Discussione del libro di Nataliya Kibita "The Institutional Foundations of Ukrainian Democracy: Power Sharing, Regionalism, and Authoritarianism" (Ofxord University Press, 2024). Ukraine and Russia are today at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Despite 300 years of full submersion into Russian authoritarian system, Ukraine has rejected authoritarianism. To explain why and how Ukraine’s road diverged from Russia’s, this monograph investigates the origins of regionalism in Ukraine, which is at the foundation of the Ukrainian institutional system. ‘Weak centre, strong regions’ was characteristic of both Ukraine and Russia in the early post-Soviet years. However, what was a detour for Russia was a long-standing framework in Ukraine. The story follows the relationship between Moscow, Kyiv, and the Ukrainian regions in the period from spring 1917 to summer 1994. Based on new archival material and guided by the theory of institutions, the book examines how interlinked political and economic incentives and constraints determined the opportunities and institutional interests of the Ukrainian leadership and the Ukrainian regions, and how the institutional framework affected the dynamic of the relationship between the central leadership in Moscow, the Ukrainian leadership, and the regions. It shows that, once established, the configuration of ‘weak centre, strong regions’ did not change, even when the Soviet centralized party-state system collapsed. The failure of the Ukrainian leadership to reconfigure the interplay of incentives and constraints that dictated the behaviour of the Ukrainian regions determined not only the insignificance of the disintegration of the Soviet system, but also the institutional weakness of the new Ukrainian executive branch and the failure by President Kravchuk to establish some form of authoritarian rule.