Portal:Ukraine
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The Ukraine Portal - Портал України
Ukraine | |
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| ISO 3166 code | UA |
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest country in Europe 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 Ukraine's capital and largest city, followed by Kharkiv, Odesa, and Dnipro. The official language of the country is Ukrainian. Ukraine covers an area of 603,628 km2 (233,062 sq mi) with an estimated total population of 32.3 million in 2026.
Humans have inhabited Ukraine since at least 32,000 BC. During the Middle Ages, it was the site of early Slavic expansion and later became a key centre of East Slavic culture under the state of Kievan Rus', which emerged in the 9th century. Kievan Rus' became the largest and most powerful realm in Europe in the 10th and 11th centuries, but gradually disintegrated into rival regional powers before being destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century. For the next 600 years the area was contested, divided, and ruled by a variety of external powers, including the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Kingdom of Poland, 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 before being gradually absorbed by the Russian Empire in the 18th century. Ukrainian nationalism developed and, following the Russian Revolution in 1917, the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic was formed. The Bolsheviks consolidated control over much of the former empire and established the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922. In the early 1930s, millions of Ukrainians died in the Holodomor, a human-made famine. During World War II, Ukraine was occupied by Germany and endured major battles and atrocities, resulting in 7 million civilians killed, including most Ukrainian Jews.
Ukraine gained independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union dissolved, declaring itself neutral. A new constitution was adopted in 1996 as the country transitioned to a free market liberal democracy amid endemic corruption and a legacy of state control. The Orange Revolution of 2004–2005 ushered electoral and constitutional reforms. Resurgent political crises prompted a series of mass demonstrations in 2014 known as the Euromaidan, leading to a revolution, at the end of which Russia unilaterally occupied and annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, and pro-Russian unrest culminated in a war in Donbas with Russia and Russian-backed separatists. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine began the current phase of the war. (Full article...)
In the news
- 7 August 2026 – Russo-Ukrainian war
- Odesa strikes
- A Russian drone strike hits the Chornomorets Stadium in Odesa, Ukraine, with Odesa Oblast Governor Oleh Kiper reporting that two people have been injured in the strikes. (Kyiv Independent)
- 7 August 2026 – International sanctions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, United States and the Russo-Ukrainian war
- The United States Senate votes 86–11 to pass a legislation imposing sanctions on Russia's energy revenues, financial institutions, officials, and shadow fleet, while authorizing tariffs of up to 100% on major buyers of Russian oil and gas. The legislation will head to the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote. (Reuters)
- 7 August 2026 – 2026–27 Ukrainian Premier League
- The Ukrainian Premier League's FC Chornomorets Odesa announces on Telegram that its match against FC Kolos Kovalivka is postponed after its home stadium was hit by a Russian strike. (Intent)
- 6 August 2026 – Russo-Ukrainian war
- Attacks in Russia during the Russo-Ukrainian war
- Ukrainian forces launch drone attacks on two oil refineries in Russia, the Yaroslavl refinery and a Bashneft-Novoil refinery in Bashkortostan, causing large fires at the facilities. (BBC News)
- Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure
- Six people are killed in Russian airstrikes across Ukraine, including three civilians in Kharkiv Oblast, while a total power outage occurs in the city of Kherson after critical infrastructure was targeted overnight by Russian drones. (Al Jazeera) (Antikor)
- 5 August 2026 – Russo-Ukrainian war
- Kyiv strikes
- Russian forces launch dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at Kyiv, Ukraine, killing at least 17 people, including eight civilians at a railway station in Kyiv Oblast, and wounding dozens more. None of the missiles were intercepted by Ukrainian forces due to a shortage of Patriot missiles, according to president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (The Guardian)
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Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
Dora Vulfovna Brilliant (Russian: Дора Вульфовна Бриллиант; 1880–1907) was a Ukrainian socialist revolutionary. She manufactured bombs for the SR Combat Organisation, which used them to carry out assassinations against the interior minister Vyacheslav von Plehve and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. She struggled to reconcile her view of the necessity of political assassinations with her own discomfort with violence, believing that self-sacrifice was the only way to justify it. She became depressed while working on the assassinations, and after she was arrested and imprisoned for her part in them, she died in prison. (Full article...)
