Portal:Ukraine
The Ukraine Portal - Портал України
Ukraine Україна (Ukrainian) | |
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| ISO 3166 code | UA |
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which borders it to the east and northeast. It also borders Belarus to the north; Poland and Slovakia to the west; Hungary, Romania and Moldova to the southwest; with a coastline along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to the south and southeast. Kyiv is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Odesa. Ukraine's official language is Ukrainian.
During the Middle Ages, Ukraine was the site of early Slavic expansion and the area later became a key centre of East Slavic culture under the state of Kievan Rus', which emerged in the 9th century. The state eventually disintegrated into rival regional powers and was destroyed by the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. The area was then contested, divided, and ruled by a variety of external powers for the next 600 years, including the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Austrian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Tsardom of Russia. The Cossack Hetmanate emerged in central Ukraine in the 17th century, but was partitioned between Russia and Poland, and absorbed by the Russian Empire. Ukrainian nationalism developed and, following the Russian Revolution in 1917, the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic was formed. The Bolsheviks consolidated control over much of the former empire and established the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union when it was formed in 1922. In the early 1930s, millions of Ukrainians died in the Holodomor, a human-made famine. The German occupation during World War II in Ukraine was devastating, with 7 million Ukrainian civilians killed, including most Ukrainian Jews.
Ukraine gained independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union dissolved, and declared itself neutral. A new constitution was adopted in 1996. A series of mass demonstrations, known as the Euromaidan, led to the establishment of a new government in 2014 after a revolution. Russia then unilaterally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, and pro-Russian unrest culminated in a war in the Donbas between Russian-backed separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Since the outbreak of war with Russia, Ukraine has continued to seek closer ties with the United States, European Union, and NATO.
Ukraine is a unitary state and its system of government is a semi-presidential republic. A developing country, it is the poorest country in Europe by nominal GDP per capita and corruption remains a significant issue. However, due to its extensive fertile land, pre-war Ukraine was one of the largest grain exporters in the world. Ukraine is considered a middle power in global affairs, and the Ukrainian Armed Force is the fifth largest armed force in the world in terms of both active personnel as well as total number of personnel with the eighth largest defence budget in the world. The Ukrainian Armed Forces also operates one of the largest and most diverse drone fleets in the world. It is a founding member of the United Nations, as well as a member of the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization, and the OSCE. It is in the process of joining the European Union and has applied to join NATO. (Full article...)
In the news
- 19 December 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Military aids during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, United Kingdom and the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- British Defence Secretary John Healey announces a proposal to send British military advisors to train Ukrainian forces. (BBC)
- 17 December 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Attacks in Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the NBC Protection Troops, and his assistant are assassinated by an IED hidden inside of an e-scooter in Moscow, Russia. A Ukrainian source claims that the Security Service of Ukraine is responsible for the killings, after Kirilov was charged in absentia yesterday for the use of chemical weapons, which made him a "legitimate target". Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, says that the Ukrainian leadership would face an "imminent revenge" for the killings. (BBC News) (Deccan Herald)
- Military aid to Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russia–NATO relations
- NATO's Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine command center in Wiesbaden, Germany, takes over coordination of Western military support to Ukraine from the United States. (Reuters)
- 14 December 2024 –
- One police officer is killed and at least two others are injured in an explosion in Dnipro, Ukraine. (Ukrinform)
- 13 December 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Moldova and the Russo-Ukrainian War
- The Parliament of Moldova votes in favor of declaring a 60-day national state of emergency beginning on December 16 due to Ukraine not renewing its transit contract with Gazprom to deliver Russian gas to Moldova. (Reuters)
- Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure
Recognized content - 
Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
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Yaropolk Iziaslavich (died 22 November 1086/1087) was Prince of Turov and Prince of Volhynia from 1078 until his death.
