state" was created by the [[Bolshevik]]s with remnants of the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires. No entity known as "Ukraine" existed prior to 1918. Other territories were seized by Stalin from Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia - countries that provided troops to the German invasion of Russia during World War II. Later the Ukrainian-born Soviet communist and premier [[Nikita Khruschev]] severed the [[Crimean Peninsula]] from Russia proper, which had been a Russian territory for 400 years. The word itself, "Ukraine" literally means "border" or "borderlands". |