The Battle of Kostiuchnówka was a World War I battle that took place July 4–7, 1916, near the village of Kostiuchnówka (Kostyukhnivka) and the Styr River in the Volhynia region of modern Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. It was a major clash between the Russian Army and the Polish Legions (part of the Austro-Hungarian Army) during the opening phase of the Brusilov Offensive.
Polish forces, numbering 5,500–7,300, faced Russian forces numbering over half of the 46th Army Corps of 26,000. The Polish forces were eventually forced to retreat, but delayed the Russians long enough for the other Austro-Hungarian units in the area to retreat in an organized manner. Polish casualties were approximately 2,000 fatalities and wounded. The battle is considered one of the largest and most vicious of those involving the Polish Legions in World War I. (Full article...)- Evdokia Reshetnik (Ukrainian: Євдокія Решетник; 1 March 1903 O.S./14 March 1903 (N. S.) – 22 October 1996) was a Ukrainian zoologist and ecologist. She was a specialist in the mole-rats and ground squirrels of Ukraine, and was the first scientist to describe the sandy blind mole-rat of southern Ukraine in 1939. She played a key role in keeping the National Museum of Natural History at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine operable in the inter-war and immediate post-war periods, in spite of arrests by both the Gestapo and Soviet authorities. She was one of the people involved in hiding specimens of the museum to prevent them being taken by the Germans. She is known for arguing that ecology, species distribution, populations, utility, and variability, should be weighed before making determinations that labeled certain animals as pests and harmful to the environment. Though she was responsible for maintaining the historiography of scientific development in Ukraine, her own legacy was lost until the twenty-first century. (Full article...)
- The Ukrainian Figure Skating Championships are an annual figure skating competition organized by the Ukrainian Figure Skating Federation (Ukrainian: Українська федерація фігурного катання на ковзанах) to crown the national champions of Ukraine. The first Ukrainian Championships following the collapse of the Soviet Union were held in 1993 in Odesa, and they have been held without interruption since. In December 2013, Ukraine hosted an international event – the Ukrainian Open – which also served as their national championships.
After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the usual training processes in Ukraine were disrupted. Additionally, Russian shelling of ice arenas made it impossible to safely conduct training and competitions, and Ukrainian skaters found themselves scattered across Europe while Ukraine was under siege. Ice rinks in Kharkiv, Sievierodonetsk, Druzhkivka, Mariupol, and Dnipro have all been damaged or destroyed by Russian missiles. Planning and logistics for the Ukrainian Championships became more and more difficult, to the point where the 2023 Championships in Bohuslav were announced at the last minute and poorly attended, described as "a very depressing event, the level of which [was] lower than … an average European children's competition." (Full article...)
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 1906 – 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982. He also held office as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state) from 1960 to 1964 and later from 1977 to 1982. His tenure as General Secretary and leader of the Soviet Union was second only to Joseph Stalin's in duration.
Brezhnev was born to a working-class family in Kamenskoye within the Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire. After the October Revolution created the Soviet Union, he joined the ruling Communist party's youth league in 1923 before becoming an official party member in 1929. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, he joined the Red Army as a commissar and rose rapidly through the ranks to become a major general during World War II. After the war ended, Brezhnev was promoted to the party's Central Committee in 1952 and became a full member of the Politburo by 1957. In 1964, he took part in the removal of Nikita Khrushchev as leader of the Soviet Union and replaced him as First Secretary of the CPSU. When Khrushchev was ousted, Brezhnev formed a triumvirate alongside Premier Alexei Kosygin and CC Secretary Nikolai Podgorny that initially led the country in Khrushchev's place. By the end of the 1960s, he had successfully consolidated power to become the dominant figure within the Soviet leadership. (Full article...)- The history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1648) covers a period in the history of Poland and Lithuania, before their joint state was subjected to devastating wars in the mid-17th century. The Union of Lublin of 1569 established the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a more closely unified federal state, replacing the previously existing personal union of the two countries. The Union was largely run by the Polish and increasingly Polonized Lithuanian and Ruthenian nobility, through the system of the central parliament and local assemblies, but from 1573 led by elected kings. The formal rule of the nobility, which was a much greater proportion of the population than in other European countries, constituted a sophisticated early democratic system, in contrast to the absolute monarchies prevalent at that time in the rest of Europe.[a]
The Polish–Lithuanian Union had become an influential player in Europe and a significant cultural entity. In the second half of the 16th and the first half of the 17th century, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a huge state in central-eastern Europe, with an area approaching one million square kilometers. (Full article...)
