Language: Ukranian
Calling code: Hryvnia (UAH)
Currency: 380
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe with more than 37 million
inhabitants. With an area of 603,628 square kilometers, it is the
second largest country in Europe after Russia and the largest whose
territory lies entirely within the continent. The country borders Russia
to the east and northeast, Belarus to the north, Poland, Slovakia and
Hungary to the west, and Romania and Moldova to the southwest. In the
south, Ukraine borders the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The capital
and largest metropolis of the country is Kiev; other urban centers are
Kharkiv, Dnipro, Donetsk and Odessa.
Like its neighboring
countries Russia and Belarus, Ukraine traces its state tradition back to
the medieval Kiev Empire. Since its fall in the Mongol invasion of the
13th century, the territory of Ukraine has alternately belonged in whole
or in part to the territories of the Golden Horde, Poland-Lithuania, the
Russian Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy. The Ukrainian People's
Republic, founded after the October Revolution of 1917 in the Russian
Civil War, was the first attempt to constitute Ukraine as a community
and to achieve state independence, but it did not control all of the
areas of what would become Ukraine. As early as the end of
January/beginning of February 1918, Kiev was in the hands of the Red
Army (initially only briefly). Almost a year later, in January 1919, the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed, territorially
consisting of the southwestern Krai of the Tsarist era (west of the
Dnieper) and Little Russia with the governorates of Kharkov, Poltava and
Chernigov. When the Soviet Union was founded in 1922, it was one of the
founding members. When the United Nations was founded in 1945, the
Soviet republics of Belarus and Ukraine also gained their own membership
at Stalin's instigation. In 1954, Nikita Khrushchev placed Crimea, which
had previously belonged to the RSFSR, under Ukraine. It was only after
the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that Ukraine became sovereign
again, for the first time with international recognition. In return for
Ukraine's renunciation of the Soviet nuclear weapons stationed on its
territory, Russia, the USA and Great Britain guaranteed the country's
independence and existing borders in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994.
In February 2014, as a result of Russia's annexation of Crimea and
the war in Donbas, a conflict broke out between the two countries that
continues to this day. Crimea and parts of Donbas have been under
Russian control ever since. On February 21, 2022, Russia recognized the
"People's Republics" of Donetsk and Lugansk, proclaimed by pro-Russian
separatists, as independent states independent of Ukraine (only to
formally annex them a few months later). On February 24, 2022, the
invasion of Ukraine began, with Russian troops invading Ukraine from
Russia, Belarus, the Black Sea, and previously occupied territories.
President Volodymyr Zelensky declared a state of war and martial law.
After the attack on the capital Kyiv, which was repelled by Ukraine,
the war shifted mainly to the east and southeast of the country, apart
from air strikes. As of June 1, 2022, according to UNHCR estimates, 4.7
million people from Ukraine were registered as refugees in Europe. In
total, over 7.9 million people have fled Ukraine, and another 5.9
million have become internally displaced persons in Ukraine. According
to the United Nations, this is the largest refugee movement worldwide
since World War II.
Central Ukraine
Ukrainian Polissya,
Chernihiv oblast,
Kiev oblast,
Cherkasy oblast,
Poltava oblast
Central Ukraine is the political,
economic and cultural center of Ukraine, located around the capital -
Kyiv.
Western Ukraine
Volyn oblast,
Vinnitsa oblast,
Khmelnytsky oblast,
Ternopil oblast,
Ivano-Frankivsk
oblast, Lviv oblast,
Transcarpathian oblast,
Chernivtsi oblast
Western Ukraine is one of the
culturally richest regions of Ukraine. It is considered the "stronghold"
of the Ukrainian national idea. It differs from other regions in
architecture, traditions and even religion. The region is very diverse
in its ethnic composition, historical past, folklore, dialects of the
Ukrainian language, which were formed here under the influence of
neighboring countries. Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Uzhgorod, Chernivtsi and
other cities are considered to be real pearls of urban development. Most
of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Ukraine are located in this
region. Nevertheless, the region is also rich in natural attractions:
the Ukrainian Carpathians are a popular place for winter and ski
holidays. Western Ukraine is also known for its eccentric festivals,
European charm and respect for the Ukrainian countryside and folk life.
Eastern Ukraine
Dnepropetrovsk oblast,
Zaporozhye oblast,
Luhansk oblast/ LPR. Donetsk oblast/ DPR,
Sumy oblast,
Kharkiv oblast
Eastern Ukraine is the most urbanized region of Ukraine,
where a significant part of Ukraine's industry is concentrated. The
largest cities: Kharkiv, Donetsk and Dnepropetrovsk boast a developed
urban infrastructure, the Zaporozhye region is the historical cradle of
the Ukrainian Cossacks, on its territory there is the famous Museum of
the History of the Ukrainian Cossacks, located in the open air on the
island of Khortytsya - the largest island on the Dnieper. Eastern
Ukraine is known for its deposits of minerals and the mine method of
their extraction, where excursion descents into the mines are organized
for tourists (for example, the Salt Mine in Soledar).
Southern
Ukraine
Kherson oblast,
Nikolaev oblast,
Odessa oblast
Southern
Ukraine is the Black Sea coast with the magnificent city of Odessa. Most
of southern Ukraine is plowed steppe, and settled settlements appeared
here only at the end of the 18th century. Although culturally there is
something to see here - besides Odessa, these are, for example, the
former Turkish fortress of Izmail and the city of Vilkovo standing on
the canals - nature is the most interesting here. In southern Ukraine
there are the lower reaches and mouths of four large rivers - the
Danube, the Dnieper, the Dniester and the Southern Bug - and countless
smaller rivers, the sea coast, an unusual relief, as well as preserved
sections of the steppe, such as the Askania-Nova reserve.
Kyiv is the historical
capital of Kyivan Rus and modern Ukraine on the Dnipro River. Ancient
cathedrals and monasteries, wide boulevards, beautiful views and a
variety of cultural institutions.
Dnipro is an industrial city on the
Dnipro.
Donetsk is the largest industrial center of Ukraine. Occupied
by Russia. Visiting before deoccupation is not recommended.
Kamianets-Podilskyi is an ancient city.
Lviv
is a medieval old city, unique architecture with Polish and Austrian
elements. It is not recommended to visit before the end of shelling from
the Russian side.
Odessa is a port on the Black Sea, a unique mixture of
different cultures. It is not recommended to visit before the end of
shelling from the Russian side.
Kharkiv is the first capital of the former Ukrainian
SSR, a scientific, industrial, transport and student center. Partially
destroyed. It is not recommended to visit before the end of shelling
from the Russian side.
Chernivtsi is the historical center of
Bukovyna and, along with Lviv, is considered the cultural center of
Western Ukraine.
Chernihiv is
a beautiful ancient city of Ukraine with a large number of preserved
architectural monuments. Partially destroyed. You need to be careful,
avoid places where there may be mines.
Sophia Park in Uman
Kiev-Pechersk Lavra in Kyiv
Kamenets-Podolsky
Khortytsia, Zaporozhye
St. Sophia Cathedral in
Kyiv
Khotyn Fortress in Bukovina
Askania Nova is the oldest reserve in Ukraine.
Granite-steppe Pobuzhye is a regional landscape park, the valley of the
Southern Bug River, one of the natural pearls of Ukraine.
Canyon on
the Dniester
Podolski Tovtry in the Khmelnytsky region
Lake
Svityaz in Poliesie, Volyn (Shatsky Nature Park)
Lake Synevyr in the
Carpathians (National Reserve)
The Kamene Selo tract is an unusual
natural phenomenon in Ukraine
Transcarpathian Museum of Folk Architecture and Life
in Uzhgorod
Mamaeva Sloboda in Kyiv
Museum of Folk Architecture
and Life "Shevchenkivskyi Hai" in Lviv
Museum of Folk Architecture
and Life of Ukraine near Kiev
Khutor Savky north of Kiev
Khortytsia Island, a national reserve in Zaporozhye
Petrikovka
village north of Dnepropetrovsk. The village is famous for its painting,
which is called Petrikovskaya.
Museum of Strategic Missile Forces on
the border of the Kirovograd and Nikolaev regions near Pervomaysk. Here
you can see a real SS-18 Satan missile, which the Americans are still
afraid of, a missile silo, and even press the nuclear button.
Vyr (Cherkasy)
Gurkalo (National Nature Park "Skole
Beskydy" in the Carpathians)
Dzhurynsky Waterfall and the disappeared
city of Chervonograd (Ternopil)
Shypit (Carpathians)
Chervonograd is a medieval city that disappeared from
the maps.
Sidorov is a ship-shaped castle in the Ternopil region.
Khotyn near Chernivtsi.
Lubart Castle in Lutsk, a Lithuanian castle
from the 14th century
Kamenets-Podolsky is an entire stone city with
a castle and churches.
Kudrintsy is on a high mountain in the
Khmelnytsky region.
Kremenets is a castle shrouded in legends in the
north of the Ternopil region.
Nevytsky Castle in Transcarpathia.
Palanok, Mukachevo in Transcarpathia.
Dracula Castle in Khust,
Transcarpathia.
Rakovetsky Castle near Ivano-Frankivsk.
Svirzh in
Lviv region.
Olesky castle in Lviv region.
Zolochiv castle in Lviv
region.
Medzhybizh castle in Khmelnytsky region.
Popov castle - in
Zaporizhia region (Vasil'evka city).
As of March 2022, travel to Ukraine should be avoided at all costs,
or travelers should leave the country as soon as possible.
At the
end of February 2022, the armed forces of the Russian Federation began a
"special operation" against Ukraine. In the course of the fighting,
civilian targets (residential areas, schools, hospitals) are
increasingly being targeted. The warring parties, in particular the
regular Russian army and irregular attacking units, are acting with
extreme brutality and destructiveness in some major cities. The greater
Kyiv area, the south of the country (Mykolaiv, Kherson, Mariupol
regions) and the northeast (areas around Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv) are
particularly affected by the fighting.
In the affected cities,
basic supplies of food, medicine, drinking water, electricity and gas as
well as communications are not guaranteed. Safe corridors for the
evacuation and supply of the cities are also not guaranteed.
Even
in areas not directly affected by fighting, there are repeated air raids
on military and civilian targets. Several hundred thousand internally
displaced persons are putting a strain on the basic supplies in these
regions.
For the reasons stated above, the following travel guide
is not up to date. The information represents the situation before the
war and, due to the rapidly changing events, no updates are currently
being made.
Travel to Ukraine requires citizens of the European Union to have:
1. Passport – This must be valid for at least one month beyond the
planned stay.
2. Health insurance – Officially, travelers to
Ukraine are required to have travel health insurance that is valid in
Ukraine. However, this is often not checked.
3. Visa – A valid
visa issued in advance is no longer necessary for EU citizens, Swiss
citizens and citizens of Liechtenstein for a stay of up to 90 days; the
visa requirement was abolished in July 2005. Upon entry, you receive a
residence permit for up to 90 days. Since July 2007, however, the number
of visa-free days of stay has been limited to 90 per six months. An
extension when entering without a visa is no longer possible. If you
plan to stay for a longer period, you will need a visa issued by a
foreign representation. This permit must be applied for at the Ukrainian
immigration authorities in Kiev in good time before the statutory period
of stay expires. Depending on the purpose of the stay, a negative AIDS
test is required for stays longer than 90 or 180 days. If the test is
positive, deportation follows.
4. Registration – Since 2001, foreign
citizens have only been registered at the border; registration with
local registration authorities is no longer required for stays of up to
90 days.
5. Pets require a rabies vaccination that must not be older
than 12 months and not younger than one month. In addition, an official
medical certificate must be carried. Both the vaccination certificate
and the certificate should not be older than eight days. An
international vaccination certificate and a pet passport must also be
carried. The animals must have an identification chip.
The Embassy of
Ukraine in Germany offers current information in the Consular
Services/Visa Information section. The embassy can provide information
by telephone on 030 28 88 72 20 from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 1
p.m. Fax: 030/ 28 88 7-163.
Border crossings between Ukraine and
Russia are closed. "Any entry or exit via a border crossing that is not
under the control of the Ukrainian authorities [meaning Crimea] is
considered an illegal act by Ukraine. After entering the Crimean
peninsula or the areas in the Donbas not controlled by the government
from Russia, entry or re-entry into the government-controlled part of
Ukraine is not permitted under current Ukrainian law and is punishable
by penalties (expulsion, fine, entry ban and also imprisonment of up to
eight years)." If there is a reference to trips to Crimea in your
passport, this can cause major problems. Anyone planning to visit
Ukraine after visiting Crimea and would like to avoid the hassle should
obtain a second passport from their home municipality. Official
Ukrainian permits to visit Crimea directly are only issued for very
limited purposes (residents, journalists, diplomats, etc.).
"There are legal regulations according to which foreigners who stay in
the country for more than three months and want to work or study there
must show a negative HIV test upon entry or, alternatively, have a test
carried out in the country. If the test result is positive, according to
these regulations, deportation must be expected."
In Ukraine, Ukrainian hryvnia can easily be withdrawn from ATMs using
a credit card (Visacard and Mastercard). Swiss francs, euros and US
dollars can also be exchanged for hryvnia in banks and at the numerous
exchange offices.
To exchange hryvnia back into Swiss francs,
euros or US dollars, foreigners must present a receipt for the exchange
at banks or exchange offices. The receipt from the ATM is not accepted
for the exchange back in this case. If you cannot present the required
receipt, you can only hope for the hospitality and help of Ukrainian
passers-by who can exchange hryvnia for other currencies upon
presentation of your passport. This usually works quite smoothly.
When leaving for Poland, it is possible to exchange hryvnia for any
currency at the money changer - Kantor - in towns near the border
without a receipt.
Since around 2011, it has no longer been mandatory to submit a customs declaration. The customs regulations for importing and exporting goods remain unchanged. As in other parts of Europe, a declaration is only required if you are importing goods or money that exceeds the limits mentioned. Although checks are relatively sporadic, there are more and more baggage scanners on entry.
Items for personal use such as laundry, clothing, shoes, toiletries,
etc. can be carried duty-free. This also includes a camera, 8mm camera
or video camera, portable radio and portable musical instrument. The
import of weapons, ammunition, drugs, pornographic material and
publications and media that propagate war and racism is prohibited.
The duty-free import of 200 cigarettes or 200 g of tobacco, 1 l of
spirits, 2 l of wine or 5 l of beer, a maximum of 2 kg of food for
personal use worth up to 50 euros and gifts worth up to the equivalent
of 200 euros remain duty-free. Milk and meat products may not be
imported at all unless they are factory-packaged.
Currency:
Private individuals may import up to 10,000 euros (or the equivalent of
this amount in another currency according to the current exchange rate
of the National Bank of Ukraine) in cash or checks without registration.
Amounts exceeding this must be declared upon entry.
Bank metals
(gold, silver and platinum) in the form of bars up to 500 grams may only
be imported or exported by private individuals, not by legal entities,
and must be declared in all cases.
Even if tourists are allowed
to enter the country for up to 90 days without any paperwork, this does
not apply to their cars registered abroad. Here, a temporary local
permit is required after 60 days at the latest, and you also have to
deal with the customs authorities. Since processing times of at least
ten working days are to be expected, you should start the paperwork war
early. There are appropriate service providers with foreign language
skills for this purpose.
Since 2009, the import of meat and milk and products thereof
(sausage, cheese) into the EU has only been permitted for private
individuals with a corresponding veterinary clearance certificate, i.e.
effectively prohibited. Up to 20 kilos of fish can be brought in per
person. The import of caviar is limited to 125 grams for species
protection reasons.
Otherwise, 200 cigarettes and 1 liter of
liquor are duty-free.
The airspace over the rest of Ukraine is closed to civil air traffic. (As of: 2022)
Traveling by train from Germany has been complicated since the direct
Berlin-Kiev connection was cancelled in 2013. Connections from abroad to
Kiev are only available from Warsaw (more practical for northern
Germans) and Bratislava (more practical for southern Germans). There is
also a connection from Belgrade and a train from Krakow to Lviv.
Cheaper ways to travel from Germany are to buy domestic tickets from the
Polish border (Küstrin, Stettin or Słubice to the Polish border station
Przemyśl (10 hours on the express train, 17-18 on the slow train). From
Przemyśl there are direct buses to Lviv in Ukraine several times a day,
which cost the equivalent of around 5 euros (one way). From Lviv,
tickets (sleeper or couchette cars) to destinations throughout Ukraine
are available directly from the Ukrainian railway, and the prices are
far lower than those for international trains.
On the Warsaw -
Lubin route, the European standard gauge was extended to Rava-Rus'ka
(Рава-Руська) in Ukraine, so that border clearance and transfer to Lviv
can be carried out conveniently here. Direct trains to Warsaw should
start running in 2023.
Detailed information on the trains and
coaches running, especially on travel from Austria can be found in
travel by train in Ukraine.
As a generally usable means of transport, there are several bus companies that travel from North, South and West Germany to various larger cities in Ukraine several times a week on a scheduled service. The travel costs are cheaper than by train, but the train is more comfortable due to the long travel time.
You can travel by car via various border crossings. Customs provides
a website with current waiting times.
When entering from Germany,
you can use Poland or Slovakia (via the Czech Republic) as a transit
country. The route varies depending on where you are coming from and
where you want to go:
From Northern Germany
to Kiev, it is
best to take the route via Warsaw and the border crossing at Chelm.
towards Lviv or the Black Sea coast you can choose between travelling
via Warsaw/Lublin (Rawa Russka border crossing) or the route via Krakow
(Korczowa/Krakiwetz border crossing east of Jaroslaw)
From southern
Germany/Austria/Switzerland the quickest way is via Vienna, Budapest and
the crossings at Zahony or Berehove. Alternatively you can also go via
Slovakia and the border crossings at Ubľa or Vyšné Nemecké. Anyone
travelling from southern Germany should remember that a vignette is
required on the motorway in Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and
Slovakia, even for cars.
Another shortcut to travelling is the
Prague-Kosice connection. The car train (Autovlak) leaves Prague every
day at around 10:15 p.m., a bed costs little and you are well rested and
in Kosice the next morning at around 8 a.m. From there it is another
hour to Uzhhorod/Ukraine.
Entry has become much easier: you need your vehicle registration
document and the green insurance card. There are no fees when crossing
the border. It is recommended that the owner of the vehicle (according
to the documents) is also one of the occupants of the vehicle, otherwise
the ownership status can be questioned (vehicle stolen or similar). If
this is not the case, a power of attorney from the vehicle owner
legalized by a Ukrainian foreign mission must be carried for use. The D
(Germany) or A (Austria) in the vehicle registration plate is generally
recognized, i.e. attaching an additional oval national license plate is
generally not necessary. However, you should still have one with you for
safety reasons. A fire extinguisher is part of the mandatory equipment
in the car.
It should be noted that the duty-free import of cars is
only possible for 30 days, otherwise tourists have to take care of
additional documents in order to avoid paying customs.
The prescribed
coverage amounts for motor vehicle liability insurance for Ukrainian
vehicles are low. Approximately €13,000 for personal injury and €6,500
for property damage (as of January 1, 2025). There is therefore a very
real risk of being left with part of the repair costs. It should also be
noted that insurance never covers war-related damage - this will also
apply if you drive over a broken-down mine in twenty years.
Waiting times at the border have decreased significantly since the visa
requirement for Ukrainians was abolished, but there can still be waiting
times of several hours when leaving the country as they desperately try
to catch shirkers from military service.
Complaints about the
police can be made by calling ☎ +380 44 272 46 59.
The most important port is Odessa, which can also be reached from abroad.
Entry/exit on foot is not possible, at least not at the border crossing at Reni/Moldavia/Galati (Romania). However, there are occasionally people waiting to take you in their car for 5 euros per trip from Reni to Moldova and for 15 euros per trip from the Moldovan border to Galati (about 10 km behind the Moldovan border). Hitchhiking is apparently also possible.
Important: Make sure you take your passport with you - you will be
asked for a passport both when you buy tickets for long-distance routes
and when you board the train!
Long queues can form in front of ticket
sales points - it can take several hours to get your ticket. You should
familiarize yourself with the Russian system of queuing. Ask who is last
in line and use that as a guide. Especially when there are long waiting
times, people leave and keep their place in the row as long as they know
who is in front and who is behind.
Railways cover the entire territory of Ukraine, the only operator is
the state enterprise Ukrzaliznytsia. In general, the system of
organizing Ukrainian railway transport is very similar to Russia. All
trains are divided into long-distance and suburban, and tickets for them
are sold at different ticket offices and often even in different
buildings, since many stations have separate suburban stations. Tickets
for long-distance trains are issued with a seat and the passenger's
name, but - unlike Russia - without a passport number. When boarding the
train, the conductor must verify the identity of the passenger.
Tickets for long-distance trains can be bought at station ticket
offices, travel agencies and on the Internet on the Ukrzaliznytsia
website or on the rather convenient e-ticket website. Tickets for
Russian trains traveling within Ukraine can be bought through the
Russian Railways website (however, do not forget to print out the ticket
before leaving for Ukraine!). Tickets for trains within Ukraine are
usually not "seen" by the Russian Railways website. Nevertheless,
Russian ticket offices and travel agencies sell Ukrainian tickets,
albeit with a markup. Any ticket purchased through the website must be
printed on a form. Electronic tickets from the UZ website must be
printed immediately. Tickets with e-receipts must be received at the box
office, that is, come to the box office and stand in line. Formally, you
can print a ticket without queuing, but Ukrainian queues are no
different from Russian ones, so your chances of success are usually
small. There are no ticket printing machines in Ukraine. However, there
are special ticket offices for tickets purchased online. Look for such a
box office before joining the general queue.
If you are going to
buy a ticket at the box office, remember that there are different types
of ticket offices: advance and daily sales. This archaism is accompanied
by an intricate schedule of technical breaks, so at large stations,
choosing the right ticket office and the right queue turns into an
exciting lottery. Tickets for berths are sold with bed linen (z
biliznoyu) by default, even if the journey is only 1-2 hours. Bed linen
is inexpensive, but if ₴10-15 is critical for you, do not forget to
refuse bed linen when buying a ticket. Recently, a funny opportunity has
appeared to include tea and other drinks in the ticket price. Ukrainian
trains have three-digit numbers: from 001 to 099 are fast, from 151 to
190 are high-speed, from 200 are passenger/baggage and other slow.
High-speed trains are usually seated, and the rest are recumbent: there
are daytime trains with recumbent berths, and there are night trains
exclusively with seated cars - always check what type of cars the train
has. Recumbent berths can be reserved seats, compartments and SV
(luxury), and seated berths can be a general car based on a reserved
seat or a seated car with armchairs. The carriages are generally similar
to the Russian ones, with the exception of a few high-speed daytime
routes, which use modern Hyundai trains. These trains are the only truly
high-speed ones, while the rest travel at almost the same — not very
high — speed. Sometimes Ukrainian trains have modern carriages with
bio-toilets and air conditioners, but most often a Ukrainian train is a
train without air conditioning or with a non-working air conditioner and
a dirty toilet, which the conductors close at the stations. The
inconveniences are partly compensated by low prices: a reserved seat
ticket in Ukraine rarely costs more than ₴100, a compartment is on
average only half as cheap. SV carriages are expensive by Ukrainian
standards (₴400-500 for an overnight train), although they are also
quite affordable on an international scale. New high-speed trains are
significantly more expensive. Tickets for them cost ₴200-300.
In addition to the railway, there is also a lot of bus traffic between the individual cities. However, long-distance buses are not necessarily worth the time (compared to the train), as they may stop at a lot of places, similar to what you are used to with regional buses. In larger towns, there are central bus stations (Autovoksal).
The traffic density is quite dense on the major interurban roads (M)
and near large cities. On small side roads in rural areas, however, you
often don't see another vehicle for a long time. The traffic situation
on the M roads and other important connecting roads is increasingly
comparable to that in Central Europe (Poland/Slovakia), and on small
side roads and especially in the cities it is often catastrophic. Large
holes, open manhole covers, protruding tram tracks and other obstacles
can be expected there. Small roads in the country are often not paved.
Another problem is the lack of lighting. In addition to unlit
horse-drawn carriages, Ukrainian drivers are also a problem, as they
only switch on their lights after the very last ray of sunlight has
disappeared. This means that other vehicles are often difficult to see,
especially at dusk.
Unleaded petrol is available throughout the
country. Central Europeans with petrol engines should fill up with
either A-92 or A-95. A-80 is leaded. Prices for a liter are around one
euro per liter (as of 01/2020). You can pay at almost all petrol
stations with a credit card or maestro card, rarely only in cash. The
signs are sometimes in two scripts (Cyrillic/Latin), but often only in
Cyrillic, which is why you should learn about this script before
traveling.
The traffic rules are by and large the same as in Central Europe; the
speed limits (city 60 / country road 90 / motorway 130 km/h) and the 0
per mille limit must be observed. In Ukraine, 3-4 times as many people
die in traffic accidents as in Western Europe. This is not only due to
the condition of the cars and the poor roads in the country, but also to
the impetuous driving style.
With the still very corrupt traffic
police, it is easy to "make arrangements" for violations, often made up
of them. This is cheaper and faster than the official route. Families of
victims of drunk drivers probably see things differently. It helps to
know how high the official penalties are.
Although the national language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, Russian is spoken in large parts of the country (especially in the east and in Kiev). So you will hardly find anyone who does not speak Russian. Ukrainian is also very similar to the West Slavic languages, so you can get by quite well with Polish or Slovak (and with restrictions, Czech). Since English is very little spoken, a basic knowledge of a Slavic language is highly recommended and makes communication and orientation much easier. You should also have a basic knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet, as almost all written information (timetables, menus, shop signs) is only available in Cyrillic.
The currency is the hryvnia (UAH). The exchange rate, which falls
with every political crisis, is 45+ UAH per euro. 1/100 has been the
"step" since 2024, no longer the kopeck.
The small bills up to 10
H have been replaced by coins since 2022.
Since Ukraine gained
independence in 1991, the supply situation has improved steadily. All
everyday goods and electrical/electronic devices are now available
without any problems. The majority of everyday goods come from Ukraine
and are relatively inexpensive. Imports from EU countries may be a
little more expensive than in Germany (e.g. computers, household
appliances). Many products that we are familiar with can now be found
there too. Cheaper technical devices come from Poland, Italy, the Czech
Republic, and tropical fruits often come from Spain. Many retail chains
can be found there (e.g. McDonalds, Spar).
Money can generally be
exchanged at any time at all banks and the frequently found exchange
offices. Hryvnia are not traded outside of Ukraine, but euros are
welcome in Ukraine. As a tourist, you should bring euros in the smallest
possible denomination. You may be able to pay in euros, but you will
then receive hryvnia as change.
There are very restrictive export regulations here. Practically everything made before 1945, be it "art" or other antiques (including books, if applicable), must be approved. In cases of doubt, contact the expert commission of the Ministry of Culture in Kiev. Before you travel, you should find out about the current regulations. In general, it should be noted that newer works of art (after 1991) can usually be exported without any problems, but for all other, earlier objects, you should obtain information about export beforehand.
Ukrainian cuisine is diverse and can please with a wide selection of
meat and fish dishes, as well as traditional Ukrainian vegetable dishes,
as well as confectionery and pastries.
The national first course
is borscht - a vegetable soup with meat, mainly pork. In Ukraine, there
are more than 50 types of borscht preparation, which differ depending on
the place of preparation, but the most popular serving of borscht is
with garlic pampushkas. Popular meat products include cutlets
(sichenyky) and cutlets (Kiev, Poltava and others), as well as lard,
which is used in many dishes and is a popular snack for vodka.
