The Soviet Union was created by Lenin 100 years ago today

100 years ago today the Soviet Union was created. The new country bound together the former republics of Tsarist Russia in a socialist federation. It became a global superpower but also an instrument of brutal suppression. Ukraine was one of those republics whose hopes for independence were ruthlessly extinguished. It had to wait for the Soviet Union to collapse in 1991 before it tasted true freedom. Freedom which is again under threat from a Russian leader who once called the end of the Soviet Union "a catastrophe."