The UEFA Euro 2012 final was the final match of Euro 2012, the fourteenth edition of the European Championship, UEFA's competition for national football teams. The match was played at the Olympic Stadium in Kyiv, Ukraine, on 1 July 2012, and was contested between defending champions Spain and Italy.
The sixteen-team tournament began with a group stage, from which eight teams qualified for the knockout stage. En route to the final, Spain finished top of Group C, with a draw against Italy and wins over Croatia and the Republic of Ireland. Spain then defeated France in the quarter-finals, and Portugal in the semi-finals on penalties. Italy were second in Group C, with draws against Spain and Croatia, and a victory over the Republic of Ireland. In the knockout stage, Italy defeated England on penalties in the quarter-finals, and Germany in the semi-finals. This was thus the fourth time that teams who played each other in the group stage faced off again in the Euro final (after 1988, 1996 and 2004). (Full article...)- No Fate is a 2025 art installation created by Ukrainian artists Vitaliy Deynega, Oleksiy Sai, and other members of Ukrainian Witness, a media project aiming to document the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War. It was displayed at the Burning Man festival in Nevada, United States. The installation spells out "NO FATE", in reference to the line "There is no fate but what we make" from Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It was created from black Oxford fabric from Ukrainian Witness's original 2025 sculpture, Black Cloud, after it was destroyed in a major dust storm. According to Deynega, No Fate represents being able to take control of the future if someone is determined to change it. (Full article...)
Viacheslav Maksymovych Chornovil (Ukrainian: В'ячеслав Максимович Чорновіл, Ukrainian pronunciation: [ʋjɐt͡ʃesˈlau̯ mɐkˈsɪmowɪt͡ʃ t͡ʃornoˈwʲil]; 24 December 1937 – 25 March 1999) was a Ukrainian dissident, independence activist and politician who was the leader of the People's Movement of Ukraine from 1989 until his death in 1999. He spent a total of fifteen years imprisoned or exiled by the Soviet government for his human rights activism. A People's Deputy of Ukraine from 1990 to 1999, Chornovil was among the first and most prominent anti-communists to hold public office in Ukraine. He twice ran for the presidency of Ukraine; the first time, in 1991, he was defeated by Leonid Kravchuk, while in 1999 he died in a car crash under disputed circumstances.Part of a series on Ukrainian
National Democracy
Chornovil was born in the village of Yerky, in central Ukraine, then under the Soviet Union. A member of the Komsomol from his time in university, he was affiliated with the counter-cultural Sixtiers movement, and was removed from the Komsomol after speaking out against communism. His samvydav, which investigated abuses against intellectuals arrested during the 1965–1966 Soviet crackdown, earned him Western acclaim, as well as a three-year prison sentence in Yakutia. Upon his release, he returned to samvydav and began publishing The Ukrainian Herald, a predecessor to the modern Ukrainian independent press. (Full article...)
Artemy Lukyanovich Vedel (13 April [O.S. 1 April] 1767 – 26 July [O.S. 14 July] 1808), born Artemy Lukyanovich Vedelsky, was a Ukrainian-born Russian composer of military and liturgical music. He produced works based on Ukrainian folk melodies, and made an important contribution in the music history of Ukraine. Together with Maxim Berezovsky and Dmitry Bortniansky, Vedel is recognised by musicologists as one of the "Golden Three" composers of 18th century Ukrainian classical music, and one of Russia's greatest choral composers.
