Ukraine

Part[2]

World War II

Following the invasion of Poland in September 1939, German and Soviet troops divided Polish territory. Consequently, with their Ukrainian populations, Eastern Galicia and Volhynia became part of Ukraine. For the first time in history, the Ukrainian nation was united. Further territorial gains were secured in 1940 when the Ukrainian SSR incorporated the northern and southern districts of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertsa region from territories the USSR forced Romania to cede, though it handed over the western part of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to the newly created Moldavian SSR. These territorial gains were internationally recognized by the Paris peace treaties of 1947.

German armies invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, initiating nearly four years of total war. The Axis initially advanced against the desperate but unsuccessful efforts of the Red Army. In the Battle of Kyiv, the city was acclaimed as a “Hero City” due to its fierce resistance. More than 600,000 Soviet soldiers (or one-quarter of the Soviet Western Front) were killed or taken captive, many suffering severe mistreatment. After its conquest, most of the Ukrainian SSR was organized within the Reichskommissariat Ukraine to exploit its resources and prepare for eventual German settlement. Some Western Ukrainians, who had only joined the Soviet Union in 1939, initially welcomed the Germans as liberators. Still, that sentiment quickly faded as the Nazis made little effort to exploit dissatisfaction with Stalinist policies. Instead, the Nazis preserved the collective-farm system, carried out genocidal policies against Jews, deported millions to work in Germany, and initiated a depopulation program for German colonization. They also blockaded the transport of food on the Dnieper River.

Although the majority of Ukrainians fought in or alongside the Red Army and Soviet resistance, an independent Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) movement arose in Western Ukraine in 1942. It was created as the armed forces of the underground Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Both the OUN and the UPA supported the goal of an independent Ukrainian state on territory with a Ukrainian ethnic majority. This often brought them into conflict with Nazi Germany, although at times the Melnyk wing of the OUN allied with Nazi forces. From mid-1943 until the end of the war, the UPA carried out massacres of ethnic Poles in the Volhynia and Eastern Galicia regions, killing around 100,000 Polish civilians, which led to reprisals. These massacres aimed to create a homogeneous Ukrainian state without a Polish minority and to prevent the post-war Polish state from asserting sovereignty over areas that had been part of pre-war Poland. After the war, the UPA continued to fight the USSR until the 1950s. Meanwhile, another nationalist movement, the Ukrainian Liberation Army, fought alongside the Nazis.

The number of ethnic Ukrainians who fought in the Soviet Army is estimated to be between 4.5 million and 7 million. Half of the pro-Soviet partisan guerrilla resistance units, which numbered up to 500,000 troops in 1944, were also Ukrainian. Estimates of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army’s strength vary widely, ranging from 15,000 to as many as 100,000 fighters.

The vast majority of World War II fighting took place on the Eastern Front. The total losses inflicted upon the Ukrainian population during the war are estimated at 6 million, including approximately 1.5 million Jews killed by the Einsatzgruppen, sometimes with the help of local collaborators. Of the estimated 8.6 million Soviet troop losses, 1.4 million were ethnic Ukrainians. Victory Day is celebrated as one of Ukraine’s eleven national holidays.

Post-war Soviet Ukraine

The aftermath of World War II left the Ukrainian SSR heavily damaged, necessitating extensive recovery efforts. Over 700 cities and towns, along with 28,000 villages, were destroyed. The situation worsened due to a famine in 1946–1947, caused by a drought and the wartime destruction of infrastructure, which killed at least tens of thousands of people. In 1945, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the founding members of the United Nations (UN) as part of a special agreement at the Yalta Conference. Alongside Belarus, it had voting rights in the UN, despite not being an independent state. Furthermore, Ukraine expanded its borders by annexing Zakarpattia, and its population became more homogenized due to post-war population transfers, most of which, such as those involving Germans and Crimean Tatars, were forced. As of January 1, 1953, Ukrainians were second only to Russians among adult “special deportees,” comprising 20% of the total.