Food prices are lower than the Russian average, especially in markets
and supermarkets. Almost any settlement, and especially a
tourist-significant one, has a sufficient selection of catering
establishments: from small cafes to restaurants. In large or
tourist-popular cities, gourmets will always find a restaurant that
suits their taste. The network of national cuisines is quite developed:
from Eastern and European to traditional Slavic. However, prices can be
too high.
Of particular interest are restaurants of national
Ukrainian cuisine, of which there are quite a lot in Ukrainian cities,
and the prices are very democratic. A good, tasty lunch for two with a
glass of wine in such a restaurant will not exceed fifty dollars.
The nightlife in Ukraine is well developed and oriented towards western clubs. As a tourist, you are usually allowed into places that would be off limits to you in your own country. However, you have to expect that it can be a bit more expensive than in your own country. One clear difference is that in Ukraine (as in many other former Soviet republics) you reserve a table or are given a table. You usually keep this table all night, and in addition to the obligatory vodka or champagne, hot or cold freshly prepared food is usually served. Under no circumstances should you get too drunk! If you are alone and very drunk, you should definitely be cautious and ask the doorman to get a taxi for a small tip.
Hotels oriented to European standards have appeared today in most
regional centers of Ukraine. The hotel industry is most developed in
cities with a population of over a million and resort cities on the
Southern Coast of Crimea. Five-star hotels are only in a few cities of
Ukraine: Kyiv, Donetsk, Odessa, Kharkov, Zaporozhye.
If for some
reason the prospect of staying in a five-star hotel does not appeal to
you, then in recent years a large number of small private hotels have
appeared in the country. A decent, large room by Russian standards with
all the amenities in such a hotel will cost between 1000-1200 Russian
rubles (2010). In Kyiv and Lvov, prices will be higher. In addition,
there are many companies (which can call themselves differently -
"Private hotel" or "Apartments in the center of Kyiv"), engaged in
renting apartments of any class on a daily basis for any budget - from
200 to 10,000 UAH / day (Kyiv).
Privatized hotels from the Soviet
era are now being actively renovated, but visitors still have a chance
to get into nostalgic rooms with creaky antique beds from the Soviet era
with worn-out mattresses and examples of the Soviet wallpaper industry
from the 70s of the last century on the walls.
Many of the surviving customs are associated with religious celebrations. Thus, at Christmas in Western Ukraine, it is customary to set up nativity scenes and weave the traditional amulet didukh. The celebration of the New Year's holiday cycle from January 1 to January 19, and the celebration of Easter are also replete with traditions. Many traditions and superstitions have also been preserved in wedding ceremonies.
The consumption of alcohol in public places is not permitted,
although the police rarely care. Sales times may be limited locally,
e.g. in Kiev since 2018 from 11 p.m. to 10 a.m. To be on the safe side,
you should avoid groups of drunks, or join in the drinking if you are
asked to.
Taking photos of military facilities is prohibited.
The Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts declared themselves independent from
Ukraine in the spring of 2014 as the "People's Republic of Donbass". The
separatist groups that currently control the oblast are striving for
unification with the Russian Federation. There are firefights between
Ukrainian military and separatists, which can sometimes take on civil
war-like proportions. Unrest and skirmishes also occur from time to time
in other parts of the country in the east and south of Ukraine. It is
advisable to avoid eastern Ukraine at the moment, as well as to follow
the news for other parts of the country and avoid large crowds.
Special care with regard to security is no longer required. However, as
everywhere in the world, anything that is a little more valuable and
could easily be stolen is at risk of theft. Sleeping drivers on the side
of the road are just as at risk as freely parked cars in cities.
Corruption is slowly improving.
If something does happen: There is no question that the Soviet
training of doctors was good. Doctors still make a living from it today.
Sometimes there is still a lack of equipment. There are private
practices mainly in the big cities, but there are also polyclinics with
very spacious outpatient departments. The advantage is that every
specialist is available. In general, payment is made directly on site,
but the amounts are usually not huge.
Foreigners are required to
have health insurance valid for Ukraine. It should be noted that
treatments that have become necessary due to acts of war are grounds for
exclusion, for which costs are not covered. In order to receive
reimbursement, these often require a report with a diagnosis coded in
Latin or according to ICD-10. At most, "first aid" is free; that is,
rescue services that treat on site or transport to the polyclinic, and
all life-saving measures in the polyclinic. After that, the patient must
be "interested in the success of the cure", which means nothing other
than paying. Anyone who is still able to travel near the border with
Poland, Slovakia or Hungary can go there to use their European health
insurance card.
There are still social security agreements with
most CIS countries and several EU countries of the former Eastern Bloc,
which allow their citizens to receive free care.
Anyone who wants
to stay in the country longer than the usual tourist time needs a
negative HIV test for a residence permit. HIV-infected people are
deported.
There are also areas outside the Chernobyl zone with
increased radiation levels. At least you should continue to avoid eating
wild mushrooms and, in my opinion, berries that are sold in markets.
The usual vaccinations should still be valid or should be updated in
good time. In addition, vaccination against hepatitis A and possibly TBE
is recommended. In recent years, the number of people suffering from
tuberculosis and HIV has decreased significantly, but it is still higher
than in Western Europe. Overall, medical care is not uniformly at
Western standards. The same applies to hygiene and drinking water
conditions.
The Cyrillic alphabet is used in Ukraine. This often means that travellers are completely disoriented if they do not know the Cyrillic alphabet. It is therefore advisable to acquire knowledge of it before travelling. The local population in the west of the country often speaks Ukrainian, while in the east they speak almost exclusively Russian. There is a significant Polish minority in and around Lviv. The best way to get by is of course Russian/Ukrainian, but if you do not have even a basic knowledge of one of these languages you will often have a hard time. In the big cities and hotels you will usually find someone who speaks English or German. Political relations with Poland and Russia are a sensitive subject that you should not bring up as a tourist. In any case you should avoid calling Ukrainians Russians.
If you visit someone at home, you take off your shoes at the entrance. The food is usually lavish, so it makes little sense to eat beforehand. If you bring flowers for the hostess, always bring an odd number. Bouquets with an even number are only used at funerals. After dark, you don't take out the rubbish, because that brings bad luck.
When visiting Orthodox churches, you should wear appropriate, i.e.
covering clothing. Shorts and T-shirts are not popular on men. Women
usually wear a thin scarf or shawl, loosely wrapped around their heads.
There is no seating as is usual in Western churches. Believers
wander around and kiss the icons on display (behind glass), even during
mass, which lasts for hours and during which the priests, often hidden
from the view of the believers behind a door or curtain, celebrate in a
nasal singsong.
The practice of the Russian Orthodox faith was
banned in August 2024.
If you still make international calls from a public payphone, dial 8,
wait for the dial tone, then 10 (international access code - in Germany
00), then e.g. 49 for Germany, followed by the area code (without zero)
and the subscriber's number.
Making calls with your own mobile
phone
All mobile phones from Europe can be used in Ukraine. The
German provider usually informs you of any roaming costs by SMS when you
log into a Ukrainian network for the first time.
An alternative
is to buy a prepaid card from a Ukrainian mobile phone provider. Credit,
the top-up cards are available at many kiosks, is usually valid for four
weeks. An ID document must be presented when purchasing. MobileID has
been available since the end of 2018, which can be used to identify
yourself over the telephone; banks and government agencies want to
expand corresponding services starting in the first half of 2019. The
three largest providers are:
Kyivstar (the prepaid card is called
ACE&BASE) can be recognized by the area codes +38067, +38068, +38096,
+38097, +38098. The network coverage reaches 99% of the population. The
company also offers landline and internet connections.
At the
beginning of 2019, the Video Unlim package including 150 free minutes
and SMS and 9 GB of data costs 150 UAH per month. Maximum Unlim for 225
UAH has 300 free minutes and SMS and unlimited network.
Vodafone
with the area codes +38050, +38066, +38095 and +38099, prepaid offers
three SuperNet packages: 1) Start: 65 UAH for 65 free minutes and 4 GB;
2) Pro: 85 UAH for 100 minutes and 8 GB; 3) 115 UAH for 150 minutes and
unlimited internet. In March 2018, operations in the Donetsk region were
discontinued.
[Lifecell] (formerly Astelit) has the area codes
+38063, +38093 and +38073. 4G expansion began in mid-2018. By the end of
the year, the 20 largest cities and thus half of the Ukrainian
population were covered by this technology. There are more tariff
packages than the competition. At similar prices, more talk time and
data volume are offered.
Other providers are Intertelecomm (+38094),
PEOPLEnet, and 3Mob.
In principle, there are internet cafes in all large and small cities.
Anyone with a smartphone can access the internet relatively cheaply
using a local prepaid card. The main advantages are that you are
independent of the Internet cafes and that data security is
significantly higher, especially when entering confidential login
passwords (in the Internet cafe you don't know whether a Trojan is
listening in in the background; after the Internet session, the browser
cache and possibly automatically saved passwords should be deleted,
which is usually not easy because the interface is in Russian).
On its website, UKRPost, which also offers financial services, provides information about postage and locations of its 11,500 branches.
In addition to the representations in Kiev, there are consular
representations:
Honorary consuls of the Federal Republic of
Germany in: Lviv, Odessa, Chernivtsi and Kharkiv.
Austria in (all
without emergency passport authority): Chernivtsi, Dnipro, Kharkiv,
Lviv, Odessa, Zaporizhya.
According to the most authoritative and widespread version, including
in Ukraine itself, the name of the state comes from the Old Russian word
ѹкраина — "border area" — which was originally applied to various border
lands of Rus and Old Russian principalities.
In the 16th-18th
centuries, the lands of Ukraine had various ethnic names — "Little Rus /
Little Russia", "Red Rus". The name "Rus" is widely used. "Ukraine"
becomes the name of a specific geographic region among the names of
other historical and ethnographic regions (Volyn, Podolia, Pokuttya,
Severshchyna, Red Rus, Zaporozhye). It is assigned to the Middle Dnieper
region (Southern Kiev region and Bratslav region) — the territory
controlled by the Cossacks. The inhabitants of this territory began to
be called Ukrainians or Ukrainniks. The number of Ukrainians gradually
grew, and the name "Ukraine" spread to regions beyond the original
territory. During the Khmelnytsky Uprising, it began to be applied to
the entire territory where military operations took place. The concept
was used in written sources and in works of oral folklore; it was used
by Bohdan Khmelnytsky himself and his successors. However, it did not
spread to all the southern Russian lands and did not become the name of
the state. After the Truce of Andrusovo (1667), which divided Ukraine
along the Dnieper, the names "sego-lateral Ukraine", "togo-lateral
Ukraine" and "Little Russian Ukraine" appeared in use. Since the 18th
century, the concept of "Ukraine" has been used in a geographical sense
and is commonly known on par with the name "Little Russia". As national
self-awareness grew, the significance of the concept of "Ukraine"
increased, and the word itself began to be perceived not only as a
geographical term, but also partly as the name of an ethnic space. This
became especially noticeable by the end of the 19th century. At the turn
of the 19th and 20th centuries, the term "Ukraine" as a name for the
entire ethnic territory became completely independent and
self-sufficient, displacing other self-names, which since then were used
only at the regional level. During the struggle of the Ukrainian
national movement in the 1920s, in connection with the Bolshevik policy,
indigenization and Ukrainization began.
Some Ukrainian historians
and linguists put forward a version that the name "Ukraine" comes from
the word "krai", "kraina", that is, simply "country", "land inhabited by
its own people". This version, in particular, is given in school
textbooks on the history of Ukraine. At the same time, it is claimed
that the terms "ukraine" and "okraina" have always clearly differed in
meaning.
The history of Ukraine covers the developments in the area of the present-day state of Ukraine from prehistory to the present.
The area of today's Ukraine was already settled during the
Paleolithic period. During the Neolithic period, the Bug-Dniester
culture existed in southern Ukraine from around 6500 to 5000 BC. This
was followed by the Dnepr-Don culture until 4000 BC. This was followed
by the Sredny Stog culture from 4500 to 3500 BC. Derijivka, one of the
most famous archaeological sites associated with this culture, is
located in the central Ukrainian region of Kirovohrad. At the transition
from the Neolithic period to the Chalcolithic period, today's Ukraine
was one of the regions of origin of the presumably semi-nomadic Kurgan
culture, which dates back to the period from 4400 BC to 4300 BC. BC -
however, this is not entirely undisputed scientifically (see criticism
of the Kurgan theory and later research).
The Kurgan culture was
replaced by the Yamnaya culture in the late Chalcolithic/early Bronze
Age, or was absorbed into it. Near Dnipro there is the "Storoschowa
mohyla" kurgan in which A. I. Terenozhkin excavated the remains of a
cart (cf. wagon). The stone babas (Ukrainian Баби кам’яні; Russian
каменные бабы) probably also date from this period - the largest
collection of which in Ukraine is in Dnipro (see Stone Babas of
Dnipropetrovsk) - with their more than 3000-year history they are
certainly not just the product of one people; the earliest, however, are
associated with the Yamnaya culture, the Iron Age examples with the
Scythians and the medieval ones with various Turkic peoples.
The
Yamnaya culture was followed in the Bronze Age from around 2800/2500 to
2000 BC by the Catacomb Tomb culture, which takes its name from the
catacombs they built, the underground part of which is most comparable
to the Egyptian mastabas. In the Late Bronze Age, the Srubna culture
followed in the 20th to 12th centuries BC (2000–1200 BC).
In the
5th century BC, Pontic Greeks settled on the Ukrainian Black Sea coast
and in particular the Crimea and founded colonies. They are also the
ones who report on the Taurian people - from which the name Tauria for
Crimea is derived - who describe them as a people of shepherds.
The Cimmerian people lived on the Kerch Strait - called the "Cimmerian
Bosporus" in ancient Greek sources - around 1300 BC, until they were
pushed out by the Scythians in the direction of the Caucasus. The steppe
area in the south of Ukraine was part of the so-called Wild Field, which
in ancient times (8th/7th century BC) was inhabited by the
Iranian-speaking horse-riding peoples of the Scythians and later by the
Sarmatians, who were close to them and who subjugated and assimilated
the Scythians in the 4th/3rd century BC.
In the north and west of
today's Ukraine, but also in Belarus, there was the Zarubinzy culture,
which existed from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD and whose
representatives probably traded with the cities on the Black Sea. The
discovery of many plows also indicates the great importance of
agriculture.
From the 2nd to the beginning of the 5th century AD, the Chernyakhov
culture, associated with the Ostrogoths, also developed in the area of
today's Ukraine, as the Goths were pushing from the Vistula region to
the coast of the Black Sea at that time. In addition, to the north of
the Chernyakhov culture there was also the Kiev culture, which is also
dated to the 2nd and 5th centuries AD. The Crimean Goths can still be
traced back to the middle of the 8th century, when they were subjugated
and assimilated by the emerging Khazar Empire - they probably gradually
defeated the Aorsi, the largest Sarmatian tribe at the time, over a
period of 20 years. Around the year 374, the first Huns under their
leader Balamir are said to have crossed the Volga, destroying the Alan
Empire in the process and subsequently forming an alliance with them.
The pressure from the east probably also pushed the Scythian tribes of
the Jazyges and the Roxolani westwards (most likely to the Balkans). In
375, the empire of the Greutung (Ostrogoth) Ermanarich was destroyed
(cf. especially Ammianus Marcellinus, 31, 2f.), and this is when the
Huns' invasion began at the latest.
In the fourth century, the
Proto-Bulgarians may also have been swept away by the migration of
peoples. They settled in the so-called "Onoguria" and expanded their
empire across what is now southern and eastern Ukraine. At the end of
late antiquity, the Slavs coming from the north also settled in the area
for the first time, and some of them may have moved towards the Balkans
(together with the Bulgarians). After the Huns and the peoples they had
driven westwards moved on, a power vacuum arose throughout (southern)
Ukraine. In the 6th century, these early Bulgarians probably split into
the Kutrigurs, who pushed further west, and the Utigurs, who remained on
the Don and probably founded the Great Bulgarian Empire, which included
large parts of southern and eastern Ukraine. What happened to the
Onogurs, another tribe associated with the Proto-Bulgarians, is unclear.
However, the area of the whole of southern Ukraine became a transit
area for the Bulgarians from their homeland, which was probably on the
Volga. In the 7th century, the Bulgarians, particularly under their
leader Kubrat, gradually moved further and further into what is now
Bulgaria, with part of them probably forming the state of the Volga
Bulgarians. The discovery of the important treasure of Mala
Pereshchepyna near Poltava also dates back to this time.
The Early Middle Ages covers the period of the formation and rise of the Rus, including campaigns against the Cumans and Khazars and Pechenegs, with the reign of Vladimir the Great and his son Yaroslav the Wise being considered the zenith of the Rus' development.
During the European Early Middle Ages, eastern Ukraine became part of the Khazar Empire around 750. It was also part of the Radhanite trading network; These Jewish merchants secured trade relations between the hostile countries of the West and the Islamic world from around the 8th to the 11th century, and even traded with India and China - this is probably the best justification for the importance of Judaism in the Khazar Empire. The Magyars, who were still living in the Volga region around 600 AD, settled in the area between the Dniester and Dnieper around 900 AD - probably what the Magyars called Etelköz (literally: land between the rivers) on the western border of the Khazar Empire, to which they were obliged to pay tribute. At this time they were joined by the Kabars - three tribes that rebelled against the Khazar Empire - and moved westwards to the Carpathians under pressure from the Pechenegs from the vast Eurasian steppes and their allied Bulgarians under Tsar Simeon I. After the decline of the Khazar Empire came the horse-riding peoples of the Pechenegs, Cumans and the Golden Horde.
In the 9th century, East Slavic tribes under the influence of Scandinavian Varangians built a loosely organized empire with the capital in Kiev, the "Kievan Rus", on the trade routes from Scandinavia and Novgorod southwards towards Constantinople. Its ruler, Vladimir the Great (r. 980–1015), decided in 988 to adopt Christianity according to the Eastern rite. The south of today's Ukraine was ruled by nomadic steppe peoples, especially the Pechenegs and later the Kypchaks (Cumans, "Polovtsians"; Ukrainian Половці), until the 13th century.
The term Ruthenians was introduced primarily by the Catholic Church
to distinguish the population of Rus' according to Orthodox and Catholic
Christianity. Since the separation of the Roman and Byzantine churches
in 1054 ("Schism of 1054") there was a long conflict (the mutual
excommunication was only declared over in 1965), which also led to a
competition for influence over the Rus' and the subsequent states.
Julian Pelesz, Lemberg Metropolitan Consistorial Councilor, pastor
of St. Barbara and rector of the Greek Catholic Central Seminary in
Vienna wrote in 1878: The name "Ruthenians" was first used to describe
the Slavs living in southern Gaul [...] who all probably professed the
Roman Church. The Russians in their homeland, on the other hand, bore
the name Rus. But when in the 12th century a part of the Russians fell
into the Photian schism, while the other remained loyal to the Catholic
Church united with Rome, the Roman See called the Russians who lived in
religious unity with Rome the Ruthenians, to distinguish them from the
northern Russians who adhered to the schism. Later, when southern Russia
[Ukraine] came under Polish rule, the name Ruthenus, Ruthenia, was
transferred to the Russians living under Polish rule, most of whom were
united with Rome. Today the Austrian Ruthenians bear this name, and the
Roman See uses it to name the Russians united with Rome, to distinguish
them from the schismatic Russians. The name "Russians" is of recent date
and has no historical basis. The name "Muscovite" evidently also arose
later, after the founding of Moscow.
After a period of cultural and economic prosperity, the decline of the Rus began in the 12th century with increasing military conflicts between the principalities.
The Principality of Kiev, Principality of Novgorod, Principality of Galicia (later Principality of Galicia-Volhynia), Principality of Vladimir (later Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal), Principality of Severia, Principality of Smolensk, Principality of Polotsk often fought each other with the support of foreign armies. In 1169, the Prince of Vladimir-Suzdal conquered Kiev, burned it down, assumed the title of Grand Duke and installed his son as Prince in Kiev. In 1202, Roman of Halych-Volhynia took possession of Kiev and derived from this a claim to the dignity of Grand Duke, but the following year he lost the city to the princes of Pereyaslavl.
The term Ukraina was first used in 1187 in the Hypatius Chronicle for
the southwestern territories of the Kievan Empire, later for the
Galician-Volhynian region. There is still debate as to whether the term
Ukraina means "borderland" or simply "land". According to Ludwig
Albrecht Gebhardi, who also refers to Nestor in his History of the Grand
Duchy of Transylvania and the Kingdoms of Gallicia, Lodomeria and Red
Rus, the area between Kiev and Cherkassy up to the Red Burgenland was
known as Red Ruthenia and represented most of the Rus.
On a
number of maps, including Ukrania quae et Terra Cosaccorum cum vicinis
Walachiae, Moldoviae (1720) by Johann Baptiste Homann, the names
Ukraine, Red Ruthenia and Kievan Duchy are used to describe the same
region. In relation to today's Ukraine, this name was for a long time a
narrow regional designation for the areas on the middle Dnieper.
In the preface to the Russian translation of the text Rys historyi
narodu Ruskiego w Galicyi i hierarchii cerkiewnej w témze krolestwie
(also known as Materiaty do napisania historyi narodu Ruskiego w
Galicyi, a t.d.) and its second part Utomek z obszerniejszego history
narodu Ruskiego w Galicyi, zawierający krytyczuo-historezne badania od
roku 1340 do 1492 by Denys Zubrytsky, published in Moscow in 1845 under
the title Critical and Historical Report on Red and Galician Rus, Osip
Bodjansky mentions six parts of Rus – Red, Lesser, Great, Black, White
and Carpathian Rus – and states that Red Ruthenia is the ‘oldest’ of
them. The Cossacks of Little Rus are also mentioned, and that Southern
and Western Ruthenia (Rus) are sometimes portrayed from a
Polish-Lithuanian perspective as the opposite of Eastern and Northern
Ruthenia (Rus).
Earlier references to Red Russia can be found in
Jan Haller's Elucidarius errorum ritus Ruthenici (1501), which divides
the Russians into three groups: the White Russians, subordinate to
Moscow, the Wallachians, and the Red Russians, who belong to the
Polish-Lithuanian state.
After initial conflicts in the 1220s between Europeans and the
Mongols under Genghis Khan, particularly the Battle of Kalka, the
Mongols advanced into Central Europe less than 20 years later, this time
under Batu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan. The siege of Kiev (1240)
during the second of the two campaigns marks the end of the Kievan Rus'
according to most historians. After that, the armies of the Golden Horde
won the battle on April 9, 1241 in the Battle of Liegnitz (Poland) and
two days later in the Battle of Muhi (Hungary). In European
historiography, these two phases of the Mongol conquests are referred to
as the Mongol storm.
The Mongols (sometimes also called "Tatars"
by the Rus) founded the empire of the Golden Horde - to a large extent
in the territory of today's Ukraine. While they themselves settled
mainly on the Volga and Kama, they placed themselves at the top of the
elite of the conquered culture and ruled these and numerous neighboring
peoples through a system of tribute payments, hostages and punitive
expeditions: After conquest, the able-bodied men were often integrated
into the Mongolian army, established rulers were left, but family
members were taken hostage and a governor was appointed (darughachi in
Russian, داروغه darougheh in Persian, basqaq in Turkish), who either
remained in place or returned annually. He ensured that the tribute was
delivered to the respective khan and guaranteed that the vassal state
did not pursue a policy that ran counter to that of the Mongol Empire.
If something happened to the governor or he reported disobedience to the
khan, the previously taken hostages were killed and punitive expeditions
were undertaken against the vassal state.
However, the bulk of
the population of the Golden Horde was not made up of Mongols. The
centers of the state were the cities of Sarai in Astrakhan, New Sarai
(also Berke-Sarai), Bolgar, Kazan and Azov. In the 13th century,
Mongolian nomadic tribes from Asia (“Golden Horde”) conquered control of
all the territories of Rus except the Republic of Novgorod and Pskov.
The Golden Horde was a dominant power in Eastern Europe from the 13th to
the 15th century.
After the sack of Kiev in 1240, the historical perspectives of Russian and Ukrainian historians diverge: some focus on the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal, others on the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia. Of course, the church (more precisely the Orthodox and Catholic churches) was an important part of the power struggle during this period. This power struggle could only be exacerbated by the fact that the Crimean Khanate in the south of Ukraine was under the influence of the Ottomans and was therefore Islamic.
The western Ukrainian Principality of Halych-Volhynia gained its own
importance from the 12th century onwards (see also Volhynia and the
History of Galicia). In the 13th century, it had to accept the supremacy
of the Golden Horde and resist its militarily stronger opponent,
Vladimir-Suzdal. So it sought support in the West and in 1253 Daniel
Romanovich of Galicia had himself crowned Rex Rusiae ("King of Rus") by
a papal legate.
The south of today's Ukraine became an
independent Crimean Khanate under Ottoman protection. Large parts of the
steppe areas in today's southern Ukraine were ruled and settled in mixed
conditions by the descendants of the Nogai Horde, the Black Nogai,
between 1368 and 1783. Many nomads who were considered "Crimean Turks"
were in fact Nogai.
In the 14th century the principality fell
apart, and its northeastern part, like the central Ukrainian areas on
the Dnieper with Kiev, became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania after
the Battle of Irpen (see History of Lithuania). The south-western part
of the principality ("Red Ruthenia", "Galicia") was conquered by Casimir
the Great of Poland in the middle of the 14th century (see History of
Poland).
The coronation of Daniel Romanovich of Galicia by Pope Innocent IV as
Rex Rusiae ("King of Rus") in 1253 was only possible through the
conversion to Catholicism. In 1299/1305 the Grand Dukes of
Vladimir-Suzdal achieved the relocation of the Orthodox Metropolitan of
all the Russians to Vladimir.
According to Georgy Vernadsky, the
name "Little Russia" (Russia Minor) was first used by Yury I when he
built a metropolitan cathedral in Halych in 1303 at the request of the
Patriarch of Constantinople. At that time, the following eparchies were
subordinate to him: Volodymyr-Volynsky, Holm, Peremyshl, Lutsk and
Turov. According to Vernadsky, the term "Little Russia" originally
referred only to the principalities of Galicia, Volhynia and Turov. The
name Great Russia was first used in 1347 in a decree abolishing the
metropolis of Halych.
In response to King Casimir III of Poland's
threat to have his Russian subjects baptized as Catholics, Bishop
Antonios of Galitza (Halich) was elevated to metropolitan in 1371 and
the bishoprics of Kholm, Przemyśl and Volodymyr were placed under his
jurisdiction. It was not until 1375 that the Patriarch of
Constantinople, Philotheos Kokkinos, appointed Kiprian as a new
Metropolitan of Kiev, initially with the aim of looking after all
Orthodox Russian Christians after the death of Metropolitan Alexei, who
resided in Moscow.
In the Greek-Byzantine document from 1380 in
connection with the activities for the appointment of Kiprian as
Metropolitan of Kiev, the north with Novgorod and Moscow is mentioned as
Greater Russia, the south as Lesser Russia.
In the Lithuanian-Polish dual state formed by the Union of Lublin in
1569, the Ukrainian territories that had previously belonged to
Lithuania were also placed under the Polish crown. In contrast to
Lithuania's previous liberal policy, the economic and religious
oppression of the Orthodox population by Poland increased from this
point onwards. In order to overcome the religious divide, the idea of
a "reunification" of the Catholic and Orthodox churches in
Lithuania-Poland was pursued. However, its concrete implementation in
the Church Union of Brest in 1596 met with much resistance among the
Ruthenians: the newly created Greek Catholic Church, which retained the
Eastern rite but was subordinate to the Pope, was not accepted by many
because it was only an appendage of the Western Church in organizational
terms. Another cause of conflict was the fact that the Ukrainian
nobility was not recognized as an equal third pillar of the state
alongside the Poles and Lithuanians.
