History Files
 

Help the History Files

Contributed: £101

Target: £760

2023
Totals slider
2023

The History Files is a non-profit site. It is only able to support such a vast and ever-growing collection of information with your help. Last year's donation plea failed to meet its target so this year your help is needed more than ever. Please make a donation so that the work can continue. Your help is hugely appreciated.

European Kingdoms

Eastern Europe

 

Modern Ukraine
AD 1991 - Present Day
Incorporating Heads of State (1991-2024)

Today's Ukraine is a unitary republic which is governed under a semi-presidential system. That system is moving increasingly towards strengthening ties with the rest of Europe outside Russia (especially after the events of 2022). The nation's capital is the former Rus mother city of Kyiv (the twentieth century translation - Moscow's translation - of the Slavic name as 'Kiev' is now outdated).

The nation state of Ukraine is neighboured to the west by Moldova (and Transnistria), and by Romania both via its Black Sea corridor and in western Ukraine, where it also borders Hungary and Slovakia. To the north-west it borders Poland, and to the north Belarus and Russia, with the latter also surrounding it to the east.

The city of Kyiv was already an important settlement in the ninth century AD. According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, two boyars (nobles) by the name of Askold and Dir sailed down the Dnieper from Novgorod. With a force of Vikings behind them, they took control of a settlement on a hill and freed the locals from Khazar dominance.

In 882, Oleg, the new ruler of Novgorod, embarked on a campaign which saw him capture the early settlements of Smolensk and Lyubech. Upon reaching Kyiv he slew the upstart boyars who thought they could found their own state, and declared Kyiv to be the mother of the cities of the Rus. He subsequently ruled there as the chief amongst the Rus princes, beginning a line of grand princes who would dominate Rus affairs for over two and-a-half centuries.

When the north, firstly in the form of Vladimir and then by the principality of Moscow, grabbed power by force, Kyiv declined in influence before becoming part of Lithuania as the principality of Kyiv, and then part of the Polish Commonwealth as the voivodeship of Kyiv. A few centuries later, defeat of the 'Ukrainian People's Republic' saw the territory incorporated into the Soviet Union as the 'Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic'.

As Europe's second largest country, Ukraine is a land of wide, fertile agricultural plains, with large pockets of heavy industry in the east. While Ukraine and Russia share common historical origins, the west of the country has closer ties with its European neighbours, particularly Poland thanks especially to the commonwealth period.

An illustration of the shared heritage of this region is Galicia, which today is divided between south-eastern Poland and western Ukraine, into the provinces of Westgalizien and Ostgalizien respectively, with the Pripet marshes immediately to the east (now in Belarus).

Eastern Ukraine became heavily industrialised in the twentieth century and contains a significant population of ethnic Russians, especially in the easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk where Russian is the dominant language. A wide swathe from Kharkiv to Odessa speaks both languages, while the north and west of Ukraine is largely ethnically Ukrainian. Ukraine's southernmost region is Crimea (Russian-occupied from 2014), which has a sixty percent Russian population.

However, the general Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered a social movement in which Russian-speaking Ukrainians began to learn Ukrainian as their main language, and became more vocal in their support of a free and fair Ukraine over a repressive and stagnating Russia. In effect, Valdimir Putin's invasion and failed land-grab did more to create a united Ukraine - and one which enjoyed ever deepening ties with the majority of free European states - than anything before it.

Since 1991 the act of referring to the modern state as 'The Ukraine' is incorrect both grammatically and politically, as confirmed by Oksana Kyzyma of the embassy of Ukraine in London: 'Ukraine is both the conventional short and long name of the country. This name is stated in the Ukrainian "Declaration of Independence" and its constitution'.

The use of the article relates to the time prior to independence in 1991, when Ukraine was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. Since the expiration of the Soviet system it should merely be 'Ukraine', especially as there is no definite article in the Ukrainian or Russian languages.

There is another theory about why 'The Ukraine' crept into the English language. Professor Anatoly Liberman of the University of Minnesota who specialises in etymology is of the opinion that those who called it that in English must have known that the word meant 'borderland', so quite naturally they referred to it as 'the borderland'.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians probably decided that the article denigrated their country (by identifying it as part of Russia) and abolished 'the' while speaking English, so now it is simply 'Ukraine'. As well as being a form of linguistic independence in Europe, it is also hugely symbolic for Ukrainians.


