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Kyivan Rus, is the medieval state of Eastern Slavs. Established by the Slavic with the help of the Varangian squads whose force was used to integrate separate tribes and their lands into one powerful state. Varangian princes, who ruled Rus from its first years were gradually assimilated by natives, but the dynastystarted by semy-legendary Ririk survived and continued to govern their separate principalities even after the collapse of Rus. At an early stage of its existence Rus destroyed such powerful states as the Khazar Khaganate and Old Great Bulgaria. Rus princes successfully fought against the Byzantine Empire, whose emperors had to pay tributeto them. Rus' finally disintegrated into separate principalities. In the reign of Volodymyr the Great (980-1015) the Kyivan State almost finished its expansion. It occupied the territory from Peipus, Ladoga and Onega lakes in the north to the river Don, Ros, Sula, Southern Bug in the south, from the Dniester, the Carpathians, the Neman, Wes...

At the end of the 15th century, the groups of warriors who called themselves Cossacks appeared on the territory between the borders of Lithuania, Muscovy and the Crimea, in the "wild steppes" of Zaporizhia. From the 16th century the Sich became their military centre. Zaporizhian Cossacks participated in the wars on the side of the Commonwealth: the Livonian War (1558-1583), the Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618), Khotyn war (1620-1621), and Smolensk war (1632-1634). Cossacks also organized their own campaigns in Moldavia, Muscovy, and Crimea, on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria and in Asia Minor for looting. They willingly became mercenaries, particularly during the Thirty Years' War(1618-1648). Due to the legal and social oppression of the nobility Cossacks repeatedly revolted. The largest rebellions were raised under the guidance of: Kosynskiy (1591-1593), Nalyvaiko (1594-1596), Zhmaylo (1625), Fedorovych (1630), Sulima (1635), Pavlyuk (1637) and Ostryanin (1638). Cossacks again and...

In 1917 an independent Ukrainian People's Republic was established. The Red Army freed it and made it into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Soviet Russia in the 1920s encouraged the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture. In the 1930s this policy changed to making the Ukrainians into Russians. There were mass repressions of Ukrainian poets, historians and linguists. As in other parts of the Soviet Unionmillions of people starved to death in 1932 and 1933. During the first years of World War II Ukrainian nationalists collaborated with Nazis against Soviet Union hoping to reestablish Ukrainian independence or to get autonomy under the authority of Germany. Nationalists took part in mass murders of Jews, Roma people and other victims of Nazi regime. However hopes of independence was ruined and Ukrainian nationalists created Ukrainian Insurgent Army which fought against Nazi Germany but against the Soviet Union (mainly Soviet partisans) for the most part. They failed to get in...

President elections: 1 December 1991, July 1994, October-November 1999, October-December 2004, January 2010 Parliament elections: March 1994, March 1998, March 2002, March 2006, September 2007 (prematurely), October 2012 Constitution of Ukraine was adopted by Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) 28 July 1996 with changes 8 December 2004. The political demonstrations in autumn-winter 2004 after the Presidential elections gathered millions of people all over the country. On November 26, 2004, Victor Yuschenko lost the Ukrainian presidential election (Viktor Yanukovych was declared winner). However, Yuschenko and his followers argued that the election had been corrupted. They argued that the election results had been falsified by the Ukrainian government, in support of the opposing candidate Victor Yanukovych. They organized political demonstrations in autumn-winter 2004 that gathered millions of people all over the country. They called the demonstrations The Orange Revolution (Ukrainian: Помар...