Ukraine

Ukraine traces its roots to Kievan Rus, a powerful medieval federation centred on Kyiv that adopted Christianity and shaped the culture of the whole region. After the Mongol invasions the lands were divided among neighbours, including Poland and Lithuania, before the rise of the Cossacks, fiercely independent warrior communities who founded a self-governing state in the seventeenth century. Ukraine was later absorbed by the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union, regaining full independence only with the Soviet collapse in 1991.

Tradition holds that Kyiv, the ancient capital, was founded by three brothers, Kyi, Shchek, and Khoryv, together with their sister Lybid, with the city taking its name from the eldest. The tale is a cherished origin story for one of the oldest cities in Eastern Europe. As literal history the brothers belong to legend rather than the documented record, though the antiquity and importance of Kyiv itself are beyond doubt.

Ukraine is dominated by vast, gently rolling plains, the steppe, blanketed by some of the most fertile soil in the world, a deep black earth known as chernozem that has made the country a legendary breadbasket. The land is watered by great rivers, above all the Dnieper, which runs through the heart of the country and past Kyiv. Mountains rise only at the edges, in the Carpathians of the west and the Crimean peninsula in the south.

The flag of Ukraine is a simple horizontal bicolour of blue above yellow. The design is widely understood to picture the country itself: a blue sky stretching over the golden fields of ripening wheat that cover its great plains. Clean and instantly recognisable, the blue and yellow have become a powerful symbol of Ukrainian identity and, in recent years, of its resistance and resolve.

The dominant faith in Ukraine is Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which traces its roots to the conversion of Kievan Rus more than a thousand years ago and remains central to national culture. In recent years a distinct Ukrainian Orthodox Church has asserted its independence. The west of the country has a strong Greek Catholic tradition, which follows Eastern rites while recognising the Pope, and smaller communities of other faiths add to the religious landscape.

Ukrainian cuisine is hearty and rooted in the bounty of its rich farmland. Its most famous dish is borscht, a vivid beetroot soup, recognised by UNESCO as a Ukrainian cultural heritage, served with sour cream and dark bread. Varenyky, soft dumplings filled with potato, cheese, or fruit, are beloved, as is salo, cured pork fat. The cooking makes the most of grains, root vegetables, and pork, reflecting a culture deeply tied to the land.

Ukraine's extraordinarily fertile black soil has long made it one of the world's great agricultural producers, earning it the title of the breadbasket of Europe. It is among the leading exporters of wheat, corn, barley, and especially sunflower oil, of which it is a global leader. So much of the world depends on its grain that disruption to its harvests and exports, as during the recent war, sends ripples through global food supplies and prices.

Ukraine's modern history has been marked by both tragedy and resilience. In the early 1930s a man-made famine, the Holodomor, killed millions under Soviet rule. Independence came peacefully in 1991, but Ukraine's path toward Europe led to confrontation with Russia: a popular uprising in 2014, followed by Russia's annexation of Crimea, and then, in 2022, a full-scale Russian invasion that became the largest war in Europe since 1945.

Ukraine had a population of more than forty million before the recent war, though invasion has displaced millions as refugees and within the country. The people are mostly ethnic Ukrainians, with a significant Russian-speaking minority, especially in the east and south, and the question of language and identity has been central to the country's modern struggles. The capital and largest city is Kyiv, one of the oldest and most historic cities in Eastern Europe.