The son of Grand Prince Iziaslav I of Kiev by a Polish princess named Gertruda, he is visible in papal sources by the early 1070s, but largely absent in contemporary domestic sources until his father's death in 1078. During his father's exile in the 1070s, Yaropolk can be found acting on his father's behalf in an attempt to gain the favor of the German emperors and the papal court of Pope Gregory VII. His father returned to Kiev in 1077 and Yaropolk followed. (Full article...) -
Boz (died c. 380) was the king of the Antes, an early Slavic people that lived in parts of present-day Ukraine. His story is mentioned by Jordanes in the Getica (550–551); in the preceding years, the Ostrogoths under Ermanaric had conquered a large number of tribes in Central Europe (see Oium), including the Antes. Some years after the Ostrogothic defeat by the invading Huns, a king named Vinitharius, Ermanaric's great-nephew, marched against the Antes of Boz and defeated them. Vinitharius condemned Boz, his sons, and seventy of his nobles, to crucifixion, in order to terrorize the Antes. These conflicts constitute the only pre-6th century contacts between Germanics and Slavs documented in written sources. (Full article...)
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The Bolokhovians, Bolokhoveni or Bolokhovens (Romanian: Bolohoveni; Old Slavic: Болоховци, Bolokhovtsy) were a 13th-century ethnic group that resided in the vicinity of the principalities of Galicia, Volhynia and Kiev, in the territory known as the "Bolokhovian Land" centered at the city of Bolokhov or Bolokhovo (not identified yet). Their ethnic identity is uncertain; although Romanian scholars, basing on their ethnonym identify them as Romanians (who were called Vlachs in the Middle Ages), archeological evidence and the Hypatian Chronicle (which is the only primary source that documents their history) suggest that they were a Slavic people. Their princes, or knyazes, were in constant conflict with Daniel, the prince of Galicia–Volhynia, between 1231 and 1257. After the Mongols sacked Kiev in 1240, the Bolokhovians supplied them with troops, but the Bolokhovian princes fled to Poland. The Bolokhovians disappeared after Daniel defeated them in 1257. (Full article...)
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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 1906 – 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982, and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state) from 1960 to 1964 and again from 1977 to 1982. His 18-year term as General Secretary was second only to Joseph Stalin's in duration.
Brezhnev was born to a working-class family in Kamenskoye (now Kamianske, Ukraine) within the Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire. After the results of the October Revolution were finalized with the creation of the Soviet Union, Brezhnev joined the Communist party's youth league in 1923 before becoming an official party member in 1929. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, he joined the Red Army as a commissar and rose rapidly through the ranks to become a major general during World War II. Following the war's end, Brezhnev was promoted to the party's Central Committee in 1952 and became a full member of the Politburo by 1957. In 1964, he consolidated enough power to replace Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the CPSU, the most powerful position in the country. (Full article...) -
There are 18 populated places in the Crimean peninsula that are recognized as having city status. The territory of Crimea has been disputed between Russia and Ukraine since Russia's covert invasion and internationally unrecognized annexation of the peninsula on 18 March 2014. The region is recognized by most countries as Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol as one of Ukraine's cities with special status while, since its annexation, the region has been de facto governed by Russia as the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol as a city of federal importance. As of 2014, the largest city on the peninsula by population according to Russia's post-annexation census was Sevastopol, with a recorded population of 393,304 people, while the peninsula's second largest city was Simferopol, with 332,317 people. The least populous city on the peninsula was Alupka, which was recorded with a population of 7,771 people in the 2014 census.
In Ukraine, city status (Ukrainian: місто, romanized: misto) is granted by the country's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, to settlements of 10,000 people or more or to settlements of historical or regional importance. Following its occupation and annexation of Crimea, Russia recognized and maintained the existing status of the peninsula's 18 cities. In 2019, Russian officials granted the settlement Balaklava, located in Sevastopol's Balaklava urban district, the status of a city, although still keeping it as part of Sevastopol. Due to the international support for UN General Assembly Resolution 68/262, which recognizes Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea and endorses a policy of non-recognition of Russia's occupation of the peninsula, the new city status is largely not recognized. (Full article...) -
Artemy Lukyanovich Vedel (13 April [O.S. 1 April] 1767 – 26 July [O.S. 14 July] 1808), born Artemy Lukyanovich Vedelsky, was a Ukrainian-born Russian Imperial composer of liturgical music and military music. He produced works based on Ukrainian folk melodies, and made an important contribution in the music history of Ukraine. Together with Maxim Berezovsky and Dmitry Bortniansky, Vedel is recognised by musicologists as one of the "Golden Three" composers of 18th century Ukrainian classical music, and one of Russia's greatest choral composers.