The rest of Ukraine was
under the rule of the Tsarist Empire of Russia at the same time.
Against the resistance of the Polish-Lithuanian nobles, Bohdan
Khmelnytsky established an independent Ukrainian Cossack state
(Hetmanate) with the seat of government in Chyhyryn in 1648 through a
treaty with the Polish King Jan Kazimierz, but in 1651 it became
dependent again through alliances with Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
The Ukraine was then divided between Poland, which received the Right
Bank Ukraine, and Russia, which received the areas on the left bank of
the Dnieper. In the Russian part of Ukraine, the rise of the Russian
language began in Ukraine, while in the Polish part the long-standing
Polonization continued. The thirty years between the death of
Khmelnytsky in 1657 and the election of Ivan Mazepa as Hetman of the
Zaporozhian Cossacks in 1687 are known as Ruin (Ukrainian: Руїна); they
were characterized by frequent conflicts, civil wars and interventions
by foreign powers.
While it can be deduced from the Treaty of
Hadjach that the Cossacks saw their state as the successor of Rus' and
spoke the Ruthenian (Old Ukrainian) language, the term "Ruthenians" was
mainly applied to the part of the population that was under the control
of the Polish state.
The Battle of Poltava in 1709, involving Charles XII of Sweden and
Tsar Peter I of Moscow, was a tragic event in Ukrainian history.
Ukrainian Cossacks led by Hetman Ivan Mazepa (on the side of Charles
XII) and Hetman Ivan Skoropadsky (on the side of Peter I) took part in
it. Peter I's victory consolidated Moscow's control and suppressed
Cossack resistance. Charles XII sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire. The
battle changed the course of the Great Northern War. It led to the
proclamation of Peter I as emperor and the rise of Russia as a European
power.
1736–1739 Ukraine becomes the scene of the
Russo-Austrian-Turkish War, in which Ukrainian Cossacks play an
important role.
In 1775, the Zaporozhian Cossacks were liquidated
by Russian troops who came from the fortress of St. Elizabeth and
destroyed Nova Sich on June 15. Some of the former Zaporozhian Cossacks
fled across the Danube, others were resettled in the Kuban, and Petro
Kalnyshevsky, who was the last Zaporozhian ataman, died in prison on the
Solovetsky Islands. New Russia was founded on the former Cossack lands.
After the three partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795, western
Ukraine became Russian, with the exception of eastern Galicia, which
became part of the Habsburg Empire.
In 1796, the southern and
eastern regions of what is now Ukraine, which Russia had conquered from
the Ottomans, were combined into a Russian governorate (New Russia) and
the cities of Sevastopol (1763, military port and fortress) and
Simferopol (1784) on the Crimean peninsula and the port city of Odessa
(1793) were founded. The previously almost uninhabited steppe areas in
the southeast were cultivated and populated mostly by Russians, but also
by Germans. Around 70 German settlements were established here.
Catherine the Great (Tsarina from 1762 to 1796) promoted the settlement
of foreigners in Russia in many places.
At the Congress of
Vienna, the five great powers negotiated, among other things, the
territorial order of Europe. At that time, Russia was ruled by Tsar
Alexander I and the Habsburg Empire by Emperor Franz I. Russia secured
its expansion to the west by recognizing its territorial gains in
Finland (Grand Duchy of Finland from 1809 to 1917) and Bessarabia.
Russia was allowed to keep the largest part of the territories
(“Congress Poland”) that it had acquired in the three partitions of
Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795.
According to Andreas Kappeler,
Jean-Benoît Schérer’s “Annals of Little Russia or History of the
Zaporozhian Cossacks and Cossacks of Ukraine or Little Russia” (1788)
was the first comprehensive account of Ukrainian history. Schérer wrote
in the foreword that “the Cossacks [Ukrainians]” remained “unknown in
the West until two centuries ago, despite their over 800-year history.”
The history of the Ukrainian Cossacks became widely known with
Byron's poem "Mazeppa" (1819). This was followed by several operas and
instrumental pieces about the hetman, whom Voltaire called the
"Ukrainian Prince".
Before people began to speak of a Ukrainian or Belarusian nation in
the 19th century, the German term "Ruthenians" (Ukrainian: русини) and
Little Russians (Ukrainian: малороси) was used for the East Slavic
inhabitants of today's Ukraine, especially in reference to the core of
Ukraine. The western regions became part of the Habsburg Empire in 1772
as "Galicia and Lodomeria". In this regard, Ukraine historian Andreas
Kappeler criticized in 2017 that a "Russian view" had been
unquestioningly adopted in the West for 200 years.
At the end of
the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the Ukrainian historian
Mykhailo Hrushevsky laid the foundation for a Ukrainian national
movement in Lviv by opposing the concept of a unified East Slavic
(Russian) "stream of history" with his scheme of separate development of
the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. As a result, forces began to form in
Kiev that demanded independence from Russia. Both Ukrainians and
Russians refer positively to medieval Rus.
In 1869, "Pravda" was
the first literary magazine in Ukrainian in Austria-Hungary. Ten years
later, there were already 60 periodicals. The first pro-Ukrainian
political party was the "Ukrainian Radical Party" and was founded in
October 1890, first as the "Ruthenian-Ukrainian Radical Party". The
founders included Yevgeny Levytsky, Ivan Franko, Mykhailo Pavlyk,
Vyacheslav Budzinovsky and Kirill Triliovsky.
All European
peoples east of the German-speaking area and Italy and west of Russia,
from the Gulf of Finland to the Adriatic Sea, shared the same fate from
the Congress of Vienna to the end of the First World War: they were not
inhabitants of nation states, but of great power states, specifically:
Russia, Austria-Hungary or Prussia (later the German Empire). Unlike
most of the other peoples affected, the Ukrainians did not succeed in
creating a permanently existing nation state after 1917.
Ukrainian-speaking soldiers fought in the First World War for the
Russian Empire, partly in the army of Austria-Hungary (Common Army) and
partly in the Imperial Russian Army. National enthusiasm put pressure on
minorities in many countries. Although Ukrainians in Russia declared
their loyalty to Tsar Nicholas II (Russia), their rights continued to be
restricted. Something similar happened in Austria-Hungary: the
Ruthenians had more rights than Ukrainians, but were suspected of
collaborating with the enemy. Unlike Poland, Ukrainian emigrants from
Russia did not succeed in persuading the Central Powers and especially
Austria-Hungary to support an independent Ukraine.
The extent to
which Ukrainians were caught between the fronts was already evident in
1914, when Russian troops conquered eastern Galicia, including the
capital Lviv (then: Lemberg), in September. As a result, the Russian
military commander banned national institutions and the Ukrainian
language and persecuted the Greek Catholic Church. At the same time, the
Austro-Hungarian authorities arrested numerous Ukrainians as traitors.
One thousand five hundred of them were executed.
As part of the
Bug Offensive, the "Great Retreat" of the Russian army along the entire
front line took place by September 1915. During the retreat, many
Ukrainians were evacuated by force. However, the Austrian rulers
continued their repressive policy towards the ethnic Ukrainian
population. In 1917, after a brief success of the Russian Kerensky
Offensive in the first half of July, the German counterattack led to a
massive acceleration of the disintegration process of the demoralized
Russian army. German and Austro-Hungarian troops occupied Tarnopol on
July 25, 1917, and by the end of August the troops of the Russian
Southwest Front had been pushed back to the line of the Sbruch River,
which is now in Ukraine (approx. 45 kilometers east of Tarnopol, the
border river between Austria-Hungary and Russia before the war).
As a result of Lenin's decree on peace, an armistice was declared on
December 5, 1917, but this did not bring peace to the population in the
region. In 2015, Andreas Kappeler compiled sources according to which
around 500,000 men of Ukrainian descent were killed in World War I and
1.5 million Ukrainians died in the civil war of 1919/1920.
With the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia and the overthrow of
the Tsar and his government, Ukraine saw the opportunity for its own
independent state and society to develop. Shortly after the coup in
Petrograd, representatives of political, cultural and professional
organizations (Central Rada) gathered in Kyiv on March 17, 1917. They
formed a provisional government from their midst, and Mykhailo
Hrushevsky was elected chairman on March 20, 1917. A few weeks later,
the All-Ukrainian Congress, a meeting from April 19 to 21, 1917 with 900
delegates from various rural and urban regions and social groups,
confirmed the government and the Central Rada.
The developments
in Ukraine challenged the Provisional Government in Petrograd, which
held on to the unity of the Russian multi-ethnic state. At its 1st
Universal on June 23, 1917, the Central Rada demanded autonomy for
Ukraine within a democratic and federally organized Russia, the
definition of Ukraine's borders, and participation in a future peace
conference. The conflict with the Provisional Government (of Russia)
under Alexander Kerensky was still resolved through a compromise, which,
however, led to a crisis within the government in Petrograd.
In
any case, the influence of the Provisional Governments in both Petrograd
and Kyiv was small and conditions in the country were chaotic. The
population's supply situation was poor, poverty was great, and the war
was not yet over. Soviets (workers' and peasants' councils) and
committees were formed everywhere. Unrest broke out in the countryside
in Ukraine and elsewhere in the Russian Empire. The peasants
expropriated nobles and large landowners on their own initiative,
without waiting for the government to make the appropriate decisions.
The Provisional Government wanted to leave decisions on pressing
national and social issues to a constituent assembly, while the
Bolsheviks under Lenin's leadership made much more far-reaching
promises. When the Russian army's military offensive failed in July
1917, this led to a further loss of authority for the leadership in
Petrograd.
On October 25th/July 7th, 1917, the Bolsheviks overthrew the
Provisional Government in Petrograd and formed the Council of People's
Commissars of the RSFSR with Lenin as chairman. The second All-Russian
Soviet, controlled by the Bolsheviks, confirmed the new government and
proclaimed the Russian Soviet Federative Republic (RSFSR). The new
socialist government immediately set about consolidating its power by
using violence against counter-revolutionaries. However, the Bolsheviks
were more flexible when it came to nationality issues. In a "Declaration
of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia," they guaranteed them autonomy,
including secession. The Central Rada therefore initially adopted a
wait-and-see attitude toward the new government.
On November
12th/July 25th, 1917, Elections for the Constituent Assembly were held
across Russia, in which the Bolsheviks received only 24% of the vote and
became the second strongest faction after the Social Revolutionaries
(SRs) with 41%. When the Russian Constituent Assembly met in January
1918, it was violently dissolved by the Bolsheviks the next day.
Contrary to original promises, Lenin was by no means prepared to
recognize the legitimacy and autonomy of the Ukrainian People's Republic
and described it as an enemy of the revolution. In a memorandum in
December 1917, the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine issued an
ultimatum. If the required measures were not taken within the next 48
hours, the new revolutionary government in Russia would be at war with
the Ukrainian People's Republic.
In addition, the Bolsheviks
organized an uprising in Vinnytsia in mid-December 1917. The conquest of
eastern Ukrainian regions by Russian and Ukrainian Red Guards began. On
December 24/25. On December 14, the first congress of delegates of the
peasants', workers' and soldiers' councils took place in Kharkiv, which
declared the decisions of the Central Rada invalid. On December 26, the
Bolshevik troops captured Kharkiv. On December 30, the Central Executive
Committee of Soviet Ukraine proclaimed the Ukrainian People's Republic
of Soviets.
On January 9, 1918, elections to the Constituent
Assembly of Ukraine were held, but these could only be held in the
non-occupied territories. The Ukrainian national parties received 70% of
the votes, the Bolsheviks 10%. However, the assembly was never convened,
and the Central Rada remained the political decision-making body of the
Ukrainian People's Republic. On January 25, 1918 (4th Universal of the
Central Rada, backdated to January 22), the full state independence of
the Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed, with the Red Army
already in the process of moving into central Ukraine. On January 29,
1918, a Bolshevik uprising took place in Kyiv, which was crushed on
February 4. On February 8, 1918, Red Army troops captured Kyiv, forcing
the leadership to flee and revealing their military weakness.
One day after their defeat in Kyiv, on February 9, 1918, the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic concluded a separate peace with the Central Powers. The Central Powers recognized Ukraine as a state and reinstated the Rada. In return, they expected the delivery of grain and other basic foodstuffs, which is why it was called the Bread Peace. In February, March and April, German and Austro-Hungarian troops occupied the entire present-day Ukraine (Operation Faustschlag). In May, German troops advanced into the coalfields on the Don. In the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Soviet Russia had to recognize Ukraine.
The Central Powers, whose population was poorly supplied and tired of
war, pursued only their own interests in Ukraine. Since they expected
more food supplies and were already suspicious of the Rada, which was
dominated by the National Socialist Revolutionaries, they helped the
former Tsarist general Pavlo Skoropadskyj to power as hetman on April
29, 1918.
Skoropadskyj attempted a conservative restoration of
the state, above all he wanted to reinstate the expropriated large
landowners. This was also underlined by renaming the state the
"Ukrainian State". With the help of the administrative apparatus and the
support of the occupiers, Skoropadskyj was able to establish a Ukrainian
state from the Don to the Bug for the first time in history. However,
Skoropadskyj's domestic policy led to opposition from the Rada and the
vast majority of the peasants. The harsh occupation regime and the
exploitation of Ukraine turned many Ukrainians against the Germans. On
July 30, 1918, Commander-in-Chief Hermann von Eichhorn and his adjutant
fell victim to a bomb attack in Kiev.
After the defeat of the Central Powers, an executive called the
"Directorate" was formed on November 14, 1918 in Kiev from opposition
circles. Ukrainian associations threatened Kiev, but allowed the German
troops to withdraw, which Skoropadskyj joined. The Directory formed a
new government in Kiev on December 14, 1918.
The Directory
attempted to promote the formation of a national state with a number of
measures. Extensive concessions were made to the peasants, Ukrainian was
introduced as the national language, and the rights of minorities were
confirmed. However, the government largely lost control over the course
of 1919 and was torn apart between the various parties in the Russian
Civil War.
The collapse of the multi-ethnic state of Austria-Hungary led to a
series of national uprisings in the region. In November 1918, the West
Ukrainian People's Republic (Sakhidno-Ukrajinska Narodna Respublika,
SUNR) was formed in the former Austro-Hungarian crown land of the
Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, whose capitals were successively Lviv,
Ternopil and Stanislau (now Ivano-Frankivsk). The West Ukrainian
People's Republic united with the Ukrainian People's Republic in January
1919. On January 22, 1919, a declaration on the unification of the
Ukrainian People's Republic and the West Ukrainian People's Republic
into a united Ukraine was adopted on Sofia Square in Kyiv.
The
day is now celebrated as the Day of Ukrainian Unity. However, the
Directory was hardly able to control the country. The military situation
was precarious and it was not possible to gain allies. At the Paris
Peace Conference, which had been meeting since January 19, 1919, the
representatives of Ukraine were unable to make their voices heard. The
Allies did not recognize Ukraine as a state and in the Russian Civil
War, which had been raging since 1918, the Allies did not support the
national movements, but rather the reactionary, Russian-nationalist
White Army.
The Carpathian Ukraine in the southwest of the
country, which belonged to Hungary until 1919, fell to the newly founded
Czechoslovakia on September 10, 1919, partly due to a vote by the
American National Council of Rusyns. Bukovina was occupied by Romanian
troops and the newly founded Second Polish Republic was by no means
prepared to give up Galicia.
In 1919 and 1920, Ukraine was a major theater of the Russian Civil
War, which also led to great casualties among the population there.
Andreas Kappeler estimates that 1.5 million people in the Ukrainian
region fell victim to the civil war. The balance of power changed
constantly, Kyiv alone was conquered nine times during this period, and
anarchy and chaos increasingly prevailed.
The actors in this
civil war were the Bolsheviks (Red Army) and Mensheviks (White Guard),
the national Ukrainian forces (the Directory), various Cossack leaders
who incited the rural population to uprisings and revolts, and foreign
forces, especially France and Poland.
Under the leadership of General Denikin, the White Guard achieved
some military successes against the Red Army in 1919, meaning that they
controlled large parts of Ukraine that year. However, the military
dictatorship established by Denikin was essentially only supported by
the Russian upper class. The Russian-nationalist Mensheviks rejected the
national movement in Ukraine. They also found little support among the
rural population, as the reactionary agricultural policy deterred the
farmers. In addition, confiscations of grain to supply the troops turned
the rural population against them.
In 1920, the Bolsheviks had
the upper hand again and brought the entire territory of eastern Ukraine
under their control. The Bolsheviks had a powerful and disciplined army,
which was also numerically superior to the other actors. They were
supported primarily by the predominantly Russian and Jewish population
in the cities and industrial centers of Ukraine, who were also rather
critical of the national movement. After confiscations and forced
collectivizations in 1918 had turned the rural population against the
Bolsheviks, Lenin pushed through a moderate line in December 1919
regarding the introduction of socialism. The peasants were to be allowed
to keep their land and there was to be autonomy in terms of language and
culture. In view of the chaotic conditions at the end of 1920, a large
part of the population of Ukraine probably considered the rule of the
Bolsheviks to be the lesser evil.
As early as February 1919, the Directory was expelled from Kyiv by
the Bolsheviks and had to move west (Podolia). Due to his experience as
a military man, Symon Petliura gained influence and became head of
government. He tried to organize the defense of the barely existing
state, but failed to build a powerful army. The Cossack hetmans and the
Ukrainian peasants in particular could not be permanently bound to the
idea of a national state under the leadership of the Directory.
After Petliura failed to conquer Kyiv with his own forces in 1919,
he entered into an alliance with Poland in 1920. He was therefore forced
to accept the loss of Galicia to the newly formed Second Polish Republic
in order to fight together with the Polish army against the Bolsheviks.
However, this tactic met with little understanding in western Ukraine,
where a year earlier in the Polish-Ukrainian War, western Ukrainians had
been defeated by Polish troops.
After a brief success in May
1920, however, the Red Army managed to push the Polish-Ukrainian troops
back again. Lenin also used the Polish attack for the Bolsheviks.
Propaganda stylized the Red Army as the defender of the Russian
fatherland, so that Russian nationalist forces also joined the Red Army.
The eventful course of the Polish-Soviet war came to an end with the
Treaty of Riga on March 18, 1921. It decided to divide the Ukrainian
territories between Poland and the Soviet Union and the establishment of
an independent Ukraine had failed. In October 1921, Petliuar made a
last, desperate attempt to establish a Ukrainian nation state using
military means, but this quickly failed.
In the countryside, spontaneous peasant uprisings broke out as early
as 1917, but intensified in 1918, with social objectives, the
expropriation of large landowners and the redistribution of land.
Paramilitary groups of war veterans were formed to protect the village
from marauding gangs but also from the civil war parties, who secured
their supplies by confiscating grain. In southern Russia and the
Ukraine, larger groups emerged that continued the tradition of the
Cossacks. Some of them joined the Bolsheviks, but essentially pursued
their own goals and caused considerable difficulties for the occupiers
and governments.
The most well-known is the Makhno movement of
the anarchist Nestor Makhno, who formed an army of several tens of
thousands of men in the south of Ukraine. He initially fought alongside
the Bolsheviks against the White Guard, but was defeated by the Red Army
in the summer of 1921.
The Jewish population suffered
particularly from the collapse of order. Widespread anti-Semitism led to
a series of pogroms in 1919 and 1920. It is estimated that at least
40,000 Jews were murdered and a larger number were injured, expelled and
robbed. According to Andreas Kappeler, it is undisputed "that the main
perpetrators were soldiers, Russians, Ukrainians and (in Galicia)
Poles". Anti-Semitism was particularly widespread among the Mensheviks.
The responsibility of the Ukrainian government and in particular
Petliura for the pogroms, which were also carried out by his soldiers,
is controversial among researchers.
"Although most of the pogroms
against Jews in 1919 and 1920 were carried out by Denikin's white
troops, which consisted mainly of Russian officers and Cossacks and
among whom anti-Semitism was widespread, and by autonomous Ukrainian
combat groups and peasants, the government of the Ukrainian People's
Republic cannot be absolved of all responsibility. The pogroms against
the Jews cast a shadow over the Ukrainian liberation movement."
After the war and civil war, the situation of the population in Ukraine
and elsewhere in the former Russian Empire was catastrophic. Epidemics
such as the Spanish flu, typhus and cholera spread. The economy had
collapsed. The farmers had little incentive to produce more than for
their own needs. In 1921 and 1922, a great famine occurred, especially
in the areas east of Ukraine, which claimed a total of around five
million lives in Soviet Russia. Martin Aust estimates that the Russian
civil war claimed ten million victims in total, most of them civilians.
On December 29, 1922, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic,
together with the Belarusian, Russian and Transcaucasian Soviet
Federative Socialist Republics, signed the treaty establishing the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) with Moscow as its capital. In
conscious contrast to the Tsarist Empire, the USSR was organized on a
federal basis and Ukraine was recognized for the first time as an
independent nation with its own language and culture. However, the
far-reaching autonomy of the Soviet republics only existed formally. In
reality, politics was dominated by the centrally organized All-Union
Communist Party.
The borders of the Soviet republics were to be
based on the native language of the population living there. In the
Donets Basin and southern Russia, however, this was hardly possible
because the cities were Russian and the villages were Ukrainian (but
also German, Polish and Russian). In 1926, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic
had 29 million inhabitants, of which 80 percent were Ukrainians, 9.2
percent Russians, 5.5 percent Jews, 1.6 percent Poles and 1.4 percent
Germans. The capital was Kharkiv until 1934, then Kiev.
In order to strengthen the loyalty of non-Russians to the rule of the
Bolsheviks, the policy of Korenizazija (rooting in) was introduced in
the early years of the USSR to promote non-Russian languages and
cultures and to increase the proportion of non-Russians in the party and
administration. Culture in Ukraine, as well as in the USSR as a whole,
experienced a certain flowering during this period until the end of the
1920s. Ukrainian became a compulsory school subject and the official
language, and the dominance of the Russian language in the cities was
pushed back.
The New Economic Policy, which Lenin pushed through
in the party in 1921, enabled the peasants to keep their land and the
collectivization of agriculture was postponed. In addition, private
economic activities were permitted within certain limits, in particular
to meet the population's demand for consumer goods. The relatively
liberal policy enabled the economy to recover relatively quickly after
the catastrophic effects of the civil war. By the mid-1920s, production
in industry and agriculture had at least reached pre-war levels.
The industrialization of the Soviet Union was vigorously pushed
forward according to the planned economy, from which the southeast of
Ukraine in particular benefited. In addition to the mining of coal and
iron ore, large industrial complexes were built, for example in Dnipro
(including chemicals), Donetsk (including heavy industry, coal mining)
and Kharkiv (including aircraft).
At the end of the 1920s, the
party under the leadership of Joseph Stalin changed course. The New
Economic Policy and Korenization, which had been implemented by Lenin,
were replaced by the "revolution from above". The Soviet Union was to be
transformed into a modern industrial state and society was to be
transformed in line with socialist ideology. With enormous deployment of
labor, dams (such as the Dnieper power station) and heavy industrial
complexes were built. The USSR was dependent on the export of grain to
finance the industrial plants imported from abroad. In addition, the
food supply for workers in the cities, which were experiencing
significant population growth, had to be improved. In accordance with
socialist ideology, but also in the hope of increasing agricultural
productivity, the farmers were to join collective farms and the land
nationalized. In practice, the collectivization of agriculture was a
major economic failure and, in addition to a decline in agricultural
yields, led to great resistance in the countryside.
From 1929,
party officials from the cities were sent to the villages to enforce
collectivization there. This met with particularly bitter resistance in
Ukraine, as the peasant economy and way of life had a long tradition
within the village community there. At first, the coercive measures were
aimed primarily at wealthy farmers, but later all those who refused to
join a collective farm were defamed as kulaks, expropriated, killed or
deported to the east of the USSR. In addition to dekulakization, the
Orthodox Church, which was particularly firmly rooted in the
countryside, was also attacked. The forced collectivization, which was
completed in 1936, and the subsequent famine destroyed the peasant
culture that had previously dominated Ukraine.
The village communities or collective farms were obliged to hand over
a certain part of the harvest to the state. After a relatively good
harvest in 1930, a drought with low harvest yields followed in Ukraine
in 1931 and 1932. However, the delivery quotas were not adjusted to the
poor harvest. When a drop in grain delivery threatened the supply of
industrial workers and grain exports, the leadership in Moscow reacted
with coercive measures. The harvest yields in the countryside were
ruthlessly confiscated, leaving the farmers with neither supplies for
their own needs nor seed for the next year.
The result was a
famine among the rural population in the south of the USSR from 1932 to
1933. Ukraine was particularly badly affected by the Holodomor, as this
famine is called there. The figures for the number of victims vary
considerably in older accounts, but there is now a certain consensus:
Overall, it is assumed that six to seven million people died of
starvation in the USSR. For Ukraine, research indicates 3.5 to 3.9
million deaths, which is roughly half of the total number of victims and
disproportionately high compared to the total population of the USSR.
Ukraine had the most victims in 1933.
In Ukraine, the Holodomor
is now considered a genocide, although the use of the term is
controversial in research. It is undisputed that the leadership in
Moscow and in particular Josef Stalin were responsible for the famine.
The failure of the agricultural policy was ignored, the export of grain
abroad continued and the rural population in Ukraine was prevented from
leaving the famine-stricken areas in 1933. Stalin harbored great
distrust of the Ukrainian farmers and the Ukrainian national movement.
Andreas Kappeler thinks it is conceivable that "he used the opportunity
to permanently weaken [the Ukrainians] through artificially induced
hunger. Genocide in the sense of exterminating the Ukrainians was
probably not intended, however."
In 1931, the party changed its
line on national autonomy. Korenizazija and the promotion of non-Russian
cultures were replaced by Soviet patriotism and a cult of the state
leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin thus linked himself to the nationalism of
the Tsarist Empire and again propagated the dominance of the Russians
within the Soviet family of nations. Currents within the party against
centralism and for national autonomy were now resolutely fought. In
1933, a wave of purges began among the Ukrainian elite, in which large
parts of the party leadership at national, regional and local level were
replaced and often by Russian party cadres. The Great Terror affected
all regions in the USSR equally. In Ukraine, it did not begin until
1937/1938, but led to the arrest of 270,000 people. Half of them were
executed on Stalin's orders.
The development of an independent
culture in Ukraine had been reversed in the 1930s. The rural population
was demoralized and decimated by hunger, the political, cultural and
economic elite was killed or deported to penal camps and linguistic and
cultural autonomy was again restricted.
After the First World War, Ukrainian minorities lived outside the
USSR in Poland (Galicia and western Volhynia), Czechoslovakia
(Transcarpathia) and Romania (Bukovina).
In the minority
protection treaty, Poland had promised the Ukrainians there cultural
autonomy, but this was not implemented. The Polish governments pursued a
policy of Polonization in Galicia (with varying degrees of intensity),
which disadvantaged the Ukrainian-speaking population. In addition, the
region was economically left behind, so that many Ukrainians and Jews
emigrated from there. However, Ukrainian parties and the Greek Catholic
Church remained permitted, although the Second Polish Republic took on
authoritarian traits and was ruled by the military since 1926. Many
Ukrainian organizations tried to improve the cultural autonomy of the
Ukrainian-speaking population within the Polish state by peaceful means
and, for example, sent representatives to parliament.
