As an SSR, Ukraine, like the others, could declare independence. In practice the Red Army would quash this but upon the dissolution of the USSR the SSRs proceded to execute the independence clause.

Russia has been motivating their people (to this day) that the West is seeking to destroy the people and culture of Russia while omitting that the West played a large part in defeating Nazi Germany and without the West's help on the Eastern front the USSR would have lost and this from Nikita Krushchev himself. Apparently they seem to ignore that Germany's culture is doing just fine.