Vedel was born in Kyiv, the son of a wealthy wood carver. He studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy until 1787, after which he was appointed to conduct the academy's choir and orchestra. In 1788, he was sent to Moscow to work for the regional governor, but he returned home in 1791 and resumed his career at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. General Andrei Levanidov recruited him to lead Kyiv's regimental chapel and choir—under Levanidov's patronage, Vedel reached the peak of his creativity as a composer. He moved with Levanidov to the Kharkov Governorate, where he organised a new choir and orchestra, and taught at the Kharkiv Collegium. (Full article...) -
The Nikopol–Krivoi Rog offensive (Russian: Никопольско-Криворожская наступательная операция) was an offensive by the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front and elements of the 4th Ukrainian Front against the German 6th Army in the area of Nikopol and Krivoi Rog in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central Ukraine between 30 January and 29 February 1944. It took place on the Eastern Front of World War II and was part of the wider Dnieper–Carpathian offensive, a Soviet attack against Army Group South to retake the rest of Ukraine that fell to Germany in 1941.
Following the Soviet advance to the Dnieper in the Battle of the Dnieper during late 1943, German forces managed to hold to the Nikopol bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper, the area of manganese ore mines of crucial importance to German war production that Adolf Hitler insisted on holding. (Full article...) -
Nestor Ivanovych Makhno (Ukrainian: Нестор Івaнович Махно, pronounced [ˈnɛstor iˈʋɑnowɪt͡ʃ mɐxˈnɔ]; 7 November 1888 – 25 July 1934), also known as Bat'ko Makhno (батько Махно, lit. 'Father Makhno'), was a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary and the commander of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine during the Ukrainian War of Independence. He established the Makhnovshchina (loosely translated as "Makhno movement"), a mass movement by the Ukrainian peasantry to establish anarchist communism in the country between 1918 and 1921. Initially centered around Makhno's home province of Katerynoslav and hometown of Huliaipole, it came to exert a strong influence over large areas of southern Ukraine, specifically in what is now the Zaporizhzhia Oblast of Ukraine.
Raised by a peasant family and coming of age amid the fervor around the 1905 Revolution, Makhno participated in a local anarchist group and spent seven years imprisoned for his involvement. With his release during the 1917 Revolution, Makhno became a local revolutionary leader in his hometown and oversaw the expropriation and redistribution of large estates to the peasantry. In the Ukrainian Civil War, Makhno sided with the Soviet Russian Bolsheviks against the Ukrainian nationalists and White movement, but his alliances with the Bolsheviks did not last. He rallied Bolshevik support to lead an insurgency, defeating the Central Powers' occupation forces at the Battle of Dibrivka and establishing the Makhnovshchina. Makhno's troops briefly integrated with the Bolshevik Red Army in the 1919 Soviet invasion of Ukraine, but split over differences on the movement's autonomy. Makhno rebuilt his army from the remains of Nykyfor Hryhoriv's forces in western Ukraine, routed the White Army at the Battle of Perehonivka, and captured most of southern and eastern Ukraine, where they again attempted to establish anarchist communism. (Full article...) -
There are 52 populated places in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, that have been officially granted city status (Ukrainian: місто, romanized: misto) by the Verkhovna Rada, the country's parliament. Settlements with more than 10,000 people are eligible for city status, although the status is typically also granted to settlements of historical or regional importance. As of 5 December 2001, the date of the first and only official census in the country since independence, the most populous city in the oblast was the regional capital, Donetsk, with a population of 1,016,194 people, while the least populous city was Sviatohirsk, with 5,136 people. The most recent settlement to receive city status is Mykolaivka, which was granted the status by the Verkhovna Rada on 18 November 2003.
