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
- 29 November 2024 – Russo-Ukrainian War
- Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine–NATO relations
- Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that his country is ready to agree to a ceasefire if NATO protects parts of Ukraine. (Kyiv Post)
- 28 November 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Eastern front of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- The Russian Defence Ministry claims that Russian forces have taken the village of Nova Illinka in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. (Reuters)
- Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure, Ukrainian energy crisis
- Russia launches a massive missile and drone attack on civilian and critical infrastructure in Ukraine, injuring at least five people and causing blackouts for more than a million households. (CNN)
- 26 November 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Eastern front of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Battle of Kurakhove
- Russian forces enter the city of Kurakhove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, with heavy fighting reportedly underway. (Al Arabiya)
Recognized content - 
Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
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In March and April 2021, prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces began massing thousands of personnel and military equipment near Russia's border with Ukraine and in Crimea, representing the largest mobilisation since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. This precipitated an international crisis due to concerns over a potential invasion. Satellite imagery showed movements of armour, missiles, and heavy weaponry towards the border. The troops were partially withdrawn by June 2021, though the infrastructure was left in place. A second build-up began in October 2021, this time with more soldiers and with deployments on new fronts; by December over 100,000 Russian troops were massed around Ukraine on three sides, including Belarus from the north and Crimea from the south. Despite the Russian military build-ups, Russian officials from November 2021 to 20 February 2022 repeatedly denied that Russia had plans to invade Ukraine.
The crisis was related to the War in Donbas, itself part of the Russo-Ukrainian War, ongoing since February 2014. Intercepted phone conversations of Sergey Glazyev, a top advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, disclosed the specifics of the project Novorossiya to take over not just Crimea, but also the Donbas, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine, which Russia apparently aimed to annex following Crimea. The plan involved fomenting widespread unrest using pro-Russian agents on the ground, and then orchestrating uprisings that would announce rigged referendums about joining Russia, similar to the one that took place in Crimea on 16 March 2014. In December 2021, Russia advanced two draft treaties that contained requests for what it referred to as "security guarantees", including a legally binding promise that Ukraine would not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a reduction in NATO troops and materiel stationed in Eastern Europe, threatening unspecified military response if those demands were not met in full. NATO rejected these requests, and the United States warned Russia of "swift and severe" economic sanctions should it further invade Ukraine. The crisis was described by many commentators as one of the most intense in Europe since the Cold War. (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...) -
A national school of opera in Ukraine first emerged during the last third of the 19th century, and was based on the traditions of European theatre and Ukrainian folk music. The first opera by a Ukrainian composer was Maxim Berezovsky's Demofont, based on an Italian libretto, which premiered in 1773. The oldest opera in the Ukrainian musical repertoire, A Zaporozhye Cossack on the Danube by Semen Hulak-Artemovsky, was written in 1863. The composer Mykola Lysenko, the founder of Ukrainian opera, composed a number of works, including Natalka Poltavka, Taras Bulba, Nocturne, and two operas for children, Koza-dereza and Mr Kotsky.
Ukrainian opera flourished and developed after the creation of the first professional opera houses in the 1920s, with Borys Lyatoshynsky's The Golden Ring (1929) being one of the most notable works produced there during the first half of the 20th century. From 1930 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s, operatic performances and the creation of new works occurred under the dominance of Soviet socialist realism. During this period, Ukrainian opera was modelled on such works as The Young Guard by Yuliy Meitus, premiered in 1947. Ukrainian opera was able to develop once more during the Khrushchev Thaw from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Works by Vitaly Kyreiko (Forest Song (1957)), Vitaliy Hubarenko (Love Letters (1971)), or Yevhen Stankovych's folk opera When the Fern Blooms (1979) adopted more modern themes and musical expressions that were used during the Stalinist period. Of works written during the 21st century, Moses by Myroslav Skoryk is alone in retaining its place in the local repertoire. (Full article...) -
George Bogdanovich Kistiakowsky (Russian: Георгий Богданович Кистяковский, Ukrainian: Георгій Богданович Кістяківський, romanized: Heorhii Bohdanovych Kistiakivskyi; December 1 [O.S. November 18] 1900 – December 7, 1982) was a Ukrainian-American physical chemistry professor at Harvard who participated in the Manhattan Project and later served as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Science Advisor.
