Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.

com/print/article/612921

Ukraine
Ukraine, country located in eastern Europe, the second
TABLE OF CONTENTS
largest on the continent after Russia. The capital is
Kyiv (Kiev), located on the Dnieper River in north- Introduction
central Ukraine.
Land

A fully People

independent Economy

Ukraine emerged Government and society

only late in the Cultural life

20th century, History
Ukraine after long periods
of successive
domination by Poland-Lithuania, Russia, and the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.).
Ukraine had experienced a brief period of
independence in 1918–20, but portions of western
UkraineEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Ukraine were ruled by Poland, Romania, and
Czechoslovakia in the period between the two
World Wars, and Ukraine thereafter became part of
the Soviet Union as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist
Republic (S.S.R.). When the Soviet Union began to
unravel in 1990–91, the legislature of the
Ukrainian S.S.R. declared sovereignty (July 16,
Swallow's Nest Castle
Swallow's Nest Castle overlooking the
1990) and then outright independence (August 24,
Black Sea, Yalta, Crimean Peninsula, 1991), a move that was confirmed by popular
Ukraine.
approval in a plebiscite (December 1, 1991). With
© Mike_kiev/Dreamstime.com
the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in December 1991,
Ukraine gained full independence. The country changed its official name to Ukraine, and
it helped to found the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an association of
countries that were formerly republics of the Soviet Union.

Land
Ukraine is bordered by Belarus to the north, Russia to the east, the Sea of Azov and the

1 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Black Sea to the south, Moldova and Romania to

the southwest, and Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland
to the west. In the far southeast, Ukraine is
separated from Russia by the Kerch Strait, which
connects the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea.
UkraineEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Relief
Ukraine occupies the southwestern portion of the
Russian Plain (East European Plain). The country
consists almost entirely of level plains at an
average elevation of 574 feet (175 metres) above
Physical features of sea level. Mountainous areas such as the Ukrainian
UkraineEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Carpathians and Crimean Mountains occur only on
the country’s borders and account for barely 5
percent of its area. The Ukrainian landscape nevertheless has some diversity: its plains
are broken by highlands—running in a continuous belt from northwest to southeast—as
well as by lowlands.

The rolling plain of the Dnieper Upland, which lies between the middle reaches of the
Dnieper (Dnipro) and Southern Buh (Pivdennyy Buh, or the Boh) rivers in west-central
Ukraine, is the largest highland area; it is dissected by many river valleys, ravines, and
gorges, some more than 1,000 feet (300 metres) deep. On the west the Dnieper Upland is
abutted by the rugged Volyn-Podilsk Upland, which rises to 1,545 feet (471 metres) at its
highest point, Mount Kamula. West of the Volyn-Podilsk Upland, in extreme western
Ukraine, the parallel ranges of the Carpathian Mountains—one of the most picturesque
areas in the country—extend for more than 150 miles (240 km). The mountains range in
height from about 2,000 feet (600 metres) to about 6,500 feet (2,000 metres), rising to
6,762 feet (2,061 metres) at Mount Hoverla, the highest point in the country. The
northeastern and southeastern portions of Ukraine are occupied by low uplands rarely
reaching an elevation of 1,000 feet (300 metres).

Among the country’s lowlands are the Pripet Marshes (Polissya), which lie in the
northern part of Ukraine and are crossed by numerous river valleys. In east-central
Ukraine is the Dnieper Lowland, which is flat in the west and gently rolling in the east.
To the south, another lowland extends along the shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of
Azov; its level surface, broken only by low rises and shallow depressions, slopes

2 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

gradually toward the Black Sea. The shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov are
characterized by narrow, sandy spits of land that jut out into the water; one of these, the
Arabat Spit, is about 70 miles (113 km) long but averages less than 5 miles (8 km) in
width.

The southern lowland continues in the Crimean Peninsula as the North Crimean
Lowland. The peninsula—a large protrusion into the Black Sea—is connected to the
mainland by the Perekop Isthmus. The Crimean Mountains form the southern coast of
the peninsula. Mount Roman-Kosh, at 5,069 feet (1,545 metres), is the mountains’
highest point.

Drainage
Almost all the major rivers in Ukraine flow
northwest to southeast through the plains to empty
into the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The
Dnieper River, with its hydroelectric dams, huge
Crimean Peninsula cliffs
Cliffs on the Crimean Peninsula reservoirs, and many tributaries, dominates the
overlooking the Black Sea. entire central part of Ukraine. Of the total course of
Philippe Michel/age fotostock
the Dnieper, 609 miles (980 km) are in Ukraine,
making it by far the longest river in the country, of which it drains more than half. Like
the Dnieper, the Southern Buh, with its major tributary, the Inhul, flows into the Black
Sea. To the west and southwest, partly draining Ukrainian territory, the Dniester
(Dnistro) also flows into the Black Sea; among its numerous tributaries, the largest in
Ukraine are the Stryy and the Zbruch. The middle course of the Donets River, a tributary
of the Don, flows through southeastern Ukraine and is an important source of water for
the Donets Basin (Donbas). The Danube River flows along the southwestern frontier of
Ukraine. Marshland, covering almost 3 percent of Ukraine, is found primarily in the
northern river valleys and in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, Danube, and other rivers.

The rivers are most important as a water supply,

and for this purpose a series of canals has been
built, such as the Donets–Donets Basin, the
Dnieper–Kryvyy Rih, and the North Crimea.
Several of the larger rivers are navigable, including
the Dnieper, Danube, Dniester, Pripet (Pryp’yat),
Donets, and Southern Buh (in its lower course).

3 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Dnieper River Dams and hydroelectric plants are situated on all

Dnieper River at Kyiv, Ukraine.
J. Allan Cash Photolibrary the larger rivers.

Ukraine has a few natural lakes, all of them small

and most of them scattered over the river floodplains. One of the largest is Lake Svityaz,
11 square miles (28 square km) in area, in the northwest. Small saltwater lakes occur in
the Black Sea Lowland and in Crimea. Larger saline lakes occur along the coast. Known
as limans, these bodies of water form at the mouths of rivers or ephemeral streams and
are blocked off by sandbars from the sea. Some artificial lakes have been formed, the
largest of which are reservoirs at hydroelectric dams—e.g., the reservoir on the Dnieper
upstream from Kremenchuk. The Kakhovka, Dnieper, Dniprodzerzhynsk, Kaniv, and
Kyiv reservoirs make up the rest of the Dnieper cascade. Smaller reservoirs are located
on the Dniester and Southern Buh rivers and on tributaries of the Donets River. Small
reservoirs for water supply also are found near Kryvyy Rih, Kharkiv, and other industrial
cities. Three large artesian basins—the Volyn-Podilsk, the Dnieper, and the Black Sea—
are exceptionally important for municipal needs and agriculture as well.

Soils
From northwest to southeast the soils of Ukraine may be divided into three major
aggregations: a zone of sandy podzolized soils; a central belt consisting of the black,
extremely fertile Ukrainian chernozems; and a zone of chestnut and salinized soils.

The podzolized soils occupy about one-fifth of the country’s area, mostly in the north
and northwest. These soils were formed by the extension of postglacial forests into
regions of grassy steppe; most such soils may be farmed, although they require the
addition of nutrients to obtain good harvests.

The chernozems of central Ukraine, among the most fertile soils in the world, occupy
about two-thirds of the country’s area. These soils may be divided into three broad
groups: in the north a belt of the so-called deep chernozems, about 5 feet (1.5 metres)
thick and rich in humus; south and east of the former, a zone of prairie, or ordinary,
chernozems, which are equally rich in humus but only about 3 feet (1 metre) thick; and
the southernmost belt, which is even thinner and has still less humus. Interspersed in
various uplands and along the northern and western perimeters of the deep chernozems
are mixtures of gray forest soils and podzolized black-earth soils, which together occupy
much of Ukraine’s remaining area. All these soils are very fertile when sufficient water

4 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

is available. However, their intensive cultivation, especially on steep slopes, has led to
widespread soil erosion and gullying.

The smallest proportion of the soil cover consists of the chestnut soils of the southern
and eastern regions. They become increasingly salinized to the south as they approach
the Black Sea.

Climate
Ukraine lies in a temperate climatic zone influenced by moderately warm, humid air
from the Atlantic Ocean. Winters in the west are considerably milder than those in the
east. In summer, on the other hand, the east often experiences higher temperatures than
the west. Average annual temperatures range from about 42–45 °F (5.5–7 °C) in the
north to about 52–55 °F (11–13 °C) in the south. The average temperature in January, the
coldest month, is about 26 °F (−3 °C) in the southwest and about 18 °F (−8 °C) in the
northeast. The average in July, the hottest month, is about 73 °F (23 °C) in the southeast
and about 64 °F (18 °C) in the northwest.

Precipitation is uneven, with two to three times as much falling in the warmer seasons as
in the cold. Maximum precipitation generally occurs in June and July, while the
minimum falls in February. Snow falls mainly in late November and early December;
accumulation varies in depth from a few inches in the steppe region (in the south) to
several feet in the Carpathians. Western Ukraine, notably the Carpathian Mountains area,
receives the highest annual precipitation—more than 47 inches (1,200 mm). The
lowlands along the Black Sea and in Crimea, by contrast, receive less than 16 inches
(400 mm) annually. The remaining areas of Ukraine receive 16 to 24 inches (400 to 600
mm) of precipitation.

In contrast to the rest of Ukraine, the southern shore of Crimea has a warm, gentle,
Mediterranean-type climate. Winters are mild and rainy, with little snow, and the average
January temperature is 39 °F (4 °C). Summers are dry and hot, with an average July
temperature of 75 °F (24 °C).

Plant and animal life

Though much of Ukraine’s original plant cover has been cleared for cultivation, three
main zones of natural vegetation are still distinguishable. From north to south, they are
the Polissya (woodland and marsh), the forest-steppe, and the steppe.

5 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

The Polissya zone lies in the northwest and north.

More than one-third of its area—about 44,000
square miles (114,000 square km)—is arable land.
Nearly one-quarter of it is covered with mixed
woodland, including oak, elm, birch, hornbeam,
Yalta: Livadiya Palace ash, maple, pine, linden, alder, poplar, willow, and
Gardens and facade of the Livadiya
Palace, Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine.
beech. About 5 percent is peat bog, a substantial
John Massey Stewart portion is marshland, and the river valleys are
floodplains. The Polissya contains the
southernmost portions of the Pripet Marshes, and Ukraine has undertaken major efforts
to drain these swamplands and reclaim the land for agriculture.

The forest-steppe, which covers an area of about 78,000 square miles (202,000 square
km), extends south from the Polissya. About two-thirds of this agricultural region is
arable land; forests take up only about one-eighth of the area.

Farther south, near the Black Sea, Sea of Azov, and Crimean Mountains, the forest-
steppe joins the steppe zone, which is about 89,000 square miles (231,000 square km) in
area. Many of the flat, treeless plains in this region are under cultivation, although low
annual precipitation and hot summers make supplemental irrigation necessary. Remnants
of the natural vegetation of the steppe, including its characteristic fescue and feather
grasses, are protected in nature reserves.

Other natural regions are found near the borders of the country. Most of the country’s
rich forestlands are in the Carpathian region of western Ukraine. The lower mountain
slopes are covered with mixed forests and the intermediate slopes with pine forests;
these give way to Alpine meadows at higher altitudes. Along the southern coast of the
Crimean Peninsula, a narrow strip of land, only about 6 miles (10 km) wide, constitutes
a unique natural region where both deciduous and evergreen grasses and shrubs grow.

The animal life of Ukraine is diverse, with about 350 species of birds, more than 100
species of mammals, and more than 200 species of fish. The most common predators are
wolves, foxes, wildcats, and martens, while hoofed animals include roe deer, wild pigs,
and sometimes elk and mouflons (a species of wild sheep). The wide variety of rodents
includes gophers, hamsters, jerboas, and field mice. The major bird species are black and
hazel grouse, owls, gulls, and partridges, as well as many migrating birds, such as wild
geese, ducks, and storks. Among the fish are pike, carp, bream, perch, sturgeons, and

6 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

sterlets. Introduced and well-acclimatized wildlife includes muskrats, raccoons, beavers,

nutrias, and silver foxes.

Numerous nature and game reserves reflect Ukraine’s commitment to the conservation
of its biological heritage. The country’s first nature reserve, Askaniya-Nova, began as a
private wildlife refuge in 1875; today it protects a portion of virgin steppe. Some 40
different mammals, including the onager and Przewalski’s horse, have been introduced
there as part of a successful program of breeding endangered species; ostriches also have
been successfully introduced. The separate sections of the Ukrainian Steppe Reserve also
preserve various types of steppe. The Black Sea Nature Reserve shelters many species of
waterfowl and is the only Ukrainian breeding ground of the Mediterranean gull (Larus
melanocephalus). Also located on the Black Sea, the Danube Water Meadows Reserve
protects the Danube River’s tidewater biota. Other reserves in Ukraine preserve
segments of the forest-steppe woodland, the marshes and forests of the Polissya, and the
mountains and rocky coast of Crimea.

Environmental concerns
During the Soviet period, rapid industrialization, intensive farming, and a lack of
effective pollution controls combined to seriously degrade the environment in Ukraine.
Some of the most polluted areas in the world are now found there.

The coal-burning industries of eastern Ukraine, which emit high levels of sulfur dioxide,
hydrocarbons, and dust, have created severe air pollution throughout the region. Air
quality is particularly poor in the cities of Dnipropetrovsk, Kryvyy Rih, and
Zaporizhzhya. Lightly industrialized cities in the west, such as Uzhhorod and
Khmelnytskyy, face air pollution caused by the prevalence of inefficient automobiles.

Major rivers, including the Dnieper, Dniester, Inhul, and Donets, are seriously polluted
with chemical fertilizers and pesticides from agricultural runoff and with poorly treated
or untreated sewage. Coastal water pollution in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea has
necessitated the closing of beaches and has led to a dramatic reduction in fish catches.
The freshwater flow into the Sea of Azov has been largely diverted for irrigation
purposes, leading to a sharp increase in salinity.

The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant created severe environmental
problems in northwestern Ukraine. Vast areas of land are contaminated by dangerous

7 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

short- and long-lived radioactive isotopes, notably

strontium-90, which can replace calcium in foods
and become concentrated in bones and teeth.
Contaminated agricultural lands near Chernobyl
will be unsafe for thousands of years, though some
Chernobyl disaster of these areas continue to be occupied and farmed.
Scientists trawling the Pryp'yat River,
near Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Several thousand premature deaths from cancer are
© Petr Pavlicek/IAEA expected over the long term.

People
Ethnic groups
When Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union, a
policy of Russian in-migration and Ukrainian out-
Chernobyl disaster migration was in effect, and ethnic Ukrainians’
The town of Pryp'yat, Ukraine, which
was evacuated after the Chernobyl
share of the population in Ukraine declined from
accident in 1986. 77 percent in 1959 to 73 percent in 1991. But that
©Alessandro Lucca/Dreamstime.com
trend reversed after the country gained
independence, and, by the turn of the 21st century,
ethnic Ukrainians made up more than three-fourths of the population. Russians continue
to be the largest minority, though they now constitute less than one-fifth of the
population. The remainder of the population includes Belarusians, Moldovans,
Bulgarians, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Roma (Gypsies), and other groups. The
Crimean Tatars, who were forcibly deported to Uzbekistan and other Central Asian
republics in 1944, began returning to the Crimea in large numbers in 1989; by the early
21st century they constituted one of the largest non-Russian minority groups. In March
2014 Russia forcibly annexed Crimea, a move that was condemned by the international
community, and human rights groups subsequently documented a series of repressive
measures that had been taken against the Crimean Tatars by Russian authorities.

Historically, Ukraine had large Jewish and Polish

populations, particularly in the Right Bank region
(west of the Dnieper River). In fact, in the late 19th
century slightly more than one-fourth of the
world’s Jewish population (estimated at 10 million)
Ukraine: Ethnic lived in ethnic Ukrainian territory. This

8 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

compositionEncyclopædia Britannica, predominantly Yiddish-speaking population was

Inc.
greatly reduced by emigration in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries and by the devastation of the Holocaust. In the late 1980s and early
’90s, large numbers of Ukraine’s remaining Jews emigrated, mainly to Israel. At the turn
of the 21st century, the several hundred thousand Jews left in Ukraine made up less than
1 percent of the Ukrainian population. Most of Ukraine’s large Polish minority was
resettled in Poland after World War II as part of a Soviet plan to have ethnic settlement
match territorial boundaries. Fewer than 150,000 ethnic Poles remained in Ukraine at the
turn of the 21st century.

Languages
The vast majority of people in Ukraine speak Ukrainian, which is written with a form of
the Cyrillic alphabet. The language—belonging with Russian and Belarusian to the East
Slavic branch of the Slavic language family—is closely related to Russian but also has
distinct similarities to the Polish language. Significant numbers of people in the country
speak Polish, Yiddish, Rusyn, Belarusian, Romanian or Moldovan, Bulgarian, Crimean
Turkish, or Hungarian. Russian is the most important minority language.

During the rule of imperial Russia and under the Soviet Union, Russian was the common
language of government administration and public life in Ukraine. Although Ukrainian
had been afforded equal status with Russian in the decade following the revolution of
1917, by the 1930s a concerted attempt at Russification was well under way. In 1989
Ukrainian once again became the country’s official language, and its status as the sole
official language was confirmed in the 1996 Ukrainian constitution.

In 2012 a law was passed that granted local authorities the power to confer official status
upon minority languages. Although Ukrainian was reaffirmed as the country’s official
language, regional administrators could elect to conduct official business in the
prevailing language of the area. In Crimea, which has an autonomous status within
Ukraine and where there is a Russian-speaking majority, Russian and Crimean Tatar are
the official languages. In addition, primary and secondary schools using Russian as the
language of instruction still prevail in the Donets Basin and other areas with large
Russian minorities. The Ukrainian parliament moved to rescind the minority language
law in February 2014, after the ouster of pro-Russian Pres. Viktor Yanukovych, but
interim Pres. Oleksandr Turchynov declined to sign the bill into law.

9 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Religion
The predominant religion in Ukraine, practiced by almost half the population, is Eastern
Orthodoxy. Historically, most adherents belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church–
Kyiv Patriarchate, though the Ukrainian Orthodox Church–Moscow Patriarchate was
important as well. A smaller number of Orthodox Christians belonged to the Ukrainian
Autocephalous Orthodox Church. In January 2019 the Kyiv Patriarchate and
Autocephalous churches were merged into a single body as the Orthodox Church of
Ukraine. In creating the new church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I formalized
the independence of Ukraine’s Orthodox community, which had been under the
jurisdiction of the patriarchate of Moscow since 1686. In western Ukraine the Ukrainian
Greek Catholic Church prevails. Minority religions include Protestantism, Roman
Catholicism, Islam (practiced primarily by the Crimean Tatars), and Judaism. More than
two-fifths of Ukrainians are not religious.

Settlement patterns
More than two-thirds of the population lives in
urban areas. High population densities occur in
southeastern and south-central Ukraine, in the
highly industrialized regions of the Donets Basin
Ukraine: Religious
affiliationEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc. and the Dnieper Bend, as well as in the coastal
areas along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
Portions of western Ukraine and the Kyiv area are
also densely populated. Besides the capital, major
cities in Ukraine include Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk,
Donetsk, Odessa, Zaporizhzhya, Lviv, and Kryvyy
Rih. Of the rural population, more than half is
St. Andrew's Church, Kyiv
St. Andrew's Church (left), Kyiv, found in large villages (1,000 to 5,000 inhabitants),
Ukraine. and most of these people are employed in a rural
Shostal Associates
economy based on farming. The highest rural
population densities are found in the wide belt of forest-steppe extending east-west
across central Ukraine, where the extremely fertile soils and balanced climatic conditions
are most favourable for agriculture.

Demographic trends

10 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Ukraine’s population increased steadily throughout

the Soviet era, peaking at over 50 million as the
country transitioned to independence. However, a
low birth rate, coupled with an aging population
and low rates of migration into the country,
Ukraine: Urban-ruralEncyclopædia contributed to a sharp population decline that
Britannica, Inc.
extended into the 21st century. Millions of
Ukrainians—especially those from the western part
of the country—sought employment abroad, and by
2010 roughly one in seven Ukrainians was residing
outside the country for work purposes. These
labour migrants most often sought work in Russia
population density of Ukraine and the EU, and they predominantly found
Population density of Ukraine.
employment in the fields of construction and
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
domestic service. Aware of Ukraine’s net loss of
workers to immigration and a fertility rate that was far below replacement level,
Ukrainian policy makers recognized the burden that would be placed on the country’s
old age pension system. In 2011 the retirement age for men was raised from 60 to 62 and
women’s retirement age was raised from 55 to 60. By 2017 it was estimated that at least
1.5 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced by Russia’s forcible annexation of
Crimea in 2014 and by ongoing fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed
separatists in southeastern Ukraine.

Economy
Ukraine’s modern economy was developed as an
integral part of the larger economy of the Soviet
Union. While receiving a smaller share (16 percent
in the 1980s) of the Soviet Union’s investment
Ukraine: Age
breakdownEncyclopædia Britannica, funds and producing a greater proportion of goods
Inc. with a lower set price, Ukraine was able to produce
a larger share of total output in the industrial (17
percent) and especially the agricultural (21 percent) sectors of the Soviet economy. In
effect, a centrally directed transfer of wealth from Ukraine, amounting to one-fifth of its
national income, helped to finance economic development in other parts of the Soviet
Union, notably Russia and Kazakhstan.

11 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

By the late Soviet period, however, the Ukrainian economy was under severe strain, and
it contracted sharply early in the independence era. A period of extreme currency
inflation in the early 1990s brought great hardship to most of the population. Despite
early hopes that Ukrainian economic independence—with the concomitant end to the
transfer of funds and resources to other parts of the Soviet Union—would alleviate the
declining economy and standard of living, Ukraine entered a period of severe economic
decline. Daily life in Ukraine became a struggle, particularly for those living on fixed
incomes, as prices rose sharply. Citizens compensated in a number of ways: more than
half grew their own food, workers often held two or three jobs, and many acquired basic
necessities through a flourishing barter economy. By 1996 Ukraine had achieved a
measure of economic stability. Inflation dropped to manageable levels, and the
economy’s decline slowed considerably.

At the turn of the 21st century the economy finally began to grow, at least partially as a
result of increased ties with Russia. In the early 21st century many young Ukrainians,
particularly residents of the country’s rural west, sought employment opportunities
abroad. Although such migration sometimes led to localized labour shortages within
Ukraine, remittances from the Ukrainian diaspora amounted to some 4 percent of the
country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

The economy contracted sharply in 2014 as a result of the political crisis that toppled the
government of pro-Russian Pres. Viktor Yanukovych. Russia responded to Yanukovych’s
ouster by illegally annexing Crimea and fomenting an insurgency in southeastern
Ukraine. A cease-fire between the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed forces in
February 2015 created a state of frozen conflict, and the ongoing violence shattered daily
life in what had been Ukraine’s most productive industrial region.

Agriculture and fishing

Partly because of rich soils and a favourable climate, Ukraine’s crop production is highly
developed. Its output of grain and potatoes is among the highest in Europe, and it is
among the world’s largest producers of sugar beets and sunflower oil. Ukraine’s
livestock sector lags behind the crop sector, but its total output is still considerably larger
than that of most other European countries.

A considerable amount of the world’s black soils are found in Ukraine’s forest-steppe
zone. These soils are exceptionally well suited for the cultivation of sugar beets, an

12 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

important industrial crop, and wheat. Besides wheat (almost all of it fall-sown), Ukraine
produces such grains as barley (mostly for animal feed), corn (maize, for feed),
leguminous grains (also feed), oats, rye, millet, buckwheat, and rice (irrigated, in
Crimea). Potatoes are a major crop in the cooler regions in the north and in the
Carpathian foothills. Sunflower seeds, the principal oil crop, are most common in the
steppe zone, where castor beans, mustard, rape, flax, hemp, and poppy seeds also are
grown for oil. In the southern steppes, especially where irrigation is used, tomatoes,
peppers, and melons are grown as well. Truck farming or market gardening is
particularly notable on the outskirts of such large cities as Kyiv, Kharkiv,
Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, and the conurbation of the Donets Basin. Fruit is grown
throughout Ukraine, notably in the forest-steppe, Transcarpathia (in southwestern
Ukraine), and especially Crimea. Vineyards are common in the southern part of Ukraine,
particularly in Transcarpathia and Crimea.

Cattle and pigs are raised throughout Ukraine. Concentrations of dairy herds occur
primarily in the forest-steppe, especially in the vicinity of large cities, while beef cattle
are more common in areas of natural pastures and hay fields, as in the Polissya and the
Carpathian foothills. Sheep and goats are raised in the Carpathian Mountains and in parts
of the southern steppe and Crimea. Chickens, geese, and turkeys are kept throughout
Ukraine for meat and egg production, but large-scale broiler and egg-laying operations
are concentrated close to the large cities. Bees are kept in all parts of Ukraine for
pollination and the production of honey and wax; silkworm raising occurs in
Transcarpathia.

Whereas field crop production and large-scale livestock and poultry operations were
developed on collective and state farms in the Soviet period, small-scale gardening, fruit
growing, and livestock raising traditionally have been carried on by private households.
With the agricultural restructuring initiated by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the
late 1980s, the theretofore small private plots were allowed to expand, while collective
and state farms were allowed to undergo some reorganization on the basis of group or
family contract farming. Since independence, the declared intent of the Ukrainian
government has been to bring about a gradual privatization of farming, but the
agricultural infrastructure, which developed around collective and state farms, made the
conversion difficult and costly. In December 1999 the collective farm system was
abolished by presidential decree, and land reform remained a subject of concern for
subsequent leaders. One of the most politically divisive aspects of privatization,

13 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

however, was the proposed sale of agricultural land. The practice, prohibited by law in
1992, was seen by many as a crucial step in the liberalization of the agricultural sector.

The majority of Ukraine’s woodlands are managed

by the State Forest Resources Agency. Although
efforts to improve the country’s growing stock
were hampered by contamination from the
Chernobyl accident of 1986, Ukraine’s
Ukraine economically productive forested areas expanded
Garden plots of small farms near
Turka, in the Carpathian foothills of
dramatically in the years following independence
western Ukraine. and in the early 21st century. The Black Sea
© Stephen Chelminski
estuaries and the Sea of Azov are Ukraine’s main
fishing grounds. Among the major rivers for
fishing are the Dnieper, Danube, Dniester, Southern Buh, and Donets. Fish catches have
declined because of heavy pollution.

Resources and power

Ukraine has extremely rich and complementary mineral resources in high concentrations
and close proximity to each other. Rich iron ore reserves located in the vicinity of
Kryvyy Rih, Kremenchuk, Bilozerka, Mariupol, and Kerch form the basis of Ukraine’s
large iron-and-steel industry. One of the richest areas of manganese-bearing ores in the
world is located near Nikopol. Bituminous and anthracite coal used for coke are mined
in the Donets Basin. Energy for thermal power stations is obtained using the large
reserves of brown coal found in the Dnieper River basin (north of Kryvyy Rih) and the
bituminous coal deposits of the Lviv-Volyn basin. The coal mines of Ukraine are among
the deepest in Europe. Many of them are considered dangerous because their depth
contributes to increased levels of methane; methane-related explosions have killed
numerous Ukrainian miners.

Ukraine also has important deposits of titanium ore, bauxite, nepheline (a source of
soda), alunite (a source of potash), and mercury (cinnabar, or mercuric sulfide) ores. A
large deposit of ozokerite (a natural paraffin wax) occurs near the city of Boryslav.
Subcarpathia possesses potassium salt deposits, and both Subcarpathia and the Donets
Basin have large deposits of rock salt. Some phosphorites as well as natural sulfur are
found in Ukraine.