Vedel was born in Kyiv, the son of a wealthy wood carver. He studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy until 1787, after which he was appointed to conduct the academy's choir and orchestra. In 1788, he was sent to Moscow to work for the regional governor, but he returned home in 1791 and resumed his career at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. General Andrei Levanidov recruited him to lead Kyiv's regimental chapel and choir—under Levanidov's patronage, Vedel reached the peak of his creativity as a composer. He moved with Levanidov to the Kharkov Governorate, where he organised a new choir and orchestra, and taught at the Kharkiv Collegium. (Full article...)
Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria was a conflict beginning in 967/968 and ending in 971, carried out in the eastern Balkans, and involving the Kievan Rus', Bulgaria, and the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines encouraged the Rus' ruler Sviatoslav to attack Bulgaria, leading to the defeat of the Bulgarian forces and the occupation of the northern and north-eastern part of the country by the Rus' for the following two years. The allies then turned against each other, and the ensuing military confrontation ended with a Byzantine victory. The Rus' withdrew and eastern Bulgaria was incorporated into the Byzantine Empire.
In 927, a peace treaty had been signed between Bulgaria and Byzantium, ending many years of warfare and establishing forty years of peace. Both states prospered during this interlude, but the balance of power gradually shifted in favour of the Byzantines, who made great territorial gains against the Abbasid Caliphate in the east and formed a web of alliances surrounding Bulgaria. By 965/966, the warlike new Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II Phokas refused to renew the annual tribute that was part of the peace agreement and declared war on Bulgaria. Preoccupied with his campaigns in the East, Nikephoros resolved to fight the war by proxy and invited the Rus' ruler Sviatoslav to invade Bulgaria. (Full article...)- The Bolokhovians, Bolokhoveni or Bolokhovens (Romanian: Bolohoveni; Old Slavic: Болоховци, Bolokhovtsy) were a 13th-century ethnic group that resided in the vicinity of the principalities of Galicia, Volhynia and Kiev, in the territory known as the "Bolokhovian Land" centered at the city of Bolokhov or Bolokhovo (not identified yet). Their ethnic identity is uncertain. Archeological evidence and the Hypatian Chronicle (which is the only primary source that documents their history) suggest that they were a Slavic people. Romanian scholars, basing on an interpretation of the ethnonym, identify them as Romanians (who were called Vlachs in the Middle Ages). Their princes, or knyazes, were in constant conflict with Daniel, the prince of Galicia–Volhynia, between 1231 and 1257. After the Mongols sacked Kiev in 1240, the Bolokhovians supplied them with troops, but the Bolokhovian princes fled to Poland. The Bolokhovians disappeared after Daniel defeated them in 1257. (Full article...)
- Ukraine was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 with the song "Bird of Pray", written by Danylo Leshchynskyi, Fedir Khodakov, and Valentyn Leshchynskyi, and performed by themselves as Ziferblat. The Ukrainian participating broadcaster, the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (Suspilne), organised the national final Vidbir 2025 to select its entry for the contest. Artists had the chance to apply from 17 September to 10 November 2024. Twenty entries were longlisted, and, after auditions, nine were shortlisted. "Bird of Pray" won the national final, which was held on 8 February 2025.
Ukraine was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 13 May 2025 and was later selected to perform in position 5. At the end of the show, "Bird of Pray" was announced among the top 10 entries of the first semi-final and hence qualified to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Ukraine placed first out of the fifteen participating countries in the semi-final with 137 points. In the final, Ukraine performed in position 7 and placed ninth out of the 26 performing countries, scoring a total of 218 points. (Full article...)
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Tikhonov (14 May [O.S. 1 May] 1905 – 1 June 1997) was a Soviet Russian-Ukrainian statesman during the Cold War. He served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1980 to 1985, and as a First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, literally First Vice Premier, from 1976 to 1980. Tikhonov was responsible for the cultural and economic administration of the Soviet Union during the late era of stagnation. He was replaced as Chairman of the Council of Ministers in 1985 by Nikolai Ryzhkov. In the same year, he lost his seat in the Politburo; however, he retained his seat in the Central Committee until 1989.
