The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 came at a critical time for the ailing Soviet Union. The economy was nearing freefall, an unpopular war in Afghanistan claimed ever more lives and new political forces were mobilizing. In Ukraine, the USSR’s second largest republic, the trauma of Chernobyl was difficult to overcome. Soon, Ukrainian citizens were asking how the disaster could have happened—and if a truly independent Ukraine would have made the same mistakes.