14 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

The three major areas producing natural gas and petroleum in Ukraine are the
Subcarpathian region, exploited since the late 19th–early 20th century, and the Dnieper-
Donets and Crimean regions, both developed since World War II. Following World War
II, the extraction of natural gas in Ukraine soared until it accounted for one-third of the
Soviet Union’s total output in the early 1960s. Natural gas production declined after
1975, however, and a similar pattern of growth and exhaustion occurred with Ukraine’s
petroleum, ultimately making the republic a net importer of these fuels.

The exploitation of petroleum and natural gas in Ukraine necessitated the creation of an
extensive pipeline transport system. One of the first natural gas pipelines in the region
opened in the 1920s, linking Dashava to Lviv and then to Kyiv. As a result of the Soviet
Union’s commitment to major gas exporting in the late 1960s and early ’70s, two trunk
pipelines were laid across Ukraine to bring gas to eastern and western Europe from
Siberia and Orenburg in Russia. Petroleum from the Dolyna oil field in western Ukraine
is piped some 40 miles (65 km) to a refinery at Drohobych, and oil from fields in eastern
Ukraine is piped to a refinery in Kremenchuk. Subsequently, larger petroleum trunk lines
were added (some 700 miles [1,100 km]) to supply petroleum from western Siberia to
refineries at Lysychansk, Kremenchuk, Kherson, and Odessa, as well as a 420-mile
(675-km) segment of the Druzhba (“Friendship”) pipeline, which crosses western
Ukraine to supply Siberian oil to other European countries. The pipelines connecting the
Siberian oil and gas fields with Europe are a major economic asset for Ukraine, as their
importance to Russia gives Ukraine leverage in negotiations over oil and gas imports.
However, disputes between Ukraine and Russia have in the past led the latter to cut off
its supply temporarily—negatively affecting Ukraine as well as the European Union,
which depends on gas and oil from these pipelines.

Ukraine is heavily dependent on fossil fuels and nuclear power for its energy needs.
Hydroelectricity accounts for less than 10 percent of the country’s electricity production,
and the contribution of other renewable sources is negligible. Although coal production
is substantial, Ukraine relies on imported oil and natural gas to satisfy its energy
requirements. Thermal power stations are found in all parts of the country, though the
largest are in the Donets Basin and along the Dnieper. A third electric energy-producing
area is in the vicinity of the Lviv-Volyn coal basin, and in the Transcarpathian region
there is a group of several power stations. Nuclear power stations are located near the
cities of Khmelnytskyy, Rivne, and Zaporizhzhya, as well as along the Southern Buh
River. The severe nuclear accident at one of the Chernobyl reactors in 1986 triggered a

15 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

powerful environmental movement in Ukraine and spurred the drive toward political
independence from the Soviet Union. The last working reactor at Chernobyl was closed
in 2000.

Manufacturing
Manufacturing is an extremely important sector of
the Ukrainian economy, in terms of productivity
and revenue earned. Products manufactured in the
country include ferrous metals, transportation
Chernobyl disaster
Map of the exclusion zone around the equipment and other types of heavy machinery, a
Chernobyl nuclear power station. variety of chemicals, food products, and other
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc./Kenny
Chmielewski goods.

Ukraine has a major ferrous metals industry and

ranks among the top steel producers in the world.
Cast iron, rolled steel, and steel pipe are produced
mainly in the Donets Basin, which is the industrial
heartland of the country.
Pryp'yat, Ukraine
The town of Pryp'yat, Ukraine, in The country’s heavy industries produce trucks,
2005. The town was evacuated after
other automobiles, railway locomotives and freight
the Chernobyl accident in 1986.
© Petr Pavlicek/IAEA cars, seagoing vessels, hydroelectric and thermal
steam and gas turbines, and electric generators. In
addition, residential and industrial construction demands hoisting and transportation
equipment and other machinery for the building trades. Dozens of factories, found
chiefly in Kharkiv, Odessa, Lviv, and Kherson, produce a wide range of agricultural
equipment as well. During the Soviet period, plants in Ukraine assembled rockets and
constructed naval vessels, including aircraft carriers. Subsequently, Ukraine emerged as
an arms producer in its own right, although efforts have been made since 1991 to convert
defense facilities to nonmilitary production. For instance, the Yuzhmash manufacturing
concern, which once operated the world’s largest missile plant, in Dnipropetrovsk, now
produces civilian agricultural machinery and aerospace technology as well as strategic
missile systems.

The Ukrainian chemical-equipment industry, accounting for one-third of former Soviet

production, is mainly concentrated in Kyiv, Sumy, Fastiv, and Korosten. The chemical

16 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

industry includes coking and the manufacture of coke products, as well as the
manufacture of mineral fertilizers, sulfuric acid, synthetic fibres, caustic soda,
petrochemicals, photographic chemicals, and pesticides.

One of the most important products of the Ukrainian food-processing industry is sugar
(from sugar beets). The production of vegetable oil, mainly from sunflower seeds, is
significant as well. Other processed foods include meat, grain, fruit, and dairy products;
local fish-processing industries are found in the coastal cities, such as Odessa. Wine
comes from the Transcarpathian region and Crimea, where the vintners of the Massandra
group are established near Yalta. Ukraine also produces vodka, beer, and other
beverages.

Some of the principal products of light industry are textiles (both knitted and woven),
ready-to-wear garments, and shoes. In addition, such consumer goods as television sets,
refrigerators, and washing machines are produced. Machine-tool and instrument-
manufacturing industries also have been developed.

Finance
The National Bank of Ukraine serves as the country’s central bank. It works to ensure
the stability of the national currency, the hryvnya, which was introduced in 1996. A
number of commercial banks provide financial services to companies and individuals,
and securities are traded at Ukrainian stock exchanges. Legislation passed since
independence encourages foreign investment, but complex business regulations and
corruption problems have kept the level of investment relatively low.

Trade
Russia remains Ukraine’s most important trade partner. Ukraine also conducts a
significant volume of trade with Germany, Italy, Poland, and other EU countries.
Additional trade partners include China, Turkey, and the United States. From Russia,
Ukraine imports petroleum, petroleum products, and natural gas, as well as fabrics,
footwear, printed matter, and many other products. Machinery, transportation equipment,
and chemicals are both imported and exported. By sea, Ukraine exports its grain, sugar,
iron ore, coal, and manganese.

Services

17 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Service industries constitute an increasingly

important portion of the economy; their value
accounts for more than half of Ukraine’s GDP.
Among the leading service industries are those
dealing with transportation and communications.
Ukraine: Major import Ukraine also exports certain services, particularly
sourcesEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
those related to transportation. Tourism has long
been a key service industry on the southern shore
of Crimea. The beautiful environment and warm
climate have attracted vacationers and health
seekers for more than a century. Perhaps the
country’s most unorthodox tourist destination was
Ukraine: Major export the area affected by the Chernobyl disaster.
destinationsEncyclopædia Britannica,
Beginning in 2011, the Ukrainian government
Inc.
allowed visitors to tour the abandoned city of
Pryp’yat and the “exclusion zone” around the failed Unit 4 reactor.

Labour and taxation

Services now employ the largest number of Ukrainian workers, though a significant
number of labourers continue to work in agriculture and manufacturing. Nearly half the
women are economically active; however, employer discrimination against women has
been a problem. More than half of all workers belong to trade unions, many of which are
grouped into large labour federations.

The Ukrainian government levies corporate and individual income taxes. It also collects
value-added tax and excise taxes. In an effort to simplify and improve a taxation system
that had been criticized by international financial professionals as confusing and opaque,
Ukrainian legislators unveiled a new unified tax code in December 2010. The new code,
which was implemented in 2011, was designed to boost foreign investment, make
revenue collection more efficient, and spark growth in targeted industries.

Transportation and telecommunications

The flat relief of most of Ukraine presents few obstacles to transportation. Although by
European standards the density of the country’s hard-surface road network is low,
asphalt-paved highways connect all the regions and large industrial centres. The links

18 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

between Kyiv and Moscow, Odessa–Kyiv–St. Petersburg, Moscow–Kharkiv–

Simferopol, Uzhhorod–Lviv–Rivne–Kyiv, and Kyiv–Kharkiv–Rostov-na-Donu (Russia)
are highways of particular importance.

The heaviest concentration of railroad trackage is in the Donets Basin and near the
Dnieper River, especially its west bank. The largest railroad centres are Kharkiv, Kyiv,
Dnipropetrovsk, Bakhmach, Yasynuvata, Debaltseve, Lviv, Kovel, and Kup’yansk-
Vuzlovyy.

Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov are found at Odessa, Illichivsk,
Mykolayiv, Kherson, Feodosiya, Kerch, and Mariupol. River shipping is conducted
primarily on the Dnieper and its tributaries (the Pripet and Desna), on the Southern Buh,
and on the Danube, which is important in trade with other European countries. Ships on
the Danube call at the port of Izmayil, which is accessible to oceangoing freighters and
passenger liners. Through the Dnieper-Bug Canal, in Belarus, the inland waterways of
Ukraine are joined to the Vistula River basin of Poland and to the Baltic Sea. Efforts to
transform the Dnieper into a continuous deep waterway have been furthered by the
creation of large reservoirs at hydroelectric stations. The largest ports on the Dnieper are
Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson.

Kyiv is connected by air with all the regional centres of the country and with major cities
throughout Europe and Asia, as well as with cities in North America and Australia.
International airports in Ukraine include Boryspil near Kyiv and those at Kharkiv, Lviv,
and Odessa.

Since independence, Ukraine has worked to improve its inadequate Soviet-era telephone
system. The country is now linked to international fibre-optic and satellite systems.
Meanwhile, cellular telephone usage has risen dramatically, and by 2010, cellular
subscriptions outnumbered people in Ukraine by almost 20 percent. The rates of Internet
use and personal computer ownership lagged behind those of neighbouring countries.

Government and society

The government of Ukraine underwent rapid change in the early 1990s. Before its
declaration of independence in 1991, Ukraine was officially called the Ukrainian Soviet
Socialist Republic (S.S.R.) and was part of the Soviet Union. According to the 1937
Soviet constitution as amended in 1944, Ukraine had the right to “enter into direct
relations with foreign states, to conclude agreements, and to exchange diplomatic and

19 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

consular representatives with them” and to maintain its own military forces. The only
real expression of these constitutional prerogatives in international affairs, however, was
Ukraine’s charter membership in the United Nations (UN) and consequently in some 70
other international organizations. (The Ukrainian S.S.R. and the Belorussian S.S.R. [now
Belarus] were the only two UN members that were not fully sovereign countries.) The
revised Soviet constitution of 1977 further limited the prerogatives of the Ukrainian
S.S.R. Within days of the failed coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Ukraine
proclaimed its independence on August 24, 1991, and won overwhelming popular
approval for this act in a referendum on December 1, 1991. Ukraine was subsequently
recognized by other governments, and many international agreements were signed,
notably with neighbouring countries. In addition, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia formed
the Commonwealth of Independent States, which was then joined by eight other former
republics of the defunct Soviet Union.

Constitutional framework
Ukraine adopted a new constitution in 1996. Until that time, the Soviet-era constitution
had remained in force, albeit with numerous adjustments.

The highest legislative unit of the Ukrainian government is the unicameral Verkhovna
Rada (Supreme Council of Ukraine), which succeeded the Supreme Soviet of the
Ukrainian S.S.R. Changes to electoral laws in 1997 stipulated that half of the legislative
seats would be apportioned among members of the various political parties according to
their relative share of the popular vote. The other half of the legislators were to be
elected from single-seat constituencies by a simple majority vote. This system remained
in place until 2004, when the constitution was amended to abolish the mixed legislative
structure in favour of a system of proportional representation based on political party
lists.

The president, elected by direct popular vote for a five-year term, is the head of state.
The president acts as the commander in chief of the armed forces, oversees executive
ministries, and has the power to initiate and to veto legislation, though vetoes may be
overturned. The president also chairs the National Security and Defense Council and
determines its composition.

The early period of Ukrainian independence was marked by a weak presidency and a
strong parliament. In fact, Leonid Kravchuk, Ukraine’s first democratically elected

20 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

president, almost seemed to downplay his role. After his election in 1994, Pres. Leonid
Kuchma set out to redefine the structures of power in Ukraine. In 1995 the parliament
agreed to the so-called “Law on Power,” which substantially enhanced the role of the
executive branch of government, and in 1996 the new constitution gave the presidency
considerably more power. A 2004 constitutional reform, which took effect in 2006,
shifted some power away from the president to the prime minister, but in 2010 Ukraine’s
Constitutional Court declared that reform unconstitutional. The strong presidential
powers outlined in the 1996 constitution were thus restored. Those changes were
repealed in February 2014, after months of popular protest toppled the government of
Pres. Viktor Yanukovych, and the 2004 constitution was reinstated.

The head of government is the prime minister, who is appointed by the president with
the consent of the legislature. The president, with the consent of the prime minister, also
appoints the members of the cabinet. The cabinet, headed by the prime minister,
coordinates the day-to-day administration of the government and may introduce
legislation to the Supreme Council. The president has the power to dismiss the prime
minister and the cabinet.

Local government
Ukraine is a unitary republic, not a federal state. The country is divided administratively
into a number of provinces called oblasti; two cities—Kyiv and Sevastopol—carry the
same status as an oblast. Crimea is an autonomous republic within Ukraine. In 2014
Crimea was occupied and annexed by Russia, but few countries and international
organizations recognized the legality or legitimacy of the move.

Justice
The highest court in the judicial system is the Supreme Court of Ukraine. The court’s
function is to supervise judicial activities. Constitutional matters are determined by the
Constitutional Court.

Political process
Citizens 18 years of age and older have the right to vote. Until 1990 the only legal
political party in Ukraine was the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU), which was a
branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Major legislation approved by the
Ukrainian Supreme Soviet originated in, or was approved by, the CPU. A change to the

21 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Ukrainian constitution in October 1990 allowed nascent political parties to be officially

recognized. Subsequently, a wide array of parties emerged. Many parties, however, have
lacked strong organizational bases and coherent platforms, and individual parties have
tended to join together in parliament as blocs.

The centre-right, nationalistic Popular Movement of Ukraine, or Rukh, founded in 1989,

was instrumental in the campaign for Ukrainian independence but afterward lost
strength. The CPU—re-formed in 1993 after a 1991 ban on the Soviet-era CPU was
lifted—retains support, mainly in the industrialized and Russophone reaches of eastern
Ukraine and among older voters. Several other parties, such as the Socialist Party of
Ukraine and the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine, have had socialist, if not Marxist-
Leninist, orientations. During the Kuchma presidency (1994–2005), a number of
opposition parties coalesced. These parties supported the 2004 Orange Revolution, a
series of mass protests that helped to bring Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency in 2005.
The most important of these pro-Western “Orange” parties were Yushchenko’s Our
Ukraine (known from 2007 as Our Ukraine–People’s Self-Defense) and the eponymous
bloc of Yuliya Tymoshenko, leader of the Fatherland party. Viktor Yanukovych—who
succeeded Yushchenko as president in 2010—headed the popular Party of Regions,
which supported stronger ties to Russia. Among the parties that forced Yanukovych from
power in 2014 were Fatherland, Vitali Klitschko’s Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for
Reforms (UDAR), and the ultranationalist Svoboda (“Freedom”) party.

Security
In 1991, at the time of independence, approximately 750,000 members of the Soviet
armed forces were stationed within Ukraine’s borders. In addition, Ukraine inherited
some 5,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons as well as vast stores of small arms
and conventional ammunition. The Ukrainian government quickly brought these forces
under its command. Early in 1992 the military personnel on Ukrainian soil were required
to swear an oath of allegiance to the new Ukrainian state; if they refused, they were
provided with funds to leave the country. In the subsequent years, Ukraine reduced the
size of its armed forces by several hundred thousand troops. With assistance from Russia
and the United States, the Soviet-era nuclear arsenal was decommissioned, and in 1994
Ukraine became a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Ukraine also launched what was billed as the world’s largest demilitarization project, the
goal of which was the destruction of more than 1,000,000 small arms, 3,000,000

22 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

antipersonnel mines, more than 100,000 tons of ammunition, and 1,000 shoulder-
mounted surface-to-air missile systems.

On paper, Ukraine’s military—consisting of army, air force, and navy branches and a
substantial reserve force—remains one of the largest in Europe. Traditionally, its size
was maintained through conscription, with a period of military service being compulsory
for men between the ages of 18 and 25. Conscription was abolished in 2013 but
reintroduced the following year in response to the pro-Russian separatist movement in
eastern Ukraine. Although Ukraine had a robust defense industry, much of its military
manufacturing was focused on the export market—chiefly to Russia—and the equipment
fielded by its armed forces was generally outdated. Budgetary neglect and corruption,
particularly during the Yanukovych administration (2010–14), hobbled the armed forces,
and only about 6,000 of the country’s 140,000 personnel under arms in 2014 were
generally judged to be combat-ready. In March 2014 the situation was considered to be
so dire that the Ministry of Defense appealed directly to the Ukrainian public for
support, launching a fund-raising campaign that raised $1 million in three days.

Ukraine is a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. In the
early 21st century it sought membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization but
then reversed its intention. Ukraine and NATO maintained close ties, however, and
Ukraine contributed troops and matériel to NATO-led missions in Kosovo and
Afghanistan. Beginning in 2010, Ukraine also participated in maneuvers with the NATO
Response Force, a multinational command that was designed to enhance the alliance’s
quick reaction capabilities. During the 2014 crisis in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, NATO
was consistently vocal in its support for the government in Kyiv, and NATO
commanders offered evidence that the pro-Russian militias active in both regions were in
fact Russian troops.

The Crimean port of Sevastopol serves as the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea
fleet. The Russian naval presence in the city dates to the tsarist era, as it represented the
realization of Russia’s long-desired goal to establish a warm-water port on the Black
Sea. After independence, the facilities became a source of tension between the two
countries, when Pres. Viktor Yushchenko stated that Russia’s lease on the base would not
be renewed. His successor, Viktor Yanukovych, however, extended the lease until 2042
in exchange for a lower price on Russian natural gas. After occupying and annexing the
Crimean Peninsula, Russia voided the lease in April 2014, basing that action on its claim

23 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

that Sevastopol was now Russian territory and that the lease therefore no longer applied.
Authorities in Kyiv bitterly disputed the claim.

Health and welfare

In theory, all citizens of Ukraine are constitutionally guaranteed free and effective health
care. In practice, health care is financed through a combination of state and private
funding, and money for improvement in the system remains scarce. Prepaid sickness
funds provide their members with some measure of insurance, but a sizable percentage
of health care costs are incurred as out-of-pocket expenses. Ukraine emerged from the
Soviet period with an extensive infrastructure of health care facilities, including
hospitals, workplace- and school-based medical centres, retirement communities, and
women’s clinics, but these facilities deteriorated badly during the postindependence
economic downturn. A lack of medicine and equipment, underfunded medical schools,
and low wages for health care providers also have contributed to a significant decline in
the quality of health care. Of particular concern was the spread of HIV/AIDS, especially
among the country’s intravenous drug users.

Following independence, the social welfare system of the Soviet period was restructured
and expanded. Benefits were partially linked to inflation, and measures were adopted to
assist workers displaced by the transition to a market-oriented economy. Other
components of the social insurance system include family allowances for households
with children, birth and maternity benefits, and disability pay. The welfare system is
financed through a payroll tax. This system came under increasing pressure as the ratio
of workers to retirees narrowed in the early 21st century, and pension funding consumed
an increasingly large portion of the government’s budget. A small but growing
percentage of Ukrainians participated in private pension funds.

Housing
During the Soviet era, housing shortages were common in urban areas, and construction
was often of poor quality. Ukraine’s urban real estate market grew dramatically in the
years following independence, only to suffer a dramatic collapse as the global economy
contracted in 2008. With credit frozen, many prospective homeowners found themselves
unable to obtain a mortgage. An array of nongovernmental organizations and regional
groups responded by sponsoring microcredit schemes that encouraged home ownership
in both urban and rural areas.

24 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Education
In the 17th century an impressive degree of literacy (for the time) could be found in
Ukraine. With Ukraine’s declining political fortunes, however, the rate of popular
literacy dropped. By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, more than 70 percent
of Ukraine’s population was illiterate. The Soviets’ policy of compulsory education
helped to wipe out illiteracy in the younger generation, and virtually the entire adult
population can now read and write.

Children must attend school for 11 years. About three-fourths of the teachers are women.
The student-teacher ratio is low. Since independence, the curriculum has increasingly
emphasized Ukrainian history and literature. Private and religious schools, virtually
nonexistent in the Soviet era, began to appear in the 1990s. In addition, general and
correspondence schools allow young industrial and agricultural workers to receive an
education without interrupting their work.

The first institution of higher learning in Ukraine, the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, was
established in 1615; it was an important intellectual centre for the Orthodox world until
its closing in 1817. Ukraine’s educated classes were also well served by the
establishment of universities in Kharkiv (1805), Kyiv (1834), and Odessa (1865), as well
as Lviv (1784) and Chernivtsi (1875) in western Ukraine. After Ukraine’s independence
in 1991, those institutions became state universities, and the Mohyla Academy was
reestablished as a university. Today the extensive system of higher education also
includes state universities at Dnipropetrovsk, Uzhhorod, and Donetsk.

The largest single scientific organization is the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Founded in 1918 (when Ukraine was briefly an independent state), the academy grew as
an institution of research and learning during the Soviet period. Following Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin’s purges of the 1930s, the academy’s humanities and social science
sections were mobilized to further the twin goals of Soviet social engineering and
Russification, and they continued to follow this policy more or less until the demise of
the Soviet Union. Today the academy governs a host of research institutions and
scientific workers. Among the specialized scientific facilities available in Ukraine are a
number of oceanographic research vessels, based in Odessa and Sevastopol, which
support research in the fields of mineral resources, marine biology, and desalinization of
seawater. Elsewhere in the country can be found a large cyclotron and one of the finest
experimental nuclear reactors in the world, astronomical observatories, and botanical

25 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

gardens.

Ihor Stebelsky Ivan Alekseyevich Yerofeyev Andrij Makuch The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Cultural life
Cultural milieu
Ukraine possesses a wealth of cultural talent and a considerable cultural legacy.
Numerous writers have contributed to the country’s rich literary history. Impressive
monuments of architecture and museums displaying works by generations of Ukrainian
artists can be found throughout the country, and art galleries featuring contemporary
Ukrainian artists have become commonplace in larger urban centres. The country’s
strong tradition of folk art also continues to this day. In addition, high-calibre performing
artists and ensembles appear regularly in Ukraine’s numerous theatres and concert halls.

Because of the country’s geographical location, Ukrainian culture has been influenced by
the cultures of both western Europe and Russia. Although these influences are
particularly evident in the western and eastern halves of the country, respectively, there
is no strict geographical division. For example, Russian is spoken in the streets and in
many homes and institutions throughout the country; it also is used in national
publications, radio broadcasts, and popular music. The country’s other ethnic minorities
contribute to a measure of cultural diversity as well.

Daily life and social customs

The social changes brought about by Ukrainian independence are most evident in the
cities, particularly Kyiv. The country’s capital now boasts high-end stores catering to a
moneyed class, and a fashionable strip of contemporary art galleries and cafés winds its
way down the historical street of Andriyivskyi Uzviz. The capital’s renovated airport
stands in striking contrast to its decidedly dour appearance in Soviet times.

The cities, with their broad sidewalks and extensive greenery, are eminently suited for
walking. Ukrainians generally do a considerable amount of walking, either to get around
or simply for enjoyment. Parks are plentiful and popular for strolling or picnicking, a
common pastime among city dwellers, most of whom live in apartments. The cities also
feature numerous kiosks, which sell all manner of wares.

Cultural pursuits and entertainment are widespread. Most of Ukraine’s major cities have
ornate theatres with their own opera or ballet companies. Song-and-dance ensembles,

26 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

most notably the Verovka State Chorus and the Virsky Dance Ensemble, have made
Ukrainian folk music and dance into an impressive stage art. Though classical music
remains popular, contemporary Western-style music has expanded its audience
considerably and now dominates the airwaves on numerous commercial radio stations.
Street concerts and club performances are common, as are dance clubs and cabarets.
Imported television soap operas have developed a dedicated following, and cinemas
show American blockbusters.

The country offers a variety of restaurants that

serve Chinese, Greek, Continental, or other foreign
cuisine. Pizza bars and other fast-food restaurants
are increasingly common as well. Many
Ukrainians, however, still prefer such traditional
folk dancing in Ukraine Ukrainian foods as borscht, cabbage rolls, varenyky
Folk dancers in traditional dress,
Ukraine.
(dumplings), studynets (a form of headcheese), and
© Schamin/Shutterstock.com shashlyky (kebabs). On festive occasions these
dishes are accompanied by vodka or champagne
and eloquent toasts. The dish known as chicken Kiev, though commonly served in
Ukraine, likely originated elsewhere.

In the countryside, horse-drawn carts with rubber wheels have not quite disappeared.
The khata (“house”), made of mud and thatch and typically whitewashed, is still found
as well. These homes often contain such traditional handiwork as embroideries,
weavings, and handmade feather duvets and oversized pillows. Their inhabitants are
predominantly elderly Ukrainians.

Ihor Stebelsky Ivan Alekseyevich Yerofeyev Andrij Makuch

The arts
Literature
Written Ukrainian literature began with Christianization and the introduction of Old
Church Slavonic as a liturgical and literary language. The literary heritage of the
Ukrainian people in the early period, from the 11th to the 13th centuries, is that of
Kyivan (Kievan) Rus; sermons, tales, and lives of the saints were the major genres. After
the Mongol destruction of Kyivan Rus in the 13th century, literary activity in Ukraine
declined. A revival began in the 14th century and was spurred further in the 16th century

27 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

with the introduction of printing, the Reformation ferment, and the advance of the
Counter-Reformation into Polish-dominated Ukrainian lands.

The Ukrainian vernacular gradually became more prominent in writings in the 16th
century, but this process was set back in the 17th and 18th centuries, when many
Ukrainian authors wrote in Russian or Polish. At the end of the 18th century, modern
literary Ukrainian finally emerged out of the colloquial Ukrainian tongue.

Nineteenth-century Ukrainian writers greatly contributed to the reawakening of

Ukrainian national consciousness under the Russian Empire. The classicist poet and
playwright Ivan Kotlyarevsky may be considered the first modern Ukrainian author. In
his work Eneyida (1798), he transformed the heroes of Virgil’s Aeneid into Ukrainian
Cossacks. Classicist prose appeared only with Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko’s novel
Marusya (1834).

In the 1830s Ukrainian Romanticism developed, and such authors as Izmail Sreznevsky,
Levko Borovykovsky, Amvrosii Metlynsky, and Mykola Kostomarov published works
that recognized a particular Ukrainian culture and history. In western Ukraine, Markiian
Shashkevych, Yakiv Holovatsky, and Ivan Vahylevych constituted the so-called
“Ruthenian Triad” of Ukrainian Romanticism. A markedly different approach was taken
by Nikolay Gogol (Ukrainian: Mykola Hohol), who wrote Romantic works with
Ukrainian themes in Russian and with a “pan-Russian” spirit.

The most important 19th-century Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko, treated Ukrainian
history and Russian oppression, as well as broader themes. Panteleymon Kulish was
another significant poet of the period.

Marko Vovchok, who wrote Narodni opovidannia (1857; “Tales of the People”), ushered
in Ukrainian Realism. Many Realist works depicted village life and contemporary
society; some touched on populist themes. Panas Myrny, with his works on social
injustice, became the major representative of Ukrainian Realism, but the novelists Ivan
Nechuy-Levytsky and Ivan Franko were prominent as well.