From independence in 1991 to 2020, 28 cities in the oblast were designated as cities of regional significance (municipalities), which had self-government under city councils, while the oblast's remaining 24 cities were located in 18 raions (districts) as cities of district significance, which are subordinated to the governments of the raions. On 18 July 2020, an administrative reform abolished and merged the oblast's raions and cities of regional significance into eight new, expanded raions. The eight raions that make up the oblast are Bakhmut, Donetsk, Horlivka, Kalmiuske, Kramatorsk, Mariupol, Pokrovsk, and Volnovakha. After the enactment of decommunization laws, ten cities within the oblast were renamed in 2016 for their former names' connection to people, places, events, and organizations associated with the Soviet Union. The renamed cities are Bakhmut, Bunhe, Chystiakove, Kalmiuske, Khrestivka, Lyman, Myrnohrad, Pokrovsk, Toretsk, and Zalizne, which were previously named Artemivsk, Yunokomunarivsk, Torez, Komsomolske, Kirovske, Krasnyi Lyman, Dymytrov, Krasnoarmiisk, Dzerzhynsk, and Artemove, respectively. (Full article...) -
Germany's Einsatzgruppen murdering Jewish civilians in Ivanhorod, Ukraine (1942)
The Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen photograph is a prominent depiction of the Holocaust in Ukraine, on the Eastern Front of World War II. Dated to 1942, it shows a soldier aiming his rifle at a woman who is trying to shield a child with her body, portraying one of numerous genocidal killings carried out against Jews by the Einsatzgruppen within German-occupied Europe. It was taken in Ivanhorod, a village in German-occupied Ukraine, before being mailed to Nazi Germany. However, the Polish resistance intercepted the photograph in Warsaw, and it was subsequently kept as Holocaust imagery by Polish photographer Jerzy Tomaszewski. In the 1960s, it was alleged that the photograph was a communist forgery, but that claim was eventually proven false. Since then, it has been frequently used in books, museums, and exhibitions focused on the Holocaust. British photographic historian Janina Struk describes it as "a symbol of the barbarity of the Nazi regime and their industrial-scale murder of six million European Jews." (Full article...) -
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designates World Heritage Sites of outstanding universal value to cultural or natural heritage which have been nominated by countries that are signatories to the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, established in 1972. Cultural heritage consists of monuments (such as architectural works, monumental sculptures, or inscriptions), groups of buildings, and sites (including archaeological sites). Natural heritage is defined as natural features (consisting of physical and biological formations), geological and physiographical formations (including habitats of threatened species of animals and plants), and natural sites which are important from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty. Ukraine officially adopted the UNESCO Convention and became an independent member on 12 October 1988, while still officially being a Union Republic of the Soviet Union (prior to its dissolution in 1991).
As of 2023[update], there are eight World Heritage Sites listed in Ukraine, seven of which are cultural sites and one of which, the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, is a natural site. The first site listed was "Kyiv: Saint-Sophia Cathedral and Related Monastic Buildings, Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra", in 1990. The most recent site listed was the Historic Centre of Odesa, in 2023. The site was immediately listed as endangered because of the 2022 Russian invasion, the sites of Kyiv and Lviv were added to the endangered list as well later in the same year. Three sites are transnational: the Wooden Tserkvas are shared with Poland, the Struve Geodetic Arc is shared with nine countries, and the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests are shared with 17 countries. In addition, Ukraine has 16 sites on its tentative list. (Full article...) -
Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny (18 February [O.S. 5 February] 1903 – 12 January 1983) was a Soviet statesman who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the head of state of the Soviet Union, from 1965 to 1977.
Podgorny was born to a Ukrainian working-class family in the city of Karlovka on 18 February 1903. He later graduated from a local worker's school in 1926 before completing his education at the Kiev Technological Institute of Food Industry in 1931. In 1930, Podgorny became a member of the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union and climbed up the Soviet hierarchy after years of service to the country's centrally planned economy. By 1953, Podgorny became Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine in 1953 before later serving as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine from 1957 to 1963. (Full article...) -
Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis (born August 14, 1983) is an American actress. Born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, and raised in Los Angeles, she began playing Jackie Burkhart on the Fox television series That '70s Show (1998–2006) at age 15. She has voiced Meg Griffin on the Fox animated series Family Guy since 1999.