The
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which was founded as a
party in Galicia in 1929 and represented a radical nationalism, opposed
this policy of compromise. It adopted conspiratorial structures and
terrorist tactics from the time of the struggle for independence and
declared the creation of the Ukrainian nation to be its top priority.
With the murder of the Polish Minister of the Interior Bronisław
Pieracki in 1934, the arrest of Stepan Bandera, who was part of the
OUN's leadership cadre and accused of involvement in the assassination,
and his subsequent trial, the group became known beyond Poland and was
able to gain many members among Ukrainian youth.
After the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the Soviet
Union occupied eastern Poland from September 17, 1939, in accordance
with the secret agreements of the Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 23, 1939;
Soviet propaganda, however, spoke of the defense of the Ukrainian and
Belarusian peoples.
Galicia and Volhynia were incorporated into
the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. Ukrainian became the official language in
schools and universities. While Ukrainians now took on roles in
education and administration, the Polish population suffered repression.
Although the Soviet rulers promoted Ukrainian culture, nationalist
tendencies were resolutely combated. The church was expropriated and
persecuted, OUN fighters had to flee, and even members of the West
Ukrainian Communist Party and leading cadres were suspected of
nationalist activities. In 1940, the NKVD began mass arrests and
deportations, especially among the Polish population. By 1941, 1.25
million people had been deported from Ukraine to the east of the USSR,
and quite a few of them died.
In June 1941, the German invasion of the Soviet Union initially took
place in the areas that the Soviet Union had only annexed from Poland in
1939. Soviet authorities, industrial companies and specialists were
evacuated, a total of 3 million people. As much infrastructure as
possible was destroyed, and thousands of political prisoners were
murdered by the NKVD. In the first few days, the Germans carried out
pogroms against the Jewish population, partly led by Himmler's SS units
and (co-)performed by Ukrainian and Polish residents. SS task forces,
supported by the Wehrmacht, began to systematically murder Jews in large
numbers. At first, the German troops found a number of supporters in
Ukraine against the Soviet regime, but this changed as a result of the
inhumane National Socialist occupation policy, because in Nazi ideology,
Ukrainians and all other Slavs were considered "subhumans". Shortly
after the annexation by Germany on June 30, 1941, the Organization of
Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) proclaimed an independent Ukrainian state
in Lviv, which saw itself as an equal ally of Hitler, but the Nazi state
did not accept this. On the contrary: the leaders of the OUN were
arrested and deported to the Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen concentration
camps.
During the German occupation in World War II, the country
was largely under German civil administration as the "Reichskommissariat
Ukraine". Along with the Baltic states and Belarus, Ukraine was one of
the main theaters of World War II. The battles between German Wehrmacht
and Waffen-SS units with the Red Army and partisans caused five to seven
million deaths in Ukraine, and the cities and economy were almost
completely destroyed. Hitler and the party leadership's plan was to
settle 20 million Germans in Ukraine over the next 20 years after 1941.
Before that, Ukraine was to serve as a colony that was to be ruthlessly
plundered economically. From the winter of 1941/42, despite the starving
Ukrainian population, meat, milk and grain were "requisitioned" for the
German troops, who themselves suffered from a lack of supplies due to
major transport difficulties as a result of partisan activities. There
were high losses due to inadequate winter clothing. From December 1941,
only 30 percent of the minimum subsistence level of food was available
to the inhabitants of Kiev. Over a million Ukrainians were deported to
Germany for forced labor. Many were only able to escape abduction,
shooting (for sabotage activities) and deportation by special SS units
by fleeing to partisan groups. All Ukrainian organizations were forcibly
dissolved by the "Reichskommissariat", even all sports clubs and the
Ukrainian Red Cross. From the beginning of 1942, all schools and school
classes above the fourth grade were closed by the "Reichskommissariat".
Ukrainian books and magazines were no longer allowed to be printed, and
a few newspapers that were still permitted were strictly censored. Mass
public shootings of hostages were carried out in response to partisan
activities, and around 250 towns were completely destroyed.
Ukraine and eastern Poland were the areas where most people fell victim
to the Holocaust of Jews, Sinti and Roma. First, after the withdrawal of
the Red Army, Ukrainian nationalists carried out massacres and pogroms
against Jews in many areas of Ukraine. With the invasion of the SS task
forces, the mass shootings of Jews began. The most famous of these
massacres took place on September 29 and 30, 1941 in Babyn Yar near
Kiev, where more than 33,000 Jewish Kiev residents were murdered,
followed by other regular mass shootings with another 70,000 deaths. In
addition, all communist civilians and CPSU members who could be found
were shot. In Ukraine, Himmler's special SS units set up around 180
camps in which around 1.4 million prisoners were murdered. Numerous mass
graves in Ukraine contained the remains of Ukrainians murdered by
Stalin's special units (GPU). On the other hand, at least in the early
days of the German occupation, many people in Ukraine welcomed the
German troops as liberators. After the terror of the Stalinist
Holodomor, many Ukrainians hoped for a sovereign state or at least a
certain degree of autonomy. Around 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers fought on
the German side. The largest military unit was the Ukrainian Liberation
Army.
Between 1943 and 1947, not only was there a partisan war against the German occupiers, but there was also a strong nationalist independence movement (Ukrainian insurgent army: Ukrajinska Powstanska Armija UPA) against Soviet rule, which was crushed by the NKVD. But the Polish population of what is now western Ukraine also became the target of the UPA's attacks. In 1944, well over 100,000 Poles were victims of mass shootings by the UPA, particularly in the Eastern Carpathians and Volhynia. After the end of the war, the Ukrainian nationalists started a war against the Soviet Army, and around 300,000 Ukrainians were resettled in Siberia.
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) was then restored as a union republic of the Soviet Union.
After the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition in the Second World War and the decisions of the Allies made at the war and post-war conferences (Tehran Conference November 1943, Yalta Conference February 1945 and Potsdam Conference July/August 1945), the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR permanently retained those areas west and southwest of their original borders, which had been taken militarily by the Red Army, initially in accordance with the agreements of the Hitler-Stalin Pact and then during the course of the war. The borders of Ukraine were thus pushed far to the west and southwest at the expense of Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia. Soviet policy aimed to reverse the territorial cessions forced by Russia in the peace treaties of Brest-Litovsk in 1918 and Riga in 1921, to eliminate the numerous minority problems in the future through resettlement actions and to guarantee a Soviet-friendly orientation of these regions through a hegemonic role in Eastern and Central Europe in order to meet Soviet security interests. In 1924, the Shakyty and Taganrog Okrugs were ceded by the Ukrainian Soviet Republic to the Russian Soviet Republic.
After Hitler's Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, the
Soviet Union occupied the eastern Polish territories from September 17,
1939, in accordance with a secret additional protocol to the
German-Soviet non-aggression pact signed on August 23, 1939. The
German-Soviet Border and Friendship Treaty of September 28, 1939,
established the exact/corrected border between Hitler's Germany and the
Soviet Union, which roughly corresponded to the Curzon A Line of 1920,
which was based on the nationality principle.
According to these
contractual provisions, Eastern Galicia and Volhynia (southern part of
the so-called Kresy) fell to the Ukrainian SSR. After the end of the
Second World War, these territories remained in the sphere of influence
of the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR as Poland moved westward (see
also Article Fourth Partition of Poland). The border between the Soviet
Union and Poland corresponded almost exactly to the line that had been
agreed between the Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany in the
Hitler-Stalin Pact and the German-Soviet Border and Friendship Treaty.
As early as July 1944, the communist "Polish Committee of National
Liberation" (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego - PKWN) (or Lublin
Committee) had been established in Moscow in opposition to the London
government in exile. The Lublin Committee was to seize power as soon as
the Red Army crossed the Curzon Line. This happened in Lublin on July
22, 1944. In January 1945, the Committee was officially recognized by
the Soviet Union as the provisional Polish government. On July 27, 1944,
the Lublin Committee concluded a (secret) treaty with the Soviet Union
on the cession of the territories east of the Curzon Line. On August 16,
1945, a border treaty was signed with the Soviet Union, which regulated
the westward shift of Poland and the mutual exchange of populations.
At the beginning of September 9, 1944, the Lublin Committee
concluded resettlement agreements with the governments of the
neighboring Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. These
agreements regulated the issues of resettlement of the Polish population
to the west and that of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lithuanians to the
east. Due to these regulations, around 1,200,000 Poles from the former
Polish eastern territories had lost their homes by the end of 1948. Many
of these people subsequently found a new home in the former German
territories of Pomerania, Silesia and southern East Prussia. By
mid-1946, around 482,000 Ukrainians had been deported from Poland to
Ukraine. In addition, in the summer of 1947, in the so-called "Operation
Vistula" (Polish: Akcja "Wisła"), 140,575 Ukrainians were brought to the
Oder-Neisse regions and settled there in scattered areas.
After the end of the German western campaign and the signing of the
Armistice of Compiègne on June 22, 1940, the Soviet Union saw the time
had come to annex Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and the Herza region,
which at that time still belonged to Romania. On June 28, 1940, the Red
Army occupied these territories. As agreed in a secret additional
protocol to the Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 24, 1939, this action was
tolerated by Hitler's Germany.
As a result, on August 2, 1940,
the Soviet Union divided Bessarabia and formed the Moldavian Soviet
Socialist Republic (MSSR) from the largest (central) part of the region,
including the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR)
east of the Dniester. The south of Bessarabia (the Budjak/currently part
of the Odessa Oblast) and northern parts (the area around the city of
Khotyn (Hotin)/Chernivtsi Oblast) were assigned to Ukraine (at that time
the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic).
In 1941 – after
Hitler's Germany attacked the Soviet Union – Romanian troops initially
reconquered these areas, only to lose them again to the Red Army in May
1944. With the signing of the Paris Peace Treaties on February 10, 1947,
Romania accepted the new border lines. Since then, the northern and
southern areas of the former Bessarabia, the northern part of Bukovina
and the Herza region have belonged to the Soviet Union and Ukraine
respectively. In a secret protocol from 1948, Romania renounced the
Snake Island, which was annexed to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
The eastern part of Czechoslovakia, Carpathian Ukraine, which had
been annexed by Hungary after 1938, also fell to the Ukrainian Soviet
Republic after the Second World War.
In 1954, the Crimean
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic became part of Ukraine by a
decision of the Supreme Soviet.
The Ukrainian SSR, along with the
Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, was one of the founding members of
the United Nations in April 1945. Stalin had demanded 16 seats in the UN
for the Soviet Union, but ultimately had to settle for seats for Ukraine
and Belarus alongside the USSR. Separate foreign ministries were
established in Kiev and Minsk. From 1948 to 1949 and 1984 to 1985, it
was a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
On April 26, 1986, the nuclear disaster occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near the northern Ukrainian city of Pripyat. 50 million curies of radiation were released into the atmosphere, contaminating around 50,000 square kilometers of land in Ukraine alone, directly affecting around 3 million people. The accident increased dissatisfaction with Moscow and its policies across party and social classes and led to the emergence of an ecological movement that became one of the first forms of national mobilization during the Gorbachev years.
In Galicia, the first stirrings of a Ukrainian national movement were
visible as early as 1987. Clergy and laypeople campaigned for the return
of the churches to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which as a
united church was subordinate to the Pope. The Russian Orthodox Church
opposed these efforts. At the end of 1989, the Ukrainian Catholic Church
was readmitted after a visit by Gorbachev to the Vatican, and its head,
Cardinal Lyubacivsky, returned to Lviv from exile in Rome in 1991.
On September 10, 1989, after lengthy preparations and after the
authorities in Kiev had stopped trying to prevent it, the Ukrainian
people's movement Narodnyj Ruch Ukrajiny ("People's Movement of Ukraine
for Perestroika") was founded. The delegates demanded the national and
economic sovereignty of Ukraine within a Soviet confederation, an
improved status for the Ukrainian language, and more rights for the
Christian churches alongside the Russian Orthodox Church. In January
1990, 400,000 people formed a human chain from Kiev to Lviv to
commemorate the unification of the West Ukrainian Republic with the
Ukrainian People's Republic in 1919; the blue and yellow flag appeared
more frequently in public. At the beginning of the year, Ukrainian was
declared the state language.
In the elections to the Supreme
Soviet on March 4, 1990 in the Ukrainian SSR, the Communist Party of
Ukraine won just over 70% of the parliamentary seats. Volodymyr Ivashko
was initially elected as parliamentary chairman, but had to resign from
this position when he was elected to the newly created office of Deputy
General Secretary of the party at the XXVIII Party Congress of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union in July 1990. His successor was
Stanislav Hurenko (1938–2013). As Communist Party chairman, he advocated
the "national sovereignty" of Ukraine and a "spiritual rebirth" of the
country, but he wanted to prevent the country from leaving the Soviet
Union.
On July 16, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine issued a
declaration of sovereignty by 355 votes to 4, placing the laws of the
Ukrainian Soviet Republic above those of the Soviet Union.
Triggered by the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR in
March 1990, protests known as the Revolution on Granite took place on
Maidan Nezalezhnosti from October 2 to 17 with up to 100,000
participants; these led, among other things, to the resignation of
Vitaly Massol as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian
SSR. On October 23, 1990, Witold Fokin took over as acting Chairman of
the Council of Ministers of Ukraine and was confirmed in this position
on November 14, 1990. On November 19, 1990, Leonid Kravchuk and Boris
Yeltsin signed a friendship treaty, thereby recognizing each other's
state sovereignty.
Independence movements that had existed the whole time and had their
centre in Lviv in western Ukraine led to Ukraine regaining its
independence after perestroika in 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet
Union.
Under the impression of the failed August coup in Moscow,
the Verkhovna Rada passed a formal declaration of Ukraine's independence
three days later on August 24, 1991.
On October 22, 1991, the
Supreme Soviet of Ukraine passed a law to form its own Ukrainian armed
forces of around 420,000 soldiers and a national guard of 30,000
soldiers. Three days later, extensive economic reforms were also
approved, which included the privatisation of land, price liberalisation
and land and financial reform.
On December 1, 1991, Ukrainians
voted in favour of Ukraine's independence in a referendum with 90.3% of
the votes cast. In Crimea, more than half of the residents also voted
for independence. In the first direct election of the President of
Ukraine, with a voter turnout of 84%, Leonid Kravchuk won with 61.6% of
the vote against Vyacheslav Chornovil with 23.2%.
On December 5,
1991, the Ukrainian parliament finally terminated the 1922 treaty on the
formation of the Soviet Union, but just three days later the Ukrainian
government decided to establish the Commonwealth of Independent States
together with Russia and Belarus.
With independence, the question of Ukraine's state borders arose.
On December 2, 1991, Russia recognized Ukraine. Its border with Russia was established in the Russian-Ukrainian friendship treaty of May 31, 1997. The treaty came into force on April 1, 1999. The friendship treaty also included further treaties on the city of Sevastopol, which regulated its status. They confirmed Ukraine's sovereignty over the city and the port and at the same time guaranteed Russia the right to operate a naval port there for at least another 20 years. By signing the friendship treaty, Russia renounced all territorial claims regarding Crimea, including Sevastopol. The treaty initially had a term of ten years; however, this was automatically extended because the treaty was never terminated.
In western Ukraine, the border with Romania was disputed until 1997. The issue was whether southern Bessarabia and northern Bukovina belonged to Ukraine, areas that had belonged to Romania in the interwar period.
There was controversy over the Crimean peninsula. It had been part of
the Ukrainian Soviet Republic since 1954 and had previously belonged to
the Russian SFSR, as an autonomous republic until 1945. In Crimea, the
ethnic Russian population had a two-thirds majority in 1989. As a result
of a referendum held on January 20, 1991, the Crimean Autonomous Soviet
Socialist Republic was re-established by the Supreme Soviet of the
Ukrainian SSR on February 12, 1991 and remained part of Ukraine after
Ukraine gained independence in August 1991. However, the Crimean
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic initially remained in existence.
On February 26, 1992, the Supreme Soviet of the Crimean Autonomous
Soviet Socialist Republic decided to rename it the "Republic of Crimea".
After long negotiations, on April 22, 1992, the Verkhovna Rada passed a
law by a large majority that granted Crimea autonomy rights. On May 5,
1992, the Supreme Soviet of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist
Republic declared the new Republic of Crimea independent, but the
Constitution of the Republic of Crimea, promulgated the following day,
described it as part of Ukraine. On May 21, 1992, Crimea's independence
was revoked. On June 1, 1992, the parliamentary speakers of Crimea and
Ukraine agreed on a special economic status for Crimea and that the
peninsula would remain part of Ukraine.
On May 21, 1992, the
Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR declared the cession of
Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 to be illegal. On June 30, 1992, the Ukrainian
parliament passed a law granting Crimea the greatest possible autonomy
by 246 votes to 4. According to this law, the Crimean peninsula is an
autonomous part of Ukraine and the areas of foreign policy, defense and
monetary policy remain with Ukraine. The autonomous Crimea is granted
the right to independently shape foreign economic relations, social and
cultural policy and can dispose of natural resources (e.g. natural gas)
on its own. The annexation of Crimea to another country requires the
consent of the Ukrainian parliament and the Crimean parliament. The
stationing of armed forces requires the consent of the Crimean
parliament.
On September 21, 1994, the former Republic of Crimea
became the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. A verbal dispute between
Ukraine and Russia followed. The separatist forces finally withdrew a
referendum that had aimed to annex Crimea to Russia. As a compromise,
the rights of Crimea were expanded as the Autonomous Republic of
Ukraine. After further power struggles in the following years, Crimea
was finally given the status of an autonomous republic as an "integral
part of Ukraine" in the 1995 constitution, which was revised again in
1998, with its own regional government, its own parliament, but without
its own president.
In 2014, however, against the will of the
Ukrainian government under Russian occupation, a referendum on the
status of Crimea was held, in which 97% of voters reportedly voted in
favor of joining Russia. The subsequent annexation of Crimea as a
Russian federal object is not recognized by Ukraine and the absolute
majority of UN states.
On July 16, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR adopted the
Declaration on the State Sovereignty of Ukraine, which proclaimed "the
supremacy, independence, completeness and indivisibility of the
republic's power on its territory" and the intention to become a
permanently neutral state in the future, which will not participate in
military blocs and undertakes not to use, produce or acquire nuclear
weapons. On August 24, 1991, after the proclamation of Ukraine's
independence, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine was created and all
military formations of the USSR Armed Forces on the territory of the
former Ukrainian SSR were subordinated to it.
As a result of the
declarations of independence of other Soviet republics during 1991, the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, Russian СССР) was officially
dissolved on December 21-25, 1991.
On January 2, 1992, President
Leonid Kravchuk ordered that all former Soviet troops stationed on
Ukrainian territory, including the Black Sea Fleet, be placed under
Ukrainian command. Only strategic military formations were excluded.
On March 26, 1992, the presidential decree ordered the return of all
Ukrainian conscripts from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova by May 20,
1992.
On July 3, 1992, the Council for National Security and
Defense of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Рада національної безпеки і оборони
України, abbreviation РНБОУ/RNBOU) was founded. It is a state body of
Ukraine and was initially called the National Security Council.
According to Article 107 of the Constitution of Ukraine, its task is to
advise the President on issues of internal and external security policy.
The Council has also dealt with issues outside of traditional security
and defense policy, for example domestic policy and energy policy.
After independence, Ukraine emerged from the legacy of the Soviet
Union and became the world's third largest nuclear power with 130
UR-100N (SS-19) intercontinental ballistic missiles and 46 RT-23 (NATO
code name: SS-24).
In May 1992, the transport of tactical nuclear
weapons stationed in Ukraine to Russia began.
On July 2, 1993, a
declaration of principles officially included the renunciation of
nuclear weapons and that Ukraine should be free of nuclear weapons in
the future. On July 15, 1993, the dismantling of the SS-19 stationed on
Ukrainian territory began. The missiles were brought to Russia for
scrapping. The warheads initially remained in Ukraine until the
successor status of the Soviet Union and Russia with regard to nuclear
weapons was internationally clarified. In return for its renunciation of
nuclear weapons, Ukraine demanded security guarantees for its country
and financial support from the nuclear powers.
On January 14,
1994, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and the United States of America
signed the Trilateral Declaration on the Preparation of the Agreement on
the Destruction of Nuclear Weapons Stationed on Ukrainian Territory,
which finally confirmed Ukraine's non-nuclear status. The Budapest
Memorandum was finally signed on December 5, 1994 in Budapest as part of
the CSCE conference held there.
In return, Ukraine received
security guarantees from Russia and the USA. This included recognition
of its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as
the promise not to use nuclear weapons against it. Russia has broken the
first three commitments since March 2014 (annexation of Crimea, war in
Donbas) and even more since the beginning of the Russian invasion of
Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Russia and Ukraine signed a
friendship treaty in Kyiv on May 31, 1997; in it, Russia again committed
itself not to violate the border between the two countries.
Following joint maneuvers by US and Ukrainian troops in western
Ukraine in 1995, NATO adopted a "Charter of Special Partnership" with
Ukraine in July 1997.
Ukrainian contingents participated in
NATO-led military interventions in the Yugoslavian wars, the Iraq war
and Afghanistan.
The mission and function of the Ukrainian Armed
Forces were defined in state documents ('Military Strategy of Ukraine'
2007, 2012, 2015, 2020, 2021). Russia was not classified as a threat in
these documents until 2014.
After simultaneous armed occupations
of authorities by Russian paramilitaries in early April 2014, Decree No.
405/2014 was issued on April 14, declaring Ukraine's transition to a
military anti-terrorist operation (ATO) against the autonomists in
Donbass, Crimea and Sevastopol. The decree was signed by Oleksandr
Turchynov.
The political efforts of the Ukrainian government
after 2014 to reintegrate the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city
of Sevastopol into the Ukrainian state were also reflected in the
'Military Strategy of Ukraine' of 2015 and 2020.
With the Law of
Ukraine of January 18, 2018 'On State Policy in the Temporarily Occupied
Territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions', the "ATO" was replaced
by a Joint Forces Operation and security zones were established. The
"Commander of the Joint Forces" (Ukrainian - Командувач об'єднаних сил)
took over the leadership of the forces and assets of the Armed Forces of
Ukraine, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the National
Police of Ukraine and the central executive body that implements state
policy in the field of civil protection.
Since February 25, 2021,
the "Strategy of Military Security of Ukraine" ('Military Strategy'
2021) has been in force, which stipulates that "a new model of
organizing the defense of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other
components of the Defense Forces ... should ensure the settlement of the
conflict, demobilization, restoration of control over compliance with
the regime of the State Border of Ukraine and reintegration of the
temporarily occupied territories..."
Immediately before that, on
March 24, 2021, President Zelensky, by Decree No. 117/2021, confirmed
the Resolution of the Council for National Security and Defense of
Ukraine of March 11, 2021 and the "Strategy for ending the occupation
regime and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the
Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol" and ordered
their implementation.
Since its independence, Ukraine has struggled with serious economic
problems, especially in the 1990s, and has tried to play a neutral role
in foreign policy towards both the West and Russia. In Sevastopol in
Crimea, Ukraine has leased a military port to the Russian Black Sea
Fleet, and on the other hand Ukraine is striving for greater economic
independence from Russia, for example by founding the GUAM security
alliance (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova) in 1997.
From
1991 to 1994, Leonid Kravchuk was the first president of Ukraine. Due to
a strike by miners in Donbass, he called early elections. Leonid
Kravchuk set an important precedent for Ukrainian politics when he
resigned after losing the runoff election against Leonid Kuchma: he did
not cling to power and left his post, thus establishing the tradition of
power changes in Ukraine.
From 1992 until his resignation in
September 1993, Leonid Kuchma, who was much more pro-Russian, was Prime
Minister and from 1994 President of Ukraine. In 1999 he was re-elected
President. During his term as President, from 1994 onwards he campaigned
more for a new constitution, but was unable to prevail against an
alliance of left-wing parties. Parliament did not adopt the new
constitution until June 1996.
Viktor Yushchenko was Prime
Minister of Ukraine from December 22, 1999 to May 29, 2001. He lost this
office in 2001 following a vote of no confidence in Parliament when his
efforts to combat growing corruption became dangerous to some oligarchs.
His successor as Prime Minister was Anatoly Kinakh (Party of
Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Ukraine/PPPU), who came from
Mykolaiv, and then Viktor Yanukovych from November 21, 2002, who
announced his resignation on December 31, 2004. President Kuchma
accepted Yanukovych's resignation on January 5, 2005 and appointed First
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Mykola Azarov as Yanukovych's
successor. Before joining the government, Azarov had been head of the
State Tax Authority since October 1996.
Presidential elections were held in autumn 2004. According to the constitution, President Leonid Kuchma, who had been in office since 1994, was no longer allowed to stand in this election after two terms in office, which was generally seen as a choice of direction for the country's western or eastern orientation. The events surrounding the runoff election on November 21st led to the so-called Orange Revolution, a peaceful protest against electoral fraud that lasted several weeks, after which the runoff election was repeated on December 26th, 2004, following a ruling by the Supreme Court. Viktor Yushchenko won the repeat election. The side under Kuchma and Yanukovych, which was in favor of an alignment with Russia, acknowledged its defeat after negotiating a constitutional reform with the other side. This was intended to transform Ukraine, which had previously been governed by a presidential system, into a parliamentary republic. After the reform was implemented, the president's position was significantly weakened.
After President Viktor Yushchenko was inaugurated in January 2005,
the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) confirmed the new government
under Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on February 4, 2005. During the
first 100 days of the Tymoshenko government, the privatizations of some
large companies (Kryvorizhstal) from the time of former President Kuchma
were reviewed. As was the case during the election campaign, it also
became apparent that the positions of President Yushchenko and Prime
Minister Tymoshenko differed in the choice of means. A rift arose after
just a few months: on September 8, 2005, the President dismissed the
Tymoshenko government in connection with allegations of corruption and
conflicts within the cabinet. The new head of government was the
economic politician Yuri Yechanurov.
Together with Georgia,
Yushchenko pushed for Ukraine to join NATO. However, a NATO summit
rejected the application despite American support.
In economic
policy, Yushchenko sought EU membership for Ukraine, but did not go
beyond joining the Eastern Partnership.
In national politics,
Yushchenko supported figures in Ukrainian history who strongly polarized
the Ukrainian population. These included the commander-in-chief of the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Roman Shukhevych. He named Stepan Bandera, who
collaborated with the Nazi occupying forces in Poland as a militant
nationalist, a Hero of Ukraine.
The President's party (Our
Ukraine) only came third in the 2006 parliamentary elections. Viktor
Yanukovych's Party of Regions won the election, and he himself was
elected as the new Prime Minister. Political events were now
characterized by a power struggle between the government and the
President. Finally, President Yushchenko dissolved parliament and new
parliamentary elections were held in September 2007. The Party of
Regions once again became the strongest force, but this time the parties
of Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were able to agree on a coalition.
Tymoshenko then became prime minister for the second time. The political
power struggle between the president, government and parliament
continued. For Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, it resulted in defeats: the
president was not re-elected in the presidential elections in early 2010
and Tymoshenko lost her position as head of government shortly
afterwards. Instead, Viktor Yanukovych became the new president of
Ukraine.
Viktor Yanukovych was president of Ukraine from February 25, 2010 to
February 22, 2014. Yanukovych's successor as leader of the Party of
Regions, Mykola Azarov, had been prime minister since March 11, 2010.
During the 2012 European Football Championship, the arbitrary
justice of the Yanukovych government and the treatment of the imprisoned
opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko were criticized.
From November
2013 onwards, protests against Viktor Yanukovych's regime broke out,
initially known as Euromaidan and now referred to in Ukraine as the
"Revolution of Dignity", with around 100 deaths recorded in February
2014. Yanukovych was deposed by parliament on February 22, 2014, when he
tried to leave the country in Donetsk, and fled to Russia.
