Ukraine

Україна Ukrayina Ukraine
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Ще не вмерла України ні слава, ні воля (Ukrainian) Shche ne vmerla Ukrayiny ni slava, ni volya (transliteration) Ukraine's glory has not yet perished, nor her freedom
Location of  Ukraine (orange) on the European continent (white)
Capital	Kiev (Kyiv) 50°27′N 30°30′E
Largest city	capital
Official languages	Ukrainian
Government	Semi-presidential system
- President	Viktor Yushchenko
- Prime Minister	Viktor Yanukovych
Independence	from the Soviet Union
- Declared	August 24 1991
- Referendum	December 1 1991
- Finalized	December 25 1991
Area
- Total	603,700 km² (44th) 233,090 sq mi
- Water (%)	7%
Population
- 2007 estimate	46,299,874
- 2001 census	48,457,102
- Density	77/km² 199/sq mi
GDP (PPP)	2006 estimate
- Total	$355.8 billion
- Per capita	$8,000
GDP (nominal)	2006 estimate
- Total	$81.53 billion
- Per capita	$1,760
HDI  (2004)	0.774 (medium)
Currency	Hryvnia (UAH)
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
- Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)
Internet TLD	.ua
Calling code	+380

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe, formerly a part of the Soviet Union, bordering Russia, Romania and the Black Sea.

From at least the ninth century, the territory of present-day Ukraine was a centre of medieval East Slavic civilization forming the state of Kievan Rus. After a brief period of independence (1917–1921) following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Ukraine became one of the founding Republics of the Soviet Unions in 1922. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic's territory was enlarged westward after the Second World War, and again in 1954 with the Crimea transfer. It became independent again after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.

The Ukraine has had a population decline from 51 million in 1989 that was probably caused by economic and environmental crises, including the Chernobyl disaster.

Geography

Map of Ukraine.

Theories on the origin of the name differ. The traditional theory is that the Ukrainian word Ukrayina stems from the Old Slavic root kraj-, meaning "edge" or "borderland". In Ukrainian, krayina means "country". In English, the country is sometimes referred to with the definite article, as the Ukraine, similar to the Netherlands, or the Congo. However, usage without the article is now more frequent, and has become established in diplomacy and journalism since the country's independence.

It has a strategic position in Eastern Europe, bordering the Black Sea and Sea of Azov in the south, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary in the west, Belarus in the north, Moldova and Romania in the south-west and Russia in the east.

With an area of 233,074 square miles (603,700 square kilometres), Ukraine is the world's 44th-largest country (after the Central African Republic is the second largest country in Europe (after the European part of Russia), and slightly smaller than Texas.

The 1887 marker near Rakhiv claiming the location being the geographical centre of Europe.

There is ongoing debate on where the geographical centre of Europe is. Some claim the center is near the small town of Rakhiv, in western Ukraine.

The Ukrainian landscape consists of the Polissya and Volyn northern forests, the central forest steppes, the Donetsk eastern uplands, which are up to 1600 feet (500 meters) above sea level, and the coastal lowlands and steppes along the Black and Azov seas. The Carpathian Mountains in the west reach 6760 feet (2061 meters) at Mount Hoverla. Roman-Kosh in the Crimean peninsula reaches 5061 feet (1543 meters.) Alpine meadows are another interesting feature.

Ukraine has a mostly temperate continental climate, though a more Mediterranean climate is found on the southern Crimean coast. The average temperature in January (winter) is 26°F (-3°C) in the southwest and 18°F (-8°C) in the northeast. The average in July (summer) is 73°F (23°C) in the southeast and 64°F (18°C) in the northwest.

Precipitation is highest in the west and north and lesser in the east and southeast. Winters vary from cool along the Black Sea to cold farther inland. Summers are warm across the greater part of the country, but generally hot in the south.

File:Power plant Dnepr.jpg

The Dnieper Hydroelectric Station, the largest hydroelectric power station in Ukraine and one of the largest in Europe, located near Zaporizhia.

The main rivers flow northwest to southeast through to empty into the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. The Dnieper River is the longest, with hydroelectric dams, reservoirs, and numerous tributaries, dominates central Ukraine. The Southern Buh with its tributary, the Inhul, flows into the Black Sea. To the west and southwest is the Dniester. The middle course of the Donets]], a tributary of the Don, flows through the south- east. To the southwest the delta of the Danube forms the border with Romania.

Three zones of vegetation appear from north to south: the Polissya (woodland and marsh), the forest-steppe, and the Steppe. The Polissya zone has oak, elm, birch, hornbeam, ash, maple, pine, linden, alder, poplar, willow, and beech. In mountainous areas, the lower slopes are covered with mixed forests, the intermediate slopes have pine forests, with Alpine meadows at higher altitudes.

Ukraine’s fauna is diverse. Predators include the wolf, fox, wildcat, and marten, and hoofed animals include the roe deer, wild pig, elk and mouflon (a wild sheep). Rodents includes gophers, hamsters, jerboas, and field mice. Birds include black and hazel grouse, owl, gull, and partridge, as well as wild goose, duck, and stork. Fish include pike, carp, bream, perch, sturgeon, and sterlet.

Natural resources comprise iron ore, coal, manganese, natural gas, oil, salt, sulfur, graphite, titanium, magnesium, kaolin, nickel, mercury, timber, and arable land.

File:Kiev Mikhail Arhangel modern square.jpg

A monument to archangel Michael, the patron of Kiev, with Independence Square in the background.