Born in Boyarka in the old Russian Empire, into "an old Ukrainian Cossack family which was part of the intellectual elite in pre-revolutionary Russia", Kistiakowsky fled his homeland during the Russian Civil War. He made his way to Germany, where he earned his PhD in physical chemistry under the supervision of Max Bodenstein at the University of Berlin. He emigrated to the United States in 1926, where he joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1930, and became a citizen in 1933. (Full article...) -
There are nine populated places in Kherson 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 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, Kherson, with a population of 328,360 people, while the least populous city was Tavriisk, with 11,452 people. Following the passing of decommunization laws, one city within the oblast, Oleshky, was renamed in 2016 from its previous name, Tsiurupynsk, for its connection with people, places, events, and organizations associated with the Soviet Union. Prior to 2020, four cities in the oblast were designated as cities of regional significance (municipalities), which had self-government under city councils, while the oblast's remaining five cities were located amongst the oblast's eighteen 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 five new, expanded raions. The five raions that now make up the oblast are Beryslav, Henichesk, Kakhovka, Kherson, and Skadovsk.
After 24 February 2022, during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, all cities in the oblast were occupied by Russian troops, including the capital, Kherson, making it the only regional capital to be captured during the invasion. Following the 2022 Kherson counteroffensive, the oblast's territory to the west of the Dnipro river, including the cities of Beryslav and Kherson, was recovered by Ukraine, while the oblast's seven cities to the east of the river have remained occupied by Russian forces. For its contributions to the country's defense during the invasion, Kherson was awarded the honorary title Hero City of Ukraine in 2022. The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam on 6 June 2023 heavily impacted the region, with cities along the banks of the Dnipro downriver from the breached dam (Hola Prystan, Kherson, Nova Kakhovka, and Oleshky) experiencing flooding. (Full article...) -
The Vorontsov Palace: the northern entrance façade. The stone was mined locally as part of a conscious effort to blend the building with its mountainous surroundings.
The Vorontsov Palace (Ukrainian: Воронцовський палац; Russian: Воронцо́вский дворе́ц) or the Alupka Palace is a historic palace situated at the foot of the Crimean Mountains near the town of Alupka in Crimea. The Vorontsov Palace is one of the oldest and largest palaces in Crimea, and is one of the most popular tourist attractions on Crimea's southern coast.
The palace was built between 1828 and 1848 for the Russian Prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov for use as his personal summer residence at a cost of 9 million roubles. It was designed in a loose interpretation of the English Renaissance revival style by English architect Edward Blore and his assistant William Hunt. The building is a hybrid of several architectural styles, but faithful to none. Among those styles are elements of Scottish Baronial, Indo-Saracenic Revival Architecture, and Gothic Revival architecture. Blore had designed many buildings in the United Kingdom, and was later particularly well known there for completing the design of Buckingham Palace in London. (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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Kateryna Mykolayivna Skarzhynska née von Reiser (Ukrainian: Катерина Миколаївна Скаржинська, 7 February 1852 O.S./19 February 1852 (N.S.) – 1932) was a Ukrainian noblewoman, philanthropist, and collector of folklore. She established the first private museum in Ukraine to house her collection of artifacts and was particularly known for her collection of pysanky, Easter eggs decorated with Ukrainian folk art. Born in Lubny to the von Reiser family, which had a long history of military service to the Russian Tsars, she was educated at home, studying in her parents' library and with select tutors. After her father died in 1859, together with her mother, brother, and maternal grandmother she moved to the Lodygyn/Lodigine family estates in the Tver province of the Russian Empire, near Moscow. There at the age of 14, von Reiser established a school for the former serfs of the estate and a public hospital.