The
reason given by parliament, that he would have forfeited his presidency
by leaving the country, was not provided for in the constitution. The
lawyer Jasper Finke distinguished between constitutional law and
international law on this issue: "It is completely irrelevant whether
Yanukovych is still the legitimate president of Ukraine under Ukrainian
constitutional law. This is where the so-called principle of
effectiveness comes into play - that is, under international law it
depends on whether the new government effectively exercises power in
Ukraine."
This was followed by the Russian annexation of Crimea. In an invalid
session, part of the Crimean parliament decided to hold a referendum
that was not permitted by the Ukrainian constitution, was held under
Russian troops and was falsified. On March 18, 2014, Crimea joined the
Russian Federation as a result of these events. Almost all states do not
recognize the result of the referendum and continue to treat Crimea as
Ukrainian territory. After the annexation of Crimea, a Russian or
pro-Russian operation was carried out with the aim of destabilizing
regions of Ukraine with a significant proportion of Russian-speaking
population, particularly Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk. While the
situation in Kharkiv quickly calmed down, armed militias formed in the
Luhansk and Donetsk regions under the guidance of Russian special
forces.
On March 18, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk promised
decentralization in a speech to the people of eastern Ukraine, despite
knowing that the demand for "more federalism" was a move by Moscow and
probably "the first step to destroy Ukrainian sovereignty." On April 11,
Yatsenyuk and presidential candidate Petro Poroshenko spoke out in favor
of publishing the draft for a new Ukrainian constitution before the
presidential elections on May 25.
On May 6, 2014, the Ukrainian
parliament rejected the government's proposal to hold a nationwide
referendum on decentralization on May 25 at the same time as the
presidential election. Until 2019, decentralization took place primarily
through the expansion of powers at the local level. Strengthening local
self-government in line with the EU's principles of democracy and
subsidiarity simultaneously increased Ukraine's resilience to Russia's
hybrid warfare.
Meanwhile, Russia allowed rebels to infiltrate in
the spring of 2014 and delivered heavy weapons, including battle tanks,
in June.
On July 28, 2014, the UNHCHR reported the total collapse
of law and order in the areas in question, with Ukrainian army reigning
terror over the population of eastern Ukraine, including deprivation of
liberty, kidnapping, torture and executions.
On December 2, 2014, a coalition government was installed, which had
been formed after the parliamentary elections at the end of October.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk was confirmed as Prime Minister. The inauguration of
President Petro Poroshenko took place on June 7, 2014.
In 2016,
Volodymyr Groysman became the first person of Jewish descent to be
elected Prime Minister of the country, and in 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky
became the first President of Ukraine of Jewish descent.
During
the Poroshenko/Gryozman government, the Ukrainian law of January 18,
2018, ‘On state policy in the temporarily occupied territories of the
Donetsk and Luhansk regions’ was passed, which stipulates the
establishment of “security zones” bordering the contact line in the
Donbass. A "Commander of the Joint Forces" (Ukrainian - Командувач
об’єднаних сил) appointed by the President assumes command of the forces
and assets of the Armed Forces of Ukraine operating in the security
zone, other military formations formed in accordance with the laws of
Ukraine, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the National
Police of Ukraine, the central executive body implementing state policy
in the field of emergency management, which are involved in the
implementation of measures to ensure national security and defense.
After Volodymyr Zelensky, a graduate and graduate lawyer, former
actor and director, clearly won the first round of the presidential
election in Ukraine against the incumbent on March 31, 2019 and the
runoff on April 21, he was sworn into office as President on May 20,
2019 in Kyiv.
The Ukrainian government failed to reintegrate the
areas controlled by anti-government forces into its state. They have
been recognized as independent by Russia since February 2022 and are
under the control of the self-proclaimed and Russia-dependent "People's
Republics" of Donetsk and Lugansk.
Despite or precisely because
of the weak state, according to historian Philipp Ther, a relatively
strong civil society has developed in Ukraine. In addition, a
functioning political competition has been established.
On
February 24, 2022, the Russian army attacked Ukraine: Russian forces
also attacked Ukraine from the Black Sea and Belarus. Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared a state of war and martial law in
the country due to the Russian attack on Ukraine. The invasion bears all
the hallmarks of an aggressive war that violates international law. On
September 30, 2022, Russia annexed southern and eastern Ukraine.
Around 95% of Ukraine lies on the Eastern European Plain, which is
why it is almost exclusively considered to be part of Eastern Europe.
The remaining 5%, depending on the definition, belong to Central Europe
(the Carpathians and Lviv) and Southeastern Europe (Odessa and the
Budjak).
Other landscape areas outside the large plain can be
found in southern western Ukraine, where the country has a share of the
Carpathian Mountains and the Pannonian Plain, as well as in the extreme
south. The highest mountain in the country is the Hoverla in the
Chornohora, which reaches a height of 2061 m. The highest elevation in
Crimea is the Roman Kosh at 1545 meters.
The part of the Eastern
European Plain includes large lowlands (Ukrainian Низовина), such as the
Dnieper Lowland and the Black Sea Depression, particularly in the north
and south of the country. The terrain there reaches heights between 0
and 200 m. Due to the small differences in altitude, the rivers in this
area flow very slowly. In the lowlands, there are small gas and oil
deposits, particularly in the central Ukrainian region of Poltava, but
these are not sufficient to supply the country with its own resources.
Hopes are being placed in the development of fields in the Black Sea.
In the central part of the country, higher areas with heights
between 200 and 470 m (Kamula) extend from west to east, which are
called plates (Ukrainian Височина). These include the Podolian Plateau,
the Dnieper Plateau and the Donets Plateau. These plates consist mainly
of ancient rocks that were raised again by the formation of the Alpine
mountain belt in the last 10 million years. They are rich in raw
materials such as iron ore and coal. The largest ore deposits are found
in the Kryvbass around the city of Kryvyi Rih in the west of the
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, while the coal deposits are mainly in the Donets
Basin area around the city of Donetsk. The plates are cut through by
numerous smaller and larger rivers, some of which have cut deeply into
the terrain.
The northwest of Ukraine is known as Volhynia.
The geographical center of the country is near the settlement of
Dobrovelychkivka in the Kirovohrad Oblast.
At the end of the 19th
century, Austrian engineers came to the conclusion that the geographical
center of Europe was in the village of Dilove in the Transcarpathian
Oblast. However, since there are different methods for calculating the
center and the eastern borders of Europe are arbitrary and therefore not
clearly defined, several other places also claim the title for
themselves.
Apart from the mountainous areas and the southwestern and southern
coastal regions, Ukraine can be divided into three major zones in terms
of climate, soil and vegetation. In the northwest, it has part of the
Pripyat marshlands, which were particularly shaped by earlier glacier
advances from Scandinavia during the ice ages. The poorest soils in the
country can be found here. In addition, this region was particularly
badly affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. The area
receives relatively high rainfall (500–750 mm), and summers are mild,
with average temperatures in July of 17 to 19 °C.
This zone is
followed to the south and southeast by the so-called forest-steppe zone,
in which previously existing forest stands have mostly been cut down.
Here there are extensive loess plains that were formed in the ice age
under periglacial conditions. The loess has predominantly developed into
very fertile black earth soils, which are among the most productive in
the world. The rainfall amounts are between 350 and 400 mm, the average
July temperature is 20 °C. Overall, this area offers very good
conditions for agricultural use. However, the soils are very susceptible
to erosion if they are not cultivated correctly, as often happened in
Soviet times.
In the southeast lies the steppe zone, which has
relatively low rainfall, sometimes less than 250 mm per year. Here, too,
the summers are relatively hot, with average temperatures in July
sometimes exceeding 23 °C. The fertile black and chestnut brown soils of
this area could only be exploited from the middle of the 20th century
onwards, after extensive irrigation systems were created by building
dams on the major rivers.
The coastal regions on the Crimean
peninsula and in southwestern Bessarabia, the Budjak, are very fertile
and are used in particular for fruit and wine growing due to the
favorable climatic conditions with mild winters.
The numerous rivers that cross the country and almost all flow into
the Black Sea include the Prut, the Dniester, the Southern Bug, the
Horyn (north into the Pripyat), the Desna and the Dnieper, as well as
the Seversky Donets. Other smaller rivers are often characterized by
swampy banks with reeds.
In the west, the Danube forms the 54 km
long border between Romania and Ukraine. Lake Yalpuh, the largest
natural lake in Ukraine, is also located here. From there to the east,
the river systems Prut, Dniester, Southern Bug, Dnieper and Seversky
Donets follow in the country.
The Dnieper, Ukrainian Дніпро
Dnipro, in German also Dnjepr, is 2201 km long. It flows through Russia,
Belarus and the center of Ukraine. It is the third longest river in
Europe after the Volga and the Danube and is navigable for around 1,700
km. The landscape is also named after it: Dnieper Basin. In Ukraine it
is dammed to form six artificial lakes (area, volume): Kiev Sea (922
km², 3.73 km³), Kaniv (582 km², 2.62 km³), Kremenchuk (2,252 km², 13.5
km³), Kamyansk (567 km², 2.45 km³), Zaporizhzhia (410 km² with a length
of 65 km, or 85 km with Samara) and Kakhovka Reservoir (2,155 km², 18.2
km³). At the time of its completion, the DniproHES dam near Zaporizhia
was the third largest hydroelectric power station in the world after
Hoover Dam and Wilson Dam (completed in 1932; HES stands for Dniprowska
HidroElektroStanzija in Ukrainian).
The 2782 km long southern
coast of Ukraine lies on the Black Sea and its northeastern marginal
sea, the Sea of Azov.
The Kerch Strait, a 40 km wide strait,
connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov and separates the Crimean
peninsula from the Taman peninsula (Russia).
Europe's largest
swamp area stretches across Polesia, covering 90,000 km².
In the
northwest of the country lies the Shatsk National Park with Lake
Svityaz.
The Black Sea islands include Dzharylhach, Tusla and Snake Island (which has belonged to Ukraine since 1948) in the south of the country. By far the most famous peninsula is Crimea, which has belonged to Ukraine since 1954, but has been claimed and effectively controlled by Russia since 2014 - wrongly in the view of the Ukrainian state and the vast majority of the United Nations General Assembly. The island of Khortytsia in the urban area of Zaporizhia is the largest Dnieper island. Numerous other river islands of the Dnieper are located near Kyiv and in its delta on the Black Sea.
The last warm temperate primeval forests in Europe exist in the Carpathians. They have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since July 2007. 16.06% of the country's area is forested (as of 2020), mainly with beech, pine, birch, aspen, oak, alder, ash and maple. In addition to the Carpathians, the Dnieper Basin and the Pripyat Basin form the most important ecosystems. Cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, onions, pulses and eggplants are the most commonly grown vegetables. Typical fruits include grapes, pears, melons, peaches, plums and apricots. The most important crop is wheat. In addition to wheat, a lot of rye, barley, potatoes, corn and especially buckwheat are also grown. The sunflower is the national plant.
In addition to the natural biodiversity, there are pheasants, cranes and peacocks. In addition, exotic animals such as the African ostrich have been introduced into the wild in the Askanija-Nova nature reserve. Small monkeys also live there. The camel is one of the traditional breeding animals in Crimea. Several species of dolphin and whale are native to the seas around the peninsula. Water turtles, lizards and snakes are found throughout the country. Bison, wild boars, bears, wolves, lynx, deer and introduced raccoons are forest dwellers and are therefore most commonly found in the west and north of Ukraine. In Askania-Nova there are over 100 specimens of the endangered Przewalski horse, which was introduced to Europe from Mongolia around 1900. Until 200 years ago, the Tarpan lived in the wild in Ukraine, until it was finally eradicated. The Ukrainian Steppe Cattle was widespread in Ukraine until the beginning of the 20th century.
After serious environmental disasters such as the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster in 1986 and the tanker accident in the Black Sea in 2010, the
government set itself the goal of implementing reforms for nature
conservation. There are 18 national parks in Ukraine and the Ukrainian
Nature Conservation Society.
The Russian invasion in 2022 set
Ukraine far back in terms of nature conservation (see also Russian
invasion of Ukraine in 2022#Impact on the environment and climate).
While Ukraine was still part of the Russian Empire in the 19th
century, it produced a number of well-known artists of that time: Arkhip
Kuindzhi, Fedir Krychevsky, Mykola Murashko, Oleksandr Murashko, Mykola
Pymonenko, Olena Kulchytska, Mykola Buratschek, Oleksa Novakivsky, Ivan
Pokhitonov, Mykola Ivasyuk, Dmitri Levitsky, Apollon Mokritsky, Mykhailo
Berkos, Rufin Sudkovsky, Ivan Yishakevych, Mykola Samokysh, Mykola
Yaroshenko.
The painter Kazimir Malevich was born in a Ukrainian
village to a Polish family and described himself as Ukrainian in his
diary. Not only that, he also studied and taught at the Kyiv Academy of
Arts (known as the "School of Myrashko"). He called Mykola Pymonenko his
teacher. Malevich is highly respected by Ukrainians, among other things
because he was one of the few painters who used his skills to draw
attention to the horrors of the Holodomor. Another well-known painter
who depicted the Holodomor in paintings is Ivan Marchuk.
The
first Ukrainian avant-garde exhibition took place in Kyiv in 1908 and
was called "Zveno" (The Connection), organized by a group of young
artists from Kyiv, St. Petersburg and Moscow known as Venok-Stefanos
(The Wreath). The organization included David Burliuk, Vladimir Burliuk,
Alexandra Exter and Aristarkh Lentulov. Venok-Stefanos' exhibition in
Kyiv was similar to the first two exhibitions (one in Moscow and one in
St. Petersburg), but now included other artists from Ukraine: Alexandra
Exter (lived and worked in Kyiv for a long time), Alexander Bogomazow,
Yevher Ahafonov and Mykhaylo Denysov. Other artists have also worked in
this direction, such as: Borys Kosarev, Vasily Yermilov, Anatoly
Petrytsky.
Folk art is also highly valued in Ukraine. Well-known
Ukrainian folk artists include Maria Prymachenko, Kateryna Bilokur and
Ivan Honchar. Petrykivka painting, an original style of decorative
painting, has become world famous and was included in the UNESCO
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in
2013.
Boychukism, named after its founder Mykhailo Boychuk, was
an art style that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, whose
proponents strove for an independent, Ukrainian visual and formal
language. The style, also known as Ukrainian Monumentalism, was based on
the art of the Byzantine Empire and Kievan Rus. Suppressed in the Soviet
Union since the 1930s, Boychukism has been increasingly appreciated
since Ukraine gained independence. In addition to Mykhailo Boychuk
himself, its most important representatives include Tymofiy Boychuk,
Vasyl Sedlyar, Ivan Padalka, Sofija Nalepynska-Boychuk, Oksana Pavlenko,
Antonina Ivanova, Mykola Rokytsky, Serhiy Kolos and Ochrim Krawchenko.
The famous emigrated painters from Ukraine also include: Vladimir
Baranow-Rossiné, Sonia Delaunay, Alexis Gritchenko, Mykhailo
Andriienko-Nechytailo, Volodymyr Walter Balas, Vasyl Khmeluk, Myron
Levytsky, Edward Kozak, Anatole Kolomayets, Liuboslav Hutsaliuk, Michael
Kmit, Jacques Hnizdovsky, Wassyl Krytschewskyj, Mykola Krychevsky, Boris
Kriukow, Roman Baranyk, Halyna Mazepa, Omelian Mazuryk, Mykola Nedilko,
Borys Plaksiy, Solohub Andriy.
One of the most famous Ukrainian sculptors is Alexander Archipenko. Another famous sculptor is Ivan Kavaleridze.
The famous architects from Ukraine include Wladyslaw Horodecki, Mikhail Eisenstein, Boris Iofan.
The first book published in Ukraine was written by Yuri Drohobych in 1483. Ivan Kotlyarevsky, who lives in the city of Poltava, is considered the innovator of the Ukrainian written language. The most important writers include Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka and Taras Shevchenko, after whom Ukraine's most important cultural prize, the Taras Shevchenko Prize, which has been awarded since 1962, is named.
The most important film prize is named after the director and writer Oleksandr Dovzhenko.
A mural in St. Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev from the 11th century
provides insight into medieval music-making in what is now Ukraine. It
shows skomorochki and musicians playing flutes, trumpets or shawms,
lutes, psaltery (gusli) and cymbal (cymbaly). It is unclear whether the
institution of the skomorochki, who performed as dancers, jugglers and
theater players, originated in the Byzantine Empire or the West, or is
of local origin. Ukrainian folk music is influenced by Slavic and
non-Slavic peoples in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, in keeping
with the country's geographical location.
In the past, villages
had their own regional folk music styles and performance practices,
which were also differentiated by gender. The ritual singing traditions
were performed predominantly by women and girls, and the instrumental
music predominantly by men and boys. The entertainment songs were sung
equally by the entire population at all times.
Traditional folk
instruments commonly used today include the lutes bandura and kobsa
(named after the Romanian cobză), the violin, the hurdy-gurdy lira, a
three-stringed bowed bass basol(i)a (the size of a viol), the dulcimer
cymbaly, the lute torban, a group of fission flutes sopilka, the Hutsul
long wooden trumpet trembita, an accordion, the bagpipe koza (similar to
the Polish koza), the frame drum bubon and the Jew's harp drymba. A
typical ensemble known as a troista muzyka (from "three musicians")
consists of violin, dulcimer and bass or frame drum. When the musicians
accompany folk dances such as the hutsulka, the pieces include
improvised elements.
After independence in 1991, Ukraine became a
member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and took part in the
Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in 2003. In her second
participation the following year, singer Ruslana Lyschytschko won the
2004 ESC in Istanbul with her Wild Dances Project, the 50th anniversary
edition of which was then held in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in 2005.
Ukraine thus became the 21st country to win an ESC and the 20th country
to host an ESC. At the 2016 ESC, Ukraine won the Eurovision Song Contest
for the second time with the song 1944 by singer Jamala, after which the
ESC was held again in Kyiv in 2017. The third ESC win followed in 2022
(Kalush Orchestra with Stefania). Due to the war of aggression started
by Russia, Great Britain was planned as the host city for the 2023 ESC.
Ukraine is the only country in the ESC that has never been eliminated in
a semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Football is the most popular sport in Ukraine. Football in Ukraine is
organized by the Football Federation of Ukraine (FFU). The first
football league in Ukraine is the Premjer-Liha. Well-known clubs are
Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk. The best performance of the young
Ukrainian national football team to date was the quarter-finals at a
World Cup (2006) and a European Championship (2021).
Oleh Blochin
and Ihor Byelanov were awarded the Ballon d'Or as "European Footballer
of the Year" during Soviet times. Ukraine achieved a sporting success in
2007 when the country, which has only been an independent member of the
European Football Association UEFA since 1992, was awarded the UEFA
Executive Committee's bid in the first round of voting to host the 2012
European Championship together with Poland. The most popular Ukrainian
football player is Andriy Shevchenko, who has played in several European
championships with AC Milan, among others. won the Champions League and
became Italian champion, and in 2004 was the third Ukrainian to be
awarded the Ballon d'Or as "European Footballer of the Year".
The most famous Ukrainian boxers are the brothers Vitali and Wladimir
Klitschko.
In amateur boxing, Ukraine has had four Olympic
champions since 1996: Wladimir Klitschko (1996, super heavyweight),
Wassyl Lomachenko (2008, featherweight, 2012 lightweight), Oleksandr
Ussyk (2012, heavyweight) and Oleksandr Khyschnyak (2024, light
heavyweight). Andriy Kotelnik (2000, lightweight) and Serhiy Dotsenko
(2000, welterweight) won silver medals. In addition, Ukrainian boxers
won five bronze medals, including Vladimir Sidorenko (2000, flyweight)
and Vyacheslav Hlaskov (2008, super heavyweight). Oleksandr Khyshnyak
won silver in the middleweight category at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo
(2020) and gold in the light heavyweight category in Paris in 2024.
In the professional field, six athletes have so far won world
championship titles: Vladimir and Vitali Klitschko in the heavyweight
category, Oleksandr Ussyk in the heavyweight and cruiserweight
categories, Serhij Dsynsyruk in the light middleweight category,
Sidorenko in the bantamweight category and Kotelnik in the light
welterweight category.
Serhij Bubka from Luhansk is a six-time world champion and Olympic champion in the pole vault. He set a total of 35 world records and managed 43 jumps over the six-meter mark. He has been chairman of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine since 2005.
Ruslan Ponomarev became FIDE World Champion in 2002, Anna Uschenina in 2012 and Maria Musychuk in 2015 women's world chess champion. The national team became team world champions in 2001 and won the 2004 Chess Olympiad and the 2010 Chess Olympiad. The Ukrainian women's team won the 2006 Chess Olympiad. The former Ukrainian grandmaster Sergei Karjakin was vice world champion in 2016.
The cities of Lviv and Rivne are internationally known for speedway; both have hosted world championship races several times.
Special Olympics Ukraine was founded in 1994 and has taken part in the Special Olympics World Games several times.
According to United Nations estimates, Ukraine had a population of
around 37.9 million in 2024. In July 2023, the Reuters news agency
reported that the part of Ukraine controlled by Kyiv may have only 28
million people left due to the war with Russia. Ukraine had a total
population of 44.1 million in 2020. Annual population growth in 2020 was
−0.6% due to an excess of deaths; a birth rate of 7.8 per 1,000
inhabitants was offset by a death rate of 15.9 per 1,000 inhabitants.
The number of births per woman in 2020 was statistically 1.2. The life
expectancy of the inhabitants of Ukraine from birth in 2020 was 71.2
years (women: 76.2, men: 66.4). The median age of the population in 2020
was 41.2 years, below the European value of 42.5.
In 2017, 5.9
million people born in Ukraine lived abroad, most of them in Russia (3.3
million), the United States (380,000), Kazakhstan (350,000), Germany
(260,000), Italy (240,000) and the Czech Republic (196,875 at the end of
2021, with 30% being the highest proportion among foreigners). In
Ukraine itself, 11.2% of the population was born abroad in 2017, most of
them in Russia.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2022 has
led to large refugee movements. A total of around 6.75 million refugees
from Ukraine are registered in Europe (as of 2024). Among the EU
countries, Poland and Germany have taken in the most refugees. In
addition, there are up to 5.7 million internally displaced people within
Ukraine, mainly from the contested east of Ukraine (as of July 2023).
Before the First World War, a German-speaking minority of several
hundred thousand people lived in the area of today's Ukraine (Galicia,
Bukovina, Volhynia, Black Sea coast); today there are still around
30,000 to 40,000.
Until 1944, several million Poles lived in the
areas of Galicia, Bukovina and Volhynia, which are now part of western
Ukraine. In 1944, Ukrainians massacred the Polish population, especially
in Volhynia, and over 40,000 Poles fell victim to this. After the war,
the Polish population was expelled as part of the annexation of the
Polish territories east of the Bug.
Until the Second World War,
many Jews lived in Ukraine (e.g. in shtetl settlements), but most of
them were murdered by SS task forces during the occupation by the German
Reich. Ukraine was one of the main areas where the Yiddish language was
spoken. The survivors have since emigrated to the USA, Israel and, to a
small extent, Germany. In 2001, around 100,000 Jews still lived in
Ukraine (e.g. President Volodymyr Selenskyj). Their numbers continue to
decline due to emigration and the general decline in the birth rate.
According to the official census of 2001, 77.8% of the population in Ukraine are Ukrainians, 17.3% Russians and over 100 other ethnic groups. The Rusyns of Transcarpathia are a minority not recognized by the state. In addition to the ten largest ethnic groups, there are also smaller minorities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants, mainly Greeks, Roma, Azerbaijanis, Georgians and Germans. Ukrainians make up the largest part of the population in all regions except the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. In these two regions, Russians are by far the predominant ethnic group; other areas with a high proportion of Russians, at 39.0% and 38.2% respectively (2001 census), are the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts in southeastern Ukraine. Russians live mainly in cities in Ukraine. In rural areas, only 6.9% of the population are Russians, while Ukrainians make up 87.0% there.
The vast majority of the population of Ukraine speaks both Ukrainian
and Russian. Russian lost its status as an official language after
Ukraine gained independence in 1991. Both languages are East Slavic
languages. A widely spoken oral hybrid of Ukrainian and Russian is
Surzhyk.
Since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2014,
and to a large extent since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022,
interest in Ukrainian language, culture and history has increased
significantly in Ukrainian society. At the same time, there is massive
rejection and at times hostility towards the Russian language. Support
for the idea of giving Russian an official status in all of Ukraine or
in some of its regions has reached its lowest level in the entire period
under observation.
At the same time, Russia is pursuing a policy
of forced Russification of the Ukrainian territories it occupies:
teaching in schools is exclusively in Russian, even in entirely
Ukrainian-speaking settlements, and Ukrainian textbooks are banned.
According to a report by Human Rights Watch, Russia is indoctrinating
schoolchildren in the occupied territories with anti-Ukrainian
propaganda, and Russian officials have taken and continue to take steps
to eliminate the Ukrainian language, which is a violation of a number of
provisions of international law. Ukrainian children who are forcibly
deported to Russia are also subject to Russification.
The Russification of Ukraine, which began with the incorporation of
ethnic Ukrainian territories into the Russian Empire and spread
particularly strongly in the Soviet Union after the end of World War II,
led to a significant decline in the proportion of Ukrainian-speaking
population in Ukraine, especially in the urbanized southern and eastern
regions and, to a lesser extent, in the central regions of the country.
Only in some western regions did the proportion of Ukrainian-speaking
population increase.
Since independence, the language balance has
shifted in favor of Ukrainian. In 1989, according to official
statistics, the proportion of Ukrainian native speakers was 64.7%; in
the 2001 census it rose to 67.5%. The proportion of Russian native
speakers was 32.8% of the total population in 1989 and fell to 29.6% by
2001. Both values from 2001 (67.5% Ukrainian, 29.6% Russian) do not
correspond to the proportion of Ukrainians (77.8%) or Russians (17.3%)
in the country's population in the same year. The difference is
explained by the fact that 14.8% of those of Ukrainian descent say
Russian is their mother tongue and 3.9% of those of Russian descent say
Ukrainian is their mother tongue. (A prominent example of the fact that
nationality and belonging to a language group do not have to coincide is
the Ukrainian-born politician Yulia Tymoshenko, whose mother tongue is
Russian.) The members of the smaller nationality groups predominantly
said Russian was their mother tongue, with Ukrainian being the only
dominant language spoken by Poles.
Statistics from the Academy of
Sciences of Ukraine from 2011 show that 42.8% of the entire Ukrainian
population spoke Ukrainian at home, while 38.7% spoke Russian and 17.1%
spoke both languages. A survey from 1993 found that 53% of the
population preferred to speak Russian in conversations, a figure that
also appeared in statistics in 2013. Several surveys found a
Russian-speaking majority in regions where, according to the census,
Ukrainian predominated, including the Kharkiv and Odessa oblasts. In the
west, 94.4% speak Ukrainian, 2.5% speak Surzhik and 3.1% speak Russian,
while in the south, which includes the Crimean peninsula, 82.3% speak
Russian, 12.4% speak Surzhik and 5.2% speak Ukrainian.