A number of competing literary movements emerged during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, though Realism, exemplified by the prose of Volodymyr Vynnychenko,
remained important. Lesia Ukrainka was a leading modernist author. The poet Pavlo
Tychyna followed the Symbolist movement; Mykola Bazhan, one of Ukraine’s greatest

28 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

20th-century poets, employed elements of Futurism; and Mykola Zerov, Maksym

Rylsky, and Mykhaylo Dray-Khmara wrote Neoclassicist poetry (see Classicism and
Neoclassicism).

During the early years of Bolshevik rule, talented Ukrainian writers proliferated. Mykola
Khvylovy’s prose was imbued with revolutionary and national Romanticism, Hryhory
Kosynka’s prose was impressionistic, Yury Yanovsky’s stories and novels were
unabashedly romantic, and Valeriyan Pidmohylny’s work adhered to the principles of
realism.

In 1932, however, the Communist Party began requiring writers to follow the theory of
Socialist Realism. Many Ukrainian writers who did not adhere to the official style were
imprisoned or executed, particularly during Stalin’s purges of the 1930s. A new
generation of writers, known as the “Writers of the ’60s,” broke with Socialist Realism
in the post-Stalinist period, but in the 1970s the Communist Party took new measures to
repress literature that deviated from the approved style.

With Ukraine’s independence in 1991 came a rebirth of free literary expression. Many of
the established literary journals continued to publish, although with far-more-open
editorial policies, and a plethora of new journals appeared as well. Literary journals have
provided a valuable outlet for the work of writers in Ukraine, particularly younger ones,
as the postindependence economic difficulties substantially limited the publication of
books, especially in the realm of belles lettres. Among the literary talents of independent
Ukraine, novelist Valerii Shevchuk and poet Yury Andrukhovych stand out.

Oleksa Eliseyovich Zasenko Stepan Andriyovich Kryzhanivsky Andrij Makuch

Visual arts
Over the centuries the Ukrainian people have evolved a varied folk art. Embroidery,
wood carving, ceramics, and weaving are highly developed, with stylized ornamentation
that represents many regional styles. Intricately patterned Easter eggs (pysanky) have
become popular in many countries that have Ukrainian immigrant populations.

With the introduction of Christianity in the 10th century, the various forms of Byzantine
art (e.g., architecture, mosaics, frescoes, manuscript illumination, and icon painting)
spread rapidly and remained the dominant art forms through the 16th century. The
mosaics and frescoes of the churches of Kyiv, notably the cathedral of St. Sophia

29 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

(11th–12th century), and the icons of the more distinctively Ukrainian school in Galicia
(15th–16th century) are particularly noteworthy. A number of outstanding churches of
this period, notably the cathedral of St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery (early 12th
century), were demolished by the Soviet authorities in the 1930s; only international
protests saved the cathedral of St. Sophia from the same fate.

Baroque architecture had a pronounced impact in Ukraine, and a distinctive “Cossack

Baroque” style developed there. Western European influences in the 17th and 18th
centuries also affected iconography and stimulated portrait painting, engraving, and
sculpture.

Western trends were carried to Russia by Ukrainian artists working there from the 18th
century. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries the Ukrainian-born sculptor and
rector of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Ivan Martos, and the Ukrainian-born
portraitists Dmytro Levytsky and Volodymyr Borovykovsky were among the leading
figures of the St. Petersburg Classical school of painting.

The classicism and the emergent realism of the 19th century are best exemplified by the
poet-painter Taras Shevchenko. New art movements are evident in the work of such
19th-century painters as the Impressionists Ivan Trush, Mykola Burachek, and
Aleksander Murashko; the Post-Impressionist Mykola Hlushchenko; and the
Expressionists Oleksander Novakivsky, Alexis Gritchenko (Ukrainian: Oleksa
Hryshchenko), and Anatoly Petrytsky (see Impressionism; Post-Impressionism;
Expressionism).

The brief renewal of Ukrainian independence in 1918 further fostered avant-garde trends
that reflected a resurgence of Ukrainian national traditions. Two schools developed: in
painting, the Monumentalism of Mykhaylo Boychuk, Ivan Padalka, and Vasyl Sedliar,
consisting of a blend of Ukrainian Byzantine and Early Renaissance styles; and, in the
graphic arts, the Neo-Baroque of Heorhii Narbut. Modernist experimentation ended in
Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s, however, when both these schools were suppressed and
Socialist Realism became the only officially permitted style.

The Ukrainian avant-garde was rejuvenated following Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s
de-Stalinization campaigns of the late 1950s; it consisted mostly of Expressionists who
wanted to illustrate Ukraine’s tragic modern history. These artists, who included Alla
Horska, Opanas Zalyvakha, and Feodosy Humenyuk, were again suppressed by the

30 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Soviet authorities in the 1970s and ’80s.

A number of Ukrainian artists have won considerable renown in the West, among them
Gritchenko, who began with Cubism and then turned to a dynamic form of
Expressionism, and the painter and engraver Jacques Hnizdovsky, who developed a
simplified style of realism. The sculptor Alexander Archipenko (Ukrainian: Oleksander
Arkhypenko), one of the pioneers of Cubism who later experimented in Constructivism
and Expressionism, was a major figure of 20th-century European art.

Music
Folk music in Ukraine retains great vitality to this day. Ritual songs, ballads, and
historical songs (dumy) were sung a cappella or accompanied by folk instruments, of
which the bandura (a multistringed lutelike instrument) is the most popular. Itinerant
blind musicians known as kobzars or lirnyks (depending on their instrument of choice)
were a common feature of the Ukrainian countryside until the 20th century. The hopak,
an energetic folk dance composed of leaps and kicks, received renewed attention in the
21st century as martial arts practitioners integrated its movements into a self-defense
technique based on ethnic Ukrainian traditions.

Church music was patterned on Byzantine and Bulgarian models with local variations
evolving in Kyiv in the early period. Polyphonic singing had developed by the 16th
century and subsequently was transmitted in the 17th century to Russia, where Ukrainian
singers and musical culture soon won a dominant position. The 17th-century composer
Mykola Dyletsky introduced soprano singers to church choirs and emphasized emotional
expression in his compositions. Ukrainian choral music reached its peak in the 18th and
early 19th centuries in the works of Maksym Berezovsky, Dmytro Bortnyansky, and
Artem Vedel.

Secular music became ascendant in the 19th century. The opera Zaporozhets za
Dunayem (1863; “A Zaporozhian [Cossack] Beyond the Danube”) by Semen Hulak-
Artemovsky gained great popularity, as did Kateryna by Mykola Arkas and the
compositions of Petro Nishchynsky and Mykhaylo Verbytsky. At the turn of the 20th
century, Ukrainian musical life was dominated by Mykola Lysenko, whose output
encompassed vocal and choral settings, piano compositions, and operas, including
Natalka Poltavka, Utoplena (“The Drowned Girl”), and Taras Bulba. Other major
composers of the period were Kyrylo Stetsenko, Yakiv Stepovy, and Mykola

31 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Leontovych, the latter excelling in polyphonic arrangements of ancient folk music.

In the early years of the Soviet period, several composers produced works of high artistic
merit, particularly Lev Revutsky and Borys Lyatoshynsky and their contemporary in
western Ukraine, Stanyslav Lyudkevych. From the mid-1930s, however, political
regimentation dampened individual expression and innovation in musical language.
Typical among composers of Soviet Ukraine were Kostyantyn Dankevych, Yuly Meytus,
and the brothers Yury and Platon Mayboroda. An innovative group of modernist
musicians, known as the Kyiv Avant-garde, emerged as a musical force in the 1960s and
’70s. The best-known composer of the group was Valentyn Sylvestrov, who composed in
the postindependence period as well.

Popular music grew in importance during the last three decades of the 20th century. The
songs of popular composer Volodymyr Ivasiuk, as performed by the chanteuse Sofiya
Rotaru, received wide applause. A form of popular music known as estrada (stage
entertainment) also grew in popularity. Stage ensembles generally maintained a Europop
sound. In the 1980s the Braty Hadiukiny (“Snake Brothers”) band started incorporating a
broader range of contemporary influences into their music. By the 1990s rock, ska, punk,
and other popular musical styles were commonplace in Ukraine. Ruslana Lyzhichko,
winner of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2004, emerged as the country’s first
international star of the 21st century.

Theatre and motion pictures

The theatre originated in Ukraine under Western influence in the 17th century. Verse
dialogue (intermedia) rapidly developed into a specific genre, the school theatre, whose
repertoire expanded to encompass dramatization of Christian legends, historical drama,
and puppet theatre (vertep) performed on a stage of two levels. The best example of the
Cossack Baroque theatre was the historical play Vladimir (1705) by Feofan Prokopovich
(Ukrainian: Teofan Prokopovych). After a period of decline, a Ukrainian ethnographic
theatre developed in the 19th century. Folk plays and vaudeville were raised to a high
level of artistry by such actors as Mykola Sadovsky and Mariia Zankovetska in the late
19th and early 20th centuries. A lifting of censorship in 1905 permitted a significant
expansion of the repertoire to include modern dramas by Lesia Ukrainka (who
introduced to the Ukrainian stage both ancient Greek and Shakespearian techniques),
Volodymyr Vynnychenko, and Oleksander Oles (an innovator in symbolic plays), as well
as translated plays.

32 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

The real flowering of the Ukrainian theatre occurred between 1917 and 1933. The
Berezil Theatre (1922–33) in Kharkiv, under the artistic director Les Kurbas, was the
most distinguished troupe. Preeminent among the playwrights was Mykola Kulish,
whose Patetychna Sonata (“Sonata Pathétique”) combined Expressionist techniques
with the forms of the Ukrainian vertep. From the mid-1930s, however, the theatre in
Ukraine was dominated by Socialist Realism, the style enforced by the Communist
Party. Oleksander Korniychuk was the most favoured of the playwrights writing in the
approved manner.

Ukrainian film has achieved some marked successes. The director and scenarist
Aleksandr Dovzhenko (Ukrainian: Oleksander Dovzhenko) was an important innovator
in world cinematography. Several of his works produced in the 1920s and ’30s are
considered classics of the silent film era. In later years, Tini zabutykh predkiv (1964;
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors) won critical acclaim in the West. In the
postindependence era, Western films, dubbed in Ukrainian, were increasingly popular.
Ukrainian directors, on the other hand, achieved particular recognition in the early 21st
century for their work on short films. Among the most accomplished of those directors
are Taras Tomenko, Ihor Strembytsky, and Maryna Vroda. The Ukrainian motion picture
industry is centred in Kyiv and Odessa.

Cultural institutions
There are numerous professional theatres in Ukraine, notably the Ivan Franko National
Academic Drama Theatre in Kyiv and the Mariia Zankovetska National Academic
Ukrainian Drama Theatre in Lviv. Ukraine also has several opera theatres, numerous
symphony orchestras, academic and folk choirs, and other performing ensembles.
Amateur groups of song and dance are very popular as well.

The Shevchenko Scientific Society, established in 1873, was the main Ukrainian
scholarly body in western Ukraine until it was forcibly dissolved in 1940, after the
Soviet Union occupied the region. It reestablished itself in western Europe and the
United States in 1947, and in 1989 the society resumed operations in Ukraine. Among its
many activities, the society sponsors conferences and lectures, awards research grants,
and publishes scholarly works, particularly in the field of Ukrainian studies.

Among the notable museums in the country are the Museum of the History of Ukraine
and the Museum of the Art of Ukraine (both in Kyiv). The Museum of Folk Architecture

33 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

and Folkways of Ukraine, an open-air museum in the village of Pyronovo, preserves

elements of 17th- and 18th-century village life. The National Museum of the Great
Patriotic War of 1941–1945 is part of a memorial complex near the Dnieper in Kyiv that
includes the iconic statue Motherland-Mother, which is more than 328 feet (100 metres)
tall.

Sports and recreation

Ukraine benefited immensely from the Soviet emphasis on sports and physical
education, which left the country with hundreds of stadiums, swimming pools,
gymnasiums, and other athletic facilities. Popular sports include track and field,
volleyball, shooting, basketball, swimming, and gymnastics. Football (soccer), however,
is by far the favourite sport, and archrivals Shakhtar Donetsk and Dynamo Kyiv are two
of the country’s most popular clubs. Ukraine was the cohost of football’s European
Championship tournament in 2012. Chess is also considered a sport.

Ukrainian athletes excelled in international

competitions while representing the U.S.S.R. Since
independence, Ukraine has fielded its own
Olympic teams, featuring such notable gold medal
winners as figure skater Oksana Baiul,
Ukraine football team at the heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko
World Cup, 2013
(Ukrainian: Volodymyr Klichko), weightlifter
Members of Ukraine's national football
(soccer) team listening to the Timur Taimazov, gymnast Liliya Podkopayeva, and
Ukrainian national anthem before a
swimmer Yana Klochkova. Klitschko, along with
FIFA World Cup qualifier game
against France on November 15, his brother Vitali, dominated the heavyweight
2013, in Kyiv, Ukraine. ranks of professional boxing in the early 21st
© katatonia82/Shutterstock.com
century, and Vitali used his popularity to launch a
political career.

The country has several national parks, including

the Carpathian National Park and the Shatskyy
National Park. Forest parks, located near major
cities, offer picnicking, swimming, hiking, and
cross-country skiing. Some of the larger cities have
Oksana Baiul urban “culture and recreation” parks, where
Figure skater Oksana Baiul competing
at the 1994 Olympic Winter Games,
theatres, lecture halls, reading rooms, and

34 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Lillehammer, Nor. playgrounds are found amid gardens and wooded

Simon Bruty/Getty Images
areas. Near the city of Yalta is located the Nikitsky
Botanical Garden, in which plants from almost every country in the world are found.

In Transcarpathia and near the cities of Lviv, Vinnytsya, Zhytomyr, Bila Tserkva,
Poltava, and Kharkiv are health spas noted for their mineral springs. Spas near the Black
Sea and the Sea of Azov specialize in mud baths.

Media and publishing

The demise of the Soviet Union brought fundamental changes to publishing and
broadcasting in Ukraine. The Communist Party’s influence was no longer a factor, and
state control—and funding—receded. As a result, many established newspapers and
journals ceased publication. The print runs of those that did continue, as private
ventures, were in general considerably smaller. At the same time, numerous new
publications and private television and radio stations emerged during the 1990s.
Although Soviet-era restrictions on content were lifted, publications that were critical of
the local or national administration were subjected to various forms of harassment—for
example, tax inspections, detailed examinations of registration documents, or libel suits
of dubious credibility. In addition, state broadcasters provided slanted coverage of
political events. Much of this changed in the wake of the Orange Revolution in 2004.
Amid the political turmoil that marked that event and the period that followed, press
freedoms expanded. The election of Yanukovych as president in 2010, however, led to
an increase in official pressure on journalists, and preferential coverage of the ruling
party was the norm. On the whole, however, the media remain much more open and
credible than they were in Soviet times.

The official news agency is the Ukrainian National Information Agency (UkrInform),
which covers political, economic, cultural, and sports information. Independent news
agencies include Respublika Ukrainian Independent Information Agency (UNIAR) and
the Ukrainian Independent Information and News Agency (UNIAN).

Official publications include the Supreme Council’s Holos Ukrainy (“Voice of Ukraine”)
and the cabinet’s Uryadovy Kur’yer (“Administrative Courier”). The largest newspapers
include Silski Visti (“Rural News”), a former organ of the Communist Party; Robitnycha
Hazeta (“Workers’ Gazette”); Ukrainya Moloda (“Ukraine the Young”); and Pravda
Ukrayiny (“Truth of Ukraine”). Other noteworthy periodicals include Den’ (“The Day”),

35 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

which publishes editions in Ukrainian and Russian; the influential Zerkalo Nedeli
(“Weekly Mirror”); the English-language Kyiv Post; the weekly journal Polityka i
Kul’tura (“Politics and Culture”); and the high-calibre literary and cultural review
Krytyka (“Critique”).

The National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council of Ukraine regulates and
monitors major television and radio broadcasting companies. Dozens of television
networks are available, either as terrestrial signals or via cable or satellite. Beginning in
2011, Ukraine’s national networks switched from an analog television signal to a higher
definition digital signal. Most commercial radio stations are local or regional in nature
and usually feature a contemporary music and talk format.

Lubomyr A. Hajda Andrij Makuch The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

History
Prehistory
From prehistoric times, migration and settlement patterns in the territories of present-day
Ukraine varied fundamentally along the lines of three geographic zones. The Black Sea
coast was for centuries in the sphere of the contemporary Mediterranean maritime
powers. The open steppe, funneling from the east across southern Ukraine and toward
the mouth of the Danube River, formed a natural gateway to Europe for successive
waves of nomadic horsemen from Central Asia. And the mixed forest-steppe and forest
belt of north-central and western Ukraine supported an agricultural population (most
notably the Trypillya culture of the mid-5th to 3rd millennia BCE), linked by waterways
to northern and central Europe. The marshlands of these zones were frequent areas of
both military conflict and cultural transmission.

Beginning in the 7th–6th centuries BCE, numerous Greek colonies were founded on the
northern coast of the Black Sea, on the Crimean Peninsula, and along the Sea of Azov;
these Hellenic outposts later came under the hegemony of the Roman Empire (see
ancient Greek civilization; ancient Rome). During the 1st millennium BCE the steppe
hinterland was occupied successively by the Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians.
These peoples, all of Iranian stock, maintained commercial and cultural relations with
the Greek colonies.

A period of great migrations began with the descent of the Goths from the Baltic region
into Ukraine about 200 CE. They displaced the Sarmatians, but their own power was

36 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

broken about 375 by the invading Huns from the

east, who were followed in the 5th–6th centuries by
the Bulgars and Avars. Between the 7th and 9th
centuries, the Ukrainian steppe formed part of the
Turkic Khazar mercantile empire, which was
Ukraine: historical regions centred on the lower Volga River. Khazar control
Historical regions of Ukraine.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
of the steppe was breached in the late 9th century
by the Magyars (Hungarians). The Pechenegs, who
followed, dominated much of southern Ukraine in the 10th and 11th centuries, and they
were in turn succeeded by the Polovtsians (Cumans). Throughout this period of nomadic
invasions, only a few of the Greek settlements on the Crimean Peninsula, notably
Chersonesus (see Tauric Chersonese), maintained a precarious existence, relying on the
support of the Byzantine Empire.

In the meantime, under the impact of Germanic migrations, the movement of Slavic
tribes from their primordial homeland north of the Carpathians began in the 5th and 6th
centuries. While some Slavs migrated westward and others south into the Balkans, the
East Slavs occupied the forest and forest-steppe regions of what are now western and
north-central Ukraine and southern Belarus; they expanded farther north and to the
northeast into territories of the future Russian state centred on Moscow. The East Slavs
practiced agriculture and animal husbandry, engaged in such domestic industries as cloth
making and ceramics, and built fortified settlements, many of which later developed into
important commercial and political centres. Among such early settlements was Kyiv
(Kiev), on the high right (western) bank of the Dnieper River.

Kyivan (Kievan) Rus

The formation of the Kyivan state that began in the mid-9th century, the role of the
Varangians (Vikings) in this process, and the name Rus by which this state came to be
known are all matters of controversy among historians. It is clear, however, that this
formation was connected with developments in international trade and the new
prominence of the Dnieper route from the Baltic to Byzantium, on which Kyiv was
strategically sited. Trade along this route was controlled by Varangian merchant-
warriors, and from their ranks came the progenitors of the Kyivan princes, who were,
however, soon Slavicized. In the early chronicles the Varangians were also called Rus,
and this corporate name became a territorial designation for the Kyivan region—the

37 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

basic territory of the Rus; later, by extension, it was applied to the entire territory ruled
by members of the Kyivan dynasty.

By the end of the 10th century, the Kyivan domain covered a vast area from the edge of
the open steppe in Ukraine as far north as Lake Ladoga and the upper Volga basin. Like
other medieval states, it did not develop central political institutions but remained a
loose aggregation of principalities ruling what was a dynastic clan enterprise. Kyiv
reached its apogee in the reigns of Volodymyr the Great (Vladimir I) and his son
Yaroslav I (the Wise). In 988 Volodymyr adopted Christianity as the religion of his realm
and had the inhabitants of Kyiv baptized. Rus entered the orbit of Byzantine (later,
Orthodox) Christianity and culture. A church hierarchy was established, headed (at least
since 1037) by the metropolitan of Kyiv, who was usually appointed by the patriarch of
Constantinople. With the new religion came new forms of architecture, art, and music, a
written language (Old Church Slavonic), and the beginnings of a literary culture. All
these were vigorously promoted by Yaroslav, who also promulgated a code of laws, the
first in Slavdom. Although Byzantium and the steppe remained his main preoccupations
in external policy, Yaroslav maintained friendly relations with European rulers, with
whom he established marital alliances for his progeny.

Following Yaroslav’s death, Kyiv entered a long period of decline, only briefly stemmed
in the 12th century under Volodymyr II Monomakh (Vladimir II Monomakh). Shifts in
trade routes undermined Kyiv’s economic importance, while warfare with the
Polovtsians in the steppe sapped its wealth and energies. Succession struggles and
princely rivalries eroded Kyiv’s political hegemony. The ascendancy of new centres and
the clustering of principalities around them reflected regional cleavages—historical,
economic, and tribal ethnic—that had persisted even in the period of Kyiv’s
predominance. These differences were accentuated by the Mongol-Tatar invasions that
began in the 1220s and culminated in the devastating sack of Kyiv in 1240.

The territory that largely coincides with modern Belarus, with Polotsk as the most
important centre, was one such emerging region. The land of Novgorod to its north was
another. In the northeast, Vladimir-Suzdal (and later Moscow) formed the core from
which developed the future Russian state (see also Grand Principality of Moscow). On
Ukrainian territory, in the southwestern part of Rus, Galicia-Volhynia emerged as the
leading principality.

Volodymyr (modern Volodymyr-Volynskyy) in Volhynia had been an important princely

38 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

seat in Kyivan Rus, and Galicia, with its seat at Halych, on the Dniester River, became a
principality in the 12th century. In 1199 the two principalities were united by Prince
Roman Mstyslavych to form a powerful and rich state that at times included the domains
of Kyiv. Galicia-Volhynia reached its highest eminence under Roman’s son Danylo
(Daniel Romanovich). New cities were founded, most importantly Lviv; trade—
especially with Poland and Hungary, as well as Byzantium—brought considerable
prosperity; and culture flourished, with marked new influences from the West. In 1253
Danylo (in a bid for aid from the West) even accepted the royal crown from Pope
Innocent IV and recognized him as head of the church, although nothing substantial
came from this. Danylo’s reign also witnessed the rise of boyar-magnate unrest,
debilitating dynastic involvements with Poland and Hungary, and the Mongol invasion
of 1240–41. These marked the onset of Galicia-Volhynia’s decline, which continued
until the extinction of Roman’s dynasty in 1340.

Lithuanian and Polish rule

By the middle of the 14th century, Ukrainian territories were under the rule of three
external powers—the Golden Horde, the grand duchy of Lithuania, and the kingdom of
Poland.

The steppe and Crimea, whose coastal towns and maritime trade were now in the hands
of the Venetians and Genoese, formed part of the direct domains of the Tatar Golden
Horde. This was the westernmost successor of Genghis Khan’s Mongol empire, whose
khan resided at Sarai on the Volga River. By the mid-15th century the Golden Horde was
in a process of disintegration. One of its successor states was the Crimean khanate,
which after 1475 accepted the suzerainty of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire. Both the
Crimean Peninsula and large areas of the adjoining steppe continued under the khanate’s
rule until its annexation to the Russian Empire in 1783.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Mongol rule was largely indirect, limited to exactions of taxes
and tribute whose collection was delegated to the local princes. It was also relatively
short-lived; northwestern and central Ukraine became an arena of expansion for a new
power that had arisen in the 13th century, the grand duchy of Lithuania.

Having already over the course of a century incorporated all the lands of Belarus,
Lithuania under Grand Duke Algirdas advanced rapidly into Ukraine. In the 1350s
Chernihiv and adjacent areas—and in the 1360s the regions of Kyiv and, to its south,

39 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Pereyaslav and Podolia (Podillya)—were occupied by Lithuania. Competition with

Poland over the former Galician-Volhynian principality ended in the 1380s in partition,
by which Lithuania gained Volhynia and Poland was confirmed in its possession of
Galicia. Thus, Lithuanian control extended over virtually all the Ukrainian lands as far as
the open steppe and even, briefly, to the Black Sea.

Within the grand duchy the Ruthenian (Ukrainian and Belarusian) lands initially retained
considerable autonomy. The pagan Lithuanians themselves were increasingly converting
to Orthodoxy and assimilating into Ruthenian culture. The grand duchy’s administrative
practices and legal system drew heavily on Slavic customs, and an official Ruthenian
state language (also known as Rusyn) developed over time from the language used in
Rus.

Direct Polish rule in Ukraine in the 1340s and for two centuries thereafter was limited to
Galicia. There, changes in such areas as administration, law, and land tenure proceeded
more rapidly than in Ukrainian territories under Lithuania. However, Lithuania itself was
soon drawn into the orbit of Poland following the dynastic linkage of the two states in
1385/86 and the baptism of the Lithuanians into the Latin (Roman Catholic) church. The
spread of Catholicism among the Lithuanians and the attendant diffusion of the Polish
language, culture, and notions of political and social order among the Lithuanian nobility
eroded the position of the Orthodox Ruthenians, as had happened earlier in Galicia. In
1569, by the Union of Lublin, the dynastic link between Poland and Lithuania was
transformed into a constitutional union of the two states as the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth. At the same time, the greater part of the Ukrainian territories was
detached from Lithuania and annexed directly to Poland. This act hastened the
differentiation of Ukrainians and Belarusians (the latter of whom remained within the
grand duchy) and, by eliminating the political frontier between them, promoted the
closer integration of Galicia and the eastern Ukrainian lands. For the next century,
virtually all ethnically Ukrainian lands experienced in common the direct impact of
Polish political and cultural predominance.

Social changes
Over three centuries of Lithuanian and Polish rule, Ukraine by the middle of the 17th
century had undergone substantial social evolution. The princely and boyar families
tracing their roots to Kyivan Rus had largely merged and become part of the privileged
noble estate of Lithuania and Poland. Long attached to the Orthodox religion and the

40 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Ruthenian language and customs, the Ruthenian nobility in the late 16th century became
increasingly prone to Polonization, a process often initiated by education in Jesuit
schools and conversion to Roman Catholicism.

With the growth of towns and urban trades, especially in western Ukraine, the burghers
became an important social stratum. They were divided both in terms of an internal
social hierarchy associated with the guild system and by religion and ethnicity. Since the
13th century many Poles, Armenians, Germans, and Jews had settled in the cities and
towns, where the Ukrainians were often reduced to a minority. Although the burghers
came to play an influential role within the Ukrainian community, legal disabilities
imposed on non-Catholics progressively limited their participation in the municipal self-
government enjoyed by many cities and towns under Magdeburg Law.

In the period of Polish rule the conditions of the peasantry steadily deteriorated. The free
peasantry that had still existed into the late Lithuanian period underwent rapid
enserfment, while serf obligations themselves became more onerous (see serfdom).
Peasant unrest increased toward the end of the 16th century, especially in eastern
Ukraine. The sparsely settled lands were opened to Polish proprietorship for the first
time, and large latifundia (agricultural estates worked by a large number of peasants)
were established through royal grants to meet the demands for grain on the European
markets. To attract labour to the new estates, peasants were granted temporary
exemptions from serf obligations; the expiration of these exemptions and the
reintroduction of servitude among a population grown accustomed to freedom led to
much discontent and peasant flight into the “wild fields”—the steppe lands to the east
and south. Tensions were exacerbated by the fact that, while the peasants were Ukrainian
and Orthodox, the landlords were largely Polish (or Polonized) and Roman Catholic, and
the estate stewards or leaseholders for absentee proprietors frequently were Jewish.
Thus, social discontent tended to coalesce with national and religious grievances.