Kunis's breakout film role was in the 2008 romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. She gained critical acclaim for her performance in the psychological thriller Black Swan (2010), receiving nominations for the SAG Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her other major films include the action films Max Payne (2008) and The Book of Eli (2010), the romantic comedy Friends with Benefits (2011), the fantasy film Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)—as the Wicked Witch of the West—and the comedies Ted (2012), Bad Moms (2016) and its sequel, A Bad Moms Christmas (2017). (Full article...) -
Andrew II (Hungarian: II. András, Croatian: Andrija II., Slovak: Ondrej II., Ukrainian: Андрій II; c. 1177 – 21 September 1235), also known as Andrew of Jerusalem, was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1205 and 1235. He ruled the Principality of Halych from 1188 until 1189/1190, and again between 1208/1209 and 1210. He was the younger son of Béla III of Hungary, who entrusted him with the administration of the newly conquered Principality of Halych in 1188. Andrew's rule was unpopular, and the boyars (or noblemen) expelled him. Béla III willed property and money to Andrew, obliging him to lead a crusade to the Holy Land. Instead, Andrew forced his elder brother, King Emeric of Hungary, to cede Croatia and Dalmatia as an appanage to him in 1197. The following year, Andrew occupied Hum.
Despite the fact that Andrew did not stop conspiring against Emeric, the dying king made Andrew guardian of his son, Ladislaus III, in 1204. After the premature death of Ladislaus, Andrew ascended the throne in 1205. According to historian László Kontler, "[i]t was amidst the socio-political turmoil during [Andrew's] reign that the relations, arrangements, institutional framework and social categories that arose under Stephen I, started to disintegrate in the higher echelons of society" in Hungary. Andrew introduced a new grants policy, the so-called "new institutions", giving away money and royal estates to his partisans despite the loss of royal revenues. He was the first Hungarian monarch to adopt the title of "King of Halych and Lodomeria". He waged at least a dozen wars to seize the two Rus' principalities, but was repelled by the local boyars and neighboring princes. He participated in the Fifth Crusade to the Holy Land in 1217–1218, but the crusade was a failure. (Full article...) -
Evdokia Reshetnik (Ukrainian: Євдокія Решетник; 1 March 1903 O.S./14 March 1903 (N. S.) – 22 October 1996) was a Ukrainian zoologist and ecologist. She was a specialist in the mole-rats and ground squirrels of Ukraine, and was the first scientist to describe the sandy blind mole-rat of southern Ukraine in 1939. She played a key role in keeping the National Museum of Natural History at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine operable in the inter-war and immediate post-war periods, in spite of arrests by both the Gestapo and Soviet authorities. She was one of the people involved in hiding specimens of the museum to prevent them being taken by the Germans. She is known for arguing that ecology, species distribution, populations, utility, and variability, should be weighed before making determinations that labeled certain animals as pests and harmful to the environment. Though she was responsible for maintaining the historiography of scientific development in Ukraine, her own legacy was lost until the twenty-first century. (Full article...)
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Featured pictures
These are Featured pictures that the Wikimedia Commons community has chosen as the highest quality on the site.
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A map showing caesium-137 contamination in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine (in curies per square kilometer) in 1996, ten years after the Chernobyl disaster struck the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The disaster contaminated 162,160 square kilometres (62,610 sq mi) of land and is widely considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. -
Photo: Noodle snacksMushrooms of Armillaria hinnulea, a species of honey fungus (or "pidpenky", from Ukrainian). Honey fungi are parasitic fungi that live on trees and woody shrubs. As a forest pathogen, it can be very destructive because unlike most parasites, it does not need to moderate its growth in order to avoid killing its host, since it will continue to thrive on the dead material. Honey fungi are long lived and form some of the largest living organisms in the world, including one that covers more than 3.4 sq mi (8.8 km2) and is thousands of years old. The mushrooms are edible, but can be easily confused with poisonous Galerina species, which can grow side-by-side with Armillaria. -
Photo credit: Peter DuhonUkrainian fashion model Nataliya Gotsiy modeling for Cynthia Rowley, Spring 2007 New York Fashion Week. She was the winner of the Ford Supermodel of the World 2004 search. She has appeared on the cover of French Elle and Italian Marie Claire and modeled for Behnaz Sarafpour, Christian Lacroix, Diane von Furstenberg, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Dries van Noten, Gucci, Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, and Vivienne Westwood, among others. -
