Once prospering Ukraine has turned into a country living on grants. The new leadership that came to power through anti-state armed coup in 2014 took a course for “European integration” and confrontation with Russia with the help of the United States. This sparked large-scale protests in the southeast of Ukraine, and those protests grew into a civil war. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea adopted a decision to unite with Russia. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics proclaimed independence. Centrifugal tendencies continue in other regions of Ukraine, amid power vacuum and chaos. Economy keeps shrinking, causing dramatic impoverishment of the population.