Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the north; Poland and Slovakia to the west; Hungary, Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and 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.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. At 25 years and 25 days, he is the longest-serving Russian or Soviet leader since the 30-year tenure of Joseph Stalin.
Ukrainian is one of the East Slavic languages in the Indo-European languages family, and it is spoken primarily in Ukraine. It is the first (native) language of a large majority of Ukrainians.
Odesa is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrative centre of the Odesa Raion and Odesa Oblast, as well as a multiethnic cultural centre. As of January 2021, Odesa's population was approximately 1,010,537. On 25 January 2023, its historic city centre was declared a World Heritage Site and added to the List of World Heritage in Danger by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in recognition of its multiculturality and 19th-century urban planning. The declaration was made in response to the bombing of Odesa during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has damaged or destroyed buildings across the city.
The history of Ukraine spans thousands of years, rooted in the Pontic steppe, a region central to the spread of the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages, Indo-European migrations, and domestication of the horse. In antiquity, the area was part of Scythia and later inhabited by Goths, Huns, and Slavic tribes. Southern Ukraine was colonized by the Greeks and Romans, leaving a significant cultural heritage.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin.
Transnistria, officially known as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic and locally as Pridnestrovie, is a landlocked breakaway state internationally recognized as part of Moldova. It controls most of the narrow strip of land between the Dniester river and the Moldova–Ukraine border, as well as some land on the other side of the river's bank. Its capital and largest city is Tiraspol. Transnistria is officially designated by the Republic of Moldova as the Administrative-Territorial Units of the Left Bank of the Dniester or as Stînga Nistrului.
Luhansk Oblast, also referred to as Luhanshchyna (Луганщина), is the easternmost oblast (province) of Ukraine. Its administrative center is the city of Luhansk. The oblast was established in 1938 and bore the name Voroshilovgrad Oblast until 1958 and again from 1970 to 1991. It has a population of 2,102,921.
Kyiv is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2,952,301, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyiv is an important industrial, scientific, educational, and cultural center in Eastern Europe. It is home to many high-tech industries, higher education institutions, and historical landmarks. The city has an extensive system of public transport and infrastructure, including the Kyiv Metro.
The Verkhovna Rada, officially the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, is the unicameral parliament of Ukraine.
The Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Famine, was a mass famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians and has been commonly described as man-made. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union.
Zhytomyr is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Zhytomyr Oblast (province), as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Zhytomyr urban hromada (commune) and Zhytomyr Raion (district). Moreover Zhytomyr consists of two urban districts: Bohunskyi District and Koroliovskyi District. Zhytomyr occupies an area of 65 square kilometres. Its population is 261,624.
The Russia–Ukraine gas disputes refer to a number of disputes between Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrayiny and Russian gas supplier Gazprom over natural gas supplies, prices, and debts. These disputes have grown beyond simple business disputes into transnational political issues—involving political leaders from several countries—that threaten natural gas supplies in numerous European countries dependent on natural gas imports from Russian suppliers, which are transported through Ukraine. Russia provides approximately a quarter of the natural gas consumed in the European Union; approximately 80% of those exports travel through pipelines across Ukrainian soil prior to arriving in the EU.
The National News Agency of Ukraine, or Ukrinform, is a state information and news agency, and international broadcaster of Ukraine. It was founded in 1918 during the Ukrainian War of Independence as the Bureau of Ukrainian Press (BUP). The first director of the agency was Dmytro Dontsov, when the agency name was The Ukrainian Telegraph Agency.
The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia occupied and annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists fighting the Ukrainian military in the Donbas War. These first eight years of conflict also included naval incidents and cyberwarfare. In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and began occupying more of the country, starting the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. The war has resulted in a refugee crisis and tens of thousands of deaths.
In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. This took place in the relative power vacuum immediately following the Revolution of Dignity. It marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The war in Donbas, also known as the Donbas war, was a phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War in the Donbas region of Ukraine. The war began in April 2014, when a commando unit headed by Russian citizen Igor Girkin seized Sloviansk in Donetsk oblast. The Ukrainian military launched an operation against them. The war continued until subsumed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy is a Ukrainian politician and former entertainer who is serving as the sixth and current president of Ukraine since 2019, most notably during the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has been ongoing since February 2022.
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which had started in 2014. The invasion, the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II, has caused hundreds of thousands of military casualties and tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties. As of 2025, Russian troops occupy about 20% of Ukraine. From a population of 41 million, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced and more than 8.2 million had fled the country by April 2023, creating Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II.