Map credit: Nicolas de FerA 1691 French map of Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine, depicting the city's old town neighborhood and castle, surrounded by the winding Smotrych River. It was originally part of Kievan Rus' and annexed into the First Polish Republic, but at the time of the map's creation, the city was part of the Ottoman Empire. It shortly returned to Poland and later became part of the Russian Empire with the Second Partition of Poland in 1793. -
Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin sitting together at the Yalta Conference, which took place February 4–11, 1945. The so-called "Big Three" met to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of Europe following World War II. Although a number of agreements were reached, Stalin broke his promises regarding Poland, and the Soviet Union annexed the regions of Eastern Europe it controlled, or converted them to satellite states. -
Photograph: Anatoly ShcherbakThe Royal Kurgan is a 4th century BC kurgan (burial barrow) located near present-day Kerch, Crimea. The mound is almost 20 metres high and its base perimeter is about 250 metres. It holds a burial chamber with a square floor plan which gradually merges into the circular shape of a corbelled dome ("false vault"). It is assumed that the Royal Kurgan was the final resting place of a ruler of the Bosporan Kingdom. -
Photograph credit: Max AlpertKombat (Russian for 'battalion commander') is a black-and-white photograph by Soviet photographer Max Alpert. It depicts a Soviet military officer, armed with a TT pistol, raising his unit for an attack during World War II. This work is regarded as one of the most iconic Soviet World War II photographs, yet neither the date nor the subject is known with certainty. According to the most widely accepted version, it depicts junior politruk Aleksei Gordeyevich Yeryomenko, minutes before his death on 12 July 1942, in Voroshilovgrad Oblast, now part of Ukraine. The photograph is in the archives of RIA Novosti, a Russian state-owned news agency. -
Photograph: George ChernilevskyThe ChS8 is an electric mainline passenger locomotive used in Russia and Ukraine. Built between 1983 and 1989, it was developed for pulling long passenger trains (28–32 carriages) at speeds of 100 kilometres per hour (60 mph) or faster. Since 2010 Russia has switched to more energy-efficient designs, such as the EP10 and EP20. -
Artist: William Simpson; Lithographer: Edmond Morin; Restoration: NativeForeignerA tinted lithograph, titled "Embarkation of the sick at Balaklava", shows injured and ill soldiers in the Crimean War boarding boats to take them to hospital facilities. Modern nursing had its roots in the war, as war correspondents for newspapers reported the scandalous treatment of wounded soldiers in the first desperate winter, prompting the pioneering work of women such as Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole, Frances Margaret Taylor and others. -
Photograph: AmakuhaThe burning of the Trade Unions Building—used as the headquarters of the Euromaidan movement—during the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, following a failed attempt by the Ukrainian police to capture the building. After the fire, the damaged building was covered with large canvas screens on two sides with the words "Glory to Ukraine" printed on them in large letters. -
Painting: UnknownThe Adoration of the Shepherds is a common subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art. The scene, based on the Biblical account in Luke 2, depicts shepherds as near witnesses to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, arriving soon after the actual birth. It is often combined in art with the Adoration of the Magi, in which case it is typically just referred to by the latter title. The example here comes from 17th-century Ukraine and is currently held at the Ivan Honchar Museum. -
Artist: William Simpson; Restoration: NativeForeignerThe 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons and 5th Dragoon Guards engage the Russians in this lithograph of the "Charge of the Heavy Brigade", a short engagement during the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. Russian cavalry had attacked the British camp, but in roughly ten minutes of fighting, they suffered 40 to 50 killed and more than 200 wounded and were forced to retreat.
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Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that the Ukrainian violinist Diana Tishchenko played Skoryk's Melody on a tour of the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra to Germany in April 2022?
- ... that Ukrainian baritone Danylo Matviienko, who holds a master's degree in mathematics, appeared as Demetrius in Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Oper Frankfurt?
- ... that street artist TVBoy, known for his murals of footballers in Barcelona, painted uplifting art in regions of Kyiv ahead of the one-year anniversary of the 2022 Russian invasion?
- ... that the Ukrainian composer Borys Lyatoshynsky composed his second opera, Shchors in 1937–38, about a military figure from Ukraine who fought for the Soviet Red Army in the Ukrainian–Soviet War?
- ... that the choral music of Artemy Vedel, who is regarded as one of the Golden Three composers of 18th-century Ukrainian classical music, was censored but performed from handwritten copies?
- ... that the 1885 spiritual anthem Prayer for Ukraine was performed by a choir from New York on Saturday Night Live?