Environmental issues include inadequate supplies of potable water, air and water pollution, deforestation, and radiation contamination in the northeast from the 1986 accident at Chernobyl nuclear power plant

The historic city of Kiev is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper river. In 2005 Kiev had 2,660,401 inhabitants, and this figure continues to grow. Kiev is an important industrial, scientific, educational and cultural center of Eastern Europe. It is home to many high-tech industries, higher education institutions and world-famous historical landmarks. The city has an extensive infrastructure and highly developed system of public transport, including the Kiev Metro.

History

File:Dyeus.png

Kernosovka stela.

The first identifiable groups to populate what is now Ukraine were the Chalcolithic people of the Trypillian culture in the western part, and the Sredny Stog culture further east, succeeded by the early Bronze Age Yamna culture of the steppes, which left hundreds of crude stone stela, and by the Catacomb culture in the third millennium B.C.E.

During the Iron Age, these were followed by the Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, among other pastoral nomads, along with ancient Greek colonies founded from the sixth century B.C.E. on the north-eastern shore of the Black Sea, the colonies of Tyras, Olbia, Hermonassa, perpetuated by Roman and Byzantine cities until the sixth century C.E.

In the third century C.E., the Goths arrived in the lands of Ukraine, which they called Oium, corresponding to the archaeological Chernyakhov culture. The Ostrogoths stayed in the area but came under the sway of the Huns from the 370s. North of the Ostrogothic kingdom was the Kiev culture, flourishing from the second to fifth centuries, when the Huns overran it. After they helped defeat the Huns at the battle of Nedao in 454, the Ostrogoths were allowed to settle in Pannonia.

With the power vacuum created with the end of Hunnic and Gothic rule, Slavic tribes, possibly emerging from the remnants of the Kiev culture, began to expand over much of what is now Ukraine during the fifth century, and beyond to the Balkans from the sixth century.

In the seventh century, the territory of modern Ukraine was the core of the state of the Bulgars (often referred to as Old Great Bulgaria) who had their capital in the city of Phanagoria.

The majority of the Bulgar tribes migrated in several directions at the end of the seventh century and the remains of their state was swept by the Khazars, a semi-nomadic people from Central Asia. The Khazars founded the independent Khazar kingdom in the south-eastern part of today's Europe, near the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus. In addition to western Kazakhstan, the Khazar kingdom also included territory in what is now eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, southern Russia, and Crimea.

Golden Age of Kiev

Map of the Kievan Rus', eleventh century. During the Golden Age of Kiev the lands of Kievan Rus covered much of present day Ukraine, as well as Western Russia and Belarus.

Rus is mentioned for the first time by European chroniclers in 839 C.E. Kievan Rus' was comprised from several principalities, ruled by the interrelated Rurikid princes. The Kievan state experienced a cultural and commercial flourishing from the ninth to the eleventh centuries under the rulers Volodymyr I (980-1015), his son Yaroslav I the Wise (1019-1054), and Volodymyr Monomakh (1113-1125). Volodymyr I Christianized Rus in 988 C.E., while the other two gave it a legal code. Christianity brought the alphabet, developed by the Macedonian saints Cyril and Methodius.

This state laid the foundation for the national identity of Ukrainians, as well as other East Slavic nations. Its capital was Kiev, wrestled from Khazars by Askold and Dir in about 860. The Kievan Rus' elite initially consisted of Varangians from Scandinavia who later became assimilated into the local Slavic population and gave the Rus' its first powerful dynasty, the Rurik Dynasty.

With the death of Mstislav of Kiev (1125–1132) the Kievan Rus' finally disintegrated into the separate principalities. The thirteenth century Mongol invasion dealt Rus' a final blow from which it never recovered.

Mongols, Lithuanians and Poles

In the centuries following the Mongol invasion, much of Ukraine was controlled by Lithuania (from the fourteenth century on) and since the Union of Lublin (1569) by Poland as seen at this outline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as of 1619 ██ Kingdom of Poland ██ Duchy of Prussia - Polish fief ██ Grand Duchy of Lithuania ██ Duchy of Courland - Polish Crown fief ██ Livonia - Polish fief

Kievan Rus' was succeeded by the principalities of Halych and Volhynia, which were merged into the state of Halych-Volynia, which resisted the Mongols and Tatars and became a Rus bastion through the fourteenth century. A distinguished ruler was Danylo Romanovich, the only Ukrainian king crowned by the Pope Innocent IV in 1264.

After the fourteenth century, Rus fell under foreign domination. Lithuania controlled most of the Ukraine lands except for Halych and Volhynia, defeated by Poland. The Golden Horde, an outpost of Genghis Khan's empire controlled the southern steppes and the Black Sea coast. The Crimean khanate, an Ottomans vassal state, succeeded the Golden Horde from 1475.

Eventually, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania controlled north-west and central Ukraine. The Grand Duchy adopted the Rus administration and the legal system, while the state language that was Old Slavonic, including a great deal of vernacular Ukrainian and Belorussian. But from 1386, after a dynastic link with Poland, Lithuania adopted Roman Catholicism and Polish language and customs. The common people, especially the peasants, retained their allegiance to their historic Eastern Orthodox Church, which led to the increasing social tensions

By the 1569 Union of Lublin that formed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a significant part of Ukrainian territory was moved from largely Ruthenized Lithuanian rule to the Polish administration, as it was transferred to the Polish Crown. The 1596 Brest-Litovsk Union divided Ukrainians into Orthodox and Uniate Catholics. Sigismund III Vasa, who attempted to bring the Orthodox population under the Catholicism through creation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. While the upper class increasingly turned to Catholicism, the Ukrainian commoners, deprived of their native protectors among Ruthenian nobility, turned for protection to the Cossacks who remained fiercely Orthodox at all times.

