evidence: In fact, the territory of contemporary Ukraine "used to belong to several empires or states, so some versions of Ukrainian identity do not even have anything to do with Russia at all," said Eugene Finkel, an associate professor with Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies who studies Eastern Europe. [...] Resistance to Polish domination came from the Cossacks, a group with historically opaque ethnic origins. In 1654, they allied with Russia to establish a territory under their control, called a Hetmanate; it was an early form of what would become Ukraine, and it included Ukraine’s modern-day capital, Kyiv. Mapmakers of that time labeled Cossack areas as Ukraine. [...] Ukrainians shared a sense of victimhood at the hands of both the Soviet Union and Russia, Herron said. Key events include the famine (or Holodomor) under Stalin that killed perhaps 4 million or more Ukrainians, as well as the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl (or, to the Ukrainians, Chornobyl), which occurred about 60 miles north of Kyiv.