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Is Declawing A Cat Necessary?
The dislocation and devastation in Ukraine was considerable. In the Right Bank, bands of disaffected peasants roamed the countryside while Polish landholders dominated the lands. Not all was well with Poland itself, either. But any hopes for an independent Ukraine that could break away from Poland were dashed in the 18th century. As the power of empires like Prussia, Russia, and Austria grew, they eyed the weaker states next them and started to gobble them up.
The most impactful of these imperial moves was, as explained by Britannica, the partition of Poland. In 1772, 1793, and 1795, Russia, Austria, and Prussia whittled down this large kingdom between themselves until it ceased to exist. It was in this way that the very western portion of Ukraine, called Galicia, fell into the dominion of the Hapsburgs of Austria, while essentially the rest of the country fell under the hegemony of the Tsars of Russia. The Tsars then wasted no time in trying to remove any vestige of autonomy within Ukraine.