Religious developments
As social conditions among the Ukrainian population in Lithuania and Poland
progressively deteriorated, so did the situation of the Ruthenian church. The Roman
Catholic Church, steadily expanding eastward into Ukraine, enjoyed the support of the
state and legal superiority over the Orthodox. External pressures and restrictions were
accompanied by a serious internal decline in the Ruthenian church. From the mid-16th
century, both Catholicism, newly reinvigorated by the Counter-Reformation and the

41 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

arrival of Jesuits in Poland, and Protestantism (albeit temporarily) made inroads,

especially among the Ruthenian nobility.

Attempts to revive the fortunes of the Ruthenian church gathered strength in the last
decades of the 16th century. About 1580 Prince Konstantyn Ostrozky founded at Ostroh
in Volhynia a cultural centre that included an academy and a printing press and attracted
leading scholars of the day; among its major achievements was the publication of the
first complete text of the Bible in Slavonic. Lay brotherhoods, established by burghers in
Lviv and other cities, maintained churches, supported schools and printing presses, and
promoted charitable activities. The brotherhoods were frequently in conflict with the
Orthodox hierarchy, however, on questions of authority over their institutions and
clerical reforms.

Religious developments took a radical turn in 1596 when, at a synod in Brest, the
Kyivan metropolitan and the majority of bishops signed an act of union with Rome. By
this act the Ruthenian church recognized papal primacy but retained the Eastern rite and
the Slavonic liturgical language, as well as its administrative autonomy and traditional
discipline, including a married clergy.

This so-called Uniate church was unsuccessful in gaining the legal equality with the
Latin church foreseen by the agreement. Nor was it able to stem the process of
Polonization and Latinization of the nobility. At the same time, the Union of Brest-
Litovsk caused a deep split in the Ruthenian church and society. This was reflected in a
sizable polemical literature, struggles over the control of bishoprics and church
properties that intensified after the restoration of an Orthodox hierarchy in 1620, and
numerous acts of violence. Efforts to heal the breach in the 1620s and ’30s were
ultimately fruitless. (See also Eastern Rite church.)

The Cossacks
In the 15th century a new martial society—the Cossacks (from the Turkic kazak,
meaning “adventurer” or “free man”)—was beginning to evolve in Ukraine’s southern
steppe frontier. The term was applied initially to venturesome men who entered the
steppe seasonally for hunting, fishing, and the gathering of honey. Their numbers were
continually augmented by peasants fleeing serfdom and adventurers from other social
strata, including the nobility. Banding together for mutual protection, the Cossacks by
the mid-16th century had developed a military organization of a peculiarly democratic

42 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

kind, with a general assembly (rada) as the supreme authority and elected officers,
including the commander in chief, or hetman. Their centre was the Sich, an armed camp
in the lands of the lower Dnieper “beyond the rapids” (za porohy)—hence, Zaporozhia
(in contemporary usage, Zaporizhzhya).

The Cossacks defended Ukraine’s frontier population from Tatar incursions, conducted
their own campaigns into Crimean territory, and, in their flotillas of light craft, even
raided Turkish coastal cities in Anatolia. The Polish government found the Cossacks a
useful fighting force in wars with the Tatars, Turks, and Muscovites but in peacetime
viewed them as a dangerously volatile element. Attempts to control them institutionally
and to limit their numbers through an official register created serious discontent among
the Cossacks, who increasingly perceived themselves as forming a distinct estate with
inherent rights and liberties. Sporadically over a half century starting in 1591, the
Cossacks rose up in revolts that were put down only with great difficulty.

In the first half of the 17th century, the Cossacks also became involved in the raging
religious conflict. In 1620 the entire Zaporozhian host joined the Kyivan Orthodox
brotherhood; in the same year, a new Orthodox hierarchy was consecrated in Kyiv under
their military protection. Thus, in the great religious divide, the Cossacks became
identified with staunch support of Orthodoxy and uncompromising opposition to the
Uniate church. Under the protection afforded by the Cossacks and the dynamic
leadership of a new metropolitan of Kyiv, Peter Mogila (Ukrainian: Petro Mohyla),
Orthodoxy flourished in Ukraine; it became the driving force behind a cultural revival
that included the establishment of the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, the first Ukrainian
institution of higher learning.

The Khmelnytsky insurrection

Tensions stemming from social discontent, religious strife, and Cossack resentment of
Polish authority finally coalesced and came to a head in 1648. Beginning with a
seemingly typical Cossack revolt, under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ukraine
was quickly engulfed in an unprecedented war and revolution.

Khmelnytsky was a petty nobleman and Cossack officer who, unable to obtain justice for
wrongs suffered at Polish hands, fled to the Sich in late 1647 and was soon elected
hetman. In early 1648 he began preparations for an insurrection, securing for this
purpose Tatar military support. A Polish army sent into Ukraine to forestall the rebellion

43 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

was shattered in two battles in May. This victory gave signal to a massive popular
uprising. Violence spread throughout Ukraine as Cossacks and peasants vented their fury
on those they associated with Polish tyranny and social oppression—landlords, officials,
Latin and Uniate clergy, and Jews. The Poles in turn took bloody reprisals against the
rebellious population. In September Khmelnytsky inflicted another crushing defeat on a
newly raised Polish army, marched westward through Galicia, and finally besieged
Zamość in Poland proper. He did not press his advantage, however, and, with the
election of a new Polish king in November, he returned to central Ukraine. In January
1649 Khmelnytsky entered Kyiv to triumphal acclaim as liberator.

Although initially seeking only a redress of grievances from the Polish crown,
Khmelnytsky, following his arrival in Kyiv, began to conceive of Ukraine as an
independent Cossack state. He set about establishing a system of government and state
finances, created a local administration under a new governing elite drawn from the
Cossack officers, and initiated relations with foreign states. Still prepared to recognize
royal sovereignty, however, he entered into negotiations with the Poles. But neither the
Treaty of Zboriv (August 1649) nor a less favourable agreement two years later proved
acceptable—either to the Polish nobility or to the Cossack rank and file and the
radicalized masses on the Ukrainian side.

While military operations continued inconclusively, and because Tatar support proved
undependable at crucial moments, Khmelnytsky began to search for other allies. In 1654
at Pereyaslav he concluded with Moscow an agreement whose precise nature has
generated enormous controversy: Russian historians have emphasized Ukraine’s
acceptance of the tsar’s suzerainty, which subsequently legitimized Russian rule, but
Ukrainian historiography has stressed Moscow’s recognition of Ukraine’s autonomy
(including an elective hetmancy, self-government, and the right to conduct foreign
relations) that was virtually tantamount to independence (see Pereyaslav Agreement).
Moscow now entered the war against Poland. No decisive breakthrough occurred,
however, despite occasional joint victories, and Khmelnytsky became increasingly
disillusioned with the Muscovite alliance. There were disputes over control of conquered
territory in Belarus and conflicts over Russian interference in internal Ukrainian affairs.
Especially galling to the hetman was the Russo-Polish rapprochement that followed the
invasion in 1655 of Poland by Sweden, Moscow’s adversary but Ukraine’s potential ally
(see First Northern War). Khmelnytsky again cast about for new alliances and coalitions
involving Sweden, Transylvania, Brandenburg, Moldavia, and Walachia, and there were

44 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

indications that the hetman planned to sever the Muscovite connection but died before he
could do so.

The Ruin
Khmelnytsky’s successor, Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky, broke with Moscow and in 1658
concluded the new Treaty of Hadyach with Poland. By its terms, central Ukraine
(attempts to include Volhynia and Galicia were unsuccessful) was to constitute—under
the hetman and a ruling elite of nobles and officers—the self-governing grand duchy of
Rus, joined with Poland and Lithuania as an equal member of a tripartite
commonwealth. Distasteful to the Polish magnates for its concessions to the hated
Cossacks, repugnant to the Cossacks and the peasant masses for its conservative social
cast and Polish connection, and a provocation to Moscow, the Treaty of Hadyach was
never implemented. Faced with mounting opposition, Vyhovsky resigned the hetmancy
and fled to Poland.

After Vyhovsky, Ukraine began a rapid descent into a prolonged state of chaos that
contemporaries called “the Ruin.” Tensions increased between the Cossack officers, who
were undergoing a transformation into a hereditary landowning class, and rank-and-file
Cossacks and the peasantry, who were the expected supply of labour. From 1663, rival
hetmans rose and fell in the competing Polish and Russian spheres of influence. In 1667,
by the Truce of Andrusovo, Ukraine was partitioned along the Dnieper River: the west,
known as the Right Bank, reverted to Poland, while Russia was confirmed in its
possession of the east, known as the Left Bank, together with Kyiv (which actually was
located west of the river); the arrangement was confirmed in 1686 by the Treaty of
Eternal Peace between Poland and Russia.

The partition of Ukraine caused a patriotic reaction. The hetman of the Right Bank,
Petro Doroshenko, briefly occupied the Left Bank and sought to re-create a unified
Ukrainian state under the vassalage of the Ottoman Empire. A massive Ottoman military
intervention in 1672 had as its primary effect the outright annexation of Podolia as an
Ottoman province for a quarter century. Doroshenko’s hopes—and popularity
—evaporated as further Ottoman operations failed to establish his rule and led to
devastation, especially after Russia was drawn into the war. Mass flight of the populace
to the Left Bank, and even beyond, depopulated large tracts of Right Bank Ukraine. Two
large-scale Ottoman campaigns followed Doroshenko’s abdication, but a truce in 1681
put an end to further direct Turkish military involvement. Ottoman power was soon on

45 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

the wane in Europe, and in 1699 the province of Podolia reverted to Polish rule.

The autonomous hetman state and Sloboda Ukraine

After the partition of 1667, the autonomous hetman state, or Hetmanate, was limited
territorially to the east, in Left Bank Ukraine. (The hetman state in Right Bank Ukraine,
under at least nominal Polish control, was abolished by the Poles at the turn of the 18th
century.) At the head of the state stood the hetman, elected theoretically by a general
Cossack assembly but in effect by senior officers, who in turn were largely swayed by
the tsar’s preference. The terms of autonomy were renegotiated at each election of a new
hetman, and this led over time to a steady erosion of his prerogatives. Nevertheless, for a
century the Hetmanate enjoyed a large measure of self-government, as well as
considerable economic and cultural development.

The ruling elite in the Hetmanate was composed of the senior Cossack officers,
starshyna, who had evolved into a hereditary class approximating the Polish nobility in
its privileges. The common Cossacks too were undergoing stratification, the more
impoverished hardly distinguished, except in legal status, from the peasantry. The
conditions of the free peasantry worsened over time, their growing obligations tending
increasingly toward serfdom. Urban life flourished, however, and the larger cities and
some towns continued to enjoy municipal self-government; the burghers largely
maintained the rights of their social estate.

In the ecclesiastical realm, the Uniate church disappeared from the Cossack-controlled
territory, and the Orthodox Kyivan metropolitanate itself was transferred in 1686 from
the patriarchal authority of Constantinople to that of Moscow. Although Ukrainian
churchmen eventually gained enormous influence in Russia, within the Hetmanate itself
in the course of the 18th century the church progressively lost its traditional autonomy
and distinctive Ukrainian character.

The hetman state reached its zenith in the hetmancy of Ivan Mazepa. Relying at first on
the support of Tsar Peter I (the Great), Mazepa exercised near monarchical powers in the
Hetmanate. Literature, art, and architecture in the distinctive Cossack Baroque style
flourished under his patronage, and the Kyivan Mohyla Academy experienced its golden
age. Mazepa aspired to annex the Right Bank and re-create a united Ukrainian state,
initially still under the tsar’s sovereignty. But Peter’s centralizing reforms and the
exactions imposed on the Hetmanate in connection with the Second Northern War

46 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

appeared to threaten Ukrainian autonomy. In 1708, in furtherance of his plans for

independence, Mazepa made a secret alliance with Charles XII of Sweden, but in the
decisive Battle of Poltava (1709) their allied forces were defeated. Mazepa fled to
Moldavia, where he died shortly thereafter.

Although Peter allowed the election of a successor to Mazepa, the Hetmanate’s

autonomous prerogatives were severely curtailed and underwent further weakening over
the remaining decades of the 18th century. From 1722 to 1727 and again from 1734 to
1750, the office of hetman was in abeyance, as the Russian imperial regime introduced
new institutions to oversee the country’s governance. In 1750 Empress Elizabeth revived
the hetmancy for Kyrylo Rozumovsky, the brother of her favourite. On the accession of
Catherine II (the Great) in 1762, the hetman and the starshyna petitioned for the
restoration of the Hetmanate’s previous status; instead, in 1764 Catherine forced
Rozumovsky’s resignation. Over the next 20 years all vestiges of Ukrainian autonomy
were eliminated, and in 1775 the Zaporozhian Sich, the bastion of the Cossacks, was
destroyed by Russian troops.

To the east of the Hetmanate lay lands that until the 17th century had remained largely
unpopulated—part of the “wild fields” since the Mongol invasion. Into this area, starting
in the late 16th century, the Muscovite government gradually extended its line of
fortifications against the Tatars. In the 17th century this territory became an area of
colonization by Ukrainian peasants and Cossacks fleeing Polish rule and, later, the
ravages of the Ruin period. The newcomers established free, nonserf settlements called
slobodas that gave the area the name of Sloboda Ukraine. Kharkiv developed into the
region’s main centre. Like the Hetmanate, Sloboda Ukraine enjoyed extensive internal
autonomy, though under officials appointed by the Russian imperial government. The
autonomy of Sloboda Ukraine was abolished under Catherine in 1765.

Right Bank and western Ukraine until the Partitions of Poland

The western Ukrainian lands of Galicia and Volhynia, though part of the theatre of war
during the Khmelnytsky insurrection, remained in its aftermath still firmly under Polish
control. The Right Bank, after the abatement of the Ruin and the retrocession of Podolia
by the Turks, also reverted to Polish sovereignty. However, only in 1714, after further
dislocations connected with the Second Northern War, was control reestablished over the
area by a greatly weakened Poland.

47 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

The society that reemerged in Ukrainian territories under Polish rule in the 18th century
differed markedly from that in the Hetmanate. The Cossacks virtually disappeared as a
significant organized force. Cities and towns experienced a serious decline, and their
populations became more heavily Polish and, especially in the Right Bank, Jewish.
Roman Catholicism maintained and even enhanced its earlier privileged status; the
Uniate church, however, became predominant among Ukrainians, with Orthodoxy
claiming a smaller number of adherents.

In the absence of strong central authority and with the elimination of the Cossacks as a
countervailing force, the Right Bank was dominated by the Polish nobility. Especially
influential were a few magnate families whose huge estates formed virtually independent
fiefdoms, with their own privately armed militias. The desolated lands were slowly
repopulated through peasant migrations (frequently organized by the nobility) from
Galicia and, especially, Volhynia. The extreme exploitation of the enserfed peasantry
bred discontent that led sporadically to uprisings by bands of rebels called haydamaks
(Turkish: “freebooters” or “marauders”). The most violent, known as the Koliivshchyna,
occurred in 1768 and was put down only with the help of Russian troops.

Polish rule in Ukrainian territories came to an end with the extinction of the Polish-
Lithuanian Commonwealth in three partitions—in 1772, 1793, and 1795 (see Partitions
of Poland). In the first partition, Galicia was annexed by Habsburg Austria. In the
second, Russia took the Right Bank and eastern Volhynia; it absorbed the rest of
Volhynia in the third.

Ukraine under direct imperial Russian rule

Following the abolition of autonomy in the Hetmanate and Sloboda Ukraine and the
annexation of the Right Bank and Volhynia, Ukrainian lands in the Russian Empire
formally lost all traces of their national distinctiveness. The territories were reorganized
into regular Russian provinces (guberniyas) administered by governors appointed from
St. Petersburg. The Right Bank, along with some adjoining territories, formed part of the
Pale of Settlement, to which the Jewish population of the empire was residentially
restricted (see pale). With the liquidation of the Sich and the annexation of the Crimean
khanate in 1783, the sparsely settled southern lands (named Novorossiya, or New
Russia) were colonized by migrants from other parts of Ukraine, as well as smaller
numbers from Russia, the Balkans, and Germany. This colonization movement greatly
expanded Ukrainian ethnic territory. The new Black Sea port of Odessa (Odesa) grew

48 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

into a large and cosmopolitan metropolis.

Equally important developments occurred in the social sphere. As compensation for their
lost rights as a ruling elite in the Hetmanate, the Cossack starshyna were equalized with
the Russian nobility; many entered imperial service, and some achieved the highest
government ranks. Through education, intermarriage, and government service, the
Ukrainian nobility gradually became Russified—as the earlier Ruthenian nobility had
been Polonized—though many retained a sentimental attachment to the land and its
folklore. The Polish nobility in the Right Bank continued as the dominant landowning
class, although its status eroded over time, particularly after the Polish insurrections of
1830–31 and 1863–64 (see November Insurrection; January Insurrection). The large
Jewish population was bound by numerous legal disabilities and, from 1881, victimized
by recurrent waves of pogroms. The gradual process of enserfment of the peasantry in
the Left Bank culminated in 1783 under Catherine II. The obligations there, however,
were less onerous than in the Right Bank. Agitation among the peasant class, coupled
with the Russian defeat in the Crimean War (1853–56), hastened the decline of serfdom,
but it remained the dominant lot of the peasantry until the emancipation of 1861. After
emancipation, the peasants were still burdened by inadequate land allotments and heavy
redemption payments that led to the impoverishment of many.

Nevertheless, the reforms stimulated the development of industry within the Russian
Empire by releasing labour from the land. Industrial development was especially marked
in eastern Ukraine, notably the Donbas region (Donets Basin). However, the workers
attracted to the growing metallurgical industry and other industrial concerns generally
came from other parts of the empire; the Ukrainian population seeking economic
improvement more commonly emigrated to agricultural lands. As a result, the emerging
working class and the growing urban centres in Ukraine became highly Russified islands
in a Ukrainian rural sea.

As in the political and social realms, in religious policy the tsarist regime promoted the
elimination of Ukrainian peculiarities. Although the largely Polish Roman Catholic
Church was allowed to continue, Catherine launched a program of administrative
conversion of Ukrainians from the Uniate church. The anti-Uniate campaign was
partially reversed by her immediate successors but was renewed with vigour by Nicholas
I. In 1839 the Uniate metropolitanate was abolished, the Union of Brest-Litovsk declared
null and void, and the Uniates finally absorbed into the Russian Orthodox Church, while

49 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

the recalcitrant clergy were harshly punished. The Russian Orthodox Church became an
important vehicle for the Russification policies of the imperial regime in Ukraine.

In the 19th century the development of Ukrainian cultural life was closely connected
with academic circles. The first modern university in Ukraine was established in 1805 at
Kharkiv, and for 30 years Sloboda Ukraine was the major centre for Ukrainian
scholarship and publishing activities. In 1834 a university was founded in Kyiv and in
1865 at Odessa. Though Russian institutions, they did much to promote the study of
local history and ethnography, which in turn had a stimulative effect on the Ukrainian
national movement.

Literature, however, became the primary vehicle for the 19th-century Ukrainian national
revival. The most important writer—and unquestionably the most significant figure in
the development of a modern Ukrainian national consciousness—was Taras Shevchenko.
Born a serf, Shevchenko was bought out of servitude by a group of artists who
recognized his talent for painting. Though considered by many to be the father of
modern Ukrainian painting, Shevchenko made his unique mark as a poet. His poetry
spanned themes from the fantastic in folklike ballads to epic romanticization of Cossack
glory, from wrathful indictments of social and national oppression under the tsars to
mystical reflections based on the biblical prophets. Apart from its seminal impact on the
subsequent course of Ukrainian literature, Shevchenko’s poetry reflected a conception of
Ukraine as a free and democratic society that had a profound influence on the
development of Ukrainian political thought.

By the mid-19th century the cultural and literary stirrings in Ukraine aroused concern in
tsarist ruling circles. In the official view, dominant also in Russian historiography, the
Ukrainians were a subdivision, or “tribe,” of Russians—“Little Russians”—torn from
the unity of Rus by the Mongol-Tatars and deflected from their proper historical course
by the baneful influence of Poland. Thus, it was deemed essential to reintegrate Ukraine
fully into the Russian body politic. Shevchenko’s patriotic verse earned him arrest and
years of exile in Central Asia. In 1863 the minister of the interior, Pyotr Valuev, banned
virtually all publications in Ukrainian, with the exception of belles lettres. The ban was
reinforced by a secret imperial decree, the Ems Ukaz, of Alexander II in 1876 and
extended to the publication of belles lettres in Ukrainian, the importation of Ukrainian-
language books, and public readings and stage performances in the language. The
prohibition even extended to education—a major contributing factor to the low rate of

50 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

literacy among Ukrainians (only 13 percent in 1897). With such restrictions, writers
from Russian-ruled Ukraine could see their works published only in Austrian Galicia,
and many figures in the national movement shifted their activities there.

Tsarist repression and the still premodern, largely rural character of Ukrainian society in
the Russian Empire impeded the growth of a political movement. A secret society, the
Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, existed briefly in 1845–47. Its program advocated
social equality, an end to national oppression, and a federation of Slavic states under the
leadership of Ukraine. The brotherhood was quickly uncovered and suppressed and its
leaders arrested and punished. In the second half of the 19th century, clandestine
societies called hromadas (“communities”) were formed in various cities to promote
Ukrainian culture, education, and publishing under conditions of illegality. Originally
associated with the Kyiv hromada was the leading political thinker of the time,
Mykhaylo Drahomanov, who advocated the transformation of the tsarist empire into a
federative republic in which Ukrainian national rights would be assured. Toward the end
of the century, younger, primarily student-led hromadas became involved in more
overtly political activities. One such group in Kharkiv developed into the Revolutionary
Ukrainian Party, which in a pamphlet published in 1900 advanced for the first time as a
political goal “one, single, indivisible, free, independent Ukraine.”

The revolution that shook the Russian Empire in 1905 spawned worker strikes and
peasant unrest in Ukraine as well (see Russian Revolution of 1905). The consequent
transformation of the tsarist autocracy into a semiconstitutional monarchy led to some
easing in Ukrainian national life. The ban on Ukrainian-language publishing lapsed, and
societies to foster popular enlightenment and scholarship proliferated, as did theatrical
troupes and musical ensembles. Nevertheless, the population affected by these cultural
endeavours remained small, and the Ukrainian language was still excluded from schools.

In the political arena the introduction of an elected assembly, or Duma, in 1906 initially
provided Ukrainians with a new forum to press their national concerns. In the short-lived
First and Second Dumas, Ukrainians had a sizable representation and formed their own
caucus. Changes in the electoral law to the detriment of the peasantry and national
minorities, however, severely limited Ukrainian representation and effectiveness in the
Third and Fourth Dumas. Until the Russian Revolution of 1917, the agenda of nationally
conscious, politically active Ukrainians seldom exceeded demands for language and
cultural rights and some form of local autonomy.

51 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Western Ukraine under the Habsburg monarchy

The Habsburgs’ annexation of Galicia from Poland in 1772 was followed two years later
by their acquisition of Bukovina, a partly Ukrainian (predominantly in its northern
reaches) and partly Romanian territory, from Moldavia. Already under Habsburg rule, as
part of the Hungarian crown, was a third ethnically Ukrainian region—Transcarpathia.
Within the Habsburg realm these three territories underwent many experiences in
common, but they were distinguished also by differences stemming from their specific
ethnic environments and earlier histories.

Galicia
Under Austria, ethnically Ukrainian Galicia was joined administratively with purely
Polish areas to its west into a single province, with Lviv (German: Lemberg) as the
provincial capital. This and the fact that, in the province’s Ukrainian half, the Poles
constituted overwhelmingly the landlord class and dominated the major cities (though
many towns were largely Jewish) made Polish-Ukrainian rivalry a crucial feature of
Galician life. Although, on balance, Habsburg policies favoured the Poles, Ukrainians
(Ruthenians in the contemporary terminology) in Austria enjoyed far greater
opportunities for their national development and made far greater progress than did
Ukrainians in tsarist Russia.

The reforms initiated by the Austrian rulers Maria Theresa and Joseph II and the
introduction of the imperial bureaucracy in Galicia improved the position of Ukrainians.
The peasantry benefited from the limitation of the corvée and the abolition of personal
bondage to the landlord in the 1780s, as well as from new methods in agriculture
promoted by the “enlightened monarchs.” Municipal reforms reversed the decline of
cities and led to an improvement in the legal and social position of the Ukrainian urban
population. Undertaken as early as 1775, educational reforms allowed for instruction in
the native language, although in practice Ukrainian-language teaching was limited
largely to low-level parochial schools until the mid-19th century.

The fortunes of the Uniate church also rose. Renamed the Greek Catholic church in
1774, it was, by imperial decree, equalized in status with the Roman Catholic Church,
and in 1807 a metropolitanate was established, with its seat in Lviv. Imperial authorities
took pains to raise the educational standards of the clergy. In the early decades of the
19th century, the clergy trained at newly established institutions almost exclusively

52 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

formed the educated class, and their children, beginning to enter secular professions,
gave rise to a Ukrainian intelligentsia. In the course of the 19th century, the Greek
Catholic church became a major national, as well as religious, institution.

The revolution of 1848 that swept the Austrian Empire politicized the Ukrainians of
Galicia (see Revolutions of 1848). The Supreme Ruthenian Council, established to
articulate Ukrainian concerns, proclaimed the identity of Austria’s Ruthenians with the
Ukrainians under Russian rule; demanded the division of Galicia into separate Polish
and Ukrainian provinces, the latter to include Bukovina and Transcarpathia; organized a
national guard and other small military units; and published the first Ukrainian-language
newspaper.

Although suppressed, the revolution set in motion important transformations in Galician

society. The corvée was abolished in 1848. Impoverishment of the Ukrainian peasantry
increased, however, due to lack of land reform, rural overpopulation, and a near total
absence of industry to absorb the excess labour force. Large-scale emigration to the
Americas (specifically the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina) began in the
1880s and continued until World War I.

Also in the aftermath of the 1848 revolution, the imperial regime reached an
accommodation with the Polish nobility that in effect ceded political control of Galicia
to the Poles. The local Polish hegemony was little affected by the reforms of the 1860s
that gave Austria a constitution and parliament and Galicia its provincial autonomy and
diet. The governors appointed by Vienna were exclusively Polish aristocrats. The civil
service and Lviv University, which had been Germanized in the early years of Habsburg
rule, were Polonized. Elections to the parliament and diet inevitably produced
commanding Polish majorities, as voting was based on a curial system that favoured the
landowning and urban classes. (Curiae were the political groups, representing various
communities and classes of people, that cast the votes.) The occasional efforts by
imperial authorities to promote a Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation failed to gain more
than minor concessions in the fields of culture and education. The major demands of
Ukrainian parliamentary representatives—including the partition of Galicia along ethnic
lines, the replacement of the curial electoral system by universal suffrage, and the
creation of a Ukrainian university in Lviv—were not met.