Following the death of Stalin in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev became the new leader of the USSR and initiated policies of de-Stalinization and the Khrushchev Thaw. During his term, Crimea was transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR, formally as a gesture of friendship and for economic reasons. This transfer marked the final extension of Ukrainian territory and established the basis for the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine today. Ukraine became one of the most significant republics within the Soviet Union, with many top Soviet positions occupied by Ukrainians, including Leonid Brezhnev, who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982. However, Brezhnev and his appointee in Ukraine, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, oversaw extensive Russification and repression of a new generation of Ukrainian intellectuals known as the Sixties.

By 1950, the Ukrainian SSR had surpassed pre-war levels of industry and production. Soviet Ukraine soon became a European leader in industrial production and an important center of the Soviet arms industry and high-tech research, although its heavy industry remained influenced by external factors. The Soviet government invested in hydroelectric and nuclear power projects to meet the energy demands of ongoing development. However, on April 26, 1986, a reactor in the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded, resulting in the Chornobyl disaster, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history.

Independence

Mikhail Gorbachev pursued a policy of limited liberalization of public life, known as perestroika, and attempted to reform a stagnating economy. While the economic reforms failed, the democratization of the Soviet Union fueled nationalist and separatist tendencies among ethnic minorities, including Ukrainians. As part of the so-called parade of sovereignties, on 16 July 1990, the newly elected Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine. After a failed coup by some Communist leaders in Moscow to depose Gorbachev, outright independence was proclaimed on 24 August 1991. This move was approved by 92% of the Ukrainian electorate in a referendum on 1 December. Ukraine’s new President, Leonid Kravchuk, went on to sign the Belavezha Accords, making Ukraine a founding member of the much looser Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), though Ukraine never became a full member as it did not ratify the agreement founding the CIS. These documents sealed the fate of the Soviet Union, which formally voted itself out of existence on 26 December.

Ukraine was initially viewed as having favorable economic conditions compared to other regions of the Soviet Union, though it was one of the poorer Soviet republics by the time of the dissolution. However, during its transition to a market economy, the country experienced a deeper economic slowdown than almost all other former Soviet Republics. Between 1991 and 1999, Ukraine lost 60% of its GDP and suffered from hyperinflation which peaked at 10,000% in 1993. The situation only stabilized after the introduction of the new currency, the hryvnia, which fell sharply in late 1998, partially as a fallout from the Russian debt default earlier that year. The legacy of the economic policies of the 1990s was the mass privatization of state property, which created a class of extremely powerful and rich individuals known as the oligarchs. The country then fell into a series of sharp recessions due to the 2008 global financial crisis, the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014, and finally, the full-scale invasion by Russia beginning on 24 February 2022. Ukraine’s economy underperformed due to pervasive corruption and mismanagement, which led to protests and organized strikes in the 1990s. The war with Russia impeded meaningful economic recovery in the 2010s, while efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, which arrived in 2020, were made much harder by low vaccination rates and, later in the pandemic, by the ongoing invasion.

From a political perspective, one of the defining features of Ukraine’s politics has been its division along two issues: the relationship between Ukraine, the West, and Russia, and the classical left-right divide. The first two presidents, Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma, tended to balance these competing visions of Ukraine, while Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych were generally pro-Western and pro-Russian, respectively. There were two major protests against Yanukovych: the Orange Revolution in 2004, which erupted in response to election rigging in his favor (Yushchenko was eventually elected president), and another in the winter of 2013/2014, when more gathered on the Euromaidan to oppose Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement. By the end of the protests on 21 February 2014, Yanukovych fled from Ukraine and was removed by the parliament in what is termed the Revolution of Dignity. Russia, however, refused to recognize the interim pro-Western government, calling it a junta and denouncing the events as a coup d’état sponsored by the United States.

Even though Russia had signed the Budapest memorandum in 1994, which stipulated that Ukraine would hand over its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees and assurances of territorial integrity, Russia reacted violently to these developments and started a war against its Western neighbor. In late February and early March 2014, Russia annexed Crimea using its Navy in Sevastopol as well as the so-called Little Green Men; after this success, it then launched a proxy war in the Donbas via the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic. The initial months of the conflict with the Russian-backed separatists were fluid, but Russian forces then started an open invasion of Donbas on 24 August 2014. Together they pushed back Ukrainian troops to the frontline established in February 2015, i.e., after Ukrainian troops withdrew from Debaltseve. The conflict remained in a sort of frozen state until the early hours of 24 February 2022, when Russia proceeded with an ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Russian troops control about 17% of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory, including 94% of Luhansk Oblast, 73% of Kherson Oblast, 72% of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, 54% of Donetsk Oblast, and Crimea, although Ukrainian troops have recaptured some territory in counteroffensives.