He was born in the city of Kharkiv in 1905 to a Russian-Ukrainian working-class family; he graduated in the 1920s and started working in the 1930s. Tikhonov began his political career in local industry, and worked his way up the hierarchy of Soviet industrial ministries. He was appointed deputy chairman of the Gosplan in 1963. After Alexei Kosygin's resignation, Tikhonov was voted into office as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. In this position, he refrained from taking effective measures to reform the Soviet economy, a need which was strongly evidenced during the early–mid-1980s. He retired from active politics in 1989 as a pensioner. Tikhonov died on 1 June 1997. (Full article...)- Thinking with Time Machine is a 2014 modification for Portal 2 developed by Ruslan "Stridemann" Rybka and published by SignHead Studio. The player controls Chell, the protagonist of the Portal series, who wields the portal gun, while the gameplay revolves around the concept of a tablet-like time machine that is also controlled by the player. The tablet allows the player to record their movement and replay the recordings, creating a double that performs the recorded tasks. Additionally, the mod allows the player to see their own legs by looking down.
The development began after the release of Portal 2. Initially released on the Mod DB website, Thinking with Time Machine went through the Steam Greenlight process, after which it was released as a free modification on Steam on April 18, 2014. The time machine concept and the ability for the player to see their own legs by looking down were commended by critics, while the lack of usage of the portal gun and the mod's short length were criticized. (Full article...)
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Featured pictures
These are Featured pictures that the Wikimedia Commons community has chosen as the highest quality on the site.
Photo credit: Peter DuhonUkrainian fashion model Nataliya Gotsiy modeling for Cynthia Rowley, Spring 2007 New York Fashion Week. She was the winner of the Ford Supermodel of the World 2004 search. She has appeared on the cover of French Elle and Italian Marie Claire and modeled for Behnaz Sarafpour, Christian Lacroix, Diane von Furstenberg, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Dries van Noten, Gucci, Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, and Vivienne Westwood, among others.
Painting: UnknownThe Adoration of the Shepherds is a common subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art. The scene, based on the Biblical account in Luke 2, depicts shepherds as near witnesses to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, arriving soon after the actual birth. It is often combined in art with the Adoration of the Magi, in which case it is typically just referred to by the latter title. The example here comes from 17th-century Ukraine and is currently held at the Ivan Honchar Museum.
Photograph credit: Max AlpertKombat (Russian for 'battalion commander') is a black-and-white photograph by Soviet photographer Max Alpert. It depicts a Soviet military officer, armed with a TT pistol, raising his unit for an attack during World War II. This work is regarded as one of the most iconic Soviet World War II photographs, yet neither the date nor the subject is known with certainty. According to the most widely accepted version, it depicts junior politruk Aleksei Gordeyevich Yeryomenko, minutes before his death on 12 July 1942, in Voroshilovgrad Oblast, now part of Ukraine. The photograph is in the archives of RIA Novosti, a Russian state-owned news agency.
Artist: William Simpson; Lithographer: Edmond Morin; Restoration: NativeForeignerA tinted lithograph, titled "Embarkation of the sick at Balaklava", shows injured and ill soldiers in the Crimean War boarding boats to take them to hospital facilities. Modern nursing had its roots in the war, as war correspondents for newspapers reported the scandalous treatment of wounded soldiers in the first desperate winter, prompting the pioneering work of women such as Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole, Frances Margaret Taylor and others.
Map credit: Nicolas de FerA 1691 French map of Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine, depicting the city's old town neighborhood and castle, surrounded by the winding Smotrych River. It was originally part of Kievan Rus' and annexed into the First Polish Republic, but at the time of the map's creation, the city was part of the Ottoman Empire. It shortly returned to Poland and later became part of the Russian Empire with the Second Partition of Poland in 1793.