Disappointment with the Habsburgs and concern over the new Polish ascendancy gave
rise in the 1860s to pro-Russian sympathies among the older, more conservative, clerical

53 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

intelligentsia. The Russophiles promoted a bookish hybrid Ukrainian-Russian language

(derogatorily dubbed yazychiie by its critics) and a cultural and political orientation
toward Russia. From the 1870s they consistently lost ground to the narodovtsi
(populists), who fostered the use of the vernacular and stressed the ethnic identity of
Ukrainians in Austria-Hungary and in the Russian Empire. The narodovtsi developed an
extensive press and founded numerous associations (starting with the Prosvita society in
1868) that provided an important outlet for writers and scholars in Russian-ruled
Ukraine. Self-organization in the late 19th century extended to women’s and youth
groups, performing ensembles, cooperatives and credit unions, and, in the 1890s,
political parties. By this time, however, the Russophiles had been largely discredited
(although they retained control of many key Ukrainian institutions in Galicia), and the
leading role of the narodovtsi in the emerging Ukrainian national movement in Galicia
was being challenged, though never eclipsed, by a patriotically minded radical
movement, whose leading figures included Ivan Franko and Mykhailo Pavlyk.

At the turn of the century, the ethnic conflict in Galicia deepened. Massive peasant
strikes against the Polish landlords occurred in 1902. Ukrainian university students
engaged in demonstrations and clashes with the Poles, and in 1908 a student assassinated
the Galician governor. The introduction in 1907 of universal manhood suffrage in
elections to the Austrian parliament strengthened Ukrainian representation in Vienna and
intensified pressures for a similar reform on the provincial level. Growing tensions with
Russia prompted Vienna to seek a Ukrainian-Polish compromise, but Polish opposition
kept the old curial electoral system in effect to the end.

By the outbreak of World War I, Ukrainians in Austrian Galicia were still an

overwhelmingly agrarian and politically disadvantaged society. Nevertheless, they had
made impressive educational and cultural advances, possessed a large native
intelligentsia and an extensive institutional infrastructure, and had achieved a high level
of national consciousness, all of which contrasted sharply with the situation prevailing in
Russian-ruled Ukraine.

Bukovina
A small territory between the middle Dniester River and the main range of the
Carpathians, Bukovina had formed part of Kyivan Rus and the Galician-Volhynian
principality. In the 14th century it was incorporated into Moldavia, which in the 16th
century became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. At the time of its annexation by Austria

54 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

in 1774, the population, Orthodox in religion, was binational, with Ukrainians

predominating in the north and Romanians in the south.

The Habsburgs quickly instituted reforms similar to those in Galicia. Bukovina was
joined to Galicia as a discrete district from 1787 to 1849, when it became a separate
crownland; it achieved full autonomy in 1861. In the 19th century, sizable Jewish and
German communities came into being as a result of immigration. German was the
province’s official language; however, both Ukrainian and Romanian had currency in
public life and, in certain disciplines, at the local university. Romanian-Ukrainian
friction grew toward the end of the century over such issues as the Ukrainian attempts to
gain parity in the Orthodox church administration, but it did not reach the level of
hostility prevailing in Galicia.

From the late 1860s the Ukrainian national movement in Bukovina paralleled the
developments in Galicia, with which there were close connections; a similar network of
cultural and civic organizations and publishing enterprises was created. The provision of
Ukrainian schools and educational facilities was superior to that of any other Ukrainian
territory.

Transcarpathia
Lying south of the Carpathian Mountains, Transcarpathia was long isolated, both
geographically and politically, from other ethnically Ukrainian lands. A domain of
Kyivan Rus, after 1015 Transcarpathia was absorbed by Hungary, of which it remained a
part for almost a millennium. With Hungary, it came in the 16th–17th centuries under the
Habsburg dynasty. After the Union of Uzhhorod in 1646, on terms similar to the Union
of Brest-Litovsk, the Uniate church became dominant in the religious sphere.
Overwhelmingly rural in character, Transcarpathia had a Ukrainian (Ruthenian)
peasantry, a powerful Hungarian landowning nobility, and a substantial number of urban
and rural Jews. Under Hungary, Transcarpathia did not constitute a single administrative
unit but was divided into counties governed by officials appointed from Budapest.

Social reforms initiated by Vienna in the late 18th century soon foundered on the shoals
of Hungarian nobiliary opposition, and educational levels—at the time higher than in
Galicia—began to decline in the early 19th century. However, ecclesiastical and cultural
ties with Galicia remained strong until mid-century.

55 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

The 1848 revolution took a sharply nationalistic turn in Hungary, alienating many among
its Slav minorities. Its suppression by Russian troops in 1849 stimulated pro-Russian
sentiments among Transcarpathia’s intelligentsia and led to the emergence of
Russophilism as the territory’s main cultural and political orientation. However, the
political arrangement of 1867 (the Ausgleich) that created the dual Austro-Hungarian
monarchy ceded control over internal policies to the Hungarian oligarchy. Increasing
restrictions on the Ruthenian language in schools and publishing resulted in a growing
tendency to Magyarization. Not until the turn of the 20th century did a Ukrainophile
populist movement develop as a counterpoint to Russophilism and Magyarization. By
the outbreak of World War I, Ukrainian national consciousness was still at a low level of
development in Transcarpathia.

World War I and the struggle for independence

The outbreak of World War I and the onset of hostilities between Russia and Austria-
Hungary on August 1, 1914, had immediate repercussions for the Ukrainian subjects of
both belligerent powers. In the Russian Empire, Ukrainian publications and cultural
organizations were directly suppressed and prominent figures arrested or exiled. As
Russian forces advanced into Galicia in September, the retreating Austrians executed
thousands for suspected pro-Russian sympathies. After occupying Galicia, tsarist
authorities took steps toward its total incorporation into the Russian Empire. They
prohibited the Ukrainian language, closed down institutions, and prepared to liquidate
the Greek Catholic church. The Russification campaign was cut short by the Austrian
reconquest in spring 1915. Western Ukraine, however, continued to be a theatre of
military operations and suffered great depredation.

The Russian Revolution of February 1917 brought into power the Provisional
Government, which promptly introduced freedom of speech and assembly and lifted the
tsarist restrictions on minorities. National life in Ukraine quickened with the revival of a
Ukrainian press and the formation of numerous cultural and professional associations, as
well as political parties. In March, on the initiative of these new organizations, the
Central Rada (“Council”) was formed in Kyiv as a Ukrainian representative body. In
April the more broadly convened All-Ukrainian National Congress declared the Central
Rada to be the highest national authority in Ukraine and elected the historian Mykhaylo
Hrushevsky as its head. The stated goal of the Central Rada was territorial autonomy for
Ukraine and the transformation of Russia into a democratic, federative republic.

56 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Although the Provisional Government recognized Ukraine’s right to autonomy and the
Central Rada as a legitimate representative body, there were unresolved disputes over its
territorial jurisdiction and political prerogatives. Locally, especially in the Russified
cities of eastern Ukraine, the Rada also had to compete with the increasingly radical
soviets of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies, whose support in the Ukrainian population,
however, was quite limited.

Ukrainian-Russian relations deteriorated rapidly following the Bolshevik coup in

Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) on November 7, 1917. The Central Rada refused to
accept the new regime’s authority over Ukraine and on November 20 proclaimed the
creation of the Ukrainian National Republic, though still in federation with the new
democratic Russia that was expected to emerge from the impending Constituent
Assembly. The Bolsheviks, in turn, at the first All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, held
in Kharkiv in December, declared Ukraine to be a Soviet republic and formed a rival
government. In January 1918 the Bolsheviks launched an offensive in the Left Bank and
advanced on Kyiv. The Central Rada, already engaged in peace negotiations with the
Central Powers, from whom it hoped for military assistance, proclaimed the total
independence of Ukraine on January 22; on the same day, it passed a law establishing
national autonomy for Ukraine’s Jewish, Russian, and Polish minorities. Almost
immediately, however, the government had to evacuate to the Right Bank, as Soviet
troops occupied Kyiv. On February 9 Ukraine and the Central Powers signed the Peace
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (see treaties of Brest-Litovsk). A German-Austrian offensive
dislodged the Bolsheviks from Kyiv in early March, and the Rada government returned
to the capital. In April the Red Army retreated from Ukraine.

The socialist policies of the Ukrainian government, especially land nationalization,

conflicted with the interest of the German high command to maximize the production of
foodstuffs for its own war effort. On April 29, 1918, the Rada government was
overthrown in a German-supported coup by Gen. Pavlo Skoropadsky. A collateral
descendant of an 18th-century Cossack hetman, Skoropadsky assumed the title “hetman
of Ukraine” (which he intended to become hereditary), abrogated all laws passed by the
Rada, and established a conservative regime that relied on the support of landowners and
the largely Russian urban middle class. The new government aroused intense opposition
among Ukrainian nationalists, socialists, and the peasantry. To coordinate political
opposition, the Ukrainian National Union was formed by the main parties and civic
organizations, while the peasants manifested their hostility through rebellions and

57 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

partisan warfare. The capitulation of Germany and Austria in November removed the
main prop of Skoropadsky’s regime, and the Ukrainian National Union formed the
Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic to prepare for his overthrow. In a bid for
the support of the Allied powers, Skoropadsky announced his intention to join in
federation with a future non-Bolshevik Russia, triggering an uprising. On December 14
the hetman abdicated, and the Directory assumed control of government in Kyiv.

Even before the collapse of Austria-Hungary, an assembly of western Ukrainian political

leaders in October 1918 declared the formation of a state, shortly thereafter named the
Western Ukrainian National Republic, embracing Galicia, northern Bukovina, and
Transcarpathia. On November 1 Ukrainian forces occupied Lviv. This act touched off a
war with the Poles, who were themselves resolved to incorporate Galicia into a
reconstituted Polish state. The Poles took Lviv on November 21, but most of Galicia
remained under Ukrainian control, and the government, headed by Yevhen
Petrushevych, transferred its seat to Stanyslaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk). On January 22,
1919, an act of union of the two Ukrainian states was proclaimed in Kyiv, but actual
political integration was prevented by the ongoing hostilities. These ultimately took an
unfavourable turn for the Ukrainians, and by late July the Poles were in full control of
Galicia. Petrushevych and his government evacuated to Right Bank Ukraine and in the
autumn went into exile in Vienna, where they continued diplomatic efforts against
recognition of the Polish occupation.

In Kyiv the Directory that had taken power in December 1918—initially headed by
Volodymyr Vynnychenko and from February 1919 by Symon Petlyura, who was also the
commander in chief—officially restored the Ukrainian National Republic and revived
the legislation of the Central Rada. Its attempts to establish an effective administration
and to cope with the mounting economic and social problems were stymied, however, by
the increasingly chaotic domestic situation and a hostile foreign environment. As the
peasants became restless and the army demoralized, partisan movements led by unruly
chieftains (commonly known as otamany) escalated in scope and violence. In addition, a
substantial irregular force emerged under the command of the charismatic anarchist
leader Nestor Makhno. In many places the government’s authority was nominal or
nonexistent. The Allied powers, including France, whose expeditionary force held
Odessa, supported the Russian Whites, whose army was grouping around Gen. Anton
Denikin in southern Russia.

58 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

As authority broke down in Ukraine, random violence increased. In particular, a

ferocious wave of pogroms against the Jewish population left tens of thousands dead.
The majority of the pogroms occurred in 1919, perpetrated by virtually all regular and
irregular forces fighting in Ukraine—including Directory troops, the otamany, the White
forces, and the Red Army—as well as civilians from both the peasant and landowning
classes.

The Bolsheviks had already launched a new offensive in eastern Ukraine in December
1918. In February 1919 they again seized Kyiv. The Directory moved to the Right Bank
and continued the struggle. In May Denikin launched his campaign against the
Bolsheviks in the Left Bank; his progress westward through Ukraine was marked by
terror, restoration of gentry landownership, and the destruction of all manifestations of
Ukrainian national life. As the Bolsheviks retreated yet again, Petlyura’s Ukrainian
forces and Denikin’s White regiments both entered Kyiv on August 31, though the
Ukrainians soon withdrew to avoid overt hostilities. From September to December the
Ukrainian army fought with Denikin but, losing ground, began a retreat northwestward
into Volhynia. There, confronted by the Poles in the west, the returning Red Army in the
north, and the Whites in the south, the Ukrainian forces ceased regular military
operations and turned to guerrilla warfare. In December Petlyura went to Warsaw to seek
outside support. At the same time, the Bolsheviks were beating back Denikin’s forces,
and on December 16 they recaptured Kyiv. By February 1920 the Whites had been
expelled from Ukrainian territory.

Petlyura’s negotiations with the Polish government of Józef Piłsudski culminated in the
Treaty of Warsaw, signed in April 1920; by the terms of the agreement, in return for
Polish military aid, Petlyura surrendered Ukraine’s claim to Galicia and western
Volhynia. A Polish-Ukrainian campaign opened two days later, and on May 6 the joint
forces occupied Kyiv. A counteroffensive mounted by the Bolsheviks brought them to
the outskirts of Warsaw in August. The tides of war turned again as the Polish and
Ukrainian armies drove back the Soviets and reentered the Right Bank. In October,
however, Poland made a truce with the Soviets, and in March 1921 the Polish and Soviet
sides signed the Treaty of Riga. Poland extended recognition to Soviet Ukraine and
retained the annexed western Ukrainian lands. (See also Russian Civil War; Russo-
Polish War.)

Ukraine in the interwar period

59 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

In the aftermath of World War I and the revolutionary upheavals that followed,
Ukrainian territories were divided among four states. Bukovina was annexed to
Romania. Transcarpathia was joined to the new country of Czechoslovakia. Poland
incorporated Galicia and western Volhynia, together with smaller adjacent areas in the
northwest. The lands east of the Polish border constituted Soviet Ukraine.

Soviet Ukraine
The territories under Bolshevik control were formally organized as the Ukrainian
Socialist Soviet Republic (Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic [S.S.R.] from 1937).
Under Bolshevik tutelage, the first All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in December 1917
had formed a Soviet government for Ukraine; the second, in March 1918, had declared
Soviet Ukraine independent; and the third, in March 1919, had adopted Soviet Ukraine’s
first constitution. These moves, however, were essentially a tactical response to the
demonstrable challenge of rising Ukrainian nationalism. With the consolidation of
Bolshevik rule, Soviet Ukraine progressively ceded to Russia its rights in such areas as
foreign relations and foreign trade. On December 30, 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (U.S.S.R.)—a federation of Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, and the
Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (S.F.S.R.)—was proclaimed. The
first constitution for the new multinational federation was ratified in January 1924.
Although the constituent republics retained the formal right of secession, their
jurisdiction was limited to domestic affairs, while authority over foreign relations, the
military, commerce, and transportation was vested in the Communist Party organs in
Moscow. In point of fact, after the defeat of the Bolsheviks’ opponents, paramount
power was exercised over all levels of government, as over the military and the secret
police, by the Bolsheviks and their Communist Party apparatus (see Communist Party of
the Soviet Union [CPSU]).

The Communist Party itself brooked no concessions to the principles of independence or

federalism and remained a highly centralized entity. Thus, at its founding congress in
Moscow in July 1918, the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine, or CP(B)U,
proclaimed itself to be an integral part of a single Russian (after 1924, All-Union)
Communist Party and subordinated to its congresses and central committee, despite the
efforts of such national-minded Bolsheviks as Mykola Skrypnyk to declare the CP(B)U
an independent organization. As well as being subordinate to Moscow, the CP(B)U was
overwhelmingly non-Ukrainian in ethnic composition: at the time of its founding, the

60 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

membership of fewer than 5,000 was 7 percent Ukrainian. The Ukrainian component in
the CP(B)U was strengthened in 1920 with the accession of the Borotbists, members of
the “independist” and non-Bolshevik Ukrainian Communist Party that was formed in
1919. Still, in late 1920, Ukrainians constituted less than 20 percent of the CP(B)U’s
membership. Largely alien in nationality and ideologically prepossessed in favour of the
proletariat, the Bolsheviks enjoyed scant support in a population that was 80 percent
Ukrainian, of which more than 90 percent were peasants.

The New Economic Policy and Ukrainization

Two main tasks faced the Bolsheviks in the 1920s—to rebuild the economy and to
conciliate the non-Russian nationalities. The policy of War Communism—based on
nationalization of all enterprises and the forcible requisition of food—wreaked economic
havoc. Compounded by drought, it contributed to a famine in 1921–22 that claimed a
million lives in Ukraine. In 1921 Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin introduced the New
Economic Policy (NEP), which partially restored private enterprise in industry and trade
and replaced grain requisitions with a fixed tax and the right to dispose of the surplus on
the free market. By 1927 the Ukrainian economy recovered to the prewar level, and
segments of the population enjoyed a measure of prosperity.

In parallel with the NEP, the Bolsheviks took steps to appease, and at the same time to
penetrate, the non-Russian nationalities. In 1923 a policy of “indigenization” was
announced, including the promotion of native languages in education and publishing, at
the workplace, and in government; the fostering of national cultures; and the recruitment
of cadres from the indigenous populations. In Ukraine this program inaugurated a decade
of rapid Ukrainization and cultural efflorescence. Within the CP(B)U itself, the
proportion of Ukrainians in the rank-and-file membership exceeded 50 percent by the
late 1920s. Enrollments in Ukrainian-language schools and the publication of Ukrainian
books increased dramatically. Lively debates developed about the course of Ukrainian
literature, in which the writer Mykola Khvylovy employed the slogan “Away from
Moscow!” and urged a cultural orientation toward Europe. An important factor in the
national revival, despite antireligious propaganda and harassment, was the Ukrainian
Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which had gained a wide following among the
Ukrainian intelligentsia and peasantry since its formation in 1921.

Ukrainization was vigorously promoted by the “national communists,” including such

Ukrainian Bolsheviks as Skrypnyk and Khvylovy, and especially by the former

61 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Borotbists, most prominently the people’s commissar of education, Oleksander

Shumsky. The policy, however, encountered strong resistance from the non-Ukrainian
leaders of the CP(B)U and party functionaries. The national revival also aroused concern
in Moscow, where Joseph Stalin was strengthening his grip over the party apparatus. In
1925 Stalin dispatched his trusted lieutenant Lazar Kaganovich to head the CP(B)U.
Within a year, Kaganovich engineered a split among the “national communists,”
Khvylovy’s recantation, and the expulsion of Shumsky and his followers from the party.
Nevertheless, with Skrypnyk as the new commissar of education, Ukrainization
continued to advance.

Industrialization and collectivization

By the end of the 1920s, Stalin had launched a new “revolution from above.” The
introduction of his first five-year plan in 1928 marked the end of the NEP and the onset
of breakneck industrialization. In Ukraine this led to rapid economic and social
transformation. By the outbreak of World War II, industrial output had increased
fourfold, the number of workers had tripled, and the urban population had grown from
19 to 34 percent of the total. Though with a sectoral bias toward heavy industry and a
regional concentration in the Donets Basin (Donbas) and central Dnieper area, Ukraine
had undergone a remarkable industrial development.

The cost of the accelerated industrialization was borne by the peasantry. In 1928 the
regime introduced special measures against the kulaks (arbitrarily defined “wealthy”
peasants). These progressed from escalating taxes and grain-delivery quotas to
dispossession of all property and finally to the deportation, by the mid-1930s, of some
100,000 families to Siberia and Kazakhstan. Wholesale collectivization began in 1929,
under duress from party activists and under threat of economic sanctions. The percentage
of farms collectivized rose from 9 to 65 percent from October 1929 to March 1930 and
exceeded 90 percent by the end of 1935. Mass resistance to collectivization—in the form
of revolts, slaughter of cattle, and destruction of machinery—was answered by the
imposition of ever higher delivery quotas and confiscation of foodstuffs.

The famine of 1932–33 (Holodomor)

The result of Stalin’s policies was the Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932–33—a man-
made demographic catastrophe unprecedented in peacetime. Of the estimated five
million people who died in the Soviet Union, almost four million were Ukrainians. The

62 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

famine was a direct assault on the Ukrainian peasantry, which had stubbornly continued
to resist collectivization; indirectly, it was an attack on the Ukrainian village, which
traditionally had been a key element of Ukrainian national culture. Its deliberate nature is
underscored by the fact that no physical basis for famine existed in Ukraine. The
Ukrainian grain harvest of 1932 had resulted in below-average yields (in part because of
the chaos wreaked by the collectivization campaign), but it was more than sufficient to
sustain the population. Nevertheless, Soviet authorities set requisition quotas for Ukraine
at an impossibly high level. Brigades of special agents were dispatched to Ukraine to
assist in procurement, and homes were routinely searched and foodstuffs confiscated. At
the same time, a law was passed in August 1932 making the theft of socialist property a
capital crime, leading to scenes in which peasants faced the firing squad for stealing as
little as a sack of wheat from state storehouses. The rural population was left with
insufficient food to feed itself. The ensuing starvation grew to a massive scale by the
spring of 1933, but Moscow refused to provide relief. In fact, the Soviet Union exported
more than a million tons of grain to the West during this period.

The famine subsided only after the 1933 harvest

had been completed. The traditional Ukrainian
village had been essentially destroyed, and settlers
from Russia were brought in to repopulate the
devastated countryside. Soviet authorities flatly
Holodomor denied the existence of the famine both at the time
A young child, showing obvious signs
of starvation, during the Holodomor,
it was raging and after it was over. It was only in
Kharkiv, Ukraine, photo by Alexander the late 1980s that officials made a guarded
Wienerberger, 1933.
acknowledgement that something had been amiss
Diocesan Archive of Vienna
(Diözesanarchiv Wien)/BA Innitzer in Ukraine at this time.

Russification
In parallel with the industrialization and
collectivization drives, the Soviet regime
commenced a campaign against “nationalist
Holodomor deviations” that escalated into a virtual assault on
Dead child on the streets of Kharkiv, Ukrainian culture. Repression of the Ukrainian
Ukraine, during the Holodomor, photo
Autocephalous Orthodox Church culminated in the
by Alexander Wienerberger, 1933.
Diocesan Archive of Vienna liquidation of the church in 1930 and the arrest and
(Diözesanarchiv Wien)/BA Innitzer

63 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

exile of its hierarchy and clergy. A clandestine

organization, the Union for the Liberation of
Ukraine, was purportedly uncovered by the secret
police in 1929. In 1930 its alleged leaders
—including the foremost Ukrainian literary critic
Holodomor of his time, Serhii (Serhy) Yefremov—faced a
Empty village in the Kharkiv region,
Ukraine, photo by Alexander
show trial and were sentenced to terms in labour
Wienerberger, 1933. Its population camps. Arrests, followed by imprisonment, exile,
either succumbed to the effects of the
or execution, decimated the ranks of intellectuals,
Holodomor or left in search of food.
Diocesan Archive of Vienna writers, and artists; some, like Khvylovy,
(Diözesanarchiv Wien)/BA Innitzer
committed suicide in protest. In all, some four-
fifths of the Ukrainian cultural elite was repressed
or perished in the course of the 1930s. By late 1933
Ukrainization had come to a halt, and a policy of
Russification commenced.

The CP(B)U itself emerged from the Stalinist

Holodomor
Mass graves filled with victims of the upheavals greatly altered in composition and
Holodomor, Kharkiv, Ukraine, photo by character. Kaganovich returned in 1928 to
Alexander Wienerberger, 1933.
Diocesan Archive of Vienna
Moscow; his place as party chief was taken by
(Diözesanarchiv Wien)/BA Innitzer Stanislav Kosior, who was joined in 1933 by Pavel
Postyshev as second secretary, who was sent from
Moscow with a large contingent of Russian cadres. A series of purges from 1929 to 1934
largely eliminated from the party the generation of revolutionaries, supporters of
Ukrainization, and those who questioned the excesses of collectivization. Mykola
Skrypnyk, the most prominent Ukrainian Old Bolshevik, committed suicide in 1933.
Though party ranks and leadership positions were now filled by Stalin loyalists, a new
wave of purges during 1936–38 halved the CP(B)U’s membership, while 99 of 102
members of the party’s Central Committee were shot. Postyshev and Kosior were
removed from their party posts and subsequently executed. In 1938 Nikita Khrushchev
arrived from Moscow with a large number of Russian communists to take over the
leadership of the CP(B)U. Finally, on the eve of World War II, both the terror and the
turmoil in the party began to subside. (See also purge trials.)

Western Ukraine under Polish rule

64 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Important differences marked the two main regions that found themselves in the confines
of reconstituted Poland. Galicia was the less ethnically homogeneous. From the Austrian
period, however, the Galician Ukrainians brought a long history of self-organization and
political participation and inherited a broad network of cultural and civic associations,
educational establishments, and publishing enterprises. And in the Greek Catholic
church they possessed an influential national, as well as religious, institution. The
population of Volhynia was more heavily Ukrainian; nevertheless, as a consequence of
imperial Russian rule since 1795, there was little tradition of organized national life,
native education, or political experience. As a legacy of tsarist rule, the dominant
Orthodox church was initially a bastion of Russian influence. Still, in the course of the
two decades before World War II, considerable national integration between Galician
and Volhynian Ukrainians took place, despite Polish efforts to forestall such a
development.

As individuals, all citizens of Poland enjoyed equal rights under the 1921 constitution; in
practice, discrimination on the basis of nationality and religion greatly limited the
Ukrainians’ opportunities. Although the Allied powers in 1923 accepted the Polish
annexation of Galicia on the basis of its regional autonomy, the government in the early
1920s proceeded to dismantle the institutions of local self-government inherited from
Habsburg times. Ukrainian Galicia, officially termed “Eastern Little Poland,” was
administered by governors and local prefects appointed by Warsaw. A special
administrative frontier, the so-called Sokal border, was established between Galicia and
Volhynia to prevent the spread of Ukrainian publications and institutions from Galicia to
the northeast. In 1924 the Ukrainian language was eliminated from use in state
institutions and government agencies. In the face of economic stagnation, scant
industrial development, and vast rural overpopulation, the government promoted Polish
agricultural settlement, further exacerbating ethnic tensions. As Ukrainian nationalist
activities quickened toward the end of the 1920s and in the ’30s, the regime resorted to
more repressive measures. Some organizations were banned, and in 1930 a military and
police pacification campaign led to numerous arrests, widespread brutality and
intimidation, and destruction of property.

Much of the Ukrainian-Polish conflict centred on the schools. Initially, the government
concentrated on establishing a centralized educational system and expanding the network
of Polish schools; however, by the 1930s, overt Polonization of education was being
promoted. The number of Ukrainian schools declined drastically. In higher education the

65 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

existing Ukrainian chairs at Lviv were abolished, and a promised separate Ukrainian
university was never allowed to be established. An underground Ukrainian university
functioned in Lviv from 1921 to 1925.

In a society where nationality and religion were almost inextricably bound, the church
played an extraordinarily large role. In Galicia, under the leadership of the highly
revered metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, the Greek Catholic church conducted its
religious mission through numerous clergy and monastic orders. The church also ran a
network of seminaries, schools, charitable and social service institutions, museums, and
publications. Although Catholicism of the Roman rite remained privileged, the Greek
Catholic church was made relatively secure from overt state interference by the Vatican-
Polish Concordat of 1925; however, it was not allowed to extend its activities beyond the
Sokal border.

In the northwestern Ukrainian areas, Orthodoxy remained the dominant religion. A

nationally conscious clergy and lay intelligentsia played an important role in Ukrainian
life in Volhynia, although Russian influences continued at the level of ecclesiastical
administration. In the 1930s Polish authorities promoted, sometimes by force, the
conversion of the Orthodox to Roman Catholicism and, in a campaign that lasted until
World War II, seized hundreds of Orthodox churches for closure, destruction, or transfer
to the Roman Catholic Church.

Despite official obstruction and harassment, organized community life continued to

develop on the foundations established in the Austrian period in Galicia. Cultural,
scholarly, professional, women’s, and youth associations flourished. In circumstances of
economic depression and discrimination in public employment, a large-scale
development of the cooperative movement was highly successful. Much progress was
also achieved in Volhynia; most difficult, however, was the situation in ethnically mixed
border areas in the northwest, where by the 1930s all Ukrainian organizations were
suppressed and schooling was conducted exclusively in Polish.

