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This Map Shows Why The Battle For 'Ukraine's Soul' Is So Pivotal

Michael KelleyDec 20, 2013, 03:09 IST

Ukraine is in the midst of an identity crisis. For the last month, President Viktor Yanukovych has been cozying up to Russia amid pressure by the Kremlin while hundreds of thousands of have been renouncing Ukraine's old Soviet master and calling for closer ties to the European Union.

As Tim Judah of The New York Review of Books details, what is unfolding "is a fight for the very soul of Ukraine, a country of some 45.5 million people that stretches between the eastern marches of the European Union to the western borderlands of Russia."

Agence France-Presse has published a great graphic that puts the situation in perspective:

AFP