Steppe plains of Ukraine

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from the John De Cleene Archive, from Report for Selected Countries and Subjects, World Economic Outlook Database, October 2014, from the UN Data Country Profile, and from External Links: BBC Country Profiles, and Christianity faces biggest schism in a millennium (The Week), and Ukraine announces independent Orthodox church (The Guardian), and Eastern Ukraine on peacekeeping duties (The Guardian), and How DO you pronounce Kyiv, anyway? (University of Kansas News Service on YouTube), and Enemy tongue (The Guardian), and Ukraine: The Latest (The Telegraph, via YouTube and podcast).)

1991 - 1994

Leonid Kravchuk

First president of an independent Ukraine. No party.

1991 - 1994

Following independence from the former Soviet empire on 24 August 1991 and the dissolution of the 'Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic', the new country's first president is former Communist Party official, Leonid Kravchuk. He presides over the rapid economic decline and runaway inflation which is affecting most of the former Soviet states.

Boris Yeltsin in 1991
Boris Yeltsin won mass popular support during his leading role in thwarting the attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991

1991 - 1994

Following independence from the former Soviet empire on 24 August 1991, the new country's first president is former Communist Party official, Leonid Kravchuk. He presides over the rapid economic decline and runaway inflation which is affecting most of the former Soviet states.

His successor, Leonid Kuchma, oversees a steady economic recovery, but is accused by the opposition of conceding too much to Russian economic interests.

1994 - 2005

Leonid Kuchma

President. No party.

1994 - 2004

Opposition grows against Kuchma, further fed by discontent at controls on media freedom, manipulation of the political system, and cronyism. The attempt by the authorities to rig the 2004 presidential elections leads to the 'Orange Revolution', with reference to the colour of the main opposition movement.

2004 - 2008

Mass protests, a revolt by state media against government controls, and the fracturing of the governing coalition brings in European Union mediation and a re-run of the election. The euphoria of the Orange Revolution protesters gives way to disappointment as its leaders squabble once in power.

Orange Revolution
The Orange Revolution was an almost nationwide upsurge of anti-corruption feeling which delivered Ukraine its first truly free and fair democratic elections

2005 - 2010

Viktor Yushchenko

President. 'Our Ukraine'.

A fragile alliance of anti-Kuchma forces unites behind the winner of the presidential elections, pro-western former prime minister, Viktor Yushchenko. He succeeds in carrying out some democratic reform, but moves towards Nato and EU membership are slowed by divided public opinion in Ukraine, and by western reluctance to antagonise a resurgent Russia.

Rivalry with his prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, sours into open antagonism, and neither prove able to cope with the worldwide economic downturn after 2008. Their opponent in the 'Orange Revolution', Viktor Yanukovych, wins the 2010 presidential election.

2010 - 2014

Viktor Yanukovych

President. Party of the Regions (PR). Later, no party.

2010 - 2013

Viktor Yanukovych swiftly reorientates foreign and trade policy towards Russia and clamps down on media freedom. He also has various opponents, most prominently former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, imprisoned following trials which are seen by many as being politically-motivated.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Vladimir Putin of Russia
Having been accused of abuse of office because she was forced into making a deal with Vladimir Putin when he stopped gas supplies to Ukraine in the winter of 2009, Tymoshenko was later victimised by Viktor Yanukovych. and falsely sent to prison until her 2014 release

Ukraine depends upon Russia for its gas supplies and the country forms an important part of the pipeline transit route for Russian gas exports into Central Europe. This provides Ukraine with a constant source of stress during the decade.

Moves to reach an association agreement with the EU - seen as a key step towards eventual EU membership - again fuels tensions with Russia. The government's decision to drop the agreement brings tens of thousands of protesters out onto the streets in November 2013, known collectively as the 'Euromaidan' protests.

2013 - 2014

Mass protests in Kyiv have little effect until the police use violent force. The next day student protesters are joined in force by the rest of the citizenry, and it is their collective pressure which eventually forces the collapse and flight of the Yanukovych government after four months of violent chaos.

Ukraine during the Euromaidan protests
The bailout agreement which included cheap gas and fifteen billion US dollars in loans which Russia offered to Ukraine on 17 December emboldened the government of President Viktor Yanukovych, but his victory would be short-lived - by only another four months, in fact

Yanukovych is declared unelected by parliament based on his flight and his murder of innocent Ukrainians, and he is removed from the roll call of official Ukrainian presidents. Moscow reacts to Ukraine's domestic turmoil by sending troops to annexe the former Soviet territory of Crimea in 2014 while stoking separatist sentiment in eastern Ukraine which is focussed on Donetsk and Luhansk.