The military conflict with Russia shifted the government’s policy towards the West. Shortly after Yanukovych fled Ukraine, the country signed the EU association agreement in June 2014, and its citizens were granted visa-free travel to the European Union three years later. In January 2019, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was recognized as independent of Moscow, reversing the 1686 decision of the patriarch of Constantinople and dealing a further blow to Moscow’s influence in Ukraine. Finally, amid a full-scale war with Russia, Ukraine was granted candidate status to the European Union on 23 June 2022. A broad anti-corruption drive began in early 2023 with the resignations of several deputy ministers and regional heads during a government reshuffle.

Geography

Ukraine is the second-largest European country, after Russia, and the largest country entirely within Europe. It lies between latitudes 44° and 53° N and longitudes 22° and 41° E, mostly occupying the East European Plain. Ukraine spans an area of 603,550 square kilometers (233,030 square miles), with a coastline stretching 2,782 kilometers (1,729 miles).

The Ukrainian landscape is primarily composed of fertile steppes (plains with few trees) and plateaus, intersected by rivers such as the Dnieper (Dnipro), Seversky Donets, Dniester, and the Southern Bug, which flow southward into the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Danube Delta forms the southwestern border with Romania. Ukraine’s regions exhibit diverse geographic features, ranging from highlands to lowlands. The country’s only mountain ranges are the Carpathian Mountains in the west, with the highest peak being Hoverla at 2,061 meters (6,762 feet), and the Crimean Mountains along the southern coast.

Several highland regions include the Volyn-Podillia Upland in the west and the Near-Dnipro Upland on the right bank of the Dnieper. To the east, the southwestern spurs of the Central Russian Upland mark the border with Russia. Near the Sea of Azov are the Donets Ridge and the Near Azov Upland. Snowmelt from the mountains feeds the rivers and their waterfalls.

Ukraine is rich in natural resources such as lithium, natural gas, kaolin, timber, and extensive arable land. However, the country faces numerous environmental issues. Some regions lack adequate supplies of potable water, and air and water pollution are prevalent. Deforestation and radiation contamination in the northeast from the 1986 Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident also pose significant challenges. The environmental damage caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been described as ecocide, with the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, severe pollution, and millions of tonnes of contaminated debris. The estimated cost to repair this damage exceeds USD 50 billion.

Climate

Ukraine is situated in the mid-latitudes and generally experiences a continental climate, except for its southern coasts, which have cold semi-arid, and humid subtropical climates. Average annual temperatures range from 5.5–7 °C (41.9–44.6 °F) in the north to 11–13 °C (51.8–55.4 °F) in the south. Precipitation is highest in the west and north and lowest in the east and southeast. Western Ukraine, particularly in the Carpathian Mountains, receives around 120 centimeters (47.2 inches) of precipitation annually, while Crimea and the coastal areas of the Black Sea receive around 40 centimeters (15.7 inches).

Water availability from the major river basins is expected to decrease due to climate change, especially in summer, posing risks to the agricultural sector. The negative impacts of climate change on agriculture are mostly felt in the south of the country, which has a steppe climate. In the north, some crops may benefit from a longer growing season. The World Bank has stated that Ukraine is highly vulnerable to climate change.

Biodiversity

Ukraine contains six terrestrial ecoregions: Central European mixed forests, Crimean Submediterranean forest complex, East European forest-steppe, Pannonian mixed forests, Carpathian montane conifer forests, and Pontic steppe. There is somewhat more coniferous than deciduous forest. The most densely forested area is Polisia in the northwest, featuring pine, oak, and birch trees. Ukraine is home to around 45,000 species of animals, mostly invertebrates, with approximately 385 endangered species listed in the Red Data Book of Ukraine. Internationally important wetlands cover over 7,000 square kilometers (2,700 square miles), with the Danube Delta being a significant area for conservation.

Urban Areas

Ukraine has 457 cities, of which 176 are designated as oblast-class, 279 as smaller raion-class cities, and two as special legal status cities. In addition to these cities, there are 886 urban-type settlements and 28,552 villages.