Photo: Noodle snacksMushrooms of Armillaria hinnulea, a species of honey fungus (or "pidpenky", from Ukrainian). Honey fungi are parasitic fungi that live on trees and woody shrubs. As a forest pathogen, it can be very destructive because unlike most parasites, it does not need to moderate its growth in order to avoid killing its host, since it will continue to thrive on the dead material. Honey fungi are long lived and form some of the largest living organisms in the world, including one that covers more than 3.4 sq mi (8.8 km2) and is thousands of years old. The mushrooms are edible, but can be easily confused with poisonous Galerina species, which can grow side-by-side with Armillaria.
Photograph: AmakuhaThe burning of the Trade Unions Building—used as the headquarters of the Euromaidan movement—during the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, following a failed attempt by the Ukrainian police to capture the building. After the fire, the damaged building was covered with large canvas screens on two sides with the words "Glory to Ukraine" printed on them in large letters.
A map showing caesium-137 contamination in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine (in curies per square kilometer) in 1996, ten years after the Chernobyl disaster struck the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The disaster contaminated 162,160 square kilometres (62,610 sq mi) of land and is widely considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history.
Photograph: Anatoly ShcherbakThe Royal Kurgan is a 4th century BC kurgan (burial barrow) located near present-day Kerch, Crimea. The mound is almost 20 metres high and its base perimeter is about 250 metres. It holds a burial chamber with a square floor plan which gradually merges into the circular shape of a corbelled dome ("false vault"). It is assumed that the Royal Kurgan was the final resting place of a ruler of the Bosporan Kingdom.
Artist: William Simpson; Restoration: NativeForeignerThe 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons and 5th Dragoon Guards engage the Russians in this lithograph of the "Charge of the Heavy Brigade", a short engagement during the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. Russian cavalry had attacked the British camp, but in roughly ten minutes of fighting, they suffered 40 to 50 killed and more than 200 wounded and were forced to retreat.
Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin sitting together at the Yalta Conference, which took place February 4–11, 1945. The so-called "Big Three" met to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of Europe following World War II. Although a number of agreements were reached, Stalin broke his promises regarding Poland, and the Soviet Union annexed the regions of Eastern Europe it controlled, or converted them to satellite states.
Photograph: George ChernilevskyThe ChS8 is an electric mainline passenger locomotive used in Russia and Ukraine. Built between 1983 and 1989, it was developed for pulling long passenger trains (28–32 carriages) at speeds of 100 kilometres per hour (60 mph) or faster. Since 2010 Russia has switched to more energy-efficient designs, such as the EP10 and EP20.
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Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that the video game Ukrainian Fight Drone Simulator is based on a military training simulator used by Ukrainian soldiers in the ongoing war?
- ... that Chernobyl and Pripyat have not lost their city status even though they are abandoned?
- ... that the filmmakers of Cyborgs wrote dialogue in both Russian and Ukrainian to show the diversity of the eponymous soldiers who defended Donetsk Airport in late 2014?
- ... that Jenya Kazbekova, a competition climber on Ukraine's 2024 Olympic team, is the daughter and granddaughter of competition climbing medalists?
- ... that the Dvorichna settlement hromada has remained divided between Russia and Ukraine since the 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive?
- ... that the Canadian Joint Forces Command was created based on operational lessons from the war in Ukraine?
More did you know -
- ... that the neo-classical Verkhovna Rada building in Kyiv features a hundred-tonne glass dome over the chamber where the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine convenes to enact legislation?
- ... that Ukrainian naturalist, lecturer, artist and author John Lhotsky was credited as the first discoverer of gold in New South Wales?
- ... that the longest of the Kiev bridges, the 1,543 metres long Paton Bridge over the Dnieper River, constructed in 1953 was the first fully welded steel construction of such length at that time?
- ... that the Khreschatyk is the main street of Ukrainian capital Kyiv on which Orange Revolution and other historical events mainly took place?
- ... that the married Western Ukrainian Clergy became a hereditary caste that dominated western Ukrainian society?
- ... that at its first years Kiev Zoo had to move its animals into the food storage of the main Kiev railway station for the winter?
Selected article -
Mariupol is a city in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. It is situated on the northern coast (Pryazovia) of the Sea of Azov, at the mouth of the Kalmius River. In January 2022, prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was the tenth-largest city in the country and the second-largest city in Donetsk Oblast, with an estimated population of 425,681; in August 2023, Ukrainian authorities estimated the population of Mariupol at approximately 120,000.