Ukrainian political life was dominated by conflict with the Poles. The first elections to
the Polish Sejm (diet) and Senate, in 1922, were boycotted by the Galician Ukrainians.
In Volhynia the Ukrainians participated and, in a bloc with the Jews and other minorities,
won overwhelmingly against Polish candidates. Both Galician and Volhynian Ukrainians
took part in subsequent elections, which, however, were increasingly marred by abuses,
intimidation, and violence. Of the political parties, most influential in Galicia was the

66 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

centrist Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, which tried to extract concessions from
the Polish government and to inform public opinion. Left-wing parties (socialists and
communist front organizations) had considerably more strength in Volhynia.

Revolutionary nationalism became an influential current under Polish rule. In 1920 the
clandestine Ukrainian Military Organization was founded by veterans of the
independence struggle, headed by Yevhen Konovalets. In 1929 this was transformed into
a broader underground movement, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).
Authoritarian in structure, conspiratorial in its methods, and influenced by political
theories that stressed the primacy of the nation over the individual and will over reason,
the OUN carried out acts of sabotage and assassinations of Polish officials. Although
these activities were opposed by the Ukrainian democratic parties as politically
counterproductive and by the Greek Catholic hierarchy on moral grounds, the OUN
gained a wide following in the 1930s among students and peasant youth, more in Galicia
than in Volhynia.

Bukovina under Romanian rule

In the formerly Austrian province of Bukovina, Ukrainians constituted two-fifths of the
total population but two-thirds in the northern half (in 1931). Following the collapse of
the Habsburg monarchy, northern Bukovina was briefly proclaimed part of the Western
Ukrainian National Republic, before the entire province was occupied by the Romanian
army in November 1918. Under a state of emergency that lasted from 1919 to 1928,
Bukovina was subjected to strong assimilationist pressures. Provincial self-government
was abolished and the Ukrainian language removed from administrative use. The
extensive Ukrainian school system and the university chairs at Chernivtsi were
liquidated, and the Ukrainian press and most organizations were banned. Assimilationist
measures were relaxed beginning in 1928, but, with the institution of the royal
dictatorship of Carol II in 1938, Ukrainian culture was suppressed once again.

Transcarpathia in Czechoslovakia
On the basis of a negotiated agreement, Transcarpathia voluntarily joined the new
country of Czechoslovakia in 1919 under the official name of Subcarpathian Ruthenia
(see Czechoslovak history). Its promised autonomy, however, was not implemented until
1938, and the region was administered largely by officials sent from Prague.
Nevertheless, in democratic Czechoslovakia, Transcarpathia enjoyed the freest

67 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

development of any Ukrainian territory in the interwar period.

Reforms improved social and economic conditions in the previously underdeveloped

area, and substantial progress was achieved in education and culture, while political life
developed freely. The dominant political issue in interwar Transcarpathia was the
national orientation of a population whose identity had not yet crystallized. The
competition for national allegiance pitted three main movements against each other, each
with its own organizations and publications: the Russophiles, dominant among the older
intelligentsia; an indigenous Ruthenian current; and the populist Ukrainophiles, who
attracted members from among the younger intelligentsia and who, by the end of the
1930s, were gaining in ascendancy.

In the wake of the Munich Agreement, which allowed Germany’s annexation of a

portion of western Czechoslovakia, in October 1938 Prague finally granted autonomy to
Transcarpathia, officially renamed Carpatho-Ukraine. In November Hungary occupied a
strip of territory including the Carpatho-Ukrainian capital of Uzhhorod, and the
autonomous government transferred its seat to Khust. On March 15, 1939, the diet
proclaimed the independence of Carpatho-Ukraine while the country was already in the
midst of occupation by Hungarian troops. For the duration of World War II,
Transcarpathia was again under the control of Hungary.

World War II and its aftermath

Western Ukraine under Soviet and Nazi rule
The Nazi German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, marked the beginning of
World War II. By mid-September, in accordance with the secret protocols of the
German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), western Volhynia and
most of Galicia, both previously under Polish rule, were occupied by Soviet troops and
soon officially incorporated into the Ukrainian S.S.R. In June 1940 northern Bukovina
was occupied and shortly annexed to Soviet Ukraine from Romania (which sided with
Germany during the war). The replacement of Polish and Romanian by the Ukrainian
language in state administration and education was offset by a suppression of all existing
organizations, Sovietization of institutional life, and arrests of political leaders and
community activists. By mid-1941 more than one million people had been deported to
the east, including large numbers of Poles and Jews.

The ethnically mixed western borderlands, with more than 500,000 Ukrainians, were

68 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

included in the administrative region of Poland established by the Nazis. A limited

linguistic and cultural revival in the heavily Polonized area was permitted under German
oversight, but political activities were banned, except for the OUN. The OUN itself was
rent by factional strife between the followers of Andry Melnyk, who headed the
organization from abroad after the assassination of Konovalets by a Soviet agent in
1938, and the younger supporters of Stepan Bandera with actual experience in the
conspiratorial underground. The split became permanent after a congress held in Kraków
in February 1940, when the Melnyk and Bandera factions developed into separate
organizations (OUN-M and OUN-B, respectively) differing in ideology, strategy, and
tactics.

The Nazi occupation of Soviet Ukraine

The surprise German invasion of the U.S.S.R. began on June 22, 1941. The Soviets,
during their hasty retreat, shot their political prisoners and, whenever possible, evacuated
personnel, dismantled and removed industrial plants, and conducted a scorched-earth
policy—blowing up buildings and installations, destroying crops and food reserves, and
flooding mines. Almost four million people were evacuated east of the Urals for the
duration of the war. The Germans moved swiftly, however, and by the end of November
virtually all of Ukraine was under their control.

Initially, the Germans were greeted as liberators by some of the Ukrainian populace. In
Galicia especially, there had long been a widespread belief that Germany, as the avowed
enemy of Poland and the U.S.S.R., was the Ukrainians’ natural ally for the attainment of
their independence. The illusion was quickly shattered. The Germans were accompanied
on their entry into Lviv on June 30 by members of OUN-B, who that same day
proclaimed the restoration of Ukrainian statehood and the formation of a provisional
state administration; within days the organizers of this action were arrested and interned
in concentration camps (as were both Bandera and, later, Melnyk). Far from supporting
Ukrainian political aspirations, the Nazis in August attached Galicia administratively to
Poland, returned Bukovina to Romania, and gave Romania control over the area between
the Dniester and Southern Buh rivers as the province of Transnistria, with its capital at
Odessa. The remainder was organized as the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.

In the occupied territories, the Nazis sought to implement their “racial” policies. In the
fall of 1941 began the mass killings of Jews that continued through 1944. An estimated
1.5 million Ukrainian Jews perished, and over 800,000 were displaced to the east; at

69 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Baby Yar (Ukrainian: Babyn Yar) in Kyiv, nearly 34,000 were killed in just the first two
days of massacre in the city. The Nazis were aided at times by auxiliary forces recruited
from the local population. (See also Holocaust: The Einsatzgruppen.)

In the Reichskommissariat, ruthlessly administered

by Erich Koch, Ukrainians were slated for
servitude. The collective farms, whose dissolution
was the fervent hope of the peasantry, were left
intact, industry was allowed to deteriorate, and the
Baby Yar cities were deprived of foodstuffs as all available
A memorial ceremony being held near
the commemorative sculpture at the
resources were directed to support the German war
Baby Yar site in Ukraine, where Nazis effort. Some 2.2 million people were taken from
perpetrated a mass murder of Jews
Ukraine to Germany as slave labourers
during World War II.
© Babi Yar Society/United States (Ostarbeiter, or “eastern workers”). Cultural
Holocaust Memorial Museum
activities were repressed, and education was
limited to the elementary level. Only the revived
Ukrainian Orthodox Church was permitted to resume its work as a national institution.
Somewhat better was the situation of Ukrainians in Galicia, where restricted cultural,
civic, and relief activities were permitted under centralized control.

Under such conditions of brutality, Ukrainian political activity, predicated originally on

cooperation with the Germans, increasingly turned to underground organizational work
and resistance. The OUN groups that streamed eastward in 1941 were soon subjected by
the German authorities to repressive measures, including execution, so they propagated
their nationalist views clandestinely and, through their contact with the local population,
began to revise their ideology in a more democratic, pluralist direction. In eastern and
central Ukraine, secret Communist Party cells maintained an underground existence, and
a Soviet partisan movement developed in the northern forests. Early in 1942 began the
formation of nationalist partisan units in Volhynia, and later in Galicia, that became
known as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska Povstanska Armiia; UPA). As well
as conducting guerrilla warfare with the Germans, the Soviet partisans and the UPA
fought each other.

Ukraine reunited under Soviet rule

After their victory over the Germans at the Battle of Stalingrad in early 1943, the Soviets
launched a counteroffensive westward. In mid-1943 the Germans began their slow

70 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

retreat from Ukraine, leaving wholesale destruction in their wake. In November the
Soviets reentered Kyiv. With the approach of the front, guerrilla activity in western
Ukraine intensified, and bloody clashes that claimed large numbers of civilian victims
occurred between Ukrainians and Poles. In spring 1944 the Red Army began to penetrate
into Galicia, and by the end of October all of Ukraine was again under Soviet control.

The Soviet victory, the Red Army’s occupation of eastern Europe, and Allied diplomacy
resulted in a permanent redrawing of Ukraine’s western frontiers. With compensation of
German territories in the west, Poland agreed to the cession of Volhynia and Galicia; a
mutual population exchange—and the subsequent deportation of the remaining
Ukrainian population by Poland to its new western territories—created for the first time
in centuries a clear ethnic, as well as political, Polish-Ukrainian border. Northern
Bukovina was reoccupied in 1944 and recognized as part of Ukraine in the Paris Peace
Treaty of 1947. Transcarpathia, which had reverted from Hungary to Czechoslovakia in
1944, was ceded to Ukraine in 1945 by a Czech-Soviet government agreement. In 1945
Ukraine became a charter member of the United Nations and subsequently became a
signatory of peace treaties with Germany’s wartime allies—Italy, Finland, Romania,
Hungary, and Bulgaria.

Ukraine’s human and material losses during World War II were enormous. Some 5 to 7
million people perished. Even with the return of evacuees from the east and the
repatriation of forced labourers from Germany, Ukraine’s estimated population of 36
million in 1947 was almost 5 million less than before the war. Because more than 700
cities and towns and 28,000 villages had been destroyed, 10 million people were left
homeless. Only 20 percent of the industrial enterprises and 15 percent of agricultural
equipment and machinery remained intact, and the transportation network was severely
damaged. The material losses constituted an estimated 40 percent of Ukraine’s national
wealth.

Soviet Ukraine in the postwar period

The last years of Stalin’s rule
Postwar reconstruction, the reimposition of totalitarian controls and terror, and the
Sovietization of western Ukraine were the hallmarks of the last years of Stalin’s rule.
Economic reconstruction was undertaken immediately as Soviet authorities reestablished
control over the recovered territories. The fourth five-year plan, as in the prewar years,

71 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

stressed heavy industry to the detriment of consumer needs. By 1950, Ukraine’s

industrial output exceeded the prewar level. In agriculture, recovery proceeded much
more slowly, and prewar levels of production were not reached until the 1960s. A famine
in 1946–47 resulting from postwar dislocations and drought claimed nearly one million
casualties.

The prewar system of totalitarian control exercised through the Communist Party and the
secret police was quickly reimposed. Khrushchev continued to head the CP(B)U as first
secretary—except briefly from March to December 1947—until his promotion to
secretary of the Central Committee in Moscow in December 1949; he was succeeded by
Leonid Melnikov. Purges in party ranks were relatively mild. However, real and alleged
Nazi collaborators, former German prisoners of war and repatriated slave workers,
Ukrainian “bourgeois nationalists,” and others suspected of disloyalty—essentially
hundreds of thousands of people—were sent to concentration camps in the far north and
Siberia. A hard-line ideological campaign to stamp out Western influences went hand in
hand with a renewed Russification drive. Ukrainian writers, artists, and scholars, who in
the wartime years had been permitted to develop patriotic themes and sentiments in a
mobilization effort against the Germans, were now accused of Ukrainian nationalism and
subjected to persecution and repression. An “anticosmopolitan” campaign destroyed the
remaining vestiges of cultural institutions of a Jewish community decimated by the
Holocaust.

The Sovietization of western Ukraine was a prolonged and violent process. The UPA,
under the leadership of Roman Shukhevych (killed 1950), continued effective military
operations against Soviet troops until the early 1950s. The armed resistance received
covert support from the local rural population, embittered by the concurrent forced
collectivization drive, reminiscent of the 1930s in eastern Ukraine. Also accused of
abetting the partisans, and Ukrainian nationalism in general, was the Greek Catholic
church. In April 1945 Metropolitan Yosyf Slipy and the entire hierarchy in Galicia were
arrested and later sentenced to long imprisonment (only Slipy survived, to be released in
1963 and sent into exile in Rome). After arrests and intimidation of the clergy, a synod
held in Lviv in March 1946—in fact, on Stalin’s orders—proclaimed the “reunification”
of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics with the Russian Orthodox Church. By analogous
means, the Greek Catholic church in Transcarpathia was abolished in 1949. Officially
declared “self-liquidated,” the Greek Catholic church maintained a clandestine existence
through subsequent decades of Soviet rule. Overall, approximately half a million people

72 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

were deported from western Ukraine in connection with the suppression of the
insurgency and nationalist activity, religious persecution, and collectivization.

The period of Khrushchev

Khrushchev’s ascendancy over his rivals in Moscow after Stalin’s death in 1953 was of
particular significance for Ukraine. As first secretary of the CP(B)U, Khrushchev had
gained intimate knowledge of Ukraine, staffed party and government posts with his own
trusted appointees, and become familiar with Ukrainian cultural elites. In contrast to
Stalin’s anti-Ukrainian paranoia, Khrushchev harboured few prejudices against
Ukrainians who adhered to the party line and served the Soviet state with loyalty.

Shortly after the death of Stalin, Melnikov was removed as first secretary of the
Communist Party of Ukraine, or CPU—as the CP(B)U was renamed in 1952—for
“deviations in nationality policy,” specifically, promotion of nonnative cadres and
Russification of higher education in western Ukraine. His replacement was Oleksy
Kyrychenko, only the second Ukrainian to fill the post. This and accompanying changes
in personnel in the party and government boosted morale and confidence, especially as
their sphere of competence was also steadily increased. Unionwide celebrations in 1954
of the 300th anniversary of the “reunification” of Ukraine with Russia were another sign
of the Ukrainians’ rising (though clearly junior) status; on the occasion, the Crimean
Peninsula, from which the indigenous Tatar population had been deported en masse at
the end of World War II, was transferred from the Russian S.F.S.R. to Ukraine.
Ukrainian party officials began to receive promotions to central party organs in Moscow
close to the levers of power. In 1957 Kyrychenko was transferred to Moscow as a
secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU; his place as first secretary of the CPU
was taken by Mykola Pidhorny (Nikolay Podgorny), who moved to Moscow as a
secretary of the Central Committee in 1963. There was a steady expansion of party
membership, which by the end of 1958 exceeded one million, of whom 60.3 percent
were Ukrainians and 28.2 percent Russians; more than 40 percent had joined the party
after the war.

Khrushchev also introduced a limited decentralization in government administration and

economic management. These measures enhanced the powers and stoked the ambitions
of the Ukrainian party and government leaders and bureaucracy, and this in turn elicited
warnings against “localism” from Moscow. Economic recovery in Ukraine continued,
with impressive—though diminishing over time—rates of growth in industry. Some

73 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

concessions were made in the provision of consumer goods. Agriculture lagged,

however, despite reforms in the administration of collective farms to increase
productivity.

By 1953 mass terror had abated, and repression came to be applied more discriminately.
An amnesty in 1955–56 released the majority of concentration camp inmates, and
several hundred thousand returned to Ukraine, though many political prisoners continued
to serve their long sentences. During the cultural thaw and the de-Stalinization campaign
that followed Khrushchev’s secret speech in 1956, Ukrainian cultural elites pressed more
boldly for concessions. Writers who had suffered under Stalin received praise and
honours. Qualified rehabilitation was extended to condemned figures from the 1920s and
’30s, and historians began to treat previously forbidden topics. Some proscribed literary
works were republished, and a number of new periodicals made their appearance,
including the first journal since the 1930s devoted to Ukrainian history.

In the latter half of Khrushchev’s reign, however, a distinct trend toward Russification
reemerged. An educational reform adopted in 1959 initiated a long process of
curtailment of Ukrainian-language instruction in schools. In 1961 the new party program
emphasized the importance of the Russian language for the integration of the Soviet
peoples and spoke of the diminishing significance of borders between Soviet republics.
Party theoreticians evolved the theory of “fusion of nations” that would be accompanied
by the disappearance of national languages as Soviet society progressed toward
communism.

Small, clandestine dissident groups began to form in the late 1950s, primarily as
discussion circles on Ukrainian political and cultural alternatives. Some dozen such
groups were uncovered by the secret police and their members imprisoned between 1958
and 1964. With open opposition to the party line impossible, defense of the Ukrainian
language and culture was usually expressed indirectly—through poetry extolling the
mother tongue, complaints about the unavailability of Ukrainian-language textbooks,
and calls for subscription to Ukrainian periodicals.

Khrushchev’s last years in power witnessed the rise to prominence of two figures—Petro
Shelest and Volodymyr Shcherbytsky—who between them dominated Ukraine’s political
landscape for almost 30 years. The earlier careers of both encompassed party work in
regional party organizations. In 1961 Shcherbytsky became chairman of the Council of
Ministers (premier) of Ukraine. Upon the elevation of Pidhorny to Moscow, in June

74 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

1963 Shelest succeeded him as party leader in Ukraine, and simultaneously

Shcherbytsky lost the premiership and went into eclipse.

Ukraine under Shelest

Until Leonid Brezhnev achieved preeminence by the mid-1970s, power in Moscow after
Khrushchev’s ouster was shared by a collective leadership headed by a triumvirate
consisting of Brezhnev, Aleksey Kosygin, and Pidhorny. Shelest, Pidhorny’s protégé,
became a full member of the Politburo within a month of Khrushchev’s ouster. However,
Brezhnev’s client, Shcherbytsky, shortly reemerged from relative obscurity; he
reassumed the premiership in Kyiv in 1965 and became a candidate member of the
Politburo in Moscow in 1966.

Although the new leadership in Moscow quickly reversed many of Khrushchev’s

decentralizing measures, it initially showed greater sensitivity toward the non-Russians.
The seeming retreat in Moscow’s nationalities policy, connected with the leadership’s
preoccupation with the succession struggle, facilitated the three main trends that
characterize the Shelest era in Ukraine: the growing cultural revival, greater
assertiveness by Kyiv’s political elite, and the development of a large-scale dissident
movement.

The cultural revival was built on the hard-won, though necessarily limited, achievements
of the de-Stalinization thaw. It was spearheaded by a younger “generation of the ’60s”
(shestydesyatnyky) who, without the formative firsthand experience of Stalin’s reign of
terror, experimented with themes and forms that at times provoked the ire of the
preceding generation. More proscribed figures from the past were rehabilitated as
literary scholars, and historians explored previously forbidden topics. New journals and
serials devoted to Ukrainian history made their appearance, and monumental
encyclopaedic publications were launched. Such efforts came under severe attack from
party ideologues and the conservative cultural establishment. Announced publications
failed to appear, published works were withdrawn from circulation, and numerous works
of art were destroyed. Plans prepared on the ministerial level in Kyiv for a partial de-
Russification of higher education were never implemented.

Nevertheless, the cultural achievements were unparalleled since the Ukrainization period
in the 1920s. They were made possible by the support of influential segments of the
party leadership, most notably Shelest himself. In addition to supporting Ukrainian

75 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

culture, Shelest defended the economic interests of Ukraine, pressing for a larger share
in the U.S.S.R.’s allocation of investment and greater republican control in economic
management. These efforts were aimed in part at strengthening the party’s legitimacy in
the eyes of the Ukrainian population. During Shelest’s tenure, Communist Party
membership in Ukraine grew at a rate double the all-union average to reach 2.5 million
by 1971.

From its embryonic beginnings in the late 1950s and early ’60s, the dissident movement
continued to develop under Shelest. In 1965 the first arrests and trials of 20 dissidents
occurred; profiles of these dissenters were circulated clandestinely, and their compiler,
the journalist Vyacheslav Chornovil, was also arrested and imprisoned. The national
dissent movement grew rapidly thereafter. It took the form of protest letters and petitions
to the authorities, the formation of informal clubs and discussion circles, and public
meetings and demonstrations. Increasingly the materials prepared by the dissidents were
circulated through samvydav (“self-publication”—the Ukrainian equivalent of Russian
samizdat), some of which made its way abroad and was published. An outstanding work
in this regard was Ivan Dziuba’s “Internationalism or Russification?”; it was translated
and published in several languages. Throughout the 1960s, however, reprisals for
dissident activity were generally mild.

Beginning in 1970, there were signs that the relative permissiveness of the Shelest
regime was drawing to a close. The head of the KGB in Ukraine was replaced. Harsh
rhetoric about “anti-Soviet activities” and “bourgeois nationalism” increased; tribute was
paid to “the great Russian people.” In 1971 Brezhnev’s protégé and Shelest’s rival,
Shcherbytsky, was elevated to full member of the Politburo. Between January and April
1972, several hundred dissidents and cultural activists were arrested in a wave of
repression that swept Ukraine. In May Shelest was removed as Ukraine’s party leader,
succeeded by Shcherbytsky. Shelest continued for another year as a member of the
Politburo and a deputy prime minister in Moscow, but in May 1973 he lost all his
remaining party and government positions.

Ukraine under Shcherbytsky

Shcherbytsky’s promotion marked an important step in the consolidation of power in
Moscow by his patron, Brezhnev, and a turning point in Ukrainian postwar politics.
Shcherbytsky survived in office 17 years until his resignation in the fall of 1989, a few
weeks before his death—long after the death of Brezhnev in 1982 and well into the

76 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

tenure of Mikhail Gorbachev.

Personnel changes in the party and government followed gradually after Shcherbytsky’s
accession to office; many of them involved the removal of Shelest’s supporters and the
promotion of cadres associated with the site of Shcherbytsky’s (and Brezhnev’s) earlier
career, the Dnipropetrovsk regional Communist Party organization. The most significant
occurred in October 1972: Valentyn Malanchuk, who had previously conducted
ideological work in the nationally highly charged Lviv region, was appointed secretary
for ideology. A purge in 1973–75 removed almost 5 percent of the CPU members from
party rolls.

Arrests of national and human rights activists continued through 1972–73. The bulk of
samvydav literature was now produced in labour camps, and much of it made its way
abroad, where it was published. Following the signing of the international Helsinki
Accords, with their human rights provisions, in 1975, the Helsinki Watch Group was
founded in Ukraine, headed by the poet Mykola Rudenko; by the end of the 1970s, its
members were almost all in concentration camps or in exile abroad. The expirations of
political prisoners’ sentences were increasingly followed by rearrest and new sentences
on charges of criminal activity. Incarceration in psychiatric institutions became a new
method of political repression.

Political repression was accompanied by a broad assault on Ukrainian culture and

intensification of Russification. Immediately after Shelest’s fall, the circulation of the
most popular Ukrainian periodicals was substantially reduced, and most of the new
journals and serials started under Shelest ceased publication; a general decline in
Ukrainian-language publishing and education continued during Shcherbytsky’s tenure.
For two years after his appointment as secretary for ideology, Malanchuk supervised a
purge of Ukrainian scholarly and cultural institutions, with numerous expulsions from
the Academy of Sciences, universities, editorial boards, and the official organizations of
writers, artists, and cinematographers. The general trend was unaffected by Malanchuk’s
unexpected removal in 1979, which may have been a concession to the disaffected
cultural intelligentsia, whose cooperation was needed in the upcoming celebrations of
the 325th anniversary of the “reunification of Ukraine with Russia” that year and the
1,500th anniversary of the founding of Kyiv in 1982.

Ukraine’s economic performance continued to deteriorate throughout the 1970s and

’80s. The rates of growth declined, and serious problems beset especially the important

77 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

ferrous metallurgy and coal mining industries. Agricultural production was adversely
affected by a series of droughts, a lack of incentives, and excessive centralization in
collective farm management. Soviet energy policy increasingly emphasized nuclear
power, and in April 1986 one of the nuclear power plants in Ukraine, at Chernobyl just
northwest of Kyiv, suffered the worst nuclear accident in history. Dozens died in the
immediate aftermath, and tens of thousands were evacuated. An estimated 5 million
people were exposed to elevated levels of radiation, and hundreds of thousands received
doses that were sufficient to increase the risk of various cancers. Decades after the
accident, the incidence of thyroid cancer remained sharply higher among residents of the
Chernobyl area than among the general population. Nevertheless, and despite changes in
the top leadership in Moscow since 1982, Shcherbytsky remained securely in office.

Ukraine on the path to independence

An upsurge of nationalism was the unexpected and unintended consequence of
Gorbachev’s attempt to grapple with the Soviet Union’s mounting economic problems.
Beginning in 1986, Gorbachev launched a campaign for an ill-defined economic
perestroika (“restructuring”) and called for an honest confrontation with real problems,
or glasnost (“openness”), which further entailed popular involvement in the process. In
the non-Russian republics, these policies opened the opportunity to voice not merely
economic but also predominantly national concerns.

In contrast to the rapid growth of mass movements in the Baltic and Transcaucasian
republics, in Ukraine the national revival stimulated by glasnost developed only
gradually. From mid-1986 the Ukrainian press and media, at first cautiously, began to
broach long-forbidden topics. While this process expanded and intensified, the
spontaneous formation locally of unofficial groups, primarily in Kyiv and Lviv, began in
1987. The year 1988 witnessed the rise of mass mobilization, with the first public
demonstrations—in Lviv from June through August and in Kyiv in November—and the
emergence of embryonic national organizations. Finally, the national revival in Ukraine
entered the stage of overt politicization in 1989.

In the three years 1987–89, new leaders emerged. Especially prominent were many
cultural activists from the shestydesyatnyky of the Shelest period, as well as former
dissidents. The issues that galvanized Ukrainian society at this time included such
traditional concerns as language, culture, and history, resurgent interests such as religion,
and new concerns over the environment and the economy.

78 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Russification and the parlous state of the Ukrainian language in schools, publishing, and
state administration received the earliest attention. Fears about the long-term language
trends were confirmed by data from the 1989 census: at the same time that Ukrainians
had declined as a percentage of Ukraine’s population, their attachment to Ukrainian as
their native language had fallen even more rapidly. Debates over the issue culminated in
the passage of a language law in autumn 1989 that for the first time gave Ukrainian
official status as the republic’s state language.

A campaign to fill in the “blank spots” in history aimed to restore public awareness of
neglected or suppressed historical events and figures such as Hetman Ivan Mazepa, to
rehabilitate historians such as Mykhaylo Hrushevsky, and to republish banned works of
pre-Soviet historical scholarship. Particularly intense were efforts to introduce
knowledge of the Stalin period, especially the Great Famine of 1932–33, which became
labeled the “Ukrainian genocide.” Fresh revelations appeared in the press about mass
graves of political prisoners executed in the Stalin era. To honour the victims of
Stalinism and to promote investigations of the repressions and famine of the 1930s, the
All-Ukrainian “Memorial” Society was founded in March 1989 based on already
existing local groups.

A religious revival was also under way in 1988, greatly stimulated by celebrations of a
millennium of Christianity in Kyivan (Kievan) Rus. Lavish government-supported
Russian Orthodox solemnities in Moscow were countered with unofficial celebrations
throughout Ukraine, including open observances by the proscribed Greek Catholics. As
bishops and clergy emerged from the underground, demands grew for the relegalization
of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Defections by the clergy and entire
congregations from Russian Orthodoxy began in the fall of 1989, and, on the eve of
Gorbachev’s visit to the Vatican in December, Soviet authorities announced that Greek
Catholic communities would be allowed official registration. In a parallel development,
the formation of an initiative group for the restoration of the Ukrainian Autocephalous
Orthodox Church was proclaimed in February 1989 in Kyiv.