In 1869, von Reiser became acquainted with Nikolai Georgievich Skarzhynsky, a Ukrainian nobleman and soldier. Through his circle of friends, she decided to continue her education and passed her gymnasium studies, entering the Bestuzhev Courses. They married in 1874 and later would have five children together. Five years later, he was transferred from St. Petersburg back to Ukraine. Though she did not finish her studies, Skarzhynska had developed an interest in culture and moving back to her father's estate, Kruglik, inspired her to begin collecting folk art and other artifacts. Consulting with ethnographers, archaeologists and historians, she financed archaeological excavations and amassed a large collection of items. Failing to interest local authorities in establishing a museum to house them, she created the first private museum in Ukraine in 1880. Hiring professional curators, Skarzhynska assisted in developing the collection until 1905. One of the curators, Sergiy Kulzhynskiy, would become her partner, father of her youngest child, and her companion and caretaker in her old age. In 1906, she transferred her materials to the Museum of Natural History of Poltava Provincial Zemstvo. (Full article...) -
Chervona Ukraina (Ukrainian: "Червона Україна") was an Admiral Nakhimov-class light cruiser of the Soviet Navy assigned to the Black Sea Fleet. During World War II, she supported Soviet forces during the Sieges of Odessa and Sevastopol before being sunk at Sevastopol on 12 November 1941 by German aircraft. She was raised in 1947 and was used as a training hulk before becoming a target ship in 1950. (Full article...) -
Metro Exodus is a 2019 first-person shooter game developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver. The game is the third installment in the Metro video game series, which is based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's novels. It is a sequel to Metro: Last Light and the book Metro 2035, and follows protagonist Artyom and his crew as they flee the Moscow Metro and set off with their allies on an intercontinental journey through Russia and parts of Kazakhstan on a locomotive called Aurora. The story takes place over a year, during which Artyom visits locations such as the Volga River and the Caspian Sea. The game improves on the gameplay mechanics of Last Light; it includes several miniature open world locations and has linear levels like earlier games in the series.
Starting in 2014, the game was developed by a team of around 150 based in Kyiv and Malta. The Exodus studio's main objective was to combine the core gameplay pillars of the Metro series with elements from S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (2007), which prioritizes emergent gameplay and features a large, explorable space. The team experimented with open-world gameplay and excluded mission markers so that players can explore naturally. 4A collaborated with Glukhovsky on the game's story, which focuses more on Artyom's personal story and relationships, forgoing some of the supernatural elements found in previous games for a more grounded story. (Full article...) -
The Romanian Volunteer Corps in Russia (Romanian: Corpul Voluntarilor români din Rusia), or Volunteer Corps of Transylvanians-Bukovinians (Corpul Voluntarilor ardeleni-bucovineni, Corpul Voluntarilor transilvăneni și bucovineni), was a military formation of World War I, created from ethnic Romanian prisoners of war held by Russia. Officially established in February 1917, it comprised abjurers of the Austro-Hungarian Army, mainly contingents from Transylvania and Bukovina. These had been obliged to fight against Romania, and, once in Russian custody, volunteered for service against the Central Powers. As campaigners for self-determination and union with Romania, they passed political resolutions which, in both tone and scope, announced those adopted on Union Day 1918.
The Corps was effectively an active military reserve of the Romanian Land Forces, and regularly dispatched new units to the Romanian front after June 1917. It helped defend the last stretches of Romania against the Central Powers' unified offensive, and met success in the Battle of Mărășești, but it still lacked a unitary command structure. When the October Revolution in Russia and the Romanian armistice took Romania out of the Entente camp, the Corps was left without backing and purpose. However, it inspired the creation of similar units in Entente countries, most successfully the Romanian Volunteer Legion of Italy. (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...) -
Vsevolod Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum (23 August [O.S. 11 August] 1882 – 18 September 1945), commonly known by his pseudonym Volin, was a Russian anarchist intellectual. He became involved in revolutionary socialist politics during the 1905 Russian Revolution, for which he was forced into exile, where he gravitated towards anarcho-syndicalism.
He returned to Petrograd following the February Revolution of 1917 and propagandised for anarcho-syndicalism in the Russian capital. In the wake of the October Revolution, which he criticised for bringing the Bolsheviks to power, he left for Ukraine, where he became a leading figure in the Makhnovshchina. During this time, he developed a theory of synthesis anarchism, which advocated for collaboration between anarchists of different tendencies, and spearheaded the intellectual development of Ukrainian anarchism, as leader of the Nabat and chair of the third Military Revolutionary Council during the civil war. (Full article...) -
Dayana Oleksandrivna Yastremska (Ukrainian: Даяна Олександрівна Ястремська; born 15 May 2000) is a Ukrainian professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as No. 21 by the WTA, achieved in January 2020. Yastremska has won three WTA Tour titles. Her best major tournament performance is reaching the semifinals at the 2024 Australian Open.
A junior Grand Slam tournament runner-up in both singles and doubles, Yastremska had a quick breakthrough onto the WTA Tour. She made her debut in the top 100 and won two titles when she was 18 years old, including her first at the Hong Kong Open in 2018. She had a successful 2019 that helped her rise from No. 58 at the start of the year up to No. 22 by the end of the season. Yastremska was suspended provisionally from competition at the start of 2021 after testing positive for mesterolone. On 22 June 2021, the International Tennis Federation ruled that Yastremska was not responsible for the positive result, and that she was eligible to return to competition immediately. She made her return to the tour at the Hamburg Open. (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...)