More did you know -
- ... that the longest of the Kiev bridges, the 1,543 metres long Paton Bridge over the Dnieper River, constructed in 1953 was the first fully welded steel construction of such length at that time?
- ... that Vasyl Avramenko is often referred as "The father of the Ukrainian dance"?
- ... that the Privat Group is one of the few Ukrainian companies that own industries in the United States?
- ... that although the secular music of Mykola Leontovych was well known in the twentieth century, the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom was little known because of a ban on sacred music in the Soviet Union?
- ... that the neo-classical Verkhovna Rada building in Kyiv features a hundred-tonne glass dome over the chamber where the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine convenes to enact legislation?
- ... that Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych (pictured), known for the "Carol of the Bells", was nicknamed "Ukrainian Bach" in France?
Selected article -
Ukraine emerged as the concept of a nation, and Ukrainians as a nationality, with the Ukrainian National Revival which began in the late 18th and early 19th century. The first wave of national revival is traditionally connected with the publication of the first part of "Eneyida" by Ivan Kotlyarevsky (1798). In 1846, in Moscow the "Istoriya Rusov ili Maloi Rossii" (History of Ruthenians or Little Russia) was published. During the Spring of Nations, in 1848 in Lemberg (Lviv) the Supreme Ruthenian Council was created which declared that Galician Ruthenians were part of the bigger Ukrainian nation. The council adopted the yellow and blue flag, the current Ukrainian flag.
Ukraine first declared its independence with the invasion of Bolsheviks in late 1917. Following the conclusion of World War I and with the Peace of Riga, Ukraine was partitioned once again between Poland and the Bolshevik Russia. The Bolshevik-occupied portion of the territory became the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, with some boundary adjustments. (Full article...)
In the news
- 19 December 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Military aids during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, United Kingdom and the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- British Defence Secretary John Healey announces a proposal to send British military advisors to train Ukrainian forces. (BBC)
- 17 December 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Attacks in Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the NBC Protection Troops, and his assistant are assassinated by an IED hidden inside of an e-scooter in Moscow, Russia. A Ukrainian source claims that the Security Service of Ukraine is responsible for the killings, after Kirilov was charged in absentia yesterday for the use of chemical weapons, which made him a "legitimate target". Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, says that the Ukrainian leadership would face an "imminent revenge" for the killings. (BBC News) (Deccan Herald)
- Military aid to Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russia–NATO relations
- NATO's Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine command center in Wiesbaden, Germany, takes over coordination of Western military support to Ukraine from the United States. (Reuters)
- 14 December 2024 –
- One police officer is killed and at least two others are injured in an explosion in Dnipro, Ukraine. (Ukrinform)
- 13 December 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Moldova and the Russo-Ukrainian War
- The Parliament of Moldova votes in favor of declaring a 60-day national state of emergency beginning on December 16 due to Ukraine not renewing its transit contract with Gazprom to deliver Russian gas to Moldova. (Reuters)
- Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure
Selected anniversaries for December
- December 1, 1991 — Ukraine's first presidential election takes place.
Photo gallery
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Potemkin Stairs in Odesa, Ukraine. The higher perspective allows a person to see both the stairs and landings. -
Zbarazh (Ukrainian: Збараж, Polish: Zbaraż, Yiddish: Zbarj) is a small city in the Ternopil Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Zbarazh Raion (district), and is located in the historic region of Galicia. The major attraction of the city is the Zbarazh Castle that played a key role during the Khmelnytsky Uprising, the heroic defense of which eventually led to change of momentum and extinguishing the Cossack revolt. -
A view of Lviv -
St Andrew's Church of Kyiv (1749–1854) -
Streets of Mukacheve in the old part of town -
A view of Lviv Old Town from the High Castle. -
Trinity Church and Monastery in Chernihiv, Ukraine -
The Swallow's Nest is one of the Neo-Gothic châteaux fantastiques near Yalta; it was built in 1912. -
A wooden bridge leads to the entrance to the Khomutovska Steppe in Donetsk Oblast. -
View on the lower fortress of the Kamianets-Podilskyi Castle -
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An 1691 French map of the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi, located in western Ukraine.
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Interiour view of the Pochayiv Lavra in Ukraine. -
The square in front of the theater in Chernivtsi. -
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