From 1569 the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth suffered a series of Tatar invasions. The borderland area to the south-east was in a state of semi-permanent warfare until the eighteenth century. More than three million people, predominantly Ukrainians but also Circassians, Russians, Belarusians and Poles, were captured and enslaved during the time of the Crimean Khanate.

The Cossacks

"The Return of the Cossacks" oil on canvas, 1894, 61 x 120 cm, painted by Józef Brandt.

In the mid of the seventeenth century, a Cossack state, the Zaporozhian Sich, was established by the Dnieper cossacks and the Ruthenian peasants fleeing Polish serfdom. Zaporozhian Cossacks, who were based on an island fortress below the Dnipro River rapids, became symbols of Ukrainian national identity.

Strife between Ukrainians and their Polish overlords, over exploitation of peasants and suppression of the Orthodox church, began in the 1590s, spearheaded by the Cossacks. In 1648, Bohdan Khmelnytsky led the largest of the Cossack uprisings] against the Commonwealth and the Polish king John II Casimir. This uprising finally led to a partition of Ukraine between Poland and Russia. Khmelnytsky sought help against the Poles in a treaty with Moscow in 1654. The Muscovites used as a pretext for occupation. Left-Bank Ukraine was eventually integrated into Russia as the Cossack Hetmanate.

The hetmanate reached its pinnacle under Ivan Mazepa (1687–1709). Literature, art, architecture (in Cossack baroque style), and learning flourished. Mazepa sought a united Ukrainian state, under the tsar's sovereignty. When Tsar Peter threatened Ukrainian autonomy, Mazepa allied with Charles XII of Sweden and rose against him, to be defeated in the Battle of Poltava in 1709.

Russian domination

By the end of the eighteenth century, Western Ukrainian (Galicia]]) was taken over by Austria, while the rest of Ukraine was progressively incorporated into the Russian Empire. Empress Catherine II extended serfdom to the traditionally free Cossack regions and destroyed the Zaporozhian Sich in 1775. Russia repressed any movement towards national identity during the nineteenth century. The Ukrainian language was banned from all but domestic use.

However, many Ukrainians accepted their fate in the Russian Empire and some were to achieve a great success there. Many Russian writers, composers, painters and architects of the nineteenth century were of Ukrainian descent. Probably, the most notable was Nikolai Gogol, one of the greatest writers in the Russian literature.

World War I

During World War I Austro-Hungarian authorities subjected Ukrainians in Galicia who sympathized with Russia to repression. Over 20,000 supporters of Russia were arrested and placed in an Austrian concentration camp in Talerhof, Styria, and in a fortress at Terezín (now in the Czech Republic).

When World War I and the October Revolution in Russia shattered the Austrian and Russian empires, Ukrainians were caught in the middle. Between 1917 and 1918, several separate Ukrainian republics manifested independence, the Tsentral'na Rada, the Hetmanate, the Directorate, the Ukrainian People's Republic and the West Ukrainian People's Republic.

In this time, most of the resistance against the Austro-Germans and the Red Army was made by the army of Nestor Makhno, who led an Anarchist revolution in this period, the Makhnovism.

With the defeat in the Polish-Ukrainian War and then the failure of the Józef Piłsudski's and Symon Petlura's Kiev Offensive, by the end of the Polish-Soviet War after the Peace of Riga in March 1921, the western part of Galicia had been incorporated into Poland, and the larger, central and eastern part became part of the Soviet Union as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Despite the turbulence, this period saw a resurgence of Ukrainian-language publication, which had been controversial in Austro-Hungary, and persecuted in the Russian Empire. The Hetmanate, installed by Germany while overthrowing the government of the UNR conducted state policies directed at bolstering the Ukrainian culture and education. Among the Bolsheviks, national identity was controversial, but the so-called Kiev faction pushed for Ukrainization as well.

Early Soviet years

The Ukrainian national idea lived on during the early-Soviet years and the Ukrainian culture and language enjoyed a revival as the “Ukrainization” became a local implementation of the Soviet-wide "indigenization" policy whose gains were sharply reversed by the early-1930s policy changes.

Ukraine saw its share of Soviet industrialization starting from the late 1920s and the republic's industrial output quadrupled in the 1930s. However, the industrialization had a heavy cost for the peasantry, demographically a backbone of the Ukrainian nation. To satisfy the state's need for increased food supplies and finance industrialization, Stalin instituted a program of collectivization of agriculture as the state combined the peasants' lands and animals into collective farms and enforcing the policies by the regular troops and secret police. Those who resisted were arrested and deported and the increased production quotas were placed on the peasantry.

The collectivization had a devastating effect on agricultural productivity. As the members of the collective farms were not allowed to receive any grain until the unachievable quotas were met, the starvation became widespread. Millions starved to death in a famine, known as the Holodomor.Available data is inconclusive as the Soviet government actively denied the existence of the famine. Therefore, precise calculations and estimates vary.

The times also coincided with the Soviet assault on the national political and cultural elite often accused in "nationalist deviations" as the Ukrainization. These policies were reversed at the turn of the decade. Two waves of purges (1929–1934 and 1936–1938) resulted in the elimination of four fifths of the Ukrainian cultural elite.

World War II

File:Hungaryruthenia1939.jpg

Nazi Hungarian motorised troops enter a Carpatho-Ukrainian town, March 15, 1939.

During World War II, some elements of the Ukrainian nationalist underground fought both Nazi and Soviet forces, forming the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in 1942, while other Ukrainians initially collaborated with the Nazis, having been ignored by all other powers. In 1941 the German invaders and their Axis allies initially advanced against desperate but unsuccessful efforts of the Red Army. In the encirclement battle of Kiev, the city was acclaimed by the Soviets as a "Hero City", for the fierce resistance of the Red Army and of the local population. More than 650,000 Soviet males between the ages of 15-50 were taken captive.