Historically, the city was a centre for trade and manufacturing, and played a key role in the development of higher education and many businesses and also served as a coastal resort on the Sea of Azov. In 1948, it was renamed Zhdanov (Russian: Жданов) after Andrei Zhdanov, a native of the city who had become a high-ranking official of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a close ally to Joseph Stalin. The name was part of a larger effort to rename cities after high-ranking political figures in the Soviet Union. The historic name was restored in 1989. (Full article...)
In the news
- 7 August 2026 – Russo-Ukrainian war
- Odesa strikes
- A Russian drone strike hits the Chornomorets Stadium in Odesa, Ukraine, with Odesa Oblast Governor Oleh Kiper reporting that two people have been injured in the strikes. (Kyiv Independent)
- 7 August 2026 – International sanctions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, United States and the Russo-Ukrainian war
- The United States Senate votes 86–11 to pass a legislation imposing sanctions on Russia's energy revenues, financial institutions, officials, and shadow fleet, while authorizing tariffs of up to 100% on major buyers of Russian oil and gas. The legislation will head to the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote. (Reuters)
- 7 August 2026 – 2026–27 Ukrainian Premier League
- The Ukrainian Premier League's FC Chornomorets Odesa announces on Telegram that its match against FC Kolos Kovalivka is postponed after its home stadium was hit by a Russian strike. (Intent)
- 6 August 2026 – Russo-Ukrainian war
- Attacks in Russia during the Russo-Ukrainian war
- Ukrainian forces launch drone attacks on two oil refineries in Russia, the Yaroslavl refinery and a Bashneft-Novoil refinery in Bashkortostan, causing large fires at the facilities. (BBC News)
- Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure
- Six people are killed in Russian airstrikes across Ukraine, including three civilians in Kharkiv Oblast, while a total power outage occurs in the city of Kherson after critical infrastructure was targeted overnight by Russian drones. (Al Jazeera) (Antikor)
- 5 August 2026 – Russo-Ukrainian war
- Kyiv strikes
- Russian forces launch dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at Kyiv, Ukraine, killing at least 17 people, including eight civilians at a railway station in Kyiv Oblast, and wounding dozens more. None of the missiles were intercepted by Ukrainian forces due to a shortage of Patriot missiles, according to president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (The Guardian)
Selected anniversaries for August
- August 2, 2026 — Airborne forces day
- August 17, 1649 — Treaty of Zboriv was signed after the Polish army was defeated in the Battle of Zboriv by the Cossacks, led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky.
- August 22, 2006 — An aircraft crashed near the Russian border over eastern Ukraine while en route from Vityazevo Airport (Anapa) to Pulkovo Airport (St. Petersburg)
- August 24, 1991 — Ukraine declares independence from the Soviet Union
Photo gallery
The Swallow's Nest is one of the Neo-Gothic châteaux fantastiques near Yalta; it was built in 1912.
Trinity Church and Monastery in Chernihiv, Ukraine
The square in front of the theater in Chernivtsi.
A view of Lviv
Streets of Mukacheve in the old part of town
Potemkin Stairs in Odesa, Ukraine. The higher perspective allows a person to see both the stairs and landings.
A wooden bridge leads to the entrance to the Khomutovska Steppe in Donetsk Oblast.
Zbarazh (Ukrainian: Збараж, Polish: Zbaraż, Yiddish: Zbarj) is a small city in the Ternopil Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Zbarazh Raion (district), and is located in the historic region of Galicia. The major attraction of the city is the Zbarazh Castle that played a key role during the Khmelnytsky Uprising, the heroic defense of which eventually led to change of momentum and extinguishing the Cossack revolt.
St Andrew's Church of Kyiv (1749–1854)
A view of Lviv Old Town from the High Castle.
Interiour view of the Pochayiv Lavra in Ukraine.- An 1691 French map of the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi, located in western Ukraine.
View on the lower fortress of the Kamianets-Podilskyi Castle
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