Am 1567. Tag der groß angelegten Invasion ist die Sonne über Kiew untergegangen. Am 3. März 1918 erkannte Russland die Unabhängigkeit der Ukraine an. Weniger als ein Jahr später brachen sie alle Vereinbarungen, die sie unterzeichnet hatten.

Russia was not doing well during World War I. By 1918, the situation was eerily reminiscent of today’s events.

Despite vast raw materials and seemingly endless, Russia failed to use its resources effectively and continued to suffer defeats on the battlefield. Economic backwardness, weak industry, a collapsing transport system, and outright corruption crippled the war effort.

Although Russia representatives had discussed the possibility of a separate peace for several years, by 1918 the situation had become desperate. After the Bolsheviks’ October coup, the decline accelerated. So it seems they decided to take the peace deal, a deal they never planned to keep.

As the war ravaged Europe, Ukrainians, themselves exhausted and divided by empires, sought not only survival but the restoration of a statehood generations had fought for. They were not negotiating from a position of strength, having long been colonized by empires. Still, circumstance opened a narrow window of opportunity.

On the night of Feb. 9, 1918, in Brest-Litovsk, the Ukrainian People’s Republic signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers: the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, as well as the Kingdom of Bulgaria.

Less than a month later, on March 3, 1918, Soviet Russia — facing military collapse — signed its own separate peace in Brest-Litovsk. Under the treaty, it committed to recognize the independence of Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and Finland.

The Feb. 9 agreement marked both the first peace treaty of World War I and the first full-fledged international accord in the history of modern Ukrainian statehood. Some Ukrainians saw it as a necessary and pragmatic decision amid Bolshevik occupation of much of Ukraine. Others viewed it as a bad compromise that legitimized the presence of Central Powers’ troops on Ukrainian soil while failing to guarantee lasting protection from Russian aggression.

Their skepticism proves warranted.

On Nov. 13, 1918, Russia annulled the agreement, declaring that the March 3 treaty had “lost its force and significance.” All obligations, including reparations, were declared void.

By January 1919, Bolshevik forces launched a major offensive against Ukraine, a new wave of immense suffering.