Initially, the Germans were received as liberators by many Ukrainians, especially in western Ukraine which had only been occupied by the Soviets in 1939. However, German rule in the occupied territories eventually aided the Soviet cause. Nazi administrators of conquered Soviet territories made little attempt to exploit the population of Ukrainian territories' dissatisfaction with Soviet political and economic policies. Instead, the Nazis preserved the collective-farm system, systematically carried out genocidal policies against Jews, deported others (mainly Ukrainians) to work in Germany, and began a systematic depopulation of Ukraine to prepare it for German colonization[1], which included a food blockade on Kiev. Under these circumstances, most people living on the occupied territory passively or actively opposed the Nazis.

Total civilian losses during the war and German occupation in Ukraine are estimated between five and eight million, including over half a million Jews killed by the Einsatzgruppen, sometimes with the help of local collaborators. Of the estimated 8.6 million Soviet troops who fell in battle against the Nazis, about a quarter (2.7 million) were ethnic Ukrainians. Ukraine is distinguished as one of the first nations to fight the Axis powers in Carpatho-Ukraine, and one that saw some of the greatest bloodshed during the war.

Postwar development

The republic was heavily damaged by the war, and it required significant efforts to recover. The situation was worsened by a man-made famine in 1946–47, when the Soviet authorities were forcibly confiscating grain crops in accordance with a preset plan, ignoring drought conditions of 1946. Collected grain was distributed to the other regions of Soviet Union, and on the top, 2.5 million tonnes were exported abroad. In Ukraine about one million people, predominantly in rural areas, died from the famine.

In the Western Ukraine, Ukrainians continued to resist Soviet rule, and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, formed in World War II to fight both Soviets and Nazis, continued to fight the USSR into the 1950s. Using guerilla war tactics, the insurgents were assassinating Soviet party leaders, NKVD and military officers. In particular, due to the resistance, the 1946-47 famine was much less severe in West Ukraine than in other Ukrainian regions.

Following the death of Stalin in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev became the new leader of USSR. Being the First Secretary of Communist Party of Ukrainian SSR in 1938-49, Khrushchev played a role in Stalin's repressions, the liberation of Ukraine from the Nazis, organization of the man-made famine in 1946-47 and suppression of resistance in West Ukraine. But after taking the power, he found it best to propagandize the friendship between the Ukrainian and Russian nations. In 1954, the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav was widely celebrated, and in particular, the Crimea was transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR.

In the times of Khrushchev Thaw of 1960s, there were dissident movements in Ukraine by such prominent figures as Vyacheslav Chornovil, Vasyl Stus, Levko Lukyanenko. As in the other regions of USSR, the movements were quickly suppressed.

In the 1970s, the new Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev was gradually concentrating on power. In 1972, the First Secretary of Communist Party of Ukraine Petro Shelest lost his position, as he was seen as being "too independent" by the government in Moscow, and was replaced by Volodymyr Shcherbytsky.

The rule of Shcherbytsky was characterized by the expanded policies of Russification. At the same time he used his influence as the First Secretary of CPU, and a Politburo member for over 25 years, to advocate economic interests of Ukraine within the USSR.

On 26th April 1986, a nuclear reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant resulting into the worst nuclear power plant catastrophe known as Chernobyl disaster. The disaster was the product of a flawed reactor design coupled with serious mistakes made by the plant operators in the context of a system where training was minimal. Large areas of Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and beyond were contaminated in varying degrees. Around 150,000 people were evacuated from the contaminated area, and 300,000–600,000 took part in the clean-up. By the year 2000, about 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer had been diagnosed in exposed children. After the accident a 30km exclusion zone was established around the power plant. A new city, Slavutych, was built outside the exclusion zone to house and support the employees of the plant.

Independence

File:Human chain Ukraine 1990.jpg

Hundreds of thousand Ukrainians organized a human chain for Ukrainian independence in 1990

The wave of Gorbachev’s perestroika came to Ukraine only in 1988–89. It was hindered initially by Shcherbytsky and party nomenclature. Also, the economic slowdown and product shortages were initially not as severe in Ukraine as in the other regions of USSR.

In 1989, the national movement "People's Movement of Ukraine", known in short as Rukh was formed. In the elections to the parliament of republic, which were held in March of 1990, Rukh obtained overwhelming support in West Ukraine, as well as in the cities of Kiev and Kharkiv.

In January of 1990, hundreds of thousand Ukrainians organized a human chain for Ukrainian independence in memory of 1919 unification of Ukrainian People's Republic and West Ukrainian National Republic. Citizens came out to the streets and highways forming live chains by holding hands in support of unity. On July 16, 1990 the new parliament adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine. The declaration established the principles of the self-determination of Ukrainian nation, the democracy, the political and economic independence, and the priority of Ukrainian law on the Ukrainian territory over Soviet law. A month earlier, a similar declaration was adopted by the parliament of Russian SFSR. It opened a period of confrontation between the central Soviet, and new republican authorities.

In March of 1991, a referendum was organized by the central Soviet authorities, asking people to express the desire to live in "renewed" Soviet Union. The Ukrainian parliament added a second question, asking Ukrainian citizens the desire to live in the Soviet Union on the principles established in the Declaration of State Sovereignty. The citizens of Ukraine responded positively to both questions.

In August of 1991, the conservative Communist leaders of Soviet Union attempted a coup to remove Gorbachev and to restore Communist party power. After the attempt failed, on 22 August 1991 the Ukrainian parliament adopted the Act of Independence of Ukraine in which the parliament declared Ukraine as independent democratic state.