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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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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. -
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. -
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. -
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: 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. -
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. -
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; 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. -
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: 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. -
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. -
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.
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Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that Ukrainian artist Kateryna Antonovych worked at Prague's Museum of Ukraine's Struggle for Independence before the US Army Air Forces bombed it?
- ... that Italian Jacopo Tissi became one of the few foreign principal dancers in Bolshoi Ballet's history, only to leave two months later due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
- ... that Ruslana Pysanka, who hosted a Ukrainian television program with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, died as a refugee in Germany?
- ... that military volunteer Maria Berlinska led the report that let women hold combat positions in the Ukrainian military?
- ... that in 2020, Ukrainian association football referee Maryna Striletska was part of the first all-woman officiating team for a men's international football match?
- ... that the Ukrainian violinist Diana Tishchenko played Skoryk's Melody on a tour of the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra to Germany in April 2022?
More did you know -
- ... that the Khreschatyk is the main street of Ukrainian capital Kyiv on which Orange Revolution and other historical events mainly took place?
- ... 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 among many historic landmarks at the Andrew's Descent in Kyiv, there is a medieval Gothic style castle that locals call the "Castle of Richard the Lion Heart" due to the legend the 12th century King of England had visited the building?
- ... that Ukrainian naturalist, lecturer, artist and author John Lhotsky was credited as the first discoverer of gold in New South Wales?
- ... that Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych (pictured), known for the "Carol of the Bells", was nicknamed "Ukrainian Bach" in France?
- ... 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?
Selected article -
The economy of Ukraine is a developing, upper-middle income, mixed economy. It grew rapidly from 2000 until 2008 when the Great Recession began worldwide and reached Ukraine. The economy recovered in 2010 and continued improving until 2013. The Russian incursion in Ukraine caused a severe economic decline from 2014 to 2015, with the country's gross domestic product in 2015 barely surpassing half of what it was in 2013. In 2016, the economy again started to grow. By 2018, the Ukrainian economy was growing rapidly, and reached almost 80% of its size in 2008.
The depression during the 1990s included hyperinflation and a fall in economic output to less than half of the GDP of the preceding Ukrainian SSR. GDP growth was recorded for the first time in 2000, and continued for eight years. This growth was halted by the global financial crisis of 2008. The Ukrainian economy recovered and achieved positive GDP growth in the first quarter of 2010. In the early 2010s, Ukraine was noted as possessing many of the components of a major European economy, such as rich farmlands, a well-developed industrial base, highly trained labour, and a good education system. It also has important mineral resources. (Full article...)
In the news
- 29 November 2024 – Russo-Ukrainian War
- Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine–NATO relations
- Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that his country is ready to agree to a ceasefire if NATO protects parts of Ukraine. (Kyiv Post)
- 28 November 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Eastern front of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- The Russian Defence Ministry claims that Russian forces have taken the village of Nova Illinka in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. (Reuters)
- Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure, Ukrainian energy crisis
- Russia launches a massive missile and drone attack on civilian and critical infrastructure in Ukraine, injuring at least five people and causing blackouts for more than a million households. (CNN)
- 26 November 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Eastern front of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Battle of Kurakhove
- Russian forces enter the city of Kurakhove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, with heavy fighting reportedly underway. (Al Arabiya)
Selected anniversaries for December
- December 1, 1991 — Ukraine's first presidential election takes place.
Photo gallery
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The Swallow's Nest is one of the Neo-Gothic châteaux fantastiques near Yalta; it was built in 1912. -
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. -
Interiour view of the Pochayiv Lavra in Ukraine. -
The square in front of the theater in Chernivtsi. -
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A wooden bridge leads to the entrance to the Khomutovska Steppe in Donetsk Oblast. -
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St Andrew's Church of Kyiv (1749–1854) -
Potemkin Stairs in Odesa, Ukraine. The higher perspective allows a person to see both the stairs and landings. -
An 1691 French map of the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi, located in western Ukraine.
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Streets of Mukacheve in the old part of town -
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A view of Lviv Old Town from the High Castle. -
A view of Lviv -
View on the lower fortress of the Kamianets-Podilskyi Castle -
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Trinity Church and Monastery in Chernihiv, Ukraine
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