The Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Union Republics were national-based administrative units of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The Soviet Union was formed in 1922 by a treaty between the Soviet republics of Byelorussia, Russian SFSR (RSFSR), Transcaucasian Federation, and Ukraine, by which they became its constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The politics of Ukraine take place in a framework of a semi-presidential republic and a multi-party system. A Cabinet of Ministers exercises executive power. Legislative power is vested in Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. Under the Soviet one-party model, the Ukrainian SSR was governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union through its republican branch, the Communist Party of Ukraine.
Leonid Makarovych Kravchuk was a Ukrainian politician and the first president of Ukraine, serving from 5 December 1991 until 19 July 1994. In 1992, he signed the Lisbon Protocol, undertaking to give up Ukraine's nuclear arsenal. He was also the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and a People's Deputy of Ukraine serving in the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) faction.
The Constitution of Ukraine is the fundamental law of Ukraine. The constitution was adopted and ratified at the 5th session of the Verkhovna Rada, the parliament of Ukraine, on 28 June 1996. The constitution was passed with 315 ayes out of 450 votes possible. All other laws and other normative legal acts of Ukraine must conform to the constitution. The right to amend the constitution through a special legislative procedure is vested exclusively in the parliament. The only body that may interpret the constitution and determine whether legislation conforms to it is the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. Since 1996, the public holiday Constitution Day is celebrated on 28 June.
Vitold Pavlovych Fokin is a Ukrainian retired politician who served as the first prime minister of Ukraine from the country's declaration of independence on 24 August 1991 until 1 October 1992. Previously, he served as the prime minister of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 23 October 1990 to 24 August 1991.
A referendum on the Act of Declaration of Independence was held in Ukraine on 1 December 1991. An overwhelming majority of 92% of voters approved the declaration of independence made by the Verkhovna Rada on 24 August 1991.
The Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine was adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR on 24 August 1991.
The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine was adopted on July 16, 1990, by the recently elected parliament of Ukrainian SSR by a vote of 355 for and four against.
The New Union Treaty was a draft treaty that would have replaced the 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to salvage and reform the USSR. A ceremony of the Russian SFSR signing the treaty was scheduled for 20 August 1991 but was prevented by the August Coup a day earlier.
Supreme Soviet elections were held in the Ukrainian SSR on 4 March 1990, with runoffs in some seats held between 10 and 18 March. The elections were held to elect deputies to the republic's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Simultaneously, elections of oblast councils also took place in their respective administrative divisions.
The president of Ukraine is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties. The president is directly elected by the citizens of Ukraine for a five-year term of office, limited to two terms consecutively.
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, previously known as the Russian Soviet Republic and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia, was an independent federal socialist state from 1917 to 1922, and afterwards the largest and most populous constituent republic of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1922 to 1991, until becoming a sovereign part of the Soviet Union with priority of Russian laws over Union-level legislation in 1990 and 1991, the last two years of the existence of the USSR. The Russian SFSR was composed of sixteen smaller constituent units of autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group. The capital of the Russian SFSR and the USSR as a whole was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad, Stalingrad, Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, Gorky and Kuybyshev. It was the first socialist state in history.
The Chicken Kiev speech is the nickname for a speech given by the United States president George H. W. Bush in Kyiv, Ukraine, on August 1, 1991, three weeks before the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine and four months before the December independence referendum in which 92.26% of Ukrainians voted to withdraw from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union collapsed 145 days after the speech, partially pushed by Ukraine. The address, in which Bush cautioned against "suicidal nationalism", was written by Condoleezza Rice—later Secretary of State under President George W. Bush—when she was in charge of Soviet and Eastern European affairs for the first President Bush. It outraged Ukrainian nationalists and American conservatives, with the conservative New York Times columnist William Safire calling it the "Chicken Kiev speech", named after a dish of stuffed chicken breast, in protest at what he saw as its "colossal misjudgment", weak tone and miscalculation.
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, referred to between 1991 and 1996 as the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine was the permanent body of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR then of the Verkhovna Rada, accountable to the Supreme Soviet in its activity, and, within the nominal limits prescribed by the Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR, performed functions of the highest state power in the Ukrainian SSR. It was first established by the constitution in 1937 to replace the Central Executive Committee of Ukraine. Its membership was elected for the first time on December 27, 1938, at the first session of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. The presidium later became the permanent body of the post-Soviet legislature of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada, but was dissolved upon the adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine on June 28, 1996.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration № 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. It also brought an end to the Soviet Union's federal government and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's effort to reform the Soviet political and economic system in an attempt to stop a period of political stalemate and economic backslide. The Soviet Union had experienced internal stagnation and ethnic separatism. Although highly centralized until its final years, the country was made up of 15 top-level republics that served as the homelands for different ethnicities. By late 1991, amid a catastrophic political crisis, with several republics already departing the Union and Gorbachev continuing the waning of centralized power, the leaders of three of its founding members, the Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian SSRs, declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed. Eight more republics joined their declaration shortly thereafter. Gorbachev resigned on 25 December 1991 and what was left of the Soviet parliament voted to dissolve the union.
A sovereignty referendum was held in the Ukrainian SSR on 17 March 1991 as part of a USSR-wide referendum. Voters were asked two questions on reforming the Soviet Union into a confederation of sovereign states. Most voters supported the proposal, although in the pro-independence oblasts of Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Ternopil, voters opted for independence as part of an additional question.
The presidency of Boris Yeltsin began with his first inauguration on 10 July 1991, and ended on 31 December 1999 when he announced his resignation. A referendum held on 17 March 1991 approved the creation of the post of president of Russia; Yeltsin was elected Russia's first president in a presidential election held on 12 June 1991.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Ukrainian independence the majority ethnic Russian Crimean peninsula was reorganized as the Republic of Crimea, after a 1991 referendum with the Crimean authorities pushing for more independence from Ukraine and closer links with Russia. In 1995 the Republic was forcibly abolished by Ukraine with the Autonomous Republic of Crimea established firmly under Ukrainian authority. There were also intermittent tensions with Russia over the Soviet Fleet, although a 1997 treaty partitioned the Soviet Black Sea Fleet allowing Russia to continue basing its fleet in Sevastopol with the lease extended in 2010. Following the impeachment of the relatively pro-Russia Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia invaded Crimea, overthrew the elected autonomous government and claimed to annex it in 2014.
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