A referendum and the first presidential elections took place on December 1, 1991. That day, more than 90% of Ukrainians expressed their support for the Act of Independence, and they elected the chairman of the parliament, Leonid Kravchuk to serve as the first president of the country.

At the meeting in Brest on 8 December, followed by Alma Ata meeting on 21 December the leaders of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, formally dissolved the Soviet Union, and formed the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Modern history

File:Polandukraineuefa2012.gif

Logo of Ukrainian-Polish joint bid for hosting Euro 2012

Ukraine was initially viewed as a republic with favorable economic conditions in comparison to the other regions of the Soviet Union. However, the country experienced deeper economic slowdown than the other republics. Over the time of the recession Ukraine lost 60% of its GDP in the period of 1991-1999, and suffered five-digit inflation rates. Dissatisfied with the economic conditions, as well as crime and corruption, Ukrainians protested and went on strikes. In 1994 the President Kravchuk agreed to hold presidential elections ahead of schedule, in which he lost the presidential post to former Prime-Minister Leonid Kuchma.

Under Kuchma, who served two terms as the President, the Ukrainian economy stabilized by the end of 1990s, and ever since 2000 it enjoyed a steady economic growth averaging approximately 7% annually, which is one of the highest growth rates in Europe and the World. A new Constitution of Ukraine was adopted in 1996, which turned Ukraine into a semi-presidential republic, and established a stable political system. Kuchma was, however, criticized by opponents for concentrating too much of power in his office, corruption, transferring public property into hands of loyal oligarchs, discouraging free speech, and election fraud.

The first National Space Agency of Ukraine astronaut to enter space under the Ukrainian flag was Leonid Kadenyuk on 13 May 1997. Ukraine became an active participant in scientific space exploration and remote sensing missions. In a period from 1992 to 2007 Ukraine has launched 6 self made satellites, 97 launch vehicles, and continues to further design future spacecrafts.

In 2004, Victor Yanukovich, then Prime Minister, was declared the winner of the presidential elections, which had been rigged, as many observers agreed. The results caused a public outcry in support of the opposition candidate, Victor Yuschenko, who challenged the results and led the peaceful Orange Revolution. The revolution brought Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko to power, while casting Viktor Yanukovych in opposition. The same year, Ukrainian pop-folk singer Ruslana won Eurovision Song Contest 2004 which allowed Ukraine to host Eurovision Song Contest 2005 in Kyiv.

In 2006 Verkhovna Rada elections took place in March, and three months later the official government was formed by the "Anti-Crisis Coalition" among the Party of Regions, Communist Party, and Socialist Party of Ukraine. The latter party switched from the "Orange Coalition" with Our Ukraine, and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. The new coalition nominated Viktor Yanukovych for the post of Prime Minister. Yanukovich once again became the Prime Minister, while the leader of Socialist Party, Oleksander Moroz, managed to secure the Chairman of parliament position.

On April 18, 2007 in Cardiff, Wales, Ukraine won a joint bid with Poland to host the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship which is the third largest sporting event in the world after the Olympics and the World Cup. This is the first time in Ukrainian history that the country got a chance to host an international event of such scale. Experts and politicians have noted that it will boost Ukrainian infrastructure development, tourist attractiveness and overall investments into the country. Among the most significant developments that will take place in the process of preparation are the road infrastructure improvement, expanding hotel networks in at least six major cities, in particular Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Odesa and Lviv, modernization of airports and construction of modern Football stadiums. One of the stadiums which is currently under construction is the Shakhtar Stadium in Donetsk which received a 5-star FIFA rating, meaning that it will be classified as one of the best in the world.

Government and politics

File:Verkhovna Rada.jpg

Verkhovna Rada, the Parliament of Ukraine

File:Wahlkreise ukraine 2006 eng.png

2006 Parliamentary election: Leading party by electoral districts

Ukraine is a republic under a mixed semi-parliamentary semi-presidential system with separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The President is elected by popular vote and formally is the head of state. The 450-seat unicameral parliament, Verkhovna Rada is primary responsible for the formation of the executive branch, the Cabinet of Ministers, which is headed by the Prime Minister.

Laws, acts of the parliament and the Cabinet, presidential decrees, and acts of the Crimean parliament may be abrogated by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, should they be found to violate the Constitution of Ukraine. Other normative acts are subject to judicial review. The Supreme Court of Ukraine is the main body in the system of courts of general jurisdiction.

Local self-government is officially guaranteed. Local councils and city mayors are popularly elected and exercise control over local budgets. The heads of regional and district administrations are appointed by the President.

Ukraine has a large number of political parties, many of which have tiny memberships and are unknown to the general public. Small parties often join in multi-party coalitions (electoral blocks) for the purpose of participating in parliamentary elections.

Current political situation

Ukraine is currently through a transition state after a substantial constitutional reform was introduced in the beginning of 2006. The amendments to the Constitution were meant to transform the Ukrainian state from a presidential republic to a mixed parliamentary-presidential republic. However, the amendments happened to be far from perfect and created a great opportunity for potential conflicts between the President on one side and the Parliamentary coalition on the other. The political life of Ukraine during the last year could be characterized as a constant struggle between the President and the Prime-Minister for power, which is aggravated by the fact, that the President and the Prime-Minister represent the opposite parts of the political spectrum and have some very significant differences concerning the foreign and the internal policy. This conflict has been accompanied by accusations from both parts. The President Yushchenko accuses the coalition of trying to usurp the power and take away even those powers, that he preserved after the reform. On the other hand, the coalition accuses the President of unwillingness to accept the consequences of the constitutional reform and trying to regain his former powers by all means possible.