Continuing revelations about the scale of the Chernobyl catastrophe and mounting
evidence of official wrongdoing in its aftermath, combined with fresh disclosures about
other disasters and the environmental ruination of Ukraine, engendered a widespread
ecological movement. On the initiative of scientists and writers, environmental groups
were formed in virtually every region, and in December 1987 they joined in a national

79 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

association, Zeleny Svit (“Green World”). In the course of 1989, Zeleny Svit evolved
into a potent political force led by the writer Yury Shcherbak. (See also
environmentalism.)

The traditionally passive industrial workers in Ukraine also became organized,

especially in the Donbas. Years of neglect by Moscow resulted in steady deterioration of
the coal-mining industry and increasingly hazardous working conditions in the mines.
Complaints in the form of letters by miners began to appear as early as 1985. But it was
only in July 1989 that a spontaneous movement of self-organization by Donbas miners
led to a strike. Concessions extended by Moscow were insufficient to stem the growing
alienation. In the course of the year, the overwhelmingly Russian-speaking miners, with
concerns far removed from those of the Ukrainian cultural intelligentsia, began to be
drawn to the Ukrainian national movement as a defender of their interests in
confrontation with Moscow.

The first significant organization with an overtly political agenda was launched in March
1988. This was the Ukrainian Helsinki Union, formed by recently released political
prisoners, many of whom had been members of the Helsinki Watch Group of the
mid-1970s. The Helsinki Union’s declared aim was the restoration of Ukraine’s
sovereignty as the main guarantee of its population’s national and human rights and the
transformation of the U.S.S.R. into a genuine confederation of states. Headed by Levko
Lukyanenko, with Vyacheslav Chornovil as an important leader, the Ukrainian Helsinki
Union had branches in all regions of Ukraine by 1989.

At all stages, the process of national revival and autonomous self-organization

encountered bitter resistance from the CPU, which under Shcherbytsky remained among
the most unreconstructed of the U.S.S.R.’s republican Communist Party organizations.
Opposition to the rising democratic forces took the form of propaganda attacks in the
press and media, intimidation, harassment, and occasional arrests. Shcherbytsky himself
continued firmly in charge of the CPU, in a sign of Moscow’s fear of destabilization in
Ukraine. Nevertheless, the official policies of perestroika and glasnost inhibited more-
extreme measures, while the example of rapid change in other republics, especially the
Baltics, emboldened democratic Ukrainian activists.

Parliamentary democracy
The year 1989 marked the transition from social mobilization to mass politicization of

80 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

life in Ukraine. Elections to a new supreme legislative body in Moscow, the Congress of
People’s Deputies, brought victory to a significant number of noncommunist candidates.
Numerous Communist Party candidates, including highly placed officials, suffered
defeat, all the more humiliating in those cases when they ran unopposed. (In these cases,
voters crossed off the single name on the ballot; if an unopposed candidate failed to
capture more than 50 percent of the vote, the election was declared void and the
candidate was barred from running in subsequent races.) The party’s confidence was
shaken, and resignations began to rise significantly.

Attempts to organize a popular front received impetus in January 1989 under the aegis of
the Writers’ Union of Ukraine. Taking the name Narodnyi Rukh Ukrainy (“Popular
Movement of Ukraine for Reconstruction,” often shortened to Rukh), to emphasize its
congruence with the policies of Gorbachev (particularly perestroika), the front
nevertheless ran into hostility from the CPU. Specifically eschewing the role of a
political opposition, Rukh advocated a program of democratization and support for
human, national, and minority rights. The founding congress was held in September and
elected a leadership headed by the poet Ivan Drach.

On September 28, 1989, Shcherbytsky, long rumoured to be ill, resigned as first

secretary of the CPU. His successor, Volodymyr Ivashko, while praising his predecessor
and reaffirming the CPU’s basic policy line, made the first cautious references to new
political realities and the need for the Communist Party to take these into account. These
realities included a rapid institutionalization of national, civic, and religious life that
outpaced legal recognition.

The most significant development of 1990 was the beginning of parliamentary

democracy. The first competitive elections to the Ukrainian parliament (which replaced
the old-style Supreme Soviet), held on March 4, broke the Communist Party’s monopoly
on political power in Ukraine. The parliament that met in mid-May had a substantial
democratic bloc that, with the defection of numerous communist deputies from strict
party discipline on particular issues, reduced the CPU’s core majority to 239 of the 450
members. Changes in the political leadership proceeded rapidly and culminated in the
parliament’s election of the recent CPU secretary for ideology, Leonid Kravchuk, as its
chairman. On July 16 sovereignty (though not yet independence) was claimed in the
name of the “people of Ukraine”—the entirety of Ukraine’s resident population without
regard to nationality or ethnicity; the declaration marked the onset of a gradual

81 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

convergence of views on key issues between the communist majority and the democratic
opposition, whose agenda was increasingly adopted by the pragmatic Kravchuk.

Gorbachev, faced with a rising tide of nationalism, had already proposed a renegotiated
new union treaty that would extend broad autonomy to the Soviet republics while
preserving central control of foreign policy, the military, and the financial system. To
forestall the cession of newly asserted sovereign rights to Moscow, student-led mass
demonstrations and a hunger strike were held in Kyiv in October 1990; the protests
extracted concessions that included the resignation of the premier. In the same month,
Rukh, whose membership was growing rapidly, proclaimed as its ultimate goal the total
independence of Ukraine. Only the CPU declared its support for Gorbachev’s plans of a
new union treaty.

A coup d’état organized in August 1991 by hard-line members of Gorbachev’s

government in Moscow collapsed within two days. In its wake the Ukrainian parliament,
in emergency session, declared the full independence of Ukraine on August 24. The
declaration was made subject to popular ratification by a referendum on December 1.

Independent Ukraine
The population of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for independence in the referendum of
December 1, 1991. (About 84 percent of eligible voters turned out for the referendum,
and about 90 percent of them endorsed independence.) In an election coinciding with the
referendum, Kravchuk was chosen as president. By this time, several important
developments had taken place in Ukraine, including the dissolution of the Communist
Party and the development (under the newly appointed Minister of Defense Kostiantyn
Morozov) of the infrastructure for separate Ukrainian armed forces. Ukraine also had
withstood political pressure from Moscow to reconsider its course toward independence
and enter into a restructured Soviet Union. A week after the independence referendum,
the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus agreed to establish the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS). Shortly thereafter the U.S.S.R. was formally disbanded.

Postindependence issues
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was commonly regarded as the
former Soviet republic (outside of those in the Baltic region) with the best chance of
achieving economic prosperity and integration with Europe as a whole. But by the end of
the 20th century, the Ukrainian economy had faltered badly, and social and political

82 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

change fell short of transforming Ukraine into a wholly European state. Nevertheless,
Ukraine registered some important gains in this period. It consolidated its independence
and developed its state structure, regularized relations with neighbouring countries (in
spite of some contentious issues), made some important steps in the process of
democratization, and established itself as a member in good standing of the international
community.

State building and diplomacy

President Kravchuk’s immediate priority was state building. Under his stewardship,
Ukraine quickly established its armed forces and the infrastructure of an independent
state. Citizenship was extended to the people of Ukraine on an inclusive (rather than
ethnic or linguistic) basis. Ukraine received widespread international recognition and
developed its diplomatic service. A pro-Western foreign policy was instituted, and
official pronouncements stressed that Ukraine was a “European” rather than a
“Eurasian” country. The state symbols and national anthem of the post-World War I
Ukrainian National Republic were reinstituted. Yet at the same time that independent
Ukraine was acquiring the attributes of statehood, it faced a number of contentious
issues that severely strained the fledgling country: the nature of its participation in the
CIS, nuclear disarmament, the status of Crimea, and control of the Black Sea Fleet and
its port city of Sevastopol. While inflaming passions on both sides of the border, these
issues also helped to define Ukraine’s new relationship with Russia.

Ukrainian leaders perceived the CIS to be no more than a loose association of former
Soviet republics and a means of assisting in a “civilized divorce” from the union. In
contrast, Russia regarded it as a means of retaining some degree of regional integration
(under Moscow’s political domination) and sought to establish it as a supranational body
that would succeed the U.S.S.R. These differing views were not clear at the meeting that
created the CIS, but within several weeks they had become very evident. Disagreements
between Russia and Ukraine ensued as the latter repudiated proposals for a CIS army
under unified command, a common CIS citizenship, and the guarding of “external”
rather than national borders. Remaining vigilant that involvement with the CIS not
compromise its sovereignty, Ukraine participated only as an associate member. However,
after more than seven years of independence, with the CIS no longer a real threat to the
country’s sovereignty, Ukraine finally agreed to join the CIS Interparliamentary
Assembly in March 1999.

83 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

The issue of nuclear disarmament proved a vexing one. In the wake of the Chernobyl
disaster, antinuclear popular sentiment ran high in Ukraine; even prior to independence,
Ukrainian leaders had committed themselves to divesting the country of nuclear
weapons. But throughout this period, Ukrainians had not been aware of the size of the
nuclear arsenal on their soil—Ukraine was effectively the third largest nuclear power in
the world at the time—nor had they considered the high costs and logistical problems of
nuclear divestment. After approximately half of the arsenal had been transferred to
Russia early in 1992, the leaders of independent Ukraine began to question the wisdom
of blindly handing over the weapons to a potential adversary that was now claiming
portions of Ukraine’s territory (i.e., Crimea). Ukraine then expressed reservations about
the complete removal of the weapons from the country before it could obtain some
guarantees for its security as well as financial compensation for the dismantling and
transportation of the warheads. This apparent backtracking caused major concern in the
West (particularly in the United States) and Russia. Intense diplomatic pressure
followed, and Ukraine began to be portrayed as something of a rogue state in the
Western media. Finally, in May 1992 Ukraine signed the Lisbon Protocol, which marked
Ukraine’s accession to the START I treaty (see Strategic Arms Reduction Talks).
Subsequent negotiations, brokered by the United States, resulted in a trilateral statement
(between the United States, Russia, and Ukraine) in January 1994, which outlined a
timetable for disarmament and dealt with the financial and security issues that Ukraine
had raised.

The interconnected issues of Crimea, Sevastopol, and the Black Sea Fleet not only
constituted Ukraine’s thorniest postindependence problem but also posed a significant
threat to peace in the region. In 1954 the Russian S.F.S.R. had transferred the
administration of Crimea to the Ukrainian S.S.R. However, it was the one region of
Ukraine where ethnic Russians constituted a majority of the population. In 1991 Crimea
was granted the status of an autonomous republic, and Crimeans supported the vote for
Ukrainian independence (albeit by a small majority). But disenchantment with an
independent Ukraine soon followed, and a movement for greater autonomy or even
secession developed in the peninsula. The separatists were encouraged in their efforts by
routine pronouncements by prominent Russian politicians and the Russian Duma that
Crimea was Russian territory that never should have been part of Ukraine. The situation
was complicated by the arrival of about 250,000 Crimean Tatars in the peninsula
—returning to the historic homeland from which they had been deported at the end of
World War II—starting in the late 1980s.

84 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Tensions in the region increased in 1994: separatist leader Yury Meshkov was elected
Crimean president in January, and a referendum calling for sovereignty was passed two
months later. Meshkov proved to be an inept leader, however, and he quickly alienated
his own supporters. By September he and the Crimean parliament were locked in a
constitutional struggle. The parliament finally stripped Meshkov of his powers and
elected a pro-Kyiv prime minister. In March 1995 Ukraine abolished the post of Crimean
president and instituted direct political rule, though it granted Crimea significant
economic concessions. The Crimean separatist movement collapsed.

The dispute between Russia and Ukraine over control of the Black Sea Fleet and
Sevastopol, the Crimean port city where the fleet was based, was particularly
acrimonious. Early in 1992 Ukraine laid claim to the entire fleet, which had been an
important naval asset of the Soviet Union. Russia responded unequivocally that the fleet
always had been and would remain Russia’s. A “war of decrees” over the issue
continued until June 1992, when Kravchuk and Russian Pres. Boris Yeltsin agreed that
the fleet would be administered jointly for a three-year period. Subsequently an
agreement was reached to divide the fleet’s assets evenly, but after further negotiation
Ukraine consented to allow Russia to acquire a majority share of the fleet in exchange
for debt forgiveness. The question of basing rights was not resolved until a final
agreement on the Black Sea Fleet was reached in 1997. It allowed Russia to lease the
main port facilities of Sevastopol for 20 years. Shortly afterward, Ukraine and Russia
signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership (1997), which recognized
Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and existing borders (including Crimea) and regularized
relations to some degree.

The turbulent relations between Ukraine and Russia in the post-Soviet period were likely
inevitable, given that the independence of Ukraine was such a sudden, fundamental
change. Russia had tremendous difficulty in perceiving—let alone accepting—Ukraine
as an independent country: it viewed Ukraine as an integral part of the Russian realm
and even considered Ukrainians to be virtually the same people as Russians.
Consequently, Russia reacted to Ukraine’s departure more strongly than it did to the
separation of the other Soviet republics. On the other hand, Ukraine was intensely aware
of the fragility of its recent independence and extremely sensitive to any perceived
encroachment on its sovereignty by Russia. Relations between the two countries
continued to be volatile into the early 21st century. Ukraine’s dependence on Russia for
fossil fuels was an issue of particular concern. For example, in 2006 Russia temporarily

85 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

cut off its supply of natural gas to Ukraine after claiming that Ukraine had not paid its
bills. Ukraine, however, maintained that the move was a reprisal for its pro-Western
policies.

Ukraine’s relations with its other neighbours tended to be much more cordial. Relations
with Hungary were from the outset friendly. Poland was supportive of Ukrainian
independence as well, notwithstanding earlier centuries of acrimony. Ukraine also
fostered a working relationship with several countries of the former Soviet Union by
cofounding a loose subregional organization called GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine,
Azerbaijan, Moldova; known as GUUAM from 1999 to 2005, when Uzbekistan was a
member). Relations with Romania were complicated by that country’s claims to certain
Ukrainian territories, including northern Bukovina and southern Bessarabia, as well as
Zmiyinyy (Serpent) Island and its surrounding waters in the Black Sea. Belarus’s
authoritarian political system and its proposed two-state union with Russia rendered
close ties with Ukraine unlikely.

Ukraine’s relations with the United States started out very poorly. During a visit to
Ukraine in the summer of 1991, U.S. Pres. George Bush affronted many Ukrainians
when he warned them against “suicidal” nationalism and urged them to remain within
the U.S.S.R. When Ukraine gained independence later that year, Washington was
extremely concerned about the new country’s large nuclear arsenal. Only after the
resolution of the disarmament issue did significant ties begin to develop. Ukraine soon
ranked as a major recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, and the two countries developed a
strong political relationship.

Economic difficulties
Ukraine’s postindependence economic performance—in sharp contrast to its relatively
successful efforts at state building and diplomacy—was markedly poor. The social
dislocation brought about by economic “shock therapy” in Russia dampened the
Ukrainian government’s desire for rapid change; it opted instead for a gradualist
approach toward achieving a mixed economy. Economic decline followed, since
Ukrainian industry was already suffering from the disruption of trade with former Soviet
republics in the wake of the U.S.S.R.’s demise. Ukraine’s heavy dependence on foreign
energy sources also strained the economy, particularly because Russia, Ukraine’s main
supplier, moved to raise the previously subsidized price of fossil fuels to world levels.
As a solid monetary policy had not been established, Ukraine experienced

86 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

hyperinflation, which reached a rate of at least 4,735 percent in 1993. Meanwhile,

corruption increased as political insiders grabbed state assets for themselves or took
unfair advantage of low-interest loans available to industry and agriculture. A sustained
attempt at economic reform came with the appointment of Leonid Kuchma as prime
minister in October 1992. His efforts, however, were strongly opposed by a majority of
parliamentarians and, to a degree, undermined by President Kravchuk himself. An
exasperated Kuchma resigned in 1993.

Social developments
Postindependence society in Ukraine saw some positive developments. The media
became much more open and vibrant, although those who were too openly critical of the
administration were subject to harassment, notably during Kuchma’s presidency
(1994–2005). Previous constraints on academic and intellectual life were lifted, resulting
in a growing and diverse body of publications, and liberal arts and business schools
began to emerge. There was substantial development in religious life, as the Ukrainian
Orthodox and Ukrainian Catholic churches—as well as other denominations—were able
to operate freely. In addition, a new generation of youth began to grow up without the
ideological and intellectual constraints of Soviet society.

Relations with minority groups in the postindependence period were generally peaceful.
The Jewish community experienced something of a renaissance, with the American-born
chief rabbi of Kyiv, Yaakov Dov Bleich, playing an instrumental role in organizing
synagogues, schools, and charitable activities. Moreover, the Ukrainian government
openly pursued a positive relationship with the Jewish community. The Hungarians and
Romanians in western Ukraine were afforded nationality rights, and the government
made some efforts to assist the Tatars, tens of thousands of whom still resided abroad as
a result of mass deportations in the 1940s. Unrest among the Tatars was limited in the
postindependence period, in large measure because of the effective leadership of former
dissident Mustafa Jemilev.

Ukraine’s large Russian minority found itself in an ambiguous situation in the

postindependence years. As part of the dominant nationality within the U.S.S.R., it had
maintained the preferred status of what some observers termed a “psychological
majority” in Soviet Ukraine. In independent Ukraine, however, the status of Russians
was less assured. Although granting Ukrainian Russians the full rights of citizenship was
never an issue, many of them were frustrated that Russian was not recognized as the

87 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

second official language of the country. This highly contentious matter was resolved to
some degree in 2012, when a new law was passed that allowed regional authorities to
confer official status upon minority languages. Moreover, the gradual Ukrainization of
the school system has not been popular in regions of Ukraine with large Russian
populations. The matter was further complicated by Russia’s vow to defend the rights of
ethnic Russians in the so-called “near-abroad,” which includes Ukraine.

Postindependence Ukraine witnessed the growth of numerous social ills. Both street
crime and organized crime increased, and Ukraine became a conduit for the international
illegal drug trade. A rise in the number of drug addicts accompanied a worrisome growth
in the number of people infected with HIV. The trafficking of Ukrainian women for the
international sex trade also emerged as a serious concern—evidenced by the fact that
Ukraine was the first former Soviet republic to host an office of La Strada International
(a network of organizations that work to prevent human trafficking). Life expectancy
fell, particularly for males, and occurrences of diseases considered long eradicated, such
as cholera, were recorded. Many people—especially the elderly—were reduced to living
in dire poverty, and many others sought work outside Ukraine, both legally and illegally,
as migrant labourers.

Kuchma’s presidency
Parliamentary and presidential elections were held in Ukraine in 1994. In the first
contest, candidates affiliated with the revived Communist Party emerged as the largest
single group, winning approximately one-fifth of the seats. Factoring in the deputies of
the Socialist and Agrarian parties, the latter of which drew its support from rural
interests and farmers, the left now constituted a strong—although not united—bloc in the
new parliament. In the presidential election the incumbent president, Kravchuk, was
narrowly defeated by former prime minister Kuchma, who promised economic reform
and better relations with Russia. The two contests seemed to reveal a political
polarization between eastern and western Ukraine. Kuchma and the left received their
greatest support from the more heavily industrialized and Russophone regions of eastern
Ukraine, whereas Kravchuk did particularly well in western Ukraine, where Ukrainian
speakers and national democrats predominated. Nevertheless, the minimal number of
irregularities in the elections and the peaceful replacement of the president were widely
interpreted as signs that democracy was taking root in Ukraine.

Once in office, Kuchma maintained many of his predecessor’s policies. Significantly,

88 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

while seeking more cordial relations with Moscow,

he did not reorient Ukraine’s foreign policy
northward. Ukraine continued to participate in the
CIS but in much the same manner as it had
previously. Moreover, Kuchma maintained
Kuchma, Leonid Ukraine’s pro-Western policies and aspirations. In
Leonid Kuchma, 2003.
Antônio Cruz/Agência Brasil
1994 Ukraine joined the Partnership for Peace
Programme run by the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO); the country also established a “special partnership” with the
organization in 1996. In 1995 Ukraine joined the Council of Europe.

Kuchma faced a major challenge in dealing with a strong parliamentary opposition,

particularly in respect to economic reform. Ukraine managed to achieve macroeconomic
stabilization by 1996, the year in which it introduced its long-awaited currency, the
hryvnya. However, the economy continued to perform poorly through the end of the
decade. Cumbersome bureaucratic procedures and unenforced economic legislation led
business to be both overregulated and rife with corruption. In addition, the country was
able to attract only a limited amount of foreign investment. The Russian economic crisis
of 1998 negatively affected Ukraine’s economy as well. But in 1999 the introduction of
tax-reform measures saw a growth in the number of small private businesses established
or emerging from the country’s significant shadow economy. At the turn of the 21st
century the legitimate economy began to grow.

In the 1998 parliamentary elections the Communist Party actually improved its showing.
In the 1999 presidential election, however, Kuchma defeated Communist Party leader
Petro Symonenko by a resounding margin. Politically, Kuchma had benefited from the
splintering of the left among several candidates. He also had campaigned vigorously,
using all the means available to him, particularly the media. Indeed, a strong bias in
favour of Kuchma became evident in the television coverage of the election.
International observers were critical of Kuchma’s handling of the media and some
obvious electoral irregularities. His margin of victory, however, indicated that these
factors alone had not determined the outcome of the vote.

The result of the 1999 election was significant in two respects. First, it represented a
rejection of the communist past. Some observers remarked that it even constituted a
second referendum on independence. Second, the vote did not split neatly along

89 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

geographical lines, indicating that—for that moment at least—the east-west divide seen
in the 1994 elections was not as important a factor in Ukrainian politics as many analysts
had suggested.

Lubomyr A. Hajda Andrij Makuch The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

During Kuchma’s second term, conflicts between right- and left-wing forces sometimes
threatened political stability. Nevertheless, newly appointed prime minister Viktor
Yushchenko shepherded economic reforms through the legislature. The economy grew
steadily in the first years of the 21st century, but the political situation remained tense in
Ukraine as it sought membership in NATO and the European Union (EU) while also
pursuing closer relations with Russia—a delicate balancing act. In 2003 Ukraine
accepted in principle a proposal to establish a “joint economic space” with Russia,
Belarus, and Kazakhstan; however, Ukrainian-Russian relations were strained by
Russian accusations of deteriorating conditions for the Russian minority in Ukraine,
along with Ukrainian concerns over what it viewed to be Russian expansionist designs in
Crimea.

Yushchenko became an opposition leader following his dismissal as prime minister in

2001. The following year, audio tapes allegedly revealed Kuchma’s approval of the sale
of a radar system to Iraq, in violation of a United Nations Security Council resolution,
and implicated him in the assassination of a dissident journalist in 2000. Opposition
groups called for the impeachment of Kuchma, who denied the allegations.

The Orange Revolution and the Yushchenko presidency

The presidential election of 2004 brought Ukraine to the brink of disintegration and civil
war. Cleared to seek a third term as president by the Constitutional Court, Kuchma
instead endorsed the candidacy of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who was also
strongly supported by Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin. Yushchenko—running on an
anticorruption, anticronyism platform—emerged as the leading opposition candidate, but
his campaign was prevented from visiting Yanukovych’s stronghold of Donetsk and
other eastern cities. In September Yushchenko’s health began to fail, and medical tests
later revealed he had suffered dioxin poisoning (allegedly carried out by the Ukrainian
State Security Service), which left his face disfigured. In the first round of the
presidential election, on October 31, Yushchenko and Yanukovych both won about two-
fifths of the vote. In the runoff the following month, Yanukovych was declared the

90 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

winner, though Yushchenko’s supporters charged fraud and staged mass protests that
came to be known as the Orange Revolution. Protestors clad in orange, Yushchenko’s
campaign colour, took to the streets, and the country endured nearly two weeks of
demonstrations. Yanukovych’s supporters in the east threatened to secede from Ukraine
if the results were annulled. Nevertheless, on December 3 the Supreme Court ruled the
election invalid and ordered a new runoff for December 26. Yushchenko subsequently
defeated Yanukovych by garnering some 52 percent of the vote. Although Yanukovych
challenged the validity of the results, Yushchenko was inaugurated on January 23, 2005.

Political turmoil occupied the first few years of Yushchenko’s presidency. His first
cabinet served only until September 2005, when he dismissed all his ministers, including
Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, a fellow leader of the Orange Revolution. The next
prime minister, Yury Yekhanurov, stayed in office only until January 2006.
Parliamentary elections early that year saw Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party finish third,
behind Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc. When a
proposed coalition of the so-called Orange parties in the parliament fell apart,
Yushchenko was forced to accept his rival Yanukovych as prime minister. The ensuing
power struggle between the president and the prime minister, whose political role had
been enhanced by a constitutional reform that took effect in 2006, led Yushchenko to call
for another round of parliamentary elections in 2007. Once again the president’s party
finished behind both Yanukovych’s and Tymoshenko’s parties. This time, however, a
coalition with the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc held together, allowing the pro-Western
Orange parties to form a government with Tymoshenko as prime minister. As the
government continued to balance the often conflicting goals of maintaining positive
relations with Russia and gaining membership in the EU, dissent between Yushchenko
and Tymoshenko contributed to the collapse of their coalition in September 2008. In
October the president dissolved parliament. Parliamentary elections, at first scheduled
for December, later were canceled, and Yushchenko’s and Tymoshenko’s parties agreed
to form a new coalition, together with the smaller Lytvyn Bloc, headed by Volodymyr
Lytvyn.

The Yanukovych presidency

The next presidential election, held on January 17, 2010, confirmed the political demise
of President Yushchenko, who received only about 5 percent of the vote. The top two
candidates, Yanukovych and Tymoshenko, garnered about 35 and 25 percent,

91 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

respectively. Because neither had won a majority of votes, a runoff poll was held on
February 7. The runoff results were split largely along regional lines, with most of
western Ukraine supporting Tymoshenko and most of the east favouring Yanukovych.
Winning 48.95 percent of the vote—a narrow lead over Tymoshenko’s 45.47 percent
—Yanukovych took the presidency. Although international observers determined that the
poll had been fair, Tymoshenko declared the results fraudulent and refused to recognize
Yanukovych’s victory; she and her supporters boycotted the inauguration of Yanukovych
on February 25. The following week Tymoshenko’s government was felled by a vote of
no confidence and Mykola Azarov of the Party of Regions was installed as prime
minister. President Yanukovych gained greater executive authority later in 2010 when
the Constitutional Court overturned the 2006 reform that had enhanced the powers of the
prime minister.

In April 2010, following a fractious parliamentary debate, Ukraine agreed to extend

Russia’s lease of the port at Sevastopol, originally set to expire in 2017, until 2042. In
exchange, Ukraine would receive a reduction in the price of Russian natural gas. The
Ukrainian government further improved relations with Russia in June 2010, when it
officially abandoned its goal of joining NATO—a pursuit Russia had opposed. As the
Yanukovych administration continued its pivot towards Moscow, EU leaders expressed
concern about the preservation of the rule of law in Ukraine.

In 2011 former prime minister Tymoshenko, the country’s most popular politician, was
convicted of abuse of power in connection with a 2009 natural gas deal with Russia and
given a seven-year prison sentence. In February 2012 Tymoshenko’s interior minister,
Yuri Lutsenko, also was convicted of abuse of power and sentenced to four years in
prison. Many observers believed both trials were politically motivated. When Ukraine
cohosted the UEFA European Championship football (soccer) tournament in summer
2012, a number of EU countries registered their concern for Tymoshenko by boycotting
the event.

