Ukraine, Country, eastern Europe. Area: 233,032 sq mi (603,549 sq km). Population: (2024 est.) 42,787,000. Capital: Kyiv (Kiev). Ukrainians make up more than three-fourths of the population of Ukraine; there is a significant minority of Russians. Languages: Ukrainian (official), Russian, Romanian, Polish, Hungarian, Belarusian, Bulgarian. Religions: Christianity (mostly Eastern Orthodox; also other Christians, Roman Catholic, Protestant), Islam. Currency: hryvnya.
Ukraine consists of level plains and the Carpathian Mountains, which extend through the western region for more than 150 mi (240 km). The Dnieper (Dnipro), Southern Buh (Pivdennyy Buh), Donets, and Dniester (Dnistro) are the major rivers. The Donets Basin in the east-central region is one of the major heavy-industrial and mining-metallurgical complexes of Europe. There iron ore and coal are mined, and natural gas, petroleum, iron, and steel are produced. Ukraine is a major producer of winter wheat and sugar beets.
Ukraine is a unitary multiparty republic with one legislative body; its head of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister.
Different parts of the area that is today Ukraine were invaded and occupied in the 1st millennium bce by the Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians and in the 1st millennium ce by the Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Avars, Khazars, and Magyars (Hungarians). Slavic tribes settled there after the 4th century. Kyiv was the chief town. The Mongol conquest in the mid-13th century decisively ended Kyivan power.
From the 14th to the 18th century, portions of Ukraine were ruled by Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. In addition, Cossacks controlled a largely self-governing territory known as the Hetmanate. Most of Ukraine fell to Russian rule in the 18th century.
In the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917, most of the Ukrainian region became a republic of the Soviet Union, though parts of western Ukraine were divided between Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. Ukraine suffered a severe famine, called the Holodomor, in 1932–33 under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Overrun by Axis armies in 1941 during World War II, Ukraine was further devastated before being retaken by the Soviets in 1944. By the end of the war, the borders of the Ukrainian S.S.R. had been redrawn to include the western Ukrainian territories.
Ukraine was the site of the 1986 Chernobyl accident at a Soviet-built nuclear power plant. In 1991 Ukraine declared independence. The turmoil it experienced in the 1990s as it attempted to implement economic and political reforms culminated in the disputed presidential election of 2004. The mass protests in Ukraine over its results came to be known as the Orange Revolution. The effects of the revolution were short-lived, however, and the country remained divided along regional and ethnic lines.
Another mass protest movement—this one centered on Kyiv’s Maidan (Independence Square)—toppled the government in 2014. As the interim government struggled to resolve the country’s dire economic situation, Russian troops occupied the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea. Shortly thereafter, in March 2014, Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and was annexed by Russia. Fighting between pro-Russian separatist militias and Ukrainian government forces remained ongoing in eastern Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine in 2019. In late 2021 Russia began a military buildup along its border with Ukraine, and in February 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine. Ukrainian forces successfully defended Kyiv and soon launched a counteroffensive, but by 2023 the front lines had largely stagnated, and the conflict became a war of attrition as it continued into 2024. By some estimates the war had displaced a third of Ukraine’s population, with as many as 1.6 million Ukrainians forcibly transferred to Russian territories by Russian forces. Estimates and official counts of Ukrainian civilian and military casualties varied.