The census
found that more than 90% of the population are native Ukrainian speakers
in most western and central Ukrainian regions. In the Ternopil Oblast,
the proportion of Ukrainian native speakers reached 98.3%, while in most
southern Ukrainian oblasts around two thirds of the population stated
that Ukrainian was their mother tongue. In the south, only in the
Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol did the proportion of
Ukrainian native speakers reach just 10.1% and 6.8% respectively. In the
east of Ukraine, Ukrainian native speakers make up the majority of the
population in the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia oblasts (50.2
to 67%). They are a minority in the east in the Donetsk and Luhansk
oblasts (24.1% and 30%).
Russian native speakers make up the
majority in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol (77.0% and
90.6%). Many Russian native speakers in Crimea are of Ukrainian descent
or belong to other minorities. In the Donetsk Oblast and the Luhansk
Oblast, the proportion of Russian native speakers is 74.9% and 68.8%
respectively. In southern Ukraine (excluding the Crimean peninsula), the
proportion of Russian native speakers is around 30%. In northern and
central Ukraine, it is between 1.2% (Ternopil Oblast) and 10.3%
(Chernihiv Oblast). In the city of Kyiv and the Sumy Oblast, the figures
differ; here, 25.4% and 15.6% are Russian native speakers, respectively.
Since 1991, Ukrainian has been the only official language in the
country, although in 2012 large parts of the population were still
demanding that Russian be reintroduced as a second official language.
Since 1991, Ukrainian has been a compulsory subject in all schools and
is increasingly also the language of instruction.
The language
question is a sensitive issue in politics. The Russia-oriented Party of
Regions and the Communist Party are in favor of full equality for
Russian as a second official language. However, the "orange",
western-oriented parties around former President Viktor Yushchenko and
Yulia Tymoshenko, as well as nationalist parties, rejected this.
Under Viktor Yushchenko, a policy of Ukrainization was pursued. Russian
was pushed back in schools and in everyday life, and numerous measures
were implemented to promote the use of the Ukrainian language. However,
President Viktor Yanukovych, elected in 2010, repealed many of these
measures, which the opposition around Yulia Tymoshenko protested
against. Yanukovych initially opposed the introduction of Russian as a
second state language; this would have required a two-thirds majority in
parliament, which seemed unattainable. He also feared protests from the
nationalist camp. In spring 2012, his Party of Regions took up the
language issue again. Despite fierce, sometimes violent protests from
the opposition in parliament, a law was passed according to which a
region in which at least ten percent of the population has a language
other than Ukrainian as their mother tongue should be given the status
of a regional official language. This meant that Russian was equal to
Ukrainian in 13 of the 27 regions, including the capital Kiev. Hungarian
(Transcarpathia), Romanian (Bukovina) and Crimean Tatar (Crimea) also
received regional upgrades.
In 2005, Ukraine ratified the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. A law passed by the
Verkhovna Rada in 2012 and 2013 officially recognized the following 18
languages as minority languages: Russian, Belarusian, Bulgarian,
Armenian, Gagauz, Yiddish, Crimean Tatar, Moldovan (a variant of
Romanian), German, Greek, Polish, Romani, Romanian, Slovak, Hungarian,
Ruthenian, Karaite, and Crimean Chak. In February 2018, however, the
Constitutional Court ruled this law unconstitutional and thus annulled
it.
In September 2017, parliament passed a law restricting the
use of minority languages as the language of instruction in schools.
Since Romanians and Hungarians are among the largest ethnic minorities
in Ukraine, Romania and Hungary condemned this law, and Romanian
President Klaus Iohannis canceled a planned visit to Kyiv in protest.
Ukraine is a religiously mixed country. Around 75% of Ukrainians
belong to the Orthodox churches. Until 2018, there was a split into a
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which was
recognized as canonical, an autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox
Church, and an unrecognized Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv
Patriarchate, which was founded after 1991. A bitter dispute raged
between the two churches over legitimacy and ownership claims to real
estate. The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was considered the
third Eastern Orthodox church in the country. Its legitimacy was also
disputed. In October 2018, the Ecumenical Patriarch recognized the
churches as canonical against the resistance of the Russian Orthodox
Church and placed the territory of Ukraine under his direct jurisdiction
with the aim of uniting the three churches. On December 15, 2018, the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate merged with the
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church to form the Orthodox Church of
Ukraine. The church, which is subordinate to the Moscow Patriarch,
boycotted the synod at which the merger was decided. The Ukrainian Greek
Catholic Church, founded in 1596, also follows the Orthodox rite, but
recognizes the supremacy of the Pope and is united with Rome. It has
around 5.5 million believers, mainly in the west of the country.
There are also around 2 million Muslims in Ukraine (4%, of which 1.7%
are Tatars), 1.1 million Roman Catholic Christians (2.4%, mainly Poles
and Germans) and 1.2 million Protestant Christians (2.7%), of which the
Baptists are the largest Protestant group, and around 56,000 to 140,000
Jews.
The life expectancy for men in Ukraine is 67.1 years, while women live to an average age of 76.9 years. There is no compulsory or state health insurance in Ukraine, so many cannot afford expensive surgery.
According to the WHO, at the end of 2006, 0.2% of the total population was infected with HIV. According to estimates, at the beginning of 2008, 1.7% of the adult population (aged 15 to 49) were infected. It is unclear to what extent this is a long-standing prevalence of the disease. This makes Ukraine the country most affected by AIDS in Europe. According to an estimate by UN-AIDS, in 2016 around 240,000 people in Ukraine were living with HIV, but according to the NGO All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, only around 139,000 of them are officially registered.
According to the Constitution of Ukraine, Ukraine is a democratic, republican, social and constitutional unitary state with a semi-presidential system of government. The head of state is the president, the government (Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine) is headed by a prime minister. Only the Autonomous Republic of Crimea had (and still has de jure) the right to have its own constitution, government and semi-autonomous legislation.
The Constitution of Ukraine dates from June 28, 1996 and, as the
basic law of the state, claims the highest legal authority. All measures
of the state and its institutions, including legislation and
international treaties, must be consistent with it.
The
Constitutional Court of Ukraine is solely and exclusively responsible
for interpreting the constitution and examining the constitutionality of
state actions.
Amendments to the constitution are the
responsibility of parliament and must be passed in a special
constitutional amendment procedure during a regular legislative session
with a two-thirds majority of the legal members of the Verkhovna Rada.
They must be issued as a constitutional amendment law by the President
of Ukraine. Amendments to the principles of the state, elections and
referendums, as well as the provisions on constitutional amendments,
also require approval in a referendum.
This was done for the
first time with Law No. 2222-IV of December 8, 2004, and curtailed,
among other things, the rights of the president at the time. These
amendments were rejected as unconstitutional and declared null and void
by a decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on October 1, 2010.
In the wake of the 2013/14 state crisis, parliament decided on February
21, 2014, in accordance with the "Agreement on the Settlement of the
Crisis in Ukraine," to reinstate the 2004 amendments. However, this
parliamentary resolution lacked the signature of the then-serving
President Viktor Yanukovych in order to be constitutionally effective.
It is unclear whether and, if so, when this can and will be done by the
new President. Until then, the constitution in its original version from
1996 will continue to apply.
President of Ukraine
Parliament
Cabinet of Ministers
Constitutional Court
Prosecutor General (see also List of Prosecutors
General of Ukraine)
National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine
President
The President of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Президент України
President Ukrajiny) is the head of state and represents the state of
Ukraine both internally and externally under international law. He is
responsible for protecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of
Ukraine and is at the head of the executive branch.
The duties of
the President include:
the appointment of the Prime Minister with the
consent of Parliament, as well as the ministers, the country's
diplomatic representatives, two-thirds of the members of the
Constitutional Court and the Central Bank, as well as the Attorney
General,
issuing laws of Parliament with the possibility of a veto
against decisions of Parliament,
the right to repeal government
measures and determine the structure of ministries,
exercising the
right of pardon for the whole of Ukraine,
establishing or dissolving
courts and judicial branches,
chairing the National Security and
Defense Council of Ukraine,
supreme command of the Armed Forces of
Ukraine, imposing martial law and declaring general mobilization in the
event of tension or war,
early dissolution of Parliament,
regulations and decrees to the bodies of the executive branch, including
the Cabinet of Ministers.
Delegation of these powers is expressly
excluded. The President is advised by the "National Security and Defense
Council of Ukraine".
The president is elected for a term of five
years in a direct election by the people of Ukraine. A candidate may not
hold office for more than two consecutive terms. Anyone who is at least
35 years old, has Ukrainian citizenship, is eligible to vote and has
lived in Ukraine for at least 10 years is eligible.
Early
retirement from office is possible through self-resignation, declaration
of incapacity for office due to health reasons, formal impeachment
proceedings or the death of the incumbent.
The Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian: Верховна Рада, Supreme Council) is the
unicameral parliament of Ukraine. It exercises the sole legislative
power of the state. It is directly elected by the people of Ukraine for
a legislative period of five years, with the election date and procedure
determined by the outgoing parliament. Deputies of the Rada enjoy legal
immunity for the duration of the legislative period and may not hold any
(other) office within Ukraine during their time as deputies, in
particular may not belong to the executive branch. The Rada can only be
dissolved by the President of Ukraine in exceptional cases, except when
the legislative period expires, in which case new elections must be
scheduled immediately. The Verkhovna Rada is led and represented by a
President of the Verkhovna Rada elected from among its members.
The powers of the parliament include:
legislation,
decision on
constitutional amendments,
decision on the state budget,
decision
on holding a referendum,
approval of the appointment of the Prime
Minister and other officials appointed by the President and motions of
no confidence against them,
decision on the framework of the domestic
and foreign policy of the Cabinet of Ministers and the President,
establishment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,
decision on the state
of war and declarations of war,
parliamentary control of the
President and the Cabinet of Ministers,
dissolution of the Verkhovna
Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea if this was determined by the
Constitutional Court of Ukraine due to unconstitutional conduct,
removal of the President from office.
The government of Ukraine is run by the Cabinet of Ministers
(Ukrainian: Кабінет Міністрів України Kabinet Ministriv Ukrajiny,
"Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine"). This consists of the Prime Minister
(Ukrainian: Прем'єр-міністр України Prem’er Ministr Ukrajiny, "Prime
Minister of Ukraine"), the First Deputy Prime Minister, three other
Deputy Prime Ministers and the ministers. The former is appointed by the
President of Ukraine with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada. The other
members of the Cabinet are appointed by the President on the proposal of
the Prime Minister. The term of office of the Cabinet is tied to the
term of office of the Prime Minister. The Verkhovna Rada can pass a vote
of no confidence in the Prime Minister, with the result that he and the
entire Cabinet must be dismissed from office by the President. Due to
its double appointment and dismissal, the Cabinet of Ministers is
dependent on majorities in the Verkhovna Rada as well as the support of
the President.
Most recently, the government under Prime Minister
Mykola Azarov of the Party of Regions was dependent on the support of
the Communist Party and independent MPs. Azarov was dismissed by
Yanukovych in the Verkhovna Rada following his request for resignation
on January 28, 2014. The previous First Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy
Arbusov, also from the Party of Regions, was appointed acting head of
government until a new government is appointed. On February 22, 2014,
the Verkhovna Rada decided to dismiss him as caretaker prime minister
and to transfer the leadership of the Cabinet of Ministers to the
Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Parliament, Oleksandr Turchynov of the
Fatherland Party, until a new prime minister was elected. From February
27, 2014 to December 2, 2014, the Yatsenyuk government was in office,
but its offer of resignation was rejected by parliament. From December
2, 2014 to April 14, 2016, a coalition government led by the confirmed
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk ruled, which had been formed after the
parliamentary elections in late October. It was replaced on April 14,
2016, after Yatsenyuk's resignation, by the Groysman Cabinet, a
coalition government formed by Volodymyr Groysman. Following the 2019
early parliamentary elections in Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada met for the
first time on August 29, 2019 and elected Oleksiy Honcharuk as the new
Prime Minister. After accepting Oleksiy Honcharuk's resignation on March
4, 2020, the parliament elected Denys Shmyhal as the new Prime Minister
on the same day.
The Central Election Commission of Ukraine, an authority based in
Kyiv, is responsible for organizing and conducting the presidential and
parliamentary elections, local elections and referendums. The 15 members
of the commission are elected by the Verkhovna Rada for a period of 7
years and appointed by the President. Since 2011, a so-called trench
voting system has been in place for parliamentary elections.
The
landscape of political parties in Ukraine is undergoing a
transformation, new parties are emerging, older ones are merging or
changing their names. Ukrainian politics is thus partly more
characterized by the continuity of individual top politicians in
changing constellations than by individual groups; the elections in
2012, 2014 and 2019 each showed very different results. An important
criterion for the political classification of the parties is their
position towards the EU or Russia.
The 2020 regional elections
showed a strengthening of autonomy due to Ukraine's decentralization
reforms from 2014 and federal financial independence. Political parties
formed at the local level were successful in mayoral elections and no
longer depended on the support of national parties.
In March
2022, President Zelensky banned a number of pro-Russian parties,
including two parties represented in parliament, Opposition Platform -
For Life and Opposition Bloc, because their work was aimed at division
or collaboration. The ban would remain in place as long as martial law
is in force in Ukraine.
Ukrainian foreign policy in the first years of independence was
described by Ukrainian politicians as "multi-vectoral" and often
perceived by political observers abroad as inconsistent. On the one
hand, Ukraine sought to move closer to NATO and the EU, while on the
other hand, good relations with its large neighbor Russia were of
fundamental importance for the country. It was only when President
Viktor Yushchenko took office in January 2005 that he declared western
orientation and the country's membership in the EU to be his political
goal. When it became increasingly clear in the following years that
there was no realistic prospect of Ukraine joining the EU at the time,
Yushchenko endeavored to join NATO quickly in 2008. Despite the support
of the USA, no formal decision was made at the Bucharest NATO Council
meeting in April 2008 on an immediate accession status for Ukraine,
which ultimately amounted to a rejection of the request for accession.
In the 2010 presidential election, the four leading candidates
Viktor Yanukovych, Yulia Tymoshenko, Serhiy Tihipko and Arseniy
Yatsenyuk spoke out in favor of introducing "European standards" in
Ukraine. They all stood for a gradual rapprochement with the EU and at
the same time strategic and good neighborly relations with Russia.
After taking office in February 2010, the newly elected President
Yanukovych declared that Ukraine wanted to be a non-aligned country and
saw itself as "a bridge between Russia and the EU." He clearly rejected
NATO membership. Yanukovych held back a planned association agreement
with the EU and tried to bind himself more closely to Russia. On June 8,
2017, the Ukrainian parliament again declared NATO membership as a
foreign policy goal. The Ukrainian-Russian Treaty of Friendship,
Cooperation and Partnership was signed on June 1, 1997, but was not
ratified by parliaments until April 1999. According to Ukrainian
statements in September 2018, it was not to be renewed by Ukraine when
it expired on April 1, 2019.
In February 2019, the goal of
joining NATO and the EU was enshrined in the constitution.
In 1997, Zbigniew Brzeziński presented a geostrategy for the USA in
his work The Only World Power. The strategy aimed first to secure the
global supremacy of the USA against a possible Eurasian counterweight
and, in the long term, to establish a new cooperative global order.
According to Brzeziński, it was important to identify important
geostrategic actors in Eurasia and to manage them in the US interest. He
considered the Russian Federation to be a significant player in Eurasia.
He viewed Ukraine as a geopolitical "pivot point"
"[...] because
its very existence as an independent state contributes to the
transformation of Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia is no longer a
Eurasian empire. [...] However, if Moscow were to regain control of
Ukraine, with its 52 million people, significant natural resources and
access to the Black Sea, Russia would automatically gain the means to
become a powerful empire spanning Europe and Asia. If Ukraine lost its
independence, this would have immediate consequences for Central Europe
and would make Poland a geopolitical pivot point on the eastern border
of a united Europe."
- Zbigniew Brzezinski: The Only World Power:
America's Strategy of Dominance.
The USA should work to ensure
that the Russian Federation does not act in an imperialist manner, but
transforms itself and ultimately chooses the USA and Europe, even as
NATO and the European Union expand. In order to get the Russian
Federation to do this, the West should try to cooperate more closely
with it on the one hand, and support the new post-Soviet states on the
other. Brzeziński estimated that between 2005 and 2015 the West would be
able to begin gradually integrating Ukraine into NATO and the EU. He
expected that the Russian Federation would find this step difficult to
accept. However, he saw this as a test of whether the Russian Federation
would redefine itself and opt for Europe or for a Eurasian outsider
role. If the West cannot establish good relations with the Russian
Federation, Brzeziński recommended that the West should still integrate
Ukraine into its alliances in order to contain dangerous Russian
imperialism.
In 2000, the European Union and the Russian Federation started a
dialogue on connecting the Continental European grid and the IPS/UPS
grid to create a common energy space from Vladivostok to Lisbon.
However, this project failed for several reasons. Instead, the European
Union and the Russian Federation competed for Eastern European states,
as in the case of Ukraine.
On the one hand, in 2008, political
relations between Ukraine and the Russian Federation became very bad,
thus endangering the transit of Russian electricity through Ukrainian
territory. On the other hand, since 2005, the European Union and Ukraine
have been working towards integrating Ukraine into European energy
markets and systems. In 2017, representatives of ENTSO-E, the Ukrainian
grid operator Ukrenerho and Moldelectrica from the Moldovan side
determined technical steps to synchronize the Ukrainian electricity grid
with the Continental European grid. Against the backdrop of Russian
aggression, Europe's energy security and climate change, the USA and the
Federal Republic of Germany pledged in 2021 to help Ukraine develop its
green energy sector. In this context, the Federal Republic of Germany
also promised to support Ukraine in synchronization.
The
Ukrainian government under Denys Shmyhal aimed to detach the Ukrainian
power grid from the Russian grid in 2021/22 and to synchronize it with
the continental European grid by 2023. The Ukrainian side expected this
to lead to greater energy security, lower costs and greenhouse gas
emissions, and a deeper connection with the European Union. With a view
to making Europe climate-neutral by 2050, the European Union viewed
Ukraine as a possible supplier of green electricity and hydrogen.
The planned synchronization was geopolitically explosive. It implied
an increase in European influence and a decrease in Russian influence.
In addition, Ukraine's electricity supply was dependent on energy
sources from the Russian Federation in several respects and was
therefore vulnerable to Russian counter-reactions. Furthermore, in 2014
the Russian Federation annexed Crimea and integrated it into the Russian
power grid. The so-called People's Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk were
also connected to the Russian power grid. Ultimately, it was
controversial to want to connect the Republic of Moldova's grid to the
continental European grid in parallel to the Ukrainian one. The Russian
company Inter RAO owned a power plant park in Transnistria that was
powered by Russian gas. It supplied a large part of the Republic of
Moldova with electricity and also transmitted electricity to Ukraine.
The Russian Federation demanded that the Republic of Moldova pay off
debts for Russian gas amounting to around seven billion US dollars.
Jurisprudence is entrusted to the courts of Ukraine. Although they
are formally independent by constitution, in practice the separation
between jurisdiction and politics and economic interests is weak.
Ukraine's judiciary is considered to be very susceptible to corruption.
For example, the President of the Supreme Court of Ukraine was arrested
in May 2023 after accepting a bribe of three million US dollars. In
principle, there is a uniform principle regarding the division of
jurisdiction: the courts are generally responsible for all judicial
proceedings, regardless of the matter to be dealt with. The judiciary
has four instances: local courts, regional courts, courts of appeal and
the Supreme Court of Ukraine as the court of appeal. In addition to the
local courts, there are separate chambers for administrative and
commercial cases.
Constitutional jurisdiction is exercised by the
Constitutional Court of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Конституційний Суд України
Konstitycijnyj Sud Ukraijny). This court has the sole authority to
reject laws, decides on the interpretation of the constitution and
participates in the impeachment of the president and the dissolution of
the local parliament of Crimea.
A (political) Attorney General
(Ukrainian: Генеральний прокурор України Heneralyj Prokuror Ukraijny)
based on the Soviet model is responsible for criminal prosecution, who
heads the local prosecutors. His powers are directly determined by the
constitution.
Both the Ukrainian police (formerly called the
"militia") and the judiciary are considered corrupt. In June 2014, the
EU decided to send a 40-person mission to Kyiv to enforce the law and
support the Ukrainian police.
The Ukrainian armed forces are divided into the army, air force and
navy, including marines. There is conscription in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj declared a state of war and
martial law after the invasion of Ukraine by troops of the Russian
Federation on the night of February 24, 2022. The country has been at
war with Russia ever since.
In the summer of 2022, Ukraine's
troop strength was estimated at around 500,000 soldiers. In 2024,
Ukraine's troop strength is expected to be around 900,000 soldiers. This
made Ukraine the country with the sixth largest army in the world in
terms of troop strength. Only China, the USA, India, Russia and North
Korea currently have significantly more soldiers. When making an
international comparison and assessing military strength, however, it
must be taken into account that Ukraine is currently in a state of war
(including mobilization of reservists) and is largely dependent on arms
deliveries and other military aid from Western states.
The state budget in 2016 included expenditures of the equivalent of
31.6 billion US dollars, compared to revenues of the equivalent of 29.8
billion US dollars. This results in a budget deficit of 6.5% of gross
domestic product (GDP).
While the national debt in 2009 totaled
35.1 billion US dollars or 30.0% of GDP, it rose to over 70% of GDP in
the 2010s before being reduced to below 50% of GDP in the first years of
the 2020s.
By 2014, Ukraine's foreign debt had risen to around 80
percent of its gross domestic product. In January 2015, there was still
no consistent budget plan for the current year. In a plan published in
January 2015, if Russia called in a loan of 3 billion euros previously
granted to Ukraine due to a breach of the terms of the contract, which
stipulated a debt ceiling of 60 percent of GDP, the Paris Club would
take over this payment obligation in order to prevent a general default
and a loss of capital by private creditors. The immediate payments
necessary to prevent Ukraine's financial collapse, which the IMF
estimates at 15 billion dollars, are far from sufficient. Against the
backdrop of the impending defaults, George Soros, whose fund is heavily
invested in Ukraine, negotiated with politicians and parliamentarians in
Kiev on January 13, 2015, among other things, about the establishment of
a state fund to protect private investors.
Foreign debt fell from
over 100 percent of GDP to just over 50 percent in the years before
2022.
Human Rights Watch criticizes the conviction of former Prime Minister
Yulia Tymoshenko and calls for an investigation into alleged
mistreatment in prison.
In the Ukraine conflict from 2014,
Amnesty International accused both the armed separatists in eastern
Ukraine and government soldiers of "serious human rights violations."
Activists, demonstrators and hostages who fell into the hands of one of
the conflict parties were mistreated. According to Amnesty
International, the separatists in particular took numerous hostages, who
were "often brutally beaten and tortured." Hundreds of kidnappings are
believed to have taken place in eastern Ukraine. The victims are often
civilians. Ransom is also a motive of the separatist groups. The United
Nations criticized the human rights situation both under the Ukrainian
government and in the separatist areas.
Due to the pending
reforms to improve the rule of law, the IMF stopped providing aid loans
in 2017. Thanks to the opening of the market, the previously notorious
corruption in the gas trade was dried up. The abuse of banks by
oligarchs was limited by the central bank, which had closed half of all
banks, which, according to Ivan Mikloš, meant that the state-owned
companies that had not yet been privatized were the biggest source of
corruption. A new tax refund system reduced the opportunities for
corruption among officials. The state also loses several billion dollars
in revenue every year through customs fraud.
According to the World Bank, the total labor force was around 24.3
million in 1992 and has been falling essentially continuously to 20.3
million in 2021. The unemployment rate was 9.8% in 2021. The share of
those working in agriculture in the number of all employed workers was
around 27% in the early 2000s and has since fallen to around 14% in
2019. In the case of those working in industry, the corresponding figure
was around 29.5% in 1991, declined thereafter, and has fluctuated
between around 24.5% and 26% since the early 2000s until 2019. The
corresponding share of service providers rose steadily from around 46%
in 1991 to around 61% in 2019.
The share of the shadow economy in
official gross domestic product fluctuated between 34% and 43% from 2009
to 2016. From 2004 to 2016, around a fifth to a quarter of the working
population worked in the informal sector.
In 2019 to 2021, the
ten most important export commodity groups were corn, sunflower seeds
and vegetable oils, iron ore and enriched ores, wheat, semi-finished
products made of iron or non-alloy steel, rolled goods made of iron or
non-alloy steel, insulated cables and wires, rapeseed, oil cake and raw
and spiegeleisen. During the same period, Ukraine mainly imported
processed petroleum, motorized vehicles, gas, coal, medicines,
electrical appliances, pesticides, fertilizers, computer equipment and
tractors.
In 2021, Europe was Ukraine's largest trading partner
in terms of trade balance, with Ukraine recording a deficit of USD 9.2
billion with Europe. In the previous decade, Ukraine's foreign trade
structure had changed. Ukraine traded increasingly with European Union
countries, especially from 2013 onwards, and less with the Russian
Federation. Ukraine and the Russian Federation legally restricted trade
between each other, while Ukraine and the European Union liberalized
their trade relations with each other. For example, although Ukraine had
concluded a free trade agreement with the Russian Federation in 2011,
the Moscow Kremlin suspended the agreement on January 1, 2016. According
to Russian sources, the reason was the entry into force of the free
trade agreement with the EU.
In 2020, the share of services from
the telecommunications, computer and information services sector was
around a third of all exported services, amounting to around USD 5.2
billion. About another third, or around USD 5 billion, came from the
transport services sector. In 2020, Ukraine imported services mainly
from the travel and transport sectors, which accounted for 42.4% and
16.5% of all imported services, respectively.
Between 2004 and
2012, the structure of foreign direct investment changed. From 2004 to
2010, the share of Western countries such as the Federal Republic of
Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and France predominated. After
that, countries such as Cyprus, the Netherlands, the British Virgin
Islands and the Russian Federation dominated. Investments from this
group did not always represent foreign investment in the strict sense,
as they partly came from Ukrainian oligarchs and their offshore
businesses.
The World Economic Forum estimates in its Global
Competitiveness Report 2017/18, in which it assesses the competitiveness
of an economy, that Ukraine ranks 81st out of a total of 137 countries.
The Heritage Foundation estimated that Ukraine ranks 127th out of 178
countries in the 2021 Economic Freedom Index.
The United Nations Development Programme ranks Ukraine among the
countries with very high human development. Gross domestic product per
capita in purchasing power parity halved in the 1990s and has risen
since 1999 from 3,894 to 14,289 international dollars in 2021, with
declines in 2009, 2014/15 and 2020. In 2022, gross domestic product was
still 12,671 international dollars per capita. In this respect, the
Ukrainian economy has lagged behind Belarus, the Russian Federation and
Romania since the mid-1990s.
The GINI index was 39.3 in 1995 and
decreased to 24 in 2014. After that, it increased substantially to 25.6
in 2020. From 2002 to 2020, Ukraine's value was lower than in the case
of the United States of America, the Russian Federation and the Federal
Republic of Germany. However, the GINI index is less meaningful in the
case of an economy with a large shadow economy, since it is calculated
on the basis of official income statistics.
The monthly minimum
wage increased from the equivalent of 30 euros in 2002 to 109 euros in
2013. After decreasing, it increased again since 2017 and was 136 euros
in 2019. The average monthly wage was the equivalent of 75 euros in 2002
and rose to 308 euros in 2013. It then fell until 2015 and reached 276
euros in 2018. Measured in the local currency, the hryvnia, however, it
rose continuously from 442 in 2002 to 10,783 in June 2019. In 2012, Kyiv
had the lowest hourly wage of 2.20 euros and by far the lowest
purchasing power of all European capitals at 17.6%. Within the country,
salaries tended to be higher the further east the region was - with the
highest in Donetsk Oblast and the lowest in Ternopil Oblast in the west.
