The Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine was adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR (Verkhovna Rada) on 24 August 1991.
The Act reestablished Ukraine's state independence from the Soviet Union. The declaration was affirmed by a majority of Ukrainians in all regions of Ukraine by an independence referendum on 1 December, followed by international recognition starting on the following day. Ukrainian independence led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union by 26 December 1991.
Corruption in Ukraine is a significant issue that affects society going back to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. After declaring independence from the Soviet Union, Ukraine faced a series of politicians from different sides of the political spectrum, as well as criminal bosses and oligarchs, who used the corruption of police, political parties, and industry to gain power. Ukraine is still considered one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, but has made some progress at improvement over the last decade.
The Ukrainian Ground Forces (SVZSU, Ukrainian: Сухопутні війська Збройних сил України, СВЗСУ, romanized: Sukhoputni viiska Zbroinykh syl Ukrainy), also referred to as the Ukrainian army, is a land force, and one of the eight branches of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It was formed from Ukrainian units of the Soviet Army after Ukrainian independence, and its ancestry is traced back to the 1917–22 army of the Ukrainian People's Republic.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine retained its Soviet-era army equipment. The Armed Forces were systematically downsized and underinvested in after 1991. As a result, the Ukrainian army had very little of its Soviet equipment in working order by July 2014, and most systems had become antiquated. Personnel numbers had shrunk and training, command, and support functions needed improvement. After the start of the war in Donbas in April 2014 in eastern Ukraine, Ukraine embarked on a program to enlarge and modernise its armed forces. Personnel in the Ukrainian Armed Forces overall climbed from 129,950 in March 2014 to 204,000 active personnel in May 2015, with 169,000 soldiers in the Ground Forces branch as of 2016. In 2016, 75% of the army consisted of contract servicemen. Since 2014, Ukraine's ground forces have also been equipped with increasingly modern tanks, APCs, and many other types of combat equipment.
During Ukraine's post-Soviet history, the far-right has remained on the political periphery and been largely excluded from national politics since independence in 1991. Unlike most Eastern European countries which saw far-right groups become permanent fixtures in their countries' politics during the decline and the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the national electoral support for far-right parties in Ukraine only rarely exceeded 3% of the popular vote. Far-right parties usually enjoyed just a few wins in single-mandate districts, and no far right candidate for president has ever secured more than 5 percent of the popular vote in an election. Only once in the 1994–2014 period was a radical right-wing party elected to the parliament as an independent organization within the proportional part of the voting: Svoboda in 2012. Since then far-right parties have failed to gain enough votes to attain political representation, even at the height of nationalist sentiment during and after Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The far-right was heavily represented among the pro-Russian separatists with several past or current leaders of the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk linked to various neo-Nazi, white supremacist and ultra-nationalist groups. The importance of the far-right on both sides of the conflict declined over time. In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, the coalition of Svoboda and the other extreme-right political parties in Ukraine―National Corps, the Governmental Initiative of Yarosh, and the Right Sector―won only 2.15% of the vote combined and failed to pass the 5% threshold. As a result, no party was able to win a proportional seat. One party – the Svoboda party – was able to secure a single constituency seat.
The prime minister of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Прем'єр-міністр України, Premier-ministr Ukrainy, pronounced [preˌmjɛrmiˈn⁽ʲ⁾istr ʊkrɐˈjinɪ]) is the head of government of Ukraine. The prime minister presides over the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, which is the highest body of the executive branch of the Ukrainian government. Following the 1991 Declaration of Independence of Ukraine the position replaced the Soviet post of chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, which was established on March 25, 1946.
Yulia Tymoshenko was the first woman appointed as the prime minister in the history of Ukraine. Arseniy Yatsenyuk was the first prime minister who came from Western Ukraine. Two prime ministers were born in the Russian SFSR.
Vitold Pavlovych Fokin (Ukrainian: Віто́льд Па́влович Фо́кін; 25 October 1932 – 20 March 2025) was a Ukrainian politician who served as the first Prime Minister of Ukraine from the country's declaration of independence on 24 August 1991 until 1 October 1992. He had earlier served as the prime minister of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 23 October 1990 to 24 August 1991.
After Vitaliy Masol was forced to resign, Fokin was appointed the head of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR on 17 October 1990.
Chernivtsi (Ukrainian: Чернівці, pronounced [tʃern⁽ʲ⁾iu̯ˈts⁽ʲ⁾i] ; Romanian: Cernăuți, pronounced [tʃernəˈutsʲ] ; see also other names) is a city in southwestern Ukraine on the upper course of the Prut River. Formerly the capital of the historic region of Bukovina, which is now divided between Romania and Ukraine, Chernivtsi serves as the administrative center for the Chernivtsi urban hromada, the Chernivtsi Raion, and the oblast itself. The Chernivtsi population is 264,298 (2022 estimate), and the latest census in 2001 was 240,600.
The first document that refers to this city dates back to 1408, when Chernivtsi was a town in the region of Moldavia, formerly as a defensive fortification, and became the center of Bukovina in 1488. In 1538, Chernivtsi was under the control of the Principality of Moldavia under Polish suzerainty, later under Ottoman Empire suzerainty, and the Moldavian control lasted for two centuries until 1774, when Austria took control of Bukovina in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War. Chernivtsi (known at that time as Czernowitz) became the center of the Galicia's Bukovina District until 1848, later becoming the Duchy of Bukovina until 1918. In the aftermath of World War I, Romania united with Bukovina in 1918, which led to the city regaining its Romanian name of Cernăuți; this lasted until the Soviets occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Chernivtsi was under the control of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941, after which Romania recovered the city, and then again from 1944 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, after which it became part of independent Ukraine.
The Ukraine national football team (Ukrainian: Збірна України з футболу, romanized: Zbirna Ukrainy z futbolu) represents Ukraine in men's international football, and is governed by the Ukrainian Association of Football, the governing body for football in Ukraine. Ukraine's home ground is the Olimpiyskiy Stadium in Kyiv. The team has been a full member of UEFA and FIFA since 1992.
After the restoration of the Ukrainian independence, the team played their first match against Hungary on 29 April 1992. In their debut in a major world championship, the team reached the quarter-finals in the 2006 FIFA World Cup. In addition to Russia and Uzbekistan, Ukraine is the only post-Soviet state to qualify for the FIFA World Cup finals.
The Ministry of Defence of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Міністерство оборони України, МОУ, romanized: Ministerstvo oborony Ukrainy, MOU) is the ministry of the Ukrainian government that oversees national defence and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The head of the ministry is the Minister of Defence. The President of Ukraine is the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The ministry was established in Ukraine on 24 September 1991, one month after Ukraine's declaration of independence resolution. The ministry was put in charge of all Soviet military forces reorganization on the territory of Ukrainian jurisdiction. In 1994, Ukraine voluntarily gave up all nuclear weapons. The ministry spent significant funds eliminating nuclear weapons, military bases and equipment to meet Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe requirements.