Ukraine
Public Europe
Public Europe
Active 3 years ago
Ukraine (Ukrainian: Україна, romanized: Ukraïna, pronounced [ʊkrɐˈjinɐ]) is a country in Eastern Eur... View more
Public Europe
Organizer:
- Organized by
-
-
Group Description
Ukraine (Ukrainian: Україна, romanized: Ukraïna, pronounced [ʊkrɐˈjinɐ]) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country, covering approximately 600,000 square kilometres (230,000 sq mi),and has a population of around 40 million people. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast; by Belarus to the north; by Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; and by Romania and Moldova to the southwest; with a coastline along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to the south and southeast, respectively. Kyiv is Ukraine’s capital as well as its largest city. The country’s language is Ukrainian, and many people are also fluent in Russian.
During the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture under the state of Kievan Rus’, which emerged in the 9th century and was destroyed by a Mongol invasion in the 13th century. Over the next 600 years, the area was contested, divided, and ruled by a variety of external powers, 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 ultimately completely into the Russian Empire. Ukrainian nationalism grew in the 19th century, particularly in Galicia, a kingdom within Austria-Hungary. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, a Ukrainian national movement re-emerged, and formed the Ukrainian People’s Republic in 1917. This short-lived state was forcibly reconstituted by the Bolsheviks into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which became a founding member of the Soviet Union in 1922. In the 1930s, millions of Ukrainians were killed by the Holodomor, a man-made famine of the Stalinist era. In 1939, with the secret agreement of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union invaded and annexed lands with predominant Ukrainian population from Poland to western Ukraine. Between 1922 and 1991, Ukraine was the most populous and industrialized Soviet republic after Russia.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine regained its independence, and has since been governed as a unitary republic under a semi-presidential system. Shortly after becoming one of the post-Soviet states it declared itself neutral; forming a limited military partnership with Russia and the rest of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States, while also joining the Partnership for Peace with NATO in 1994. In 2013, a series of mass protests and demonstrations known as the Euromaidan erupted across Ukraine, eventually escalating into the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, which led to the establishment of a new government amidst a notable outbreak of pro-Russia unrest across Ukraine. During this period, unmarked Russian troops invaded the Crimean Peninsula, which was later annexed by Russia; and pro-Russia unrest in Ukraine’s Donbas culminated in Russia-backed separatists seizing territory throughout the region, sparking the War in Donbas. This series of events marked the beginning of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, and in a major escalation of the conflict in February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since the outbreak of war with Russia in 2014, Ukraine has continued to seek closer economic, political, and military ties with the Western world, including the European Union and NATO.
Ukraine is among the poorest countries in Europe and also suffers from widespread corruption. However, due to its extensive fertile land, pre-war Ukraine was one of the largest grain exporters in the world. It is a member state of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the GUAM Organization, the Association Trio, and the Lublin Triangle.