In the parliamentary election in October 2012, the ruling Party of Regions emerged as
the single largest bloc, with 185 seats. Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party claimed 101 seats,
Vitali Klitschko’s Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms (UDAR) won 40 seats,
and the ultranationalist Svoboda (“Freedom”) party had a surprisingly strong showing,
winning 37 seats. Challenging the validity of the results, Tymoshenko embarked on a
hunger strike. Although international observers called attention to irregularities in some

92 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

contests, the European Parliament characterized the election as comparatively fair, and
the main opposition parties accepted the official results. In December 2012 sitting Prime
Minister Azarov formed a government with the support of Communist and independent
deputies. In what was widely seen as an attempt to thaw relations with the EU,
Yanukovych pardoned the imprisoned Lutsenko and ordered his release in April 2013.

The Maidan protest movement

Ukraine’s pro-European trajectory was abruptly halted in November 2013, when a
planned association agreement with the EU was scuttled just days before it was
scheduled to be signed. The accord would have more closely integrated political and
economic ties between the EU and Ukraine, but Yanukovych bowed to intense pressure
from Moscow. Street protests erupted in Kyiv, and Lutsenko and Klitschko emerged as
the leaders of the largest demonstrations since the Orange Revolution. Police violently
dispersed crowds in Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (“Independence Square”), and, as the
protests continued into December, demonstrators occupied Kyiv’s city hall and called on
Yanukovych to resign. Russia, in turn, offered to cut the price of natural gas and
purchase $15 billion in Ukrainian bonds to prop up the country’s faltering economy.

As demonstrations gave way to rioting in January

2014, Yanukovych signed a series of laws
restricting the right to protest, and hundreds of
thousands took to the streets of Kyiv in response.
Bloody clashes between police and protesters
Maidan protests ensued, with dozens injured on each side. On
Ukrainian protesters smashing a
statue of Vladimir Lenin in Kyiv's
January 22 two protesters were killed in skirmishes
Maidan (Independence Square) in with police, and demonstrations soon spread to
2013.
eastern Ukraine, a region that traditionally had
Efrem Lukatsky/AP Images
supported Yanukovych and closer ties with Russia.
Protesters occupied the justice ministry in Kyiv, and the parliament hastily repealed the
anti-protest measures. As discussions continued between Yanukovych and opposition
leaders, Azarov tendered his resignation as prime minister.

In February hundreds of protesters were released from jail as part of an amnesty deal that
led to the evacuation of demonstrators from government buildings. The thaw in tensions
was short-lived, however, as opposition parliamentarians were rebuffed in their attempts
to limit the powers of the presidency, and the battle in the streets took a deadly turn.

93 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

More than 20 were killed and hundreds were wounded when government forces
attempted to retake the Maidan on February 18. The 25,000 protesters remaining in the
square ringed their encampment with bonfires in an attempt to forestall another assault.
Protesters in the western Ukrainian cities of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk seized
government buildings, and EU officials threatened sanctions against Ukraine unless the
Yanukovych administration took steps to de-escalate the violence. The proposed truce
failed to materialize, and on February 20 violence in Kyiv escalated dramatically, with
police and government security forces firing on crowds of protesters. Scores were killed,
hundreds were injured, and EU leaders made good on their promise to enact sanctions
against Ukraine. Central government control continued to erode in western Ukraine, as
opposition forces occupied police stations and government offices in Lutsk, Uzhhorod,
and Ternopil.

The bloodiest week in Ukraine’s post-Soviet history concluded on February 21 with an

EU-brokered agreement between Yanukovych and opposition leaders that called for
early elections and the formation of an interim unity government. The parliament
responded by overwhelmingly approving the restoration of the 2004 constitution, thus
reducing the power of the presidency. In subsequent votes, the parliament approved a
measure granting full amnesty to protesters, fired internal affairs minister Vitaliy
Zakharchenko for his role in ordering the crackdown on the Maidan, and decriminalized
elements of the legal code under which Tymoshenko had been prosecuted. Yanukovych,
his power base crumbling, fled the capital ahead of an impeachment vote that stripped
him of his powers as president. Meanwhile, Tymoshenko, who had been released from
prison, traveled to Kyiv, where she delivered an impassioned speech to the crowd
assembled in the Maidan. Fatherland deputy leader Oleksandr Turchynov was appointed
acting president, a move that Yanukovych decried as a coup d’état. On February 24 the
interim government charged Yanukovych with mass murder in connection with the
deaths of the Maidan protesters and issued a warrant for his arrest.

The Ukrainian economy, struggling prior to the Maidan protests, responded erratically to
the shifting power situation, with the hryvnya sinking to historic lows. Credit agency
Standard & Poor’s cut the country’s debt rating and downgraded its financial outlook, as
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sought to restore calm. The interim Ukrainian
government installed Fatherland leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister, and early
presidential elections were scheduled for May 2014. Yanukovych resurfaced on February
28 in Rostov-na-Donu, Russia, and he delivered a defiant speech in Russian, insisting

94 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

that he was still the rightful president of Ukraine.

The crisis in Crimea and eastern Ukraine

Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea
As pro-Russian protesters became increasingly assertive in Crimea, groups of armed
men whose uniforms lacked any clear identifying marks surrounded the airports in
Simferopol and Sevastopol. Masked gunmen occupied the Crimean parliament building
and raised a Russian flag, as pro-Russian lawmakers dismissed the sitting government
and installed Sergey Aksyonov, the leader of the Russian Unity Party, as Crimea’s prime
minister. Voice and data links between Crimea and Ukraine were severed, and Russian
authorities acknowledged that they had moved troops into the region. Turchynov
criticized the action as a provocation and a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, while
Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin characterized it as an effort to protect Russian citizens and
military assets in Crimea. Aksyonov declared that he, and not the government in Kyiv,
was in command of Ukrainian police and military forces in Crimea.

On March 6 the Crimean parliament voted to

secede from Ukraine and join the Russian
Federation, with a public referendum on the matter
scheduled for March 16, 2014. The move was
hailed by Russia and broadly condemned in the
Sevastopol, Ukraine West. Meanwhile, Yatsenyuk affirmed Kyiv’s
Unidentified soldiers accompanied by
Russian military vehicles patrolling
position that Crimea was an integral part of
Sevastopol, Ukraine, on March 1, Ukraine. On the day of the referendum, observers
2014, a few weeks before Russia
noted numerous irregularities in the voting process,
annexed Crimea and the city.
Andrew Lubimov/AP Images including the presence of armed men at polling
stations, and the result was an overwhelming 97
percent in favour of joining Russia. The interim government in Kyiv rejected the result,
and the United States and the EU imposed asset freezes and travel bans on numerous
Russian officials and members of the Crimean parliament. On March 18 Putin met with
Aksyonov and other regional representatives and signed a treaty incorporating Crimea
into the Russian Federation. Western governments protested the move. Within hours of
the treaty’s signing, a Ukrainian soldier was killed when masked gunmen stormed a
Ukrainian military base outside Simferopol. Russian troops moved to occupy bases
throughout the peninsula, including Ukrainian naval headquarters in Sevastopol, as

95 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

Ukraine initiated the evacuation of some 25,000 military personnel and their families
from Crimea. On March 21 after the ratification of the annexation treaty by the Russian
parliament, Putin signed a law formally integrating Crimea into Russia.

As international attention remained focused on Crimea, Yatsenyuk negotiated with the

IMF to craft a bailout package that would address Ukraine’s $35 billion in unmet
financial obligations. He also met with EU officials in Brussels, and on March 21
Yatsenyuk signed a portion of the association pact that had been rejected by Yanukovych
in November 2013. The IMF ultimately proposed an $18 billion loan package that was
contingent on Ukraine’s adoption of a range of austerity measures that included
devaluation of the hryvnya and curbs on state subsidies that reduced the price of natural
gas to consumers.

Russia continued to solidify its hold on Crimea, and it abrogated the 2010 treaty that had
extended its lease on the port of Sevastopol in exchange for a discount on natural gas.
The price Russia charged Ukraine for natural gas skyrocketed some 80 percent in a
matter of weeks. While Russia openly exerted economic pressure on the interim
government in Kyiv, Russian officials publicly stated that they had no additional designs
on Ukrainian territory. In early April, however, a NATO press briefing revealed the
presence of an estimated 40,000 Russian troops, massed in a state of high readiness, just
across Ukraine’s border. Subsequently, heavily armed pro-Russian gunmen stormed
government buildings in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk, Luhansk, Horlivka, and
Kramatorsk. In Kharkiv a group of ostensibly local gunmen mistakenly seized an opera
house, believing it to be city hall. As was the case in Crimea, a number of these
takeovers were executed by men with Russian equipment, in uniforms bearing no
insignia, acting with military precision. In the city of Slov’yansk in the Donets Basin, a
gun battle erupted as pro-Russian militiamen occupied buildings and established
roadblocks.

Turchynov imposed a deadline on those occupying the buildings, offering them

immunity from prosecution if they surrendered but threatening a military response if
they did not. The deadline passed without incident, the occupiers consolidated their
gains, and Turchynov called on the United Nations to dispatch peacekeeping forces to
eastern Ukraine to restore order. Meanwhile, he signaled his support for one of the key
demands of the pro-Russian camp—a popular referendum on the conversion of Ukraine
into a federation, a change that would convey greater autonomy at the regional level. On

96 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

April 15 the Ukrainian military successfully retook the airfield at Kramatorsk, but the
following day a broader effort to reassert control in Slov’yansk went sharply awry when
Ukrainian troops surrendered six armoured personnel carriers to pro-Russian militiamen.
As emergency talks between Ukraine, the United States, the EU, and Russia began in
Geneva, Ukrainian troops in Mariupol repelled an assault by pro-Russian gunmen that
left several militiamen dead.

Although all parties at Geneva agreed to work to defuse the conflict in eastern Ukraine,
Russia commenced military maneuvers on its side of the border, and pro-Russian
militants expanded their zone of control, seizing additional government buildings and
establishing armed checkpoints. In late April Volodymyr Rybak, a Horlivka city council
representative and a member of Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party, was kidnapped and
killed by a pro-Russian militia. Subsequently, dozens would be abducted and held by
pro-Russian forces, including eight members of an Organization for Security and Co-
operation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring mission, numerous Ukrainian and Western
journalists, and several members of Ukrainian police and security services. The U.S. and
the EU unveiled a fresh round of sanctions against Russia, and Kharkiv mayor Gennady
Kernes, a member of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions who had reversed his pro-Moscow
course and declared his support for a united Ukraine, was seriously wounded by a sniper.
On May 2 the Ukrainian government restarted its offensive against pro-Russian forces in
Slov’yansk. Although two helicopters were lost to hostile fire, Turchynov reported that
many separatists had been killed or arrested. That same day, violence erupted in Odessa,
a city that had been relatively unscathed until that point, and dozens of pro-Russian
demonstrators were killed when the building they occupied caught fire.

On May 9 Putin celebrated Victory Day, a holiday that commemorates the defeat of Nazi
Germany in World War II, with a trip to Crimea and a review of Russia’s Black Sea
Fleet. Days before Putin’s visit, the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, a
Kremlin advisory body, had released a cautionary report about Crimea that sharply
contradicted the officially published results of the March 16 independence referendum.
Actual voter turnout was estimated to have been between 30 and 50 percent, with just
over half of those casting ballots choosing annexation by Russia. As self-declared
separatist governments in Luhansk and Donetsk prepared to stage their own referenda on
independence, Ukrainian security forces continued to contest territory with pro-Russian
militias, and a particularly bloody clash in Mariupol left as many as 20 dead. Those
referenda, held in separatist-controlled cities on May 11, were dismissed by Kyiv as “a

97 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

farce” and were widely criticized throughout the West. Widespread irregularities were
observed: masked gunmen directly supervised polls, voters casting multiple ballots were
commonplace, and Ukrainian police reportedly seized 100,000 pre-completed “yes”
ballots from armed separatists outside Slov’yansk. While stopping short of recognizing
the results of the referenda, which overwhelmingly favoured independence, Putin said
that he respected the will of the voters, even as the Kremlin called for negotiations. The
EU responded by expanding its sanctions against Russian individuals and companies.

The Poroshenko administration

Skirmishes between separatist militias and government forces continued in the east,
while the remainder of the country prepared for presidential elections on May 25.
Although voting was seriously disrupted in Luhansk and Donetsk, with pro-Russian
gunmen occupying polling stations and seizing ballot boxes, turnout elsewhere in the
country was strong. Ukrainian billionaire Petro Poroshenko won in a landslide, easily
topping the 50 percent mark necessary to secure a victory in the first round of polling.
Tymoshenko finished a distant second, with 13 percent of the vote, while candidates
from the ultranationalist Svoboda and Right Sector parties received barely 1 percent. In
the days following the election, intense fighting resumed in eastern Ukraine. Dozens of
pro-Russian separatists were killed in a battle over Donetsk’s international airport, and a
Ukrainian military helicopter was shot down outside Slov’yansk, killing all 14 people
aboard.

Poroshenko was sworn in as president on June 7, and he immediately set forth a proposal
to restore peace in separatist-controlled regions. Fighting continued, however, and
Russia was again accused of directly supporting the rebels when a trio of unidentified
Soviet-era tanks appeared in Ukrainian towns near the Russian border. On June 14, one
day after government forces reclaimed the city of Mariupol, the Ukrainian army suffered
its largest single-day loss of life to that point, when rebels shot down a transport plane
carrying 49 people as it attempted to land in Luhansk. Poroshenko called a halt to
military operations in the east, offering a temporary truce, as well as amnesty to
separatists who were willing to lay down their arms. He dispatched former president
Kuchma to negotiate with rebel leaders, and they indicated their acceptance of the
proposed cease-fire. Putin, citing a desire to help normalize the situation in eastern
Ukraine, rescinded an order—issued before the annexation of Crimea—that authorized
the use of Russian troops on Ukrainian soil. On June 27, amid strenuous Russian

98 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

objections, Poroshenko signed the long-delayed association agreement with the EU,
pledging closer ties with Europe.

In the following weeks the Ukrainian military recaptured the cities of Slov’yansk and
Kramatorsk, which suggested that government forces were making significant headway
against the rebels. Separatist militias began to deploy increasingly sophisticated weapons
systems, however, and at least 19 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and scores were
wounded during one attack in eastern Ukraine when their position was hit by a rocket
artillery barrage. As the Ukrainian military became more assertive with its use of attack
aircraft, pro-Russian forces intensified their air-defense campaign. On July 14 a
Ukrainian transport plane was shot down at an altitude of more than 20,000 feet (6,100
metres), a range far beyond the capabilities of the portable air-defense systems that
separatists had used previously. On July 16 a Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down over
the Donetsk region, about 12 miles (20 km) from the Russian border. Ukrainian officials
blamed both attacks on the Russian military, whom they alleged were taking an active
role in the fighting.

The conflict’s civilian death toll jumped

dramatically on July 17, when a Malaysia Airlines
777 carrying 298 people crashed in the Donetsk
region. Both Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces
were quick to deny responsibility for any role in
Igor Strelkov the downing of the jet, which U.S. intelligence
Pro-Russian separatist leader Igor
Girkin (byname Igor Strelkov) holding
analysts confirmed was brought down by a surface-
a media briefing on July 28, 2014, in to-air missile. Investigators and recovery workers
the rebel stronghold of Donetsk,
found their efforts hampered by the pro-Russian
Ukraine.
Dmitry Lovetsky/AP Images forces who controlled the crash site, and days
passed before the majority of the bodies could be
collected.

As international attention focused on the crash, the

government in Kyiv ground to a standstill.
Svoboda and UDAR withdrew their support from
the ruling coalition, and Prime Minister Arseniy
Yatsenyuk, frustrated at the pace of legislative
Malaysia Airlines flight 17 action, announced his resignation. Parliament
Emergency workers examining the

99 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

charred debris at the crash site of ultimately rejected Yatsenyuk’s resignation after
Malaysia Airlines flight 17, near the
village of Hrabove, eastern Ukraine, agreeing to his proposed budget amendments, but
July 20, 2014. Poroshenko proceeded with a call for early
Vadim Ghirda/AP/Shutterstock.com
elections to be held in October 2014. In the east,
the area under separatist control continued to recede, as the Ukrainian military steadily
advanced on the rebel strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk. Although Russia continued
to deny involvement in the conflict, in August Moscow confirmed that a squad of
Russian paratroopers had been captured while inside Ukraine. After Ukrainian
authorities released video interviews of the prisoners, Russian military officials stated
that the soldiers had accidentally crossed the border.

Ukrainian government troops experienced a sharp reversal of fortunes in late August,

when rebel forces opened a new front in the south, taking the city of Novoazovs’k and
threatening the key port of Mariupol. Poroshenko flatly declared that Russian forces had
entered Ukraine, and NATO analysts estimated that more than 1,000 Russian troops were
actively participating in the conflict. On September 5 the governments of Ukraine and
Russia met with separatist leaders in Minsk, Belarus, and agreed to a cease-fire that
temporarily slowed, but did not stop, the violence. With an eye on the future,
Poroshenko proposed a series of political and economic reforms that were designed to
prepare Ukraine to apply for EU membership in 2020. Poroshenko’s mandate received
approval from voters on October 26, when pro-Western parties triumphed in snap
parliamentary elections.

On November 2 separatists held local elections in

Donetsk and Luhansk in violation of the Minsk
cease-fire agreement. Ukrainian and Western
authorities dismissed the results, which predictably
favoured separatist candidates, and, although
Mirny, Ukraine Russia initially stated that it would recognize the
A bar provides the only light in a
neighbourhood of Mirny, Ukraine, after
elections, it later walked back those comments,
months of heavy fighting between saying that it would “respect” them instead.
government forces and rebels led to
Poroshenko responded by vowing to rescind an
electricity shortages in the Luhansk
region in October 2014. agreement that would have granted additional
Sergey Ponomarev—The New York
autonomy to Donetsk and Luhansk. By year’s end,
Times/Redux
fighting had reached its previous levels. In January
2015 the United Nations estimated that more than

100 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

5,000 people had been killed since the beginning of

hostilities. By that point the cease-fire agreement
had been largely discarded by both sides. Although
the Russian economy had been pushed into
recession by a combination of Western sanctions
Vladimir Putin, Alexander and low oil prices, advanced Russian military
Lukashenko, and Petro
equipment continued to appear in eastern Ukraine,
Poroshenko
Belarusian Pres. Alexander as a separatist offensive pushed back government
Lukashenko (centre) hosting a forces. In late January rebels occupied the fiercely
meeting between Russian Pres.
Vladimir Putin (left) and Ukrainian contested Donetsk airport—little more than a ruin
Pres. Petro Poroshenko (right) in after months of heavy fighting—and they
Minsk, Belarus, in an effort to end the
fighting in eastern Ukraine, August 26, intensified efforts to capture the government-held
2014. town of Debaltseve. Hundreds were killed in the
Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Images
shelling of civilian areas in the conflict zone,
including at least 30 in a separatist rocket attack on
Mariupol, and world leaders pressed for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

On February 12, 2015, the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany agreed on a
12-point peace plan that proposed, among other things, the cessation of fighting, the
withdrawal of heavy weapons, the release of prisoners, and the removal of foreign troops
from Ukrainian territory. The tenuous peace held, and heavy weapons were pulled back
by both sides in early September 2015. Frequent violations of the truce left over 9,000
dead and more than 20,000 wounded by year’s end, however. Citing research from
Russian human rights groups, Ukrainian authorities estimated that over 2,000 Russian
troops had been killed since the beginning of fighting in April 2014. Russian officials
continued to deny any involvement in the conflict, and in May 2015 Putin signed a
decree banning the release of information about the deaths of Russian soldiers during
“special operations.”

As the situation in the east settled into a frozen

conflict, Ukrainians grew impatient with the pace
of political and economic reform. Although the
Poroshenko administration had promised
transparency and a renewed effort to stamp out
Ukraine crisis endemic corruption, it could claim few real
World leaders meeting in Minsk,
Belarus, to discuss the terms of a
successes. In May 2015 Poroshenko tapped former

101 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

cease-fire in the conflict in eastern Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili to serve as

Ukraine, February 11, 2015. From left
to right: Belarusian Pres. Alyaksandr governor of the Odessa region, but Saakashvili
Lukashenka, Russian Pres. Vladimir soon encountered resistance from Kyiv as a tug-of-
Putin, German Chancellor Angela
Merkel, French Pres. François
war developed between anti-corruption crusaders
Hollande, and Ukrainian Pres. Petro and politicians aligned with the country’s oligarchs.
Poroshenko.
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk narrowly
Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool/AP
Images survived a vote of no confidence in February 2016,
and he resigned in April of that year. Poroshenko
quickly moved to install his ally Volodymyr Groysman as prime minister, but he was
dogged by revelations about his use of offshore tax shelters during his tenure as
president. A leak of documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca
unveiled a money-laundering and tax-evasion operation of breathtaking scope,
implicating dozens of public figures and politicians from around the globe. Poroshenko
denied any wrongdoing and stated that he had fully complied with the law.

Poroshenko’s public approval rating sagged into the single digits approaching the 2019
presidential election, but a pair of events in late 2018 boosted his popularity. In
November 2018 Russian naval vessels in the Kerch Strait fired on Ukrainian ships and
seized both the ships and their crews. Poroshenko declared martial law in 10 regions, the
first time such a step had been taken since Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet
Union. Ukraine also appealed to the United Nations, and the General Assembly voted in
favour of a resolution that called on Russia to withdraw its forces from Crimea and to
end its occupation of Ukrainian territory. Russia ignored the resolution and continued to
expand its military presence in Crimea, but the clash seemed to legitimize Poroshenko’s
reelection campaign slogan, “Army, language, faith.”

The third of those pillars would be the focus of Poroshenko’s major pre-election policy
initiative—namely, the creation of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The
Orthodox churches of Ukraine had been under the jurisdiction of the Moscow
Patriarchate since the 17th century, but in December 2018 Poroshenko and Orthodox
leaders announced a break with Moscow. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I formally
granted the Ukrainian Orthodox Church autocephalous (independent) status in January
2019; by this point, the Russian Orthodox Church had already severed ties with
Constantinople and the ecumenical patriarchate in protest.

The election of Volodymyr Zelensky and continued Russian

aggression

102 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

In spite of Poroshenko’s efforts to direct the public conversation in the months leading to
the March 2019 presidential election, official corruption and the economy remained
voters’ key concerns. The race had initially appeared to be a replay of the 2014 contest
between Poroshenko and Tymoshenko, but the candidacy of television personality and
political novice Volodymyr Zelensky shattered the established order. Zelensky had
portrayed the president of Ukraine in a popular situation comedy, and he leveraged his
massive online following into a serious campaign against official corruption.

In the first round of polling on March 31, 2019,

Zelensky won over 30 percent of the vote, and
Poroshenko finished second with 16 percent. The
second round was held on April 21, and Zelensky
crushed the incumbent in a landslide, capturing
Volodymyr Zelensky more than 73 percent of the vote. Poroshenko’s
Volodymyr Zelensky, 2019.
Sergei Chuzavkov—SOPA
concession speech was marked with a promise that
Images/Shutterstock.com his political career was not yet over, while
Zelensky vowed that his first goal as president
would be to achieve a lasting peace in war-torn eastern Ukraine. Zelensky took office on
May 20, 2019, and used his inauguration speech to announce the dissolution of
parliament and the triggering of snap legislative elections. Those elections, held on July
21, delivered an absolute parliamentary majority to Zelensky’s Servant of the People
party.

This confirmation of Zelensky’s mandate allowed him to promote a peace settlement that
would see Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed insurgents withdraw from the so-called
“contact line” in eastern Ukraine. Zelensky’s opponents characterized the move as a
capitulation that would do nothing but legitimize Russian aggression in the Donets Basin
and Crimea, but he retained widespread support from a war-weary public. While
Zelensky endeavoured to focus his months-old administration on Ukraine’s foreign and
domestic challenges, he soon found himself drawn into a political scandal in the United
States.

Some $400 million in military aid for Ukraine had been approved by the U.S. Congress,
but U.S. Pres. Donald Trump put a hold on the funds prior to a July 25, 2019, phone call
with Zelensky. During that call, Trump urged Zelensky to investigate the son of a
political opponent, Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, who had served on

103 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

the board of one of Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies. Over a month later the
military aid was finally released, but, by that point, congressional Democrats were
investigating Trump’s alleged attempt to pressure Ukraine. That investigation eventually
served as the basis for an impeachment inquiry against Trump that was launched on
September 24, 2019. Trump was acquitted by the U.S. Senate in a largely party-line vote,
and he responded by purging senior U.S. government and national security officials
whom he regarded as insufficiently loyal. Lieut. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top
Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, was fired, and the post of U.S.
ambassador to Ukraine would remain vacant beyond the end of Trump’s term.

Beginning in 2020, the spread of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic led to massive
disruptions of daily life in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian economy took a sharp hit from
lockdowns and the closure of nonessential businesses. The situation was especially dire
in the Donbas, as infrastructure damage from the Russian-backed insurgency led to
serious disruptions of the water supply. Zelensky’s national mitigation strategy against
COVID-19, the potentially deadly disease caused by the virus, put him at odds with
some local politicians who sought to assert their independence under 2014 government
decentralization reforms, and this clash would have a significant effect on local elections
in October 2020. Local parties dominated mayoral races, while national parties,
including Zelensky’s Servant of the People, struggled. The poor showing in local
elections also reflected an overall decline in Zelensky’s public approval. There appeared
to be little progress on the populist reform agenda that had swept him into office, and the
conflict in the Donbas remained unsettled. While Zelensky did manage to address the
former matter with the passage of a law intended to curb the influence of oligarchs, the
latter issue would soon devolve into the greatest threat to regional stability since the end
of the Cold War.

Between October and November 2021, Russia began a massive buildup of troops and
military equipment along its border with Ukraine. Over the following months, additional
forces were dispatched to Belarus (ostensibly for joint exercises with Belarusian
personnel), the Russian-backed separatist enclave of Transdniestria in Moldova, and
Russian-occupied Crimea. By February 2022 Western defense analysts estimated that as
many as 190,000 Russian troops were encircling Ukraine and warned that a Russian
incursion was imminent. Putin dismissed these accusations and claimed that an
accompanying Russian naval buildup in the Black Sea was a previously scheduled
exercise. While Western leaders consulted with both Zelensky and Putin in an effort to

104 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35

Ukraine -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia https://www.britannica.com/print/article/612921

stave off a Russian invasion that appeared inevitable, Putin issued demands that included
de facto veto power over NATO expansion and the containment of NATO forces to
countries that had been members prior to 1997. This would, in effect, remove the NATO
security umbrella from eastern and southern Europe as well as the Baltic states. These
proposals were flatly rejected.

On February 21, 2022, Putin responded by recognizing the independence of the self-
proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin ordered Russian troops
into Ukrainian territory as “peacekeepers,” and Russian military activity in the Donbas
—ongoing since 2014 but consistently disavowed by the Kremlin—at last became overt.
Western leaders, pledging solidarity with Ukraine, responded by levying a raft of
sanctions against Russian financial institutions. In the early hours of February 24
Zelensky addressed the Russian people directly, delivering an impassioned plea for
peace but vowing that Ukraine would defend itself. Later that day, at about 6:00 AM
Moscow time, Putin took to the airwaves to announce the beginning of a “special
military operation.” Within minutes explosions were heard in major cities across
Ukraine, and air raid sirens began to sound in Kyiv. Around the world, leaders
condemned the unprovoked attack and promised swift and severe sanctions against
Russia.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Citation Information
Article Title: Ukraine
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 02 March 2022
URL: https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine
Access Date: March 10, 2022

105 de 105 10/03/2022, 8:35