Portal:Ukraine
The Ukraine Portal - Портал України
Ukraine Україна (Ukrainian) | |
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ISO 3166 code | UA |
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the north; Poland and Slovakia to the west; Hungary, Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to the south and southeast. Kyiv is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Odesa. Ukraine's official language is Ukrainian.
Humans have inhabited Ukraine since 32,000 BC. During the Middle Ages, it was the site of early Slavic expansion and later became a key centre of East Slavic culture under the state of Kievan Rus', which emerged in the 9th century. Kievan Rus' became the largest and most powerful realm in Europe in the 10th and 11th centuries, but gradually disintegrated into rival regional powers before being destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century. For the next 600 years the area was contested, divided, and ruled by a variety of external powers including the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Kingdom of Poland, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Austrian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Tsardom of Russia.
The Cossack Hetmanate emerged in central Ukraine in the 17th century but was partitioned between Russia and Poland before being absorbed by the Russian Empire in the late 19th century. Ukrainian nationalism developed and, following the Russian Revolution in 1917, the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic was formed. The Bolsheviks consolidated control over much of the former empire and established the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922. In the early 1930s, millions of Ukrainians died in the Holodomor, a human-made famine. During World War II, Ukraine was occupied by Germany and endured major battles and atrocities, resulting in 7 million civilians killed, including most Ukrainian Jews.
Ukraine gained independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union dissolved and declared itself neutral. A new constitution was adopted in 1996 as the country transitioned to a free market liberal democracy amid endemic corruption and a legacy of state control. The Orange Revolution of 2004–2005 ushered electoral and constitutional reforms. Resurgent political crises prompted a series of mass demonstrations in 2014 known as the Euromaidan, leading to a revolution, at the end of which Russia unilaterally occupied and annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, and pro-Russian unrest culminated in a war in Donbas with Russian-backed separatists and Russia. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. (Full article...)
In the news
- 16 April 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Kherson strikes
- Russian artillery and glide bombs target Kherson, Ukraine, killing one person and injuring nine others. A sports facility, a supermarket, and residential buildings were among those hit. (AP)
- Dnipro strikes
- A large-scale drone attack on Dnipro, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, kills two people and injures 16 others. (Reuters)
- 15 April 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- 2025 Sumy airstrike
- Ukrainian military leader Volodymyr Artyukh is fired from his position as Sumy Oblast Governor following condemnation for organizing a military ceremony in the densely populated Sumy city center, which was later targeted by a Russian airstrike. (The Kyiv Independent)
- 14 April 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- United Kingdom and the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- The United Kingdom sends £752 million ($990 million) to Ukraine for the purchase of surface-to-air missiles, artillery and spare parts for fighter aircraft, as part of an international loan programme funded primarily through seized Russian financial assets. (Reuters)
- 13 April 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Attacks on civilians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- 2025 Sumy airstrike
Featured pictures
Did you know (auto-generated)

- ... that street artist TVBoy, known for his murals of footballers in Barcelona, painted uplifting art in regions of Kyiv ahead of the one-year anniversary of the 2022 Russian invasion?
- ... that Ukrainian science fiction and fantasy is written both in Ukrainian and Russian?
- ... that in 2020, Ukrainian association football referee Maryna Striletska was part of the first all-woman officiating team for a men's international football match?
- ... that Sofia Halechko's first language was Polish, but she fought in World War One to create a country for Ukrainian-speaking people?
- ... that after the Russian invasion, the daughter of the Ukrainian ambassador to Indonesia was evacuated together with Indonesian citizens in Ukraine?
- ... that after the liberation of towns in Ukraine during the Ukrainian Kharkiv counteroffensive, authorities found evidence of numerous Russian torture chambers?
More did you know -
- ... that although the secular music of Mykola Leontovych was well known in the twentieth century, the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom was little known because of a ban on sacred music in the Soviet Union?
- ... that Vasyl Avramenko is often referred as "The father of the Ukrainian dance"?
- ... that according to legend, a tunnel leads from the Kamianets-Podilskyi Castle to the Khotyn Fortress which is 20 kilometres (12 mi) away?
- ... that at its first years Kiev Zoo had to move its animals into the food storage of the main Kiev railway station for the winter?
- ... that journalist Savik Shuster who used to work for Russian TV channels now prefers to work for the Ukrainian TV because he felt the Russian Government was limiting his journalistic freedom?
- ... that the married Western Ukrainian Clergy became a hereditary caste that dominated western Ukrainian society?
Selected article -

The Rus', also known as Russes, were a people in early medieval Eastern Europe. The scholarly consensus holds that they were originally Norsemen, mainly originating from present-day Sweden, who settled and ruled along the river-routes between the Baltic and the Black Seas from around the 8th to 11th centuries AD.
The two original centres of the Rus' were Ladoga (Aldeigja), founded in the mid-8th century, and Rurikovo Gorodische (Holmr), founded in the mid-9th century. The two settlements were situated at opposite ends of the Volkhov River, between Lake Ilmen and Lake Ladoga, and the Norsemen likely called this territory Gardar. From there, the name of the Rus' was transferred to the Middle Dnieper, and the Rus' then moved eastward to where the Finnic tribes lived and southward to where the Slavs lived. (Full article...)
In the news
- 16 April 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Kherson strikes
- Russian artillery and glide bombs target Kherson, Ukraine, killing one person and injuring nine others. A sports facility, a supermarket, and residential buildings were among those hit. (AP)
- Dnipro strikes
- A large-scale drone attack on Dnipro, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, kills two people and injures 16 others. (Reuters)
- 15 April 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- 2025 Sumy airstrike
- Ukrainian military leader Volodymyr Artyukh is fired from his position as Sumy Oblast Governor following condemnation for organizing a military ceremony in the densely populated Sumy city center, which was later targeted by a Russian airstrike. (The Kyiv Independent)
- 14 April 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- United Kingdom and the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- The United Kingdom sends £752 million ($990 million) to Ukraine for the purchase of surface-to-air missiles, artillery and spare parts for fighter aircraft, as part of an international loan programme funded primarily through seized Russian financial assets. (Reuters)
- 13 April 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Attacks on civilians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- 2025 Sumy airstrike
Selected anniversaries for April

- April 16, 2000 — Ukraine's national referendum takes place on the issue of reformation the governing system of Ukraine.
- April 22, 2006 — Two homemade bombs exploded in different supermarkets in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
- April 26, 1986 — Reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded at 01:23 A.M.
- April 29, 1918 — Constitution of the Ukrainian People's Republic, a constitutional document, was approved by the Central Rada, but never announced.
- April 29, 1918 — The Holiday of Ukrainian Sea. On this day the main parts of Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol hoisted ukrainian flags.
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