In late March of 2007 and early April the Ukrainian political system dealt with another constitutional crisis. President Viktor Yushchenko dissolved the Ukrainian parliament and ordered an early election to be held May 27, 2007. Crowds of about 70,000 gathered on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the central square of Kiev, and supported the dismissal of parliament, with 20,000 supporting Yanukovych's plan to keep the parliament together. On April 3, 2007, President Yushchenko signed the bill into existence. Two hours later on Kiev's Maidan, it was announced to the crowds that Parliament no longer existed.

The Verkhovna Rada immediately called an emergency session and voted against Yuschenko's decree (255 votes in favor; opposition didn't participate). A group of members of the parliament took the case to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, challenging the validity of the President's decree. But the Court closed the case without opinion. A political struggle ensued between the Parliamentary coalition and the opposition.

A compromise between Yushchenko and Yanukovych has been reached to reschedule parliamentary elections for September 30, 2007. The current legal status of the parliament is unclear. Formally, the parliament has been dissolved, because more than a third of its members have resigned, and their parties cleared the reserve party lists. According to the Constitution this rendered the parliament inoperative. On the other hand, the Constitution states that the existing parliament is valid until the new parliament is elected.

Administrative division

Template:Ukraine Labelled Map

The system of Ukrainian subdivisions reflects country's status as a unitary state (as stated in the country's constitution) with unified legal and administrative regime for each unit.

Ukraine is subdivided into twenty-four oblasts (provinces) and one autonomous republic (avtonomna respublika), Crimea. Additionally, two cities (misto), Kiev and Sevastopol, have a special legal status. The oblasts are subdivided into 494 raions (districts).

Oblasts and autonomous republic

1.	Cherkasy	10.	Khmelnytskyi	19.	Sumy
2.	Chernihiv	11.	Kirovohrad	20.	Ternopil
3.	Chernivtsi	12.	Kiev Oblast	21.	Vinnytsia
4.	Crimea	13.	Luhansk	22.	Volyn
5.	Dnipropetrovsk	14.	Lviv	23.	Zakarpattia
6.	Donetsk	15.	Mykolaiv	24.	Zaporizhia
7.	Ivano-Frankivsk	16.	Odessa	25.	Zhytomyr
8.	Kharkiv	17.	Poltava
9.	Kherson	18.	Rivne

Economy

One of the new office towers next to a Church, Kyiv

20 Hryvnia

10 Hryvnia

File:Donezk Schwerindustrie rauchender Schornstein.jpg

Donetsk industry

Largest airplane in the world An-225

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Ukrainian LAZ bus, a winner of "Auto of the year in Ukraine, 2005"

Ukraine is among the world's thirty largest economies. In the Soviet times, the economy of the republic was the second largest in the Soviet Union, being an important industrial and agricultural component of country's planned economy. With the collapse of Soviet system, the country progressed toward a market economy, but the move was somewhat longer and more painful than the proponents of shock therapy were to advise.

In 1991, the government liberalized most prices in order to combat widespread product shortages, and was successful in overcoming the problem. In the same time, the government continued to subside the government-owned industries and agriculture by uncovered monetary emission. The loose monetary policies of early 1990s pushed inflation to hyperinflationary levels. For the year 1993 Ukraine holds the world record for inflation in one calendar year. The prices stabilized only after the introduction of new currency, hryvnia in 1996.

The country was also slow in the implementation of structural reforms. Following independence, the government erected a legal framework for privatization. However, widespread resistance to reforms within the government and from a significant part of population soon stalled the reform efforts. A large number of governed-owned enterprises were exempt from the privatization process. In the meantime, by 1999, the output had fallen to less than 40% of the 1991 level, but recovered to slightly over the 100% mark by the end of 2006.

Since the late 1990s the government has pledged to reduce the number of government agencies, streamline the regulatory process, create a legal environment to encourage entrepreneurs, and enact a comprehensive tax overhaul. Outside institutions—particularly the IMF—have encouraged Ukraine to quicken the pace and scope of reforms and have threatened to withdraw financial support. But reforms in some politically sensitive areas of structural reform and land privatizations are still lagging.

In early 2000s the economy showed strong export-based growth of 5% to 10%, with industrial production growing more than 10% per year. The growth was largely attributed to a surge in exports of metals and chemicals to China.

In 2005, the economic growth temporarily slowed down due to unfavorable changes in terms of trade, as world energy prices went up and metal prices went down. In 2006, the economy is again experiencing above 5% growth. The growth was undergirded by strong domestic demand and growing consumer and investor confidence.

The current Ukrainian economy is a typical example of a post-soviet era developing economy. The World Bank classifies Ukraine as a lower middle-income state. Some significant issues are underdeveloped infrastructure and transportation, corruption and bureaucracy, and a lack of modern-minded professionals - despite the large number of universities. But the rapidly growing Ukrainian economy has a very interesting emerging market with a relatively big population, and large profits associated with the high risks. The Ukrainian stock market grew up 10 times between 2000 and 2006, including the tremendous 341% growth in 2004, followed by 28% growth in 2005, and 24% growth in 2006. Growing sectors of the Ukrainian economy include the IT Outsourcing market, which has been growing at over 100% per annum.

The average nominal salary in Ukraine by the start of 2007 reached over 200 euro per month. Despite remaining much lower than in neighboring central European countries, the annual growth of average salary income is approximately 30% for several years in a row. For 2006, the Index of Economic Freedom of Ukraine was 3.24, rank 99 amongst 157 states.

