As Andrey Kurkov suggested to me, Ukrainians were freedom-loving individualists who disliked being told what to do, habitually rejected their leaders, and had lived for many centuries in a state of what he called “organized anarchy.” They were rebels by nature, caustic and disrespectful. In contrast, Russians came from an autocratic system. They bowed to authority, followed orders, and loved the tsar—unless they didn’t like him, in which case they killed him. The Soviet state and its modern successor revolved around a single party, and a dictator. The Kremlin’s preferred method of negotiation
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