Politics

Ukraine operates as a republic under a semi-presidential system, with distinct legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

Constitution

The Constitution of Ukraine was adopted and ratified on 28 June 1996 during the 5th session of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. It passed with 315 votes out of a possible 450 (with a minimum of 300 votes required). All other laws and normative legal acts in Ukraine must conform to the constitution. The Verkhovna Rada has the exclusive right to amend the constitution through a special legislative procedure. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine is the only body that can interpret the Constitution and determine whether legislation conforms to it. Constitution Day is celebrated on 28 June each year. On 7 February 2019, the Verkhovna Rada amended the constitution to state Ukraine’s strategic objectives of joining the European Union and NATO.

Government

The president, elected by popular vote for a five-year term, serves as the formal head of state. The legislative branch, the Verkhovna Rada, is a unicameral parliament with 450 seats. It is primarily responsible for forming the executive branch and the Cabinet of Ministers, which is headed by the prime minister. The president has the authority to nominate the ministers of foreign affairs and defense for parliamentary approval and can appoint the prosecutor general and the head of the Security Service. The Constitutional Court can abrogate laws, acts of the parliament and cabinet, presidential decrees, and acts of the Crimean parliament if they are found to violate the constitution. Other normative acts are subject to judicial review. The Supreme Court is the main body in the system of courts of general jurisdiction. Local self-government is officially guaranteed, with local councils and city mayors elected by popular vote and controlling local budgets. The heads of regional and district administrations are appointed by the president based on proposals from the prime minister.

Courts and Law Enforcement

Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, martial law has been declared and continues. Ukrainian law guarantees legal, financial, and constitutional freedom for the courts since 2002. Judges are well-protected from dismissal except for gross misconduct. Court justices are appointed by presidential decree for an initial period of five years, after which Ukraine’s Supreme Council confirms their positions for life. Although problems remain, the system has improved since Ukraine’s independence in 1991. The Supreme Court is considered an independent and impartial body and has occasionally ruled against the government. The World Justice Project ranks Ukraine 66th out of 99 countries in its annual Rule of Law Index.

Prosecutors in Ukraine have greater powers than in most European countries. According to the European Commission for Democracy through Law, “the role and functions of the Prosecutor’s Office are not by Council of Europe standards.” The conviction rate is over 99%, with suspects often incarcerated for long periods before trial. In 2010, President Yanukovych formed an expert group to recommend reforms to the court system, acknowledging its shortcomings. The criminal judicial system and the prison system remain punitive. Court proceedings can be held in Russian by mutual consent of the parties. Citizens who cannot speak Ukrainian or Russian may use their native language or the services of a translator. Previously, all court proceedings had to be held in Ukrainian.

Law enforcement agencies are controlled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, consisting primarily of the national police force and specialized units such as the State Border Guard and Coast Guard services. The police faced criticism for their heavy-handed approach during the 2004 Orange Revolution, with thousands of officers stationed throughout the capital to dissuade protesters and provide a quick reaction force if needed.

Foreign Relations

From 1999 to 2001, Ukraine served as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. Historically, Soviet Ukraine joined the United Nations in 1945 as one of its original members, following a Western compromise with the Soviet Union. Ukraine has consistently supported peaceful, negotiated settlements to disputes. It has participated in quadripartite talks on the conflict in Moldova and promoted a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the post-Soviet state of Georgia. Since 1992, Ukraine has contributed to UN peacekeeping operations.

Ukraine considers Euro-Atlantic integration its primary foreign policy objective, but in practice, it has balanced its relationships with the European Union and the United States with strong ties to Russia. The European Union’s Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Ukraine went into force in 1998. The European Union (EU) has encouraged Ukraine to implement the PCA fully before discussing an association agreement. This was issued at the EU Summit in December 1999 in Helsinki, which recognized Ukraine’s long-term aspirations but did not discuss association.

In 1992, Ukraine joined the then-Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (now the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)) and became a member of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. Ukraine-NATO relations are close, and the country has declared interest in eventual membership. Ukraine is the most active member of the Partnership for Peace (PfP). All major political parties in Ukraine support full eventual integration into the European Union. The Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union was signed in 2014. Ukraine long had close ties with all its neighbors, but Russia-Ukraine relations rapidly deteriorated in 2014 due to the annexation of Crimea, energy dependence, and payment disputes.

The Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), which entered into force in January 2016 following the ratification of the Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement, formally integrates Ukraine into the European Single Market and the European Economic Area. Ukraine receives further support and assistance for its EU-accession aspirations from the International Visegrád Fund of the Visegrád Group, which consists of Central European EU members: the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia.

In 2020, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine created the Lublin Triangle initiative, aiming to further cooperation between the three historical countries of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and advance Ukraine’s integration and accession to the EU and NATO.

In 2021, the Association Trio was formed by signing a joint memorandum between the Foreign Ministers of Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The Association Trio is a tripartite format for enhanced cooperation, coordination, and dialogue between the three countries (that have signed the Association Agreement with the EU) with the European Union on issues of common interest related to European integration, enhancing cooperation within the framework of the Eastern Partnership, and committing to the prospect of joining the European Union. As of 2021, Ukraine was preparing to formally apply for EU membership in 2024, aiming to join the European Union in the 2030s. However, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy requested that the country be admitted to the EU immediately. Candidate status was granted in June 2022. In recent years, Ukraine has dramatically strengthened its ties with the United States.

Military

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited a 780,000-man military force, equipped with the third-largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world. In 1992, Ukraine signed the Lisbon Protocol, agreeing to give up all nuclear weapons to Russia for disposal and to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state. By 1996, the country had become free of nuclear weapons.

Ukraine took consistent steps toward the reduction of conventional weapons. It signed the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which called for a reduction of tanks, artillery, and armored vehicles, reducing army forces to 300,000. The country planned to convert its conscript-based military into a professional volunteer force. Ukraine’s current military consists of 196,600 active personnel and around 900,000 reservists.

Ukraine has played an increasing role in peacekeeping operations. In 2014, the Ukrainian frigate Hetman Sagaidachniy joined the European Union’s counter-piracy Operation Atalanta and was part of the EU Naval Force off the coast of Somalia for two months. Ukrainian troops were deployed in Kosovo as part of the Ukrainian-Polish Battalion. From 2003 to 2005, a Ukrainian unit was deployed as part of the multinational force in Iraq under Polish command. Military units of other states regularly participated in multinational military exercises with Ukrainian forces in Ukraine, including U.S. military forces.

Following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. The country had a limited military partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries and has had a partnership with NATO since 1994. In the 2000s, the government leaned towards NATO, and deeper cooperation with the alliance was set by the NATO-Ukraine Action Plan signed in 2002. It was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Deposed President Viktor Yanukovych considered the then level of cooperation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient and was against Ukraine joining NATO. During the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO declared that Ukraine would eventually become a member when it met the criteria for accession.

As part of modernization efforts following the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014, junior officers were allowed to take more initiative, and a territorial defense force of volunteers was established. Various defensive weapons, including drones, were supplied by many countries, but not fighter jets. During the first few weeks of the 2022 Russian invasion, the military found it difficult to defend against shelling, missiles, and high-level bombing; but light infantry used shoulder-mounted weapons effectively to destroy tanks, armored vehicles, and low-flying aircraft.

Administrative divisions

The system of Ukrainian subdivisions reflects the country’s status as a unitary state, as stated in the country’s constitution, with unified legal and administrative regimes for each unit.

Including Sevastopol and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, which was annexed by the Russian Federation in 2014, Ukraine consists of 27 regions: twenty-four oblasts (provinces), one autonomous republic (Autonomous Republic of Crimea), and two cities of special status—Kyiv, the capital, and Sevastopol. The 24 oblasts and Crimea are subdivided into 136 raions (districts) and city municipalities of regional significance, or second-level administrative units.

Populated places in Ukraine are categorized into urban and rural areas. Urban populated places are further divided into cities and urban-type settlements (a Soviet administrative invention), while rural populated places consist of villages and settlements (a generally used term). All cities have a certain degree of self-rule depending on their significance, such as national significance (as in the case of Kyiv and Sevastopol), regional significance (within each oblast or autonomous republic), or district significance (all other cities). A city’s significance is determined by factors such as its population, socio-economic and historical importance, and infrastructure.

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