The country imports most energy supplies, especially oil and natural gas, and to a large extent depends on Russia as an energy supplier. While 25% of the natural gas in Ukraine comes from its own sources, about 35 % comes from Russia and the remaining 30% come from Central Asia through the transit routes that Russia controls.

Ukraine produces nearly all types of transporting vehicles; automobiles, buses, trucks, ships, airplanes, space rockets, subway and railroad trains. During the last couple of years high technological production activated. Most of the industries have undergone significant modernization in the last five years, making Ukrainian made vehicles more economically competitive, Antonov airplanes and KRAZ trucks are already exported to many countries worldwide.

Military

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Ukrainian peacekeepers take active part in various hot spots in the world

After the collapse of Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited a one-million-man military force on its territory, equipped with the third largest nuclear weapon arsenal in the world. In May of 1992, Ukraine signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in which the country agreed to give up all nuclear weapons, and to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state. Ukraine ratified the treaty in 1994, and by 1996 the country became free of nuclear weapons.

Ukraine also took consistent steps toward the reduction of conventional weapons. It signed the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which called for reduction of tanks, artillery, and armored vehicles. The army forces were reduced to 300,000 soldiers. The country plans to convert the current, mostly conscript, army into a professional army.

Following independence, Ukraine declared itself to be a neutral state. The country had limited military partnership with Russia and other CIS countries, as well as, since 1994, it established a partnership with NATO. In 2000s Ukraine was leaning toward NATO, and a deeper cooperation with the alliance was set by NATO-Ukraine Action Plan signed in 2002. As of 2006, this issue is a subject of extensive debates within Ukrainian society of whether the country should join NATO. In August of 2006, the leading political parties signed the Universal of National Unity, a non-binding document, in which they agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future.

Demographics

Main square of Kiev

File:Odesa monument.JPG

A Cossack and horse statue in Odessa

According to the Ukrainian Census of 2001, ethnic Ukrainians make up 77.8% of the population. Other significant ethnic groups are Russians (17.3%), Belarusians (0.6%), Moldovans (0.5%), Crimean Tatars (0.5%), Bulgarians (0.4%), Hungarians (0.3%), Romanians (0.3%), Poles (0.3%), Jews (0.2%), Armenians (0.2%), Greeks (0.2%) and Tatars (0.2%).

The industrial regions in the east and south-east are the most heavily populated, and about 67.2% of the population lives in urban areas.

Ukrainian is the only official state language. Russian, which was a de facto official language in the Soviet Union, is widely spoken, especially in eastern and southern Ukraine. According to the census, 67.5% of the population declared Ukrainian as their native language and 29.6% declared Russian.

It is sometimes difficult to determine the extent of the two languages, since many people use a Surzhyk (a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian where the vocabulary is often combined with Ukrainian grammar and pronunciation) while claiming in surveys that they speak Russian or Ukrainian (most of them are able to speak both literary languages though). Besides, some ethnic Ukrainians, while calling Ukrainian their 'native' language, use Russian more frequently in their daily lives.

These details result in a significant difference across different survey results, as even a small restating of a question switches responses of a significant group of people. Standard literary Ukrainian is mainly spoken in western and central Ukraine. In western Ukraine, Ukrainian is also the dominant language in cities (such as Lviv). In central Ukraine, Ukrainian and Russian are both equally used in cities, with Russian being more common in Kiev, while Ukrainian is the dominant language in rural communities. In eastern and southern Ukraine, mainly Russian is used in cities, and Surzhyk is used in rural areas.

The government follows a policy of Ukrainization—the increase of Ukrainian language, generally at the expense of Russian. This takes the form of use of Ukrainian in various spheres that are under government control, such as schools, government offices, and some media. This is even done in areas which are largely Russian-speaking. However, in non-government areas of life, the language of convenience (usually Russian) is used.

According to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea constitution, Ukrainian is the only state language of the republic. However, the republic's constitution specifically recognizes Russian as the language of the majority of its population and guarantees its usage 'in all spheres of public life'. Similarly, the Crimean Tatar language (the language of a sizeable 12% minority of the republic is guaranteed a special state protection as well as the 'languages of other ethnicities'. Russian speakers constitute an overwhelming majority of the Crimean population (77%), with Ukrainian speakers comprising 10.1%, and Crimean Tatar speakers 11.4%. But in everyday life the majority of Cimean Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea use Russian.

Romanians and Moldavians are another significant minority in Ukraine, concentrated mainly in Chernivtsi, Odessa, Zakarpattia and Vinnytsia oblasts.

Jews played a very important role in Ukrainian cultural life, especially in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Nowadays Yiddish, the Ukrainian Jews' traditional language, is only used by a small number of older people.

After independence, a significant change in the language of instruction in educational institutions took place. According to the Razumkov centre, while 49% of high school students in 1991/92 were receiving their education in Ukrainian, and 50% in Russian, 70% of students in 2000/01 attended Ukrainian schools (where Ukrainian is the primary language of instruction) while 29% were studying in Russian schools (both languages are studied in all schools in Ukraine, as part of the curriculum). This trend is opposite to the changes in the 1970s and 1980s, when the number of Russian schools was constantly being increased. The transition toward Ukrainian-language usage is taking a long time, and in some schools that had switched to Ukrainian from Russian, part or most of the instruction is still given in Russian.

In general, most of the population is bilingual, at least to some degree. Most of the Ukrainophone population is also fluent in Russian and many Russian native speakers in Ukraine are fluent in Ukrainian as well. An overwhelming majority has at least a reasonable command in Ukrainian even in primarily Russophone southern and eastern parts of the country.