According to the Ministry of Social Affairs, the pension level in
2017 was 34%, which was very low by international standards. In the long
term, the average pension rose from 24 euros per month in 2002 to 139
euros per month in 2013. It then fell and was around 99 euros in March
2019. In 2019, the minimum pension for those who could prove the minimum
insurance period was about 40% of the minimum wage. Long-term problems
are that the population is shrinking and is getting older on average. In
addition, the pension fund has been in the red since 2004 and the state
finances it from the state budget.
The consumer price index for
public utilities such as water, electricity and gas as well as for food
rose sharply from 2014 to 2019. The government agreed with the
International Monetary Fund to increase energy prices so that the
Ukrainian state subsidized energy companies less and reduced the
opportunities for corruption in the energy sector. The government tried
to support low-income people by providing large government subsidies to
cover rising utility costs and raising the minimum wage in 2017.
Many rural and some urban residents engage in subsistence farming to
provide themselves with food. This helps them survive economically
difficult times, such as in the 1990s or during the 2014/2015 crisis.
Some rural residents even obtained their food primarily in this way.
The hyperinflation of 1993/94 was one of the reasons why many people
in Ukraine distrusted banks and the local currency: since the 1990s, a
large proportion of deposits and loans have been denominated in hard
foreign currencies, mainly in US dollars.
In the course of the
war with the Russian Federation, which began in February 2022, several
million internally displaced people lost their assets and job
opportunities. They were dependent on state support and help from
abroad.
Private sector actors already existed in the Ukrainian republic of
the USSR. However, they operated illegally in the shadow economy. At the
end of the 1980s, the state allowed small private companies and
cooperatives. In 1990, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law on the
economic autonomy of the Ukrainian Republic. It included private
ownership as well as competition and laid the foundation for the
privatization of the national economy in the 1990s.
While the
state had a share of 100% of the gross domestic product in 1991, this
figure fell and was below 10% in 2020. By 2005, around 85% of state
housing (around 5.9 million units) had been privatized. Although the
state privatized agricultural land in the 1990s, it restricted trade in
it in 2001. It was not until 2020 that parliament passed a law that
granted landowners fuller rights and legalized trade in Ukrainian
agricultural land. By 1999, almost all small state or municipal
enterprises had been privatized. Nevertheless, in 2020 the state owned
over 3,300 companies, which was very high by international standards.
Under President Volodymyr Zelensky, the government stuck to the
privatization policy and set itself the goal of retaining around 600
companies. Private companies dominated Ukraine's traditional industries
(energy production, metallurgy, mechanical engineering) in 2020.
Privatization led to a high level of concentration. Around 2007, the 75
largest Ukrainian companies generated over two-thirds of the gross
domestic product. As a result of the formation of corporations,
so-called financial-industrial groups emerged. These groups each have
their own banks or insurance companies and their share capital is highly
concentrated. In addition, the relationship between companies and
shareholders is opaque. They rarely integrate horizontally or
vertically, but rather mixed holdings or conglomerates merge with each
other. The central authority that makes decisions is not in the
financial institutions, but in the industrial companies.
The way
in which the state carried out privatization made it easier for some
actors to use the process to enrich themselves and become oligarchs.
After some members of the communist leadership had already accumulated
capital during perestroika, they used it in the 1990s to acquire
state-owned companies at relatively low prices. Under President Leonid
Kuchma, a system of oligarchic business groups or clans was
consolidated. In the 2000s, they influenced the auctions at which the
state privatized some of its large companies in their favor. Oligarchs
became active in many areas of the economy. By acquiring state property,
they increased the level of concentration in some sectors, such as the
energy sector. In 2010, four financial-industrial groups owned by
oligarchs owned about a quarter of the largest Ukrainian companies. The
oligarchs expanded their influence beyond the economy to include
political events and other social areas, such as culture and sport.
Oligarchs had a decisive influence on institutional change and many
clans supported the Orange Revolution. For economic reasons, they were
interested in bringing Ukraine closer to the European Union:
Western-style institutions offered a better opportunity to protect
assets than the Ukrainian structures, and the European Union also
presented itself as an attractive export market.
Although the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund helped
the Ukrainian government with its economic transformation, in the 1990s
the gross domestic product per capita fell sharply and inflation rose
sharply compared to other countries. The Ukrainian economy recovered
very slowly from the transition to a market economy compared to other
transition countries. According to World Bank estimates, in 2020 the
Ukrainian economy had not yet reached the level that the gross domestic
product per capita had in 1990, although the population had decreased by
about 10 million people since then.
From 2000 to 2008 the gross
domestic product increased every year. Ukrainian exporters and
especially metal producers were able to accumulate a lot of wealth.
Although their technology was outdated, they benefited from tax relief,
rising commodity prices on the world market, low gas prices and low
labor costs. Foreign direct investment increased, particularly from
places like Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands, and was money that
Ukrainians had accumulated in offshore accounts. In the 2000s, many
foreign banks also came to Ukraine to benefit from the relatively high
interest rates. Unemployment was low and real wages were rising.
In the wake of the global financial crisis, Ukraine's gross domestic
product fell by around 14% in 2009, more than in the Russian Federation
or Belarus. Economic output was heavily dependent on foreign trade and
the steel industry, which accounted for around 30-40% of exports.
Although the global steel industry had benefited from rising demand up
until 2008 and expanded its capacity, demand fell as a result of the
crisis. Global steel production initially declined, and in the years
that followed, the industry was unable to utilize its capacity
sufficiently. In 2008 and 2009, the Ukrainian steel industry also
produced significantly less. Industrial production collapsed.
Unemployment rose and real wages fell. The banking sector as a whole
made losses in 2009 and 2010. Banks had greatly increased the volume of
credit relative to gross domestic product and their deposits. They had
tended to borrow from European banks and lend the money profitably in
Ukraine. In 2008, however, many Ukrainian banks had difficulty repaying
money. Most of them had low equity and loans from Europe were falling
through. The National Bank had to financially support and control some
large banks. Many people distrusted their own currency and exchanged
their deposits for US dollars or euros. The National Bank tried to
stabilize the exchange rate of the national currency against the US
dollar. However, it fell at the end of 2008. The Ukrainian stock market
collapsed in 2008. However, it was relatively small and insignificant
for the Ukrainian economy.
To avert insolvency, the Ukrainian
government asked the International Monetary Fund for help. At the end of
2008, it promised to provide a gradual loan totaling US$16.4 billion
under certain conditions. Since the parliament and the president decided
not to cut the state budget sufficiently and instead wanted to increase
the minimum wage and social benefits, the Fund only granted a partial
amount of US$11 billion and did not pay out the last tranche. Instead,
the Fund froze the loan and agreed a new loan with Ukraine. Since the
Ukrainian state needed money, it continued to work with the Fund,
although various political camps cooperated with the Fund differently.
The Ukrainian state became one of the states that the Fund helped the
most.
In 2013, real gross domestic product was still below the
2008 level. Although the Ukrainian economy recovered in 2010 and 2011,
it stagnated in 2012 and fell into recession. The Ukrainian steel
industry was no longer able to export as much because steel prices were
low, and machine manufacturers suffered from the slow growth of the
Russian economy. Ukraine had been running a current account deficit for
some time and therefore needed external capital. However, foreign
investors were reluctant to invest because the judicial system was very
corrupt and did not provide sufficient legal security. Direct investment
from Western Europe decreased and Western banks increasingly withdrew
from Ukraine. The latter often ceded their market share to Ukrainian
investors or Russian banks. The current account deficit was also
exacerbated by the fact that the National Bank kept the exchange rate of
the national currency to the US dollar artificially high. In addition,
President Yanukovych kept gas prices low, contrary to the demands of the
International Monetary Fund, which put a strain on the state budget. The
Ukrainian state had accumulated a large amount of external debt over the
years, while its foreign currency reserves were declining. At the end of
2013, the foreign debt of the state, companies and banks totaled 142
billion US dollars. The state's ability to pay became less secure. The
negotiations between Ukraine and the European Union on an association
agreement also posed the risk that the Moscow Kremlin would use
Ukraine's economic weakness to destabilize Ukraine.
In 2014, real
gross domestic product fell by 6.6% and in the following year by another
9.9%. The Maidan protests, Russia's annexation of Crimea and the civil
war in eastern Ukraine had a negative impact on Ukraine's economic
development. With Crimea, Ukraine lost the opportunity to exploit the
natural gas deposits near the islands more effectively in order to be
able to better supply itself with energy. In addition, Kiev could no
longer control important companies in the energy and chemical
industries. The latter also applied to ports and important trade routes
such as the Kerch Strait. As a result, the Russian Federation
subsequently affected Ukrainian exports. The Donbass had a large share
of gross domestic product (2012: 15.7%), industrial production (2012:
22%) and exports (2013: 21.4%). The war in the east damaged many
industrial and service companies.
Foreign trade changed. In 2014
and 2015, Ukraine exported and imported much less. Food replaced steel
and metallurgical products and took over the largest share of exports.
Although the Russian Federation remained the most important trading
partner, Ukraine exported significantly fewer goods to it (2011: approx.
20 billion US dollars; 2015: approx. 5 billion US dollars). Imports fell
even more sharply than exports due to the recession, partly because the
national currency depreciated and gas prices fell. The physical volume
of gas imports and energy consumption also fell, as Ukrainian industry
was less active and Ukraine lost the industrialized Donbass and Crimea.
From 2016 to 2019, real gross domestic product grew. Industrial
production again recorded slight positive growth rates until 2018.
However, metallurgy and mechanical engineering no longer achieved their
previous role in exports. Instead, the agricultural sector retained the
largest share of exports. Ukraine also increasingly exported electrical
equipment. Ukraine's foreign trade shifted from the Russian Federation
to the European Union. In 2019, the Russian Federation was no longer
Ukraine's largest trading partner. Ukraine imported goods mainly from
the People's Republic of China, while Poland was the largest market for
Ukrainian goods. In terms of imports, the shift to the European Union
was also due to the fact that from 2016 onwards Ukraine no longer
imported gas directly from the Russian Federation for its own
consumption, but instead purchased Russian gas indirectly from EU
countries (see also: Natural resources).
The banking sector was
significantly changed by the International Monetary Fund and the
National Bank of Ukraine. From 2013 to 2017, the number of operating
banks decreased sharply. In 2016, PrivatBank was nationalized and
stabilized with taxpayers' money, increasing the state's share in the
banking sector to over 55%. It was the largest bank in Ukraine and one
of the largest oligarchic conglomerates in the CIS. It had used a large
part of its deposits to finance companies that had been linked to
oligarchs (related party lending). The latter led to PrivatBank
recording many non-performing loans. The oligarchs were replaced on the
supervisory board by representatives of the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund and the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, as well as the Ministry of Finance. After many years, the
banking sector was profitable again in 2018.
Investments
increased more sharply in 2016, which also affected equipment and
machinery. In addition, financial market investors and international
investors became more interested in Ukrainian bonds in 2018. However,
major foreign direct investment was limited.
Due to the COVID-19
pandemic, real gross domestic product fell by 3.8% in 2020. In the
following year, it rose by 3.4%. From outside, the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund and the European Union provided financial
support to the Ukrainian state. In view of the pandemic, the government
changed its budget and used a large part of the funds planned for other
areas to promote road construction. The government had already started a
program in February 2020 in which some banks agreed to give small and
medium-sized companies loans on more favorable terms. According to the
Ministry of Economy, some companies made use of this by the end of 2021.
To help companies reduce wage costs, the government changed the labor
law from March 2020. The government also offered to contribute to wage
costs for companies that had been shut down due to the pandemic.
However, entrepreneurs mostly decided to lay off employees.
Due
to the increased risk of war in spring 2022, inflation rose to ten
percent, which is why the Ukrainian central bank raised key interest
rates to ten percent. At the same time, foreign investors withdrew
massive amounts of money. The EU then pledged 1.2 billion euros in
emergency aid and an additional 120 million euros in the form of grants.
The war damaged the Ukrainian economy. In the second quarter of
2022, gross domestic product fell by around 37.2% compared to the
previous year. The state recorded a higher budget deficit. It spent more
on the military, which accounted for around 46% of the state budget in
August 2022. On the other hand, state revenues fell. The state was
therefore dependent on financial support from Western partners. The main
donors were the European Union, the USA, the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank (as of the end of October 2022). In the course of the
war, many means of production and infrastructure were destroyed. Around
seven million people fled Ukraine abroad and around seven million are
considered internally displaced persons. This reduced private
consumption and the supply of labor. Nevertheless, the official
unemployment rate was 34% in the third quarter of 2022. Because the
Russian Federation hindered Ukraine's maritime trade, Ukraine was able
to export significantly fewer goods. This caused Ukraine's trade deficit
to rise sharply. The banking sector remained relatively stable in 2022.
The National Bank of Ukraine abandoned inflation control and introduced
a fixed exchange rate with the US dollar at the start of the war. It
also implemented stricter capital controls, intervened in the foreign
exchange market and raised the key interest rate from 10% to 25% p.a. in
June 2022.
When Ukraine became independent, the regions differed greatly from
one another economically. While the economic collapse affected all
regions in the 1990s, differences between regions increased as the
economy began to grow again.
Many western, central and southern
regions were primarily agricultural. In eastern Ukraine, however,
specialized industries predominated. Finally, there were five islands
that were primarily focused on services. In Kyiv and Kharkiv, these were
financial and consumer services. In three southern regions, these were
transport services and public social services.
In the first two
decades after independence, the more agricultural regions were
characterized by slow growth and low productivity gains. Unemployment
was persistently high and disposable incomes low. Accordingly, the state
had to support them with transfers. The industrial centers in the east
fared better in these respects and became net contributors to the
agricultural regions. The service regions experienced rapid growth.
Unemployment was low and new jobs were created. In the regions where
consumer and financial services dominated, productivity increased the
most and incomes were the highest. Like the industrial east, they became
net payers to the economically weaker regions. In the regions where
transport and social services predominated, productivity increased
little. Income levels were below average and they were dependent on
state transfers.
During the growth phase up to 2008, the various
presidents pursued different growth models. These each focused on
different regions or sectors.
Leonid Kuchma wanted to create
large Ukrainian entrepreneurs. The state privatized industrial plants,
promoted their exports and the current account became positive. Kuchma
pursued a stable exchange rate of the national currency against the US
dollar, falling interest rates and decreasing inflation. The state
budget was relatively balanced and foreign debt decreased. More people
were able to save, so that banks could lend these funds to companies.
Foreign investment remained low and companies raised relatively little
capital on the capital markets.
Under Viktor Yushchenko, however,
Kuchma's growth model was dismantled. Some privatised companies were
nationalised again and privatised again, and were also sold to
non-Ukrainian bidders, such as the largest Ukrainian steel plant,
Kryvorishstal, to ArcelorMittal. The financial sector was to be the
basis of economic growth. While Kuchma had focused on the industry of
the East, under Yushchenko the service providers in metropolises and
tourist areas played a greater role. Although credit-based private and
public consumption received a larger share of the increase in gross
domestic product, the positive export balance gradually reversed.
Neither the president nor the government wanted to be associated with
austerity measures. The president tried to maintain the exchange rate so
that it corresponded to the interests of Ukrainian companies, and the
government placed little value on budgetary discipline. They steadily
expanded state transfer payments until 2009. This development culminated
in the economic crisis that hit Ukraine in 2008.
After the
Russian Federation annexed Crimea in 2014, relations between Kyiv and
Crimea deteriorated, with Kyiv eventually cutting off water and
electricity supplies to Crimea. On the other hand, the Moscow Kremlin
invested heavily in the peninsula's infrastructure, including water,
electricity and gas supplies, as well as building roads, the Crimean
Bridge and increasing air traffic capacity in Simferopol. Crimea was
increasingly integrated into Russian infrastructure networks, such as
the Russian power grid. Crimea's gross domestic product per capita was
similar to the level of the economically weakest Russian regions, such
as Chechnya. However, the Moscow Kremlin planned to make Crimea an
economically dynamic region, focusing on tourism, agriculture and
industry. However, the expenditure placed a huge burden on the Russian
Federation's state budget.
The part of Ukraine controlled by Kiev
reduced foreign trade with the Russian Federation from 2014 onwards. The
self-proclaimed People's Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk moved closer
to the Russian Federation in economic terms. After Ukrainian right-wing
radicals blocked trade with the People's Republics and the People's
Republics subsequently acquired further companies on their territory,
Kiev imposed an official trade blockade on the People's Republics in
2017. The latter received electricity and gas supplies from the Russian
Federation to support them. In addition, the People's Republics exported
more coal to the Russian Federation, which gave them access to the
Ukrainian market and the European Union despite the trade embargo. The
Russian ruble also became more important in the People's Republics.
While the state owned all energy companies in 1991, a significant
portion was privately owned in 2020. In the case of private companies,
concentration was very high, with transnational oligarchs and local
business elites owning the majority. Corruption and rent-seeking
developed in all energy sectors.
From the early 1990s to 2020,
Ukraine's primary energy consumption fell. This was initially due to
Ukraine falling into an economic crisis after the collapse of the Soviet
Union, and in 2014 Ukraine lost Crimea as well as control of Donbas and
its industrial production. Until 2021, energy consumption was based
mainly on coal, gas and oil, as well as nuclear power, although the
share of renewable energy sources increased. In 2016, the Ukrainian
economy was still relatively energy-intensive and was well above the
OECD average. While energy intensity was very high, as energy
infrastructure was aging and energy-intensive industries accounted for a
large share of industrial production, it was also overestimated, as
public statistics on gross domestic product did not take into account
Ukraine's large shadow economy.
The share of Ukrainian nuclear
energy in electricity generation increased since the late 1980s and
stood at around 55% in 2021. In 2018, the state-owned company Energoatom
operated four nuclear power plants, which generated about half of the
country's electricity. Ukrainian power plants depended on the Russian
Federation to supply them with nuclear fuel and provide storage
facilities for spent nuclear fuel. Since 2014, Ukrainian power plants
also used other nuclear fuels, such as those from Westinghouse, and more
of their own storage capacity was created. In addition, Energoatom and
Westinghouse agreed to jointly create additional units for Ukrainian
power plants.
In 2018, renewable energy was important primarily
in electricity generation. However, they did not play a significant role
in the heat supply of buildings and industry, nor in the transport
sector. Their share of electricity generation was around 10%, with the
majority coming from the large hydroelectric power plants of the
state-owned company Ukrhydroenergo. The DniproHES dam is one of the
largest dams in Europe. It also serves as a storage power plant and has
an electrical output of 1,570 megawatts. In 2020/21, conditions for
producers of green energy were difficult: although the Ukrainian state
took green electricity from the producers as a guaranteed buyer, it had
accumulated debts to them of around one billion euros by 2021.
The European Union viewed Ukraine as a strategic partner in achieving
the goals of the Green Deal set in 2019: it considered Ukraine a
potential source of green electricity and hydrogen that was also close
by and had transport infrastructure. In July 2020, the Ukrainian
government declared its willingness to make a significant contribution
to the Green Deal. However, people in Ukraine were relatively
uninterested in climate policy, and there was a lack of strong state
institutions and the necessary capital.
The European Union and
Ukraine have been working to integrate Ukraine into European energy
markets and systems since 2005. In 2017, the European association
ENTSO-E, the Ukrainian grid operator Ukrenerho and, on the Moldovan
side, Moldelectrica defined technical steps to synchronize the Ukrainian
electricity grid with the continental European grid. The Ukrainian
government aimed to detach the Ukrainian grid from the Russian grid in
2021/22 and connect it to the continental European grid in 2023. This
project was geopolitically explosive, as the Russian Federation supplied
electricity to the so-called People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk,
Crimea and, primarily via Transnistria, Moldova. In March 2022, shortly
after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the power grids of
Ukraine and Moldova were synchronized with those of Western Europe after
Russia attacked numerous parts of the power grid in Ukraine.
Energy Minister Halushchenko said on April 10, 2024 that up to 80
percent of thermal power plants were attacked, more than half of
hydroelectric power plants and a large number of substations. Russia is
conducting the largest attack on Ukraine's energy sector since the start
of the war. Two large thermal power plants were destroyed: the Tripyllia
power plant of the state-owned company Zentrenerho and the thermal power
plant near Zmiiv (Kharkiv region). In March 2024, missile hits put the
large Dnipro hydroelectric power plant (DniproHES) in Zaporizhia out of
action. The attacks are primarily targeting the thermal and
hydroelectric power plants because they are important for grid
stability.
Ukraine has around 3% of the world's proven coal reserves. Hard coal
is found mainly in the Donbas, and the higher-quality anthracite coal is
only mined in the territory of the so-called People's Republics of
Lugansk and Donetsk. The share of coal in primary energy consumption
fluctuated between around 26% and around 36% between 1991 and 2021. Coal
is important for electricity and heat generation and for many
industries, such as metallurgical production. Until 2014, the Ukrainian
economy was able to supply itself with power plant coal, but it became a
net importer. In 2017, Ukraine began blocking trade with the People's
Republics. This was difficult for both sides: while the People's
Republics had earned important income from coal exports, many Ukrainian
power plants for electricity and heat generation as well as industries
were relatively dependent on anthracite coal. However, the People's
Republics exported coal to the Russian Federation, where it was
relabeled and then sold as Russian coal, for example via Belarus to
Ukraine or EU countries.
Coal production has been declining over
the long term since the end of the 1980s to 2020. Between 1991 and 2013,
88% of all coal miners lost their jobs. In the course of the conflict
between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, many mines in the east have
been damaged or flooded since 2014. Coal production in the Donbas has
declined significantly. Under Prime Minister Shmyhal, the Ministry of
Energy developed concepts for structural change. These envisaged using
coal for decades to come to supply the country with energy. The European
Union and the Federal Republic of Germany offered their help in phasing
out coal. In 2018, some coal towns in the Donetsk region,
non-governmental organizations and a regional chamber of commerce
founded a regional platform that tried to develop concepts for
structural change on its own initiative.
Ukraine has rich oil and
gas reserves (gas reserves estimated at 1.09 trillion cubic meters in
2019), which in Europe are only surpassed by those of Norway (1.53
trillion cubic meters of gas). In the long term, oil and gas consumption
fell sharply from the early 1990s to 2021. Under Yanukovych, the
government planned to reduce Russian gas imports and to be able to do
without them completely from 2020. Instead, Ukrainian resources were to
be used. For example, the Ukrainian government wanted to develop and
produce shale gas in western and eastern Ukraine together with Chevron
and Royal Through Shell, while Exxon was to become active in the Black
Sea. However, all three companies stopped their projects. Under Prime
Minister Shmyhal, the Ukrainian government also pursued the goal of
becoming self-sufficient in gas supplies and concluded production
sharing agreements. From 2011 to 2015, Ukraine reduced its direct
imports of natural gas from the Russian Federation, while in 2013 it
began to increasingly buy gas from the European Union. In order to meet
its own needs, Ukraine has stopped importing natural gas directly from
the Russian Federation since 2016, but has been buying gas mostly from
Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. However, Crimea and the Luhansk and
Donetsk People's Republics were supplied by Gazprom. By being a transit
country, Ukraine generates significant revenues by transporting gas from
the Russian Federation to Europe, and without the transit, the pipeline
system would have to be adjusted for technical reasons. Ukraine imported
less crude oil overall from 2012 to 2017, and from the Russian
Federation in particular. However, the Ukrainian oil processing industry
declined, so Ukraine imported most of the oil products consumed in the
country. Initially, these came from the Russian Federation and after
2014 from Belarus, where oil products were made from Russian oil.
69.41% of Ukraine's land area is used for agriculture, the vast
majority of which (55.96%) is arable land, the rest as meadows and
pastures (as of 2020). With 56% of its land area, Ukraine has the
highest proportion of top-quality arable land in the world. It is
covered with a thick layer of very fertile black soil (chernozem).
Ukraine produces around 60 million tons of grain annually, mainly
corn, wheat and barley, of which over 50% is exported. In 2012, it was
the seventh largest grain producer in the world. In 2019, a new record
grain harvest was achieved, with around 75 million tons.
Agriculture has been suffering from severe soil erosion for several
decades. Due to the associated desertification of the country, Ukraine
has already lost around an eighth of its agricultural land. In the north
of the country there was once an extensive forest steppe with very
fertile loess soil. Except for a small remaining area, these forests
were cut down and converted into arable land. The birch forests around
Kiev and the forests in Volhynia are well known. On the northern border
with Belarus, agriculture has been banned within a radius of 30
kilometers around the city of Pripyat since the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster due to the ongoing radioactive contamination.
In the
south of Ukraine on the coast and in Crimea, wine and fruit growing is
practiced. In the rest of the country, wheat, potatoes and sugar beet
are mainly grown. At the time of independence from the Soviet Union, 55%
of Ukraine's territory was used for arable farming and a total of 70% of
the area was used for agriculture. In 1991, the agro-industrial complex
generated around 40% of the national income. In 2007, a total of 42.894
million hectares of land were used for agriculture in Ukraine.
Almost a fifth of the population lives from agriculture (especially in
the western part of the country), which generates 12% of the gross
domestic product. With 32 million hectares, Ukraine has twice as much
arable land as Germany, but with 35 million tons it only produces 70% of
Germany's grain. 40% of the agricultural land is cultivated by small but
stable subsistence farms under one hectare, 50% by collective farm
successors on a lease basis (with an average of 1,200 hectares), the
remaining 10% by small farms with an average of five hectares and by
43,000 medium-sized farmers (80 to 500 hectares).
As a result of
the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as of June 2022, according to the
Ministry of Agriculture, in addition to 25% of the agricultural land,
Ukraine lost around 25 million of the 85 million tons of grain storage
capacity because silos were destroyed or located in Russian-occupied
areas.
When Ukraine was part of the USSR, the state owned the agricultural
land. In the 1990s, many people who worked in agricultural production
cooperatives received two to three hectares of land each from the
cooperatives. This gave about 6.9 million people living in rural areas a
total of about 27 million hectares of land. Some city dwellers also
received small plots of land, which many of them used to practice
subsistence farming. This helped them survive the economic crisis of the
1990s. In 2001, the government imposed a moratorium banning the purchase
and sale of agricultural land. The moratorium was only intended to be
provisional until the Ukrainian government drafted a new law regulating
the agricultural land market. However, subsequent governments repeatedly
postponed such a law, citing the fact that many people opposed it.
President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to lift the moratorium and
implement land market reform. The owners should be given fuller rights
and investment in agriculture should increase. However, international
organizations also pushed for this. After the Kyiv think tank
Easybusiness, which was close to the Atlas Network, had led a campaign
lasting several years, the European Court of Human Rights demanded that
the Ukrainian state implement land reform in 2018. The International
Monetary Fund also made the reform a condition for further loans.
Finally, against the backdrop of the corona pandemic, Zelenskyj declared
that Ukraine was dependent on international donors. On the other hand,
many people were skeptical about or opposed land reform. They feared
that liberalization could lead to a concentration of land ownership and
benefit large companies, oligarchs or even foreign corporations in
particular. There were protests in front of and in parliament. In April
2020, Zelenskyj signed the law on land reform. The new law No. 552-IX
allows Ukrainian citizens to purchase up to 100 hectares of land from
2021. It also allows Ukrainian companies to purchase up to 10,000
hectares of land from 2024, in addition to Ukrainian citizens. The law
was in some ways a compromise: while the original draft from 2019 had
provided that foreign individuals and companies could also buy Ukrainian
agricultural land, the decision on this was ultimately postponed to a
referendum.
Large agricultural companies and international
institutions were very interested in the Ukrainian agricultural sector.