2014

Oleksandr Turchynov

Acting president (Feb-Jun). Y Tymoshenko Election Bloc.

2014 - 2019

Petro Poroshenko

President (from Jun 2014). No party.

2014

With the election of the pro-western Petro Poroshenko as president of Ukraine in May 2014 and parliamentary elections in October which consolidate the grip on power by the president's political allies, Kyiv is now firmly western-leaning.

The pro-Russian separatist eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk form their own republican governments and, with military aid from Russia, manage to hold onto a core territory in the face of Ukrainian attempts to end the rebellion.

Ukrainian separatists
The separatists in eastern Ukraine were carrying weapons, using equipment, and even had troops which were supplied directly from Russia, although Russia continued to deny any involvement

A ceasefire deal is signed in September 2014, leaving the situation unresolved and likely to harden into a de facto separation given time. Some fighting continues, although not on the scale seen previously.

On 23 December 2014, Ukraine's parliament takes a big step towards joining Nato by voting to revoke the non-aligned status which, effectively, had been forced upon it by Russian pressure in 2010. The vote is passed easily, by 303 votes to eight.

2018 - 2019

Ukraine secures approval from the global head of Orthodox Christianity in Istanbul (Constantinople) to create its own Orthodox Church structure which is independent of Russia's patriarchate for the first time since 1686.

The change is politically driven, and is largely due to Russia's occupation of Crimea, its invasion by proxy of eastern Ukraine, and many years of bullying and interfering in Ukrainian affairs, and it sparks the expected negative reaction in Moscow.

Ukraine's Orthodox church splits with Moscow in 2018
Ukrainians gathered in Kyiv in 2018 in a show of support for the decision to detach the country's Orthodox church establishment from Moscow's increasingly belligerent control

The division of Russian and Ukrainian churches is made official by Istanbul in January 2019, just in time for the Orthodox Christmas celebrations (which are soon moved to dates which align with those of much of the rest of Europe outside of Russia).

2019 - On

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

President. Sluha Narodu. Ex-actor turned Churchillian leader.

2022

On Monday 22 February, after months of increasing pressure from his side, President Putin takes the politically manipulative step of formally recognising as independent states the Russian-created breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine. They are now - according to Moscow - to be known as the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics.

Almost immediately afterwards, Putin orders Russian troops which had been massing along Ukraine's borders (and even its Belarussian border) to enter Ukraine on a 'peacekeeping' mission. Initial thoughts are that Luhansk and Donetsk are to be secured so that they can later be 'allowed' to apply to join the Russian federation.

A Russian tank burns in Ukraine in 2022
Despite outnumbering the more lightly-armed Ukrainian forces by at least three-to-one, Russian forces continued to suffer far heavier rates of attrition, with tank losses surprisingly high as Ukrainian units undertook highly effective ambushes against them

The invasion, though, comes from all along the Russian border, including occupied Crimea, and targets several cities, including Kyiv. The subsequent scale of Ukrainian resistance surprises and delays the Russian forces.

Both Russia and Belarus are included in the unprecedented international backlash against an increasingly isolated Russian state. Realising that a swift victory has become impossible but refusing to back down, Putin directs his forces to undertake a slow and brutal siege-warfare approach which devastates several Ukrainian cities.

By then Ukraine's popular President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, former actor and comedian, has long since won the hearts and support of much of the rest of the world, and goes on to become an almost-Churchillian figurehead for resistance against attempted invasion.

2023

Russia's 2023 campaign starts out badly when its forces are rapidly ejected from a large area to the east of Kharkiv and then the entire right bank area of Kherson and surroundings. After that it digs in behind highly fortified and heavily-mined defensive lines in the east and south to fight a slow, losing battle of attrition.

Ukraine's forces fire artillery
Russia's 2023 campaign was very much one of defence and 'meat-grinder' forms of badly-coordinated attacks which were often beaten off with proportionally huge losses, while Ukraine's versatile artillery (shown here) proved to be excellent

Ukraine's smaller forces continue to make slow but steady territorial gains throughout the summer, but are hampered by slow deliveries of vital arms which have been promised by the USA and EU. Russia secures shell production from North Korea and drone production from Iran, both eager to fight what they see as a proxy war against the US.

 
Images and text copyright © all contributors mentioned on this page. An original king list page for the History Files.
Alibris: Books, Music, & Movies
Alibris: Books, Music, & Movies