Significant migration took place in the first years of Ukrainian independence. More than 1 million people moved into Ukraine in 1991-1992, mostly from the other former Soviet republics. In total, between 1991 and 2004, 2.2 million immigrated to Ukraine (among them, 2.0 million came from the other former Soviet Union states), and 2.5 million immigrated from Ukraine (among them, 1.9 million moved to the rest of former Soviet Union republics).

In the context of low salaries and unemployment within Ukraine, labor emigration became a mass phenomenon at the end of the 1990s. Although estimates vary, approximately two to three million Ukrainian citizens are currently working abroad, many illegally, in construction, service, housekeeping, and agriculture industries. Moreover, a significant number of women from Ukraine had been dragged into prostitution and sex slavery in foreign lands, mainly Western Europe and Turkey.

Religion

File:Photo cathedral 01058 Yuzhnyj fasad cerkvi Rozhdestva Bogorodicy. 1696 g.jpg

South facade of Mary's Nativity Church, executed in the Ukrainian Baroque style.

The dominant religion in Ukraine is Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which is currently split between three Church bodies: Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchate, and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

A distant second is the Eastern Rite Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which practices a similar liturgical and spiritual tradition as Eastern Orthodoxy, but is in communion with the See of Peter and recognizes the primacy of the Pope as head of the Church.

There are 879 Catholic communities, and 499 clergy members serving the some one million Roman Catholics in Ukraine. The group forms some 2.19% of the population and consists mainly of ethnic Poles, living predominantly in the western regions of the country.

Protestant Christians also form some 2.19% of the population. Protestant numbers have grown greatly since Ukranain independence. Evangelical Baptist Union of Ukraine is the largest group, with more than 300,000 members and about 3,000 clergy members. Other groups include Calvinists, Lutherans, Methodists, Seventh-day Adventists and others.

The Jewish community is a tiny fraction of what it was before World War II, but Jews still form some 0.63% of the population. A 2001 census indicated 103,600 Jews, although community leaders claimed that the population could be as large as 300,000. Most Ukrainian Jews are Orthodox, and there is a small Reform population.

There are an estimated 500,000 Muslims in Ukraine, some 320,000 on the Crimean Peninsula. Most Ukrainian Muslims are Crimean Tatars. In addition, some 50,000 foreign-born Muslims live in Kiev.

In addition, twenty-nine Krishna Consciousness communities and forty-seven Buddhist communities were registered in the country (as of January 1, 2006).

Culture

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Downtown Lviv

The culture of Ukraine has been formed by influences of its eastern and western neighbors, and the architecture, music and dance of Ukraine all reflect this.

Communist rule had quite a strong effect on the art and writing of Ukraine. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Soviets began enforcing the socialist realism art style in Ukraine; this style dictated that all artists and writers glorify the Soviet Regime with their talents. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukrainian artists and writers again became free to express themselves as they wanted.

The tradition of the Easter egg had its beginnings in Ukraine: these eggs were drawn on with wax to create pattern; dye was then added to give the eggs their delightful colors -— the dye not affecting the wax-coated parts of the egg. Once the whole egg was dyed, the wax was removed leaving only the colorful pattern. The tradition is thousands of years old, and predates the arrival of Christianity in the country.

Ukrainians also have food culture which dates back to the old time. The Ukrainian diet includes chicken, pork, beef, fish and mushrooms. Ukrainians eat a lot of potatoes, grains, fresh and sour vegetables, different kinds of bread. Popular traditional dishes include varenyky (boiled dumplings with mushrooms, potatoes, sauerkraut, cottage cheese or cherries), borsch (soup made of beets, cabbage and mushrooms or meat) and holubtsy (stuffed cabbage rolls filled with rice, carrots and meat). Ukrainian specialties also include Chicken Kiev and Kiev Cake. Ukrainians drink stewed fruit, juices, milk, sour milk (They make cottage cheese from this), mineral water, tea and coffee, beer, wine and vodka.

Etymology of the name "Ukraine"

The Ukrainian word Ukrayina stems from the Old Slavic root kraj-, a homonym meaning "edge" or "borderland" as well as "land", "region", "country" (see main article). In particular, in Ukrainian krayina means simply "country".

In English, the country is sometimes referred to with the definite article, as the Ukraine, similar to the Netherlands, the Gambia, the Sudan or the Congo. However, usage without the article is now more frequent, and has become established in diplomacy and journalism since the country's independence.

International rankings

Organization	Survey	Ranking
Heritage Foundation/The Wall Street Journal	Index of Economic Freedom	99 out of 157
Reporters Without Borders	Worldwide Press Freedom Index	105 out of 168
Transparency International	Corruption Perceptions Index	99 out of 163
United Nations Development Programme	Human Development Index	77 out of 177
World Economic Forum	Global Competitiveness Report	78 out of 125
A.T. Kearney/Foreign Policy Magazine	Globalization Index 2005 PDF	39 out of 62

See also

Template:Ukrainian topics

References

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General

• CIA World Factbook - Ukraine
• Country profile: Ukraine, BBC's Country Profile on Ukraine.
• Country Briefings: Ukraine, by The Economist
• Special Report: Ukraine, ongoing coverage by Guardian Unlimited
• Background Note: Ukraine, the U.S. Department of State website
• Ukraine, Portals to the World, Internet resources selected by Library of Congress subject experts

External links

Ukraine Portal

Official

• The President of Ukraine
• Verkhovna Rada: the parliament of Ukraine
• Government Portal of Ukraine— Branches of government
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
• Constitution of Ukraine

Miscellaneous

• Open Directory Project - Ukraine directory category
• Ukraine cities and regions guide
• Encyclopedia of Ukraine
• Travel guide to Ukraine from Wikitravel

Religion

• Religious Information Service of Ukraine

Credits

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