They claimed that increasing agricultural production would enable the
state to develop better and help feed the world's population through
exports. Against this background, Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian
agricultural companies tried to control more agricultural land (land
grabbing). Although the 2001 moratorium prohibited the sale of Ukrainian
agricultural land, landowners often leased their land because it was not
legally clear where the exact borders of their land lay and many of them
did not have enough money or means of production.
Agricultural
holdings increasingly leased land and incorporated agricultural
companies, integrating more and more horizontally and vertically in
order to control the entire value chain as much as possible. During the
large wave of takeovers from 2009 to 2012, agricultural holdings
preferred growing medium-sized farms with a plant-animal production
structure as well as capital-weak farms and paid attention to poor
financial performance. In 2012, the majority of agricultural holdings
were owned by Ukrainians, including oligarchs such as Rinat Akhmetov and
Oleg Bakhmatjuk. The latter owned the largest holding at the time,
Ukrlandfarming, which controlled around 500,000 hectares. The largest
non-Ukrainian agricultural holdings were US NCH Capital (400,000
hectares) and Russian Ukrainian Agrarian Investments (260,000 hectares).
Agricultural holdings benefited from the relatively low rents. In
contrast to small and medium-sized farmers, agricultural holdings were
able to raise capital more easily by obtaining capital through stock
exchanges or international financial institutions such as the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The People's Republic of China
also made its interest clear. In 2012, China Exim Bank granted a loan of
3 billion US dollars and received up to six million tons of grain
annually for the following 15 years. In 2013, the Chinese state-owned
Xinjiang Production and Development Corps began negotiations with the
Ukrainian agricultural group KSG Agro for 100,000 hectares in the Black
Sea region. Crops were to be grown and pigs were to be raised for the
Chinese market. The People's Republic of China wanted to take over up to
three million hectares in return for further 50-year lease rights.
After the recession of the 1990s, the industrial sector recovered and grew in the 2000s. In 2007, the share of the industrial sector in gross domestic product was around 32%. However, this figure fell to around 22.5% in 2019, which is below both the global average of around 25.6% and the level of comparable Central European and Baltic countries of around 27.6%.
The Ukrainian republic of the USSR was an industrial center of the
Soviet Union. In the mid-1980s, the USSR was the world's largest
producer of crude steel and iron ore, with the Ukrainian republic
accounting for a large proportion of production.
In the first
half of the 1990s, metallurgical production initially collapsed as a
result of economic transformation. The metallurgical sector then
recovered. Although it sold less to its traditional customers, machine
manufacturers and the defense industry, as they had fallen into crisis
in the 1990s, it was nevertheless able to export more and more. The
sector manufactured the majority of its products for export. It exported
its goods less to the CIS region and increasingly to the countries of
Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, as well as to Asia.
Metallurgical exports, and in particular the steel industry, accounted
for a large share of Ukraine's total exports and drove a growth phase
until 2008. This also made the sector an important source of foreign
currency income for the Ukrainian state. As the sector produced more, it
became more dependent on imports of Russian raw materials.
By
2000, ferrous metallurgy was concentrated in four southeastern oblasts:
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast produced 80% of Ukraine's iron ore, which is an
important component for steel production. Coke production was
concentrated mainly in Donetsk Oblast and in the largest mining and
metallurgical complex in Kryvyi Rih, which was located in Dnipropetrovsk
Oblast. Almost all steel production was in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk,
Zaporizhia and Lugansk Oblasts. Most of the steel was produced by the
following five industrial complexes, namely Kryvorizhstal, the Ilyich
Iron and Steel Works Mariupol, the Azov-Steel Metallurgical Combine,
Zaporizhstal and the Alchevsk Metallurgical Complex in Lugansk Oblast.
Financial-industrial groups integrated many metallurgical companies
into their structures. These groups often invested too little in the
modernization of the relatively old and energy-intensive means of
production. However, the state supported the producers. They also
purchased cheap Russian gas in the 2000s and the world market developed
favorably until 2008, as was the case, for example, with rising steel
prices.
After the crisis of 2008/2009, steel production did not
reach the record levels of the pre-crisis period (43.7 million tons in
2007) until 2016 inclusive. Prices for metallurgical goods on the world
market remained low and the civil war in eastern Ukraine destroyed many
industrial facilities. During the crisis years of 2014/15, metallurgical
products lost their position as the largest export goods group to food.
After the Russian Federation started a war against Ukraine in February
2022, many of the steel industry's production assets were destroyed in
the war.
Over a third of the USSR's military-industrial complex was in the
Ukrainian republic. After Ukraine became independent, it continued to
produce military goods together with and for the Russian Federation
until 2014. The Ukrainian state-owned company Ukroboronprom was created
based on the model of the Russian company Rosoboronexport. The centers
of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex included Kharkiv (tank
industry), Mykolaiv (shipbuilding), Dnepropetrovsk (rocket industry) and
Zaporizhia (Motor Sich jet engines).
While the Ukrainian state
spent less on the military from 2007 to 2013, military spending from
2014 to 2021 was between about 2.2% and 3.8% of gross domestic product.
While in 2015 private companies filled about 23% of government orders,
this share rose to 54% in 2020 to meet the increased needs of the
Ukrainian state.
The Ukrainian arms industry accounted for about
3% of international arms exports from 2010 to 2014. In 2012, Ukraine was
the world's fourth largest arms exporter. Later, the global market share
fell and was around 0.7% from 2017 to 2021. Since the Russian Federation
incorporated Crimea, Kyiv stopped exporting weapons to the Russian
Federation, which meant that Ukraine lost a large sales market.
Therefore, Ukraine turned more to other states, such as Indonesia,
Pakistan, Poland, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. From 2017 to
2021, the People's Republic of China was the main buyer of Ukrainian
weapons. Ukraine was the third largest supplier to the People's Republic
during this period. It supplied critical components for which China was
not yet independent, such as aircraft carriers. Ukraine had become
important as a supplier for China alongside the Russian Federation, as
the USA and the European Union had imposed an arms trade embargo on
China in 1989.
As early as 2000, the services sector had the largest share of all sectors in gross domestic product. This figure rose continuously from around 40% in 2000 to over 50% in 2019.
The National Bank of Ukraine has been acting as the central bank
since the 1990s and is supposed to supervise commercial banks.
However, the National Bank did not initially supervise commercial banks
very strictly. While in the Ukrainian Republic of the USSR the state
owned and controlled all banks, numerous private banks emerged in
independent Ukraine from the early 1990s. In 1991 there were 73 banks
and by 1995 there were already around 200. Many of them belonged to
oligarchs and were integrated into oligarchic business complexes.
Oligarchs often used them to give loans to their own or friendly
companies (related party lending). Although the state restricted such
activities by law, banks were able to circumvent these regulations.
Furthermore, politicians in the early 1990s strongly influenced the
monetary policy of the National Bank, so that it gave many loans to the
state and companies. This led to hyperinflation in 1993/94. It was one
reason why many people in Ukraine distrusted banks and the local
currency: since the 1990s, a large proportion of deposits and loans have
been denominated in hard foreign currencies, primarily in US dollars.
In connection with the Russian crisis of 1998/99, the hryvnia
depreciated. The National Bank then set a fixed exchange rate for the
hryvnia against the US dollar. In this way, the National Bank wanted to
react to inflation and keep the Ukrainian currency undervalued in order
to make companies in Ukraine more competitive on international markets.
While the Ukrainian steel industry was able to export a lot in the
2000s, the National Bank also allowed the local currency to appreciate
slightly against the US dollar in view of the upward pressure.
As
the Ukrainian economy grew more rapidly in the 2000s after its collapse
in the 1990s, banks expanded lending (about 32% of GDP in 2005, about
80% of GDP in 2009). In the case of Ukrainian banks, the ratio of loans
to deposits reached 219%. The fact that the National Bank maintained a
fixed exchange rate with the US dollar encouraged many banks to borrow
capital abroad to lend in Ukraine, and many households that did not have
regular foreign currency income to take out loans denominated in hard
foreign currencies. In the 2000s, many foreign banks also came to
Ukraine. They often borrowed from their respective parent bank and lent
it in Ukraine, where interest rates were higher.
In the wake of
the global economic crisis, which also reached Ukraine in 2008, the
profitability of the banking sector as a whole was negative in 2009 and
2010. The banking sector recovered by 2012 and expanded its credit
volume from the beginning of 2013 to the beginning of 2014. However, the
sector's profitability remained modest overall and fell again with the
crisis of 2014.
At the beginning of 2014, the National Bank
allowed the national currency to depreciate sharply. While the hryvnia
had lost around 50 to 60% of its value in the crises of 1998 and 2008,
it lost around 30% in the period from the beginning of 2013 to the
beginning of 2014. The reasons for this were that the Ukrainian economy
had recorded a current account deficit for years and the National Bank
had hardly any foreign currency reserves left. The latter was also put
under pressure by some Ukrainian banks with which it had conducted
non-transparent transactions. The move by the National Bank was
advantageous in that the Ukrainian state needed financial help from the
International Monetary Fund and the Fund had demanded a flexible
exchange rate in previous years. It incorporated this demand into its
programs.
In the wake of the crisis that began in 2008, many
foreign banks withdrew from Ukraine. The 20 largest foreign-owned banks
made losses totaling around USD 960 million between 2010 and the end of
2012. The share of foreign banks (excluding Russian banks) in the total
assets of the banking sector was 40% in 2009 and halved in the following
four years. Russian banks, on the other hand, were more successful in
maintaining their market share. Ukrainian private banks, mostly owned by
tycoons or incorporated into oligarchic business complexes, often bought
up market shares of other foreign banks that withdrew. Since the Russian
Federation incorporated Crimea into its territory in 2014, many banks
withdrew from Crimea on the orders of the National Bank. Russian banks
moved in there and the ruble became the official means of payment. In
the case of Donbass, where a civil war broke out in 2014, the National
Bank ordered commercial banks to cease operations.
In the part of
Ukraine controlled by Kyiv, the National Bank of Ukraine and the
International Monetary Fund attempted to fundamentally reform the
banking sector. The aim was to strengthen the role of the central bank
and enforce stricter rules. As a result, the number of operating banks
in Ukraine was almost halved to 93 between 2014 and 2017. Many oligarch
banks disappeared. PrivatBank, the largest bank in Ukraine, was
nationalized in 2016. It had been one of the largest oligarch
conglomerates in the entire CIS region. It had used most of its funds to
lend to companies associated with it (related party lending), which had
left it with many non-performing loans. The state assessed it as a
systemically important bank and stabilized it with several billion US
dollars from taxpayers' money. Representatives of the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development and the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance, as well as
independent economists, took the place of the oligarchs on the
supervisory board.
Concentration increased. At the end of 2013,
the 20 largest banks held around 73% of all assets in the sector, but at
the beginning of 2017, this figure was around 90%. In 2017, the state
owned seven banks, which together had around 51% of all assets in the
sector, while in 2013 it was around 18%. The state owned the four
largest banks, namely PrivatBank, Oschadbank, Ukreximbank and
Ukrgasbank. Under President Volodymyr Zelensky, there were plans to
significantly reduce the state share in the banking sector again. The
reprivatization of PrivatBank in particular was a political issue. At
the beginning of 2020, Zelensky decided not to return PrivatBank to its
former owner, Ihor Kolomoisky. This decision was in line with the
International Monetary Fund, which had made such a decision a condition
for further loans to the Ukrainian state.
Although securities markets developed in Ukraine and grew more
rapidly in the 2000s, the OECD still assessed capital markets as
relatively underdeveloped in 2021. For example, in 2018, market
capitalization in Ukraine was approximately USD 4.4 billion and around
3.4% of gross domestic product, whereas in Poland it was USD 160.5
billion or around 27.3% of gross domestic product.
In the 2010s,
organized trading in securities was concentrated mainly on the
Perspektiva and Persha Fondova Torgova Systema (PFTS) platforms, where
Ukrainian government bonds were mainly traded.
In December 2013,
the Russian Federation assured the Ukrainian government that it would
buy Ukrainian government bonds worth USD 15 billion and temporarily
reduce gas prices by a third to support the Ukrainian economy. Prime
Minister Mykola Azarov preferred this option to an EU association
agreement, which was tied to unfavorable conditions from the
International Monetary Fund. He said that without the agreement with
Russia, the country would face bankruptcy and the collapse of society.
According to the BBC, Ukraine needed external financing of 17 billion US
dollars in 2014 to continue to service its debts. On the other hand, the
US investment house Franklin Templeton Investments invested 7.6 billion
US dollars in Ukrainian government bonds, making it one of Ukraine's
largest creditors in 2014.
In its report published in 2017, the international non-governmental
organization Freedom House expressed great concern about the security
situation of journalists in Ukraine. Both in the Ukrainian heartland and
in the areas in the east of the country controlled by Russian
separatists, media representatives are exposed to violence, intimidation
and harassment. In 2016, the government-critical journalist Oles Busyna
was murdered in Kyiv. In July 2017, the prominent journalist Pavel
Sheremet was killed in a car bomb attack in Kyiv. The OSCE has
repeatedly expressed concerns about press freedom in Ukraine. In 2016,
the Slavist and journalist Herwig G. Höller claimed that, in contrast to
the Russian Federation, there is media criticism in Ukraine.
Since February 2022, the start of the Russian war in Ukraine, the news
programs have been broadcasting a uniform program influenced by the
Presidential Office of Ukraine. According to Reporters Without Borders
(RSF), news channels in Ukraine have thus subjected themselves to
self-censorship. ROG sees this as a threat to media diversity in
Ukraine. Otherwise, according to ROG, there are many independent media
and good quality journalism in Ukraine even in times of war. In 2023,
the ratings for the synchronized news program fell to 30 percent.
Between 2020 and 2023, the messenger service Telegram became one of the
most used media in Ukraine; the share of users grew from 20 to 72
percent during that period.
Today (as of 2024), Ukrainians rely
primarily on Telegram to obtain information. In times of war, the
messenger service developed into perhaps the most important source of
information.
The state news agency is UKRINFORM, founded in 1918, and publishes
around 300 reports a day. General Director since 2011 Oleksandr Detsyk
(* 1979). Other influential companies are the non-governmental Russian
news agency Interfax-Ukraine and the private Ukrainian Independent
Information Agency (UNIAN), which is controlled by the oligarch Ihor
Kolomoisky. In total, around 35 news agencies are active in Ukraine, but
most are very small and take information from the leading news agencies.
Since March 2014, the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center (UCMC), located
on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in the Hotel Ukrajina, has played an important
role. It is funded by George Soros (Open Society Foundations), the US
public relations company Weber Shandwick and the Ukrainian government
and disseminates news reports and images on the crisis.
In terms of television, which was introduced in Ukraine in 1951,
there have been many private television providers in addition to state
television since 1993, including:
Nazionalna Telekompanija Ukrajiny,
(Ukrainian: Національна Телекомпанія України) is the state television
broadcaster in Ukraine. It was founded on January 20, 1965 and operates
the only state television program UA:Perschyj (UA:First).
1+1 is a
Ukrainian television station in which Time Warner has had a major stake
since July 3, 2012 via Central European Media Enterprises (CME). The
station is owned by the oligarch Ihor Kolomojskyj. 1+1 is one of the
stations with the highest market share in Ukraine and can be received by
95% of the Ukrainian population.
STB is a private broadcaster founded
in 1997, which, along with the other five TV stations ICTV, Novy Kanal,
M1, M2, QTV, is currently owned by the oligarch Viktor Pinchuk and
founder of the StarLightMedia Group.
Ukraine, originally founded in
1993 as a regional broadcaster in the Donetsk metropolitan area,
belonged to the Media Group Ukraine, which was controlled by the
oligarch Rinat Akhmetov through the holding company System Capital
Management (SCM) and achieved very high ratings through its football TV
channels.
Inter is another popular TV channel with a very high reach
in Ukraine, which was 100% acquired in February 2013 by the Inter Media
Group Limited, which is controlled by the oligarch Dmytro Firtash.
24
Kanal is Ukraine's first 24-hour news channel.
5 Kanal is another
news channel founded in 2003 and controlled by the founder and
ex-president Petro Poroshenko until it was sold.
Espreso TV was
founded in October 2013 by Mykola Knyazhytsky and others and was
considered the mouthpiece of the beginning Euromaidan protests, after
which it was originally named.
Hromadske.tv (Citizens TV) is an
internet channel that went online in November 2013 with the help of
American and British foundation funds.
In February 2021,
President Zelensky issued a decree banning three opposition news
channels for endangering national security and spreading Russian
propaganda, namely ZIK, NewsOne and 112 Ukraine. The head of the
Ukrainian Journalists' Association, Nikolai Tomilenko, criticized it as
an attack on freedom of expression. In December 2021, Zelensky issued a
decree banning two more pro-Russian news channels that were the
successors to the previously blocked channels, namely UkrLive and
Pershij Nesaleshnij.
Ukrajinske Radio (Українське Радіо; German: Ukrainian Radio; English: Ukrainian Radio) is the state radio station of Ukraine with the associated foreign service Radio Ukraine International. There are also other private radio stations.
The IT sector accounted for 4% of the gross domestic product in 2021.
Ukraine became a popular location for outsourcing IT services by 2022.
The IT sector exports services mainly to the United States and European
Union countries. The share of information and communication technology
service exports in total service exports was 3.9% in 2010 and increased
to 38.1% by 2021. The relevant exports reached a value of $7.11 billion
in 2021, behind Poland ($11.58 billion) and Romania ($8.25 billion) and
ahead of the Czech Republic ($6.18 billion).
A large number of
Ukrainian software development companies are located mainly in Kyiv,
Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipro, Donetsk and Simferopol (Crimea). The IT industry
employed around 250,000 engineers and programmers in December 2021.
In the area of offshore or nearshore programming, EPAM Systems,
SoftServe, GlobalLogic and Ciklum are particularly noteworthy. EPAM
employed 12,389 specialists at the end of 2021, making Ukraine the most
important development location for the company. SoftServe, the largest
domestic IT outsourcing company, employed 9,462 specialists in Ukraine
at the end of 2021. In the case of GlobalLogic and Ciklum, the number is
over 7,370 and over 3,000 respectively.
The largest software
producers and IT service companies include the Swiss company Luxoft with
3,900 specialists in Ukraine. Other companies include the computer game
manufacturer GSC Game World and MacPaw with its 300 employees.
Despite its growth, the Ukrainian IT sector faced some problems in the
2010s. Although the sector exported many services, domestic demand for
them was relatively low. In addition, the focus on outsourcing meant
that a large part of the added value remained outside Ukraine. Foreign
direct investment also remained low. In addition, many skilled workers
went abroad and Ukrainian IT companies were dependent on importing
technology. Finally, there was also a lack of state support.
As
president, Viktor Yanukovych suspended VAT for IT companies for ten
years from 2013 and reduced the corresponding corporate tax. Under Prime
Minister Oleksij Honcharuk, the government decided to set up an IT fund
to train more specialists and promote scientists in the field. The
Ministry of Finance also offered a fund for start-up companies.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyj and Honcharuk also worked to digitize more
and more public services using the Diia mobile application. The online
platform Diia Digital Education was intended to help more and more
people in Ukraine acquire digital skills in order to become more
competitive. With the Diia City project, Zelenskyy worked to create new
rules and taxation for IT companies. This was intended to further grow
the IT sector.
The proportion of the population using the
Internet was five percent in 2006. It rose from 23 percent in 2010 to 49
percent in 2015 and 75 percent in 2020. This was accompanied by a trend
of more and more people in Ukraine using online platforms that offered
work, with Ukraine standing out in international comparison between 2013
and 2017. For example, from 2012 to 2017, around 180,000 Ukrainian
people were registered on the Upwork.com platform alone and earned a
total of around 262 million US dollars. The IT sector is one of the
largest areas for digital freelancing.
In 2017, the tourism industry accounted for around 5.7% of the gross
domestic product. In this respect, the Ukrainian economy was below the
European Union average of around 10.2%. In 2018, around 14.2 million
tourists visited Ukraine.
An important tourist destination in
Ukraine is the capital Kyiv, which offers many historical sights as well
as a modern, vibrant cultural life. The Black Sea coast has been used as
a recreational area since the times of the Tsar, especially the Crimean
peninsula. In addition to the cultural legacies of numerous peoples
(Greeks, Crimean Tatars, Genoese), Crimea offers a subtropical climate
and a large number of palaces and sanatoriums. Until 2014, Crimea was
the venue for the annual KaZantip electronic dance music festival.
The city center of Lviv is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the
neighboring Ukrainian Carpathians there are traditional thermal spas
such as Truskavets or ski resorts such as Slavsko.
Trips to the
Chernobyl exclusion zone north of Kiev have become established as a type
of extreme tourism.
AGRO – Ukraine’s leading trade fair for agriculture in Kiev
Beer &
Soft Drinks Industry – International trade fair for beer and
non-alcoholic beverages in Kiev
Metal Forum of Ukraine –
International conference fair for metallurgy and metal in Kiev
MushroomIndustry – International trade exhibition for the mushroom
industry in Kiev
Wine & Winemaking – International trade fair for
wine, winemaking and viticulture in Odessa
Since the Soviet era, Ukraine has had a north-south transport
orientation (Moscow-Kiev-Odessa, Moscow-Kharkiv-Crimea). However, since
the country's independence, attempts have been made to reorganize the
infrastructure in a west-east orientation and to intensify connections
to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania (connection to the Pan-European
Corridor III: road connection and railway line Berlin/Dresden - Wroclaw
- Krakow - Lviv - Kiev and V: Košice - Chop - Lviv and Budapest - Chop -
Lviv). Until the Russian invasion, Ukraine was primarily a transit
country between Central Europe and the Caucasus and between Southern
Europe and Russia. The main mode of transport in Ukraine is the railway,
followed by road transport and inland waterway transport on the Dnepr
(Dnipro). Since the outbreak of hostilities in eastern Ukraine, after
the annexation of Crimea by Russia (2014) and especially after the
Russian invasion in 2022, traffic within the regions concerned has been
restricted or at a standstill. Traffic between Ukraine and Russia has
been suspended.
In the Logistics Performance Index, which is
compiled by the World Bank and measures the quality of infrastructure,
Ukraine ranked 66th out of 160 countries in 2018. A large part of the
country's infrastructure has not been modernized since the Soviet era.
In Ukraine, the railways use the broad gauge of 1520 mm, which is also used in Russia and the other successor states of the former Soviet Union. The construction of high-speed lines and the expansion of existing lines to the standard gauge of 1435 mm are planned. The lines in the Kyiv, Lviv and eastern Ukraine areas are electrified, with non-electrified sections in between. Complete electrification is planned. The state railway manufacturer is the Luhansk Locomotive Factory. The national railway company Ukrsalisnytsia was founded in 1991 and is also state-owned. In 2009, the government first put forward proposals for privatization. In the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea and the fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, there were severe restrictions on rail traffic in the regions concerned. In Russia's attack on Ukraine since February 2022, the railway infrastructure has been one of the preferred targets.
The entire road network in 2012 covered around 169,694 km, of which
166,095 km are paved. There is not yet a connected motorway network, but
there are motorway-like highways and national roads in many places. The
M 06 from Hungary to Kiev was renovated in recent years and is now in
very good condition from the Hungarian border across the Carpathians to
Lviv. The network of petrol stations is very dense. In some villages the
roads are still very poorly developed, but are gradually being
renovated. Many large cities have trams and subways, such as the metro
in Kiev, and there is a very dense network of bus connections throughout
the country.
Along with Moscow, Kiev was the easternmost point of
the great medieval Via Regia to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
There are international airports in all major cities. Ukraine International Airlines, Skyline Express Airlines and Yanair are the best known airlines in Ukraine. The airports in Kyiv-Boryspil, Odessa and Dnipro are the most important international airports in Ukraine. The aircraft manufacturer Antonov, with headquarters at Kyiv-Hostomel Airport, had the world's largest transport aircraft in operation, the Antonov An-225, with a total cargo hold volume of 1220 m³ and a payload of 250 t (which enables the transport of four semi-trailers and a truck behind them and its trailer next to them, all loaded). Two aircraft of this type were built, of which only one was completed and destroyed by Russian troops in February 2022.
Almost half of Ukraine's exports and imports are handled via the
ports in Odessa. The Black Sea ports are therefore among the most
critical parts of the infrastructure.
The most important inland
waterway is the Dnieper, which is also navigable for small sea-going
vessels as far as Kyiv; there are seaports in Chornomorsk, Mykolaiv and
Kherson, the largest being the port of Odessa. Since the annexation of
Crimea by Russia, Ukraine no longer has access to the seaports in
Sevastopol and Kerch. The headquarters of the Ukrainian Navy was in
Sevastopol on the Black Sea until the occupation of Crimea, and since
then it has been in Odessa. There are ferry connections from Chornomorsk
to Poti in Georgia, to Constanța in Romania and to Derince in Turkey.
On February 24, 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on the
orders of Russian President Putin. The ports of Mariupol, Berdyansk,
Skadovsk and Kherson are (as of May 2, 2022) no longer under Ukrainian
control and are therefore officially closed.
In Ukraine, in addition to the conventional public telephone network,
which is 76% (2006) dominated by the state-owned (until 2011) provider
Ukrtelecom, GSM mobile networks have also been built. The largest mobile
networks are currently:
Kyivstar/Djuice/Mobilitsch (2G, 3G and 4G)
Vodafone Ukraine (formerly: MTS or UMC)/Jeans/Sim-Sim (2G, 3G and 4G)
Lifecell (2G, 3G and 4G)
3Mob (3G: UMTS)
PEOPLEnet (3G: CDMA2000
1× EV-DO)
Intertelecom (3G: CDMA2000 1× EV-DO)
Ukrtelecom
launched Ukraine's first UMTS mobile network in November 2007, which has
been operating as 3Mob since 2011. Ukrtelecom, which was privatized in
2011, is majority owned by the SCM holding company of the oligarch Rinat
Akhmetov. In the winter of 2014/15, three licenses for the UMTS mobile
communications standard were sold. These networks should not be
operational until summer 2015 at the earliest.
The transit pipelines are among the most critical parts of the infrastructure. On the one hand, Ukraine is dependent on natural gas imports, which it receives primarily from Russia, and on the other hand, it is an important transit country for natural gas from Russia. Eastern European countries, but also the Federal Republic of Germany, are supplied with Russian gas via the pipelines. In order to reduce Ukraine's heavy dependence on Russian gas, a technical conversion of the pipelines was initiated in 2014, which is intended to enable the reverse flow of gas from Western and Central Europe towards Ukraine.
The canals in Ukraine are mainly used for irrigation and not as shipping channels. The most important canal is the North Crimean Canal, an irrigation canal over 400 km long that from the 1970s until 2014 channeled the dammed water of the Dnieper to the water-scarce regions in southern Ukraine and Crimea, thus covering 85% of the total water consumption of the local population.
The Dnieper, the third longest river in Europe, flows through the
middle of Ukraine and divides the country into right-bank and left-bank
Ukraine. In order to connect rail and road traffic on both banks,
numerous bridges have been built, especially in the cities on the river.
In addition, the dams that dam up the Dnieper serve as river crossings
for road traffic.
The Crimean peninsula was connected to Russian
territory by the Crimean Bridge across the Kerch Strait.
In 2019,
the State Emergency Service organized 53,286 professional and 142,598
volunteer firefighters across the country, who work in 2,210 fire
stations and firehouses, where 3,402 fire engines and 290 turntable
ladders or telescopic masts are available. In the same year, Ukrainian
fire departments were called out to 269,160 operations, and 96,812 fires
had to be extinguished. In this case, 1,909 dead were recovered by the
fire services and 1,523 injured were rescued.