Kherson Oblast in the context of "Dnieper"

Crimea (/kraɪˈmiːə/ kry-MEE-ə) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukraine. To the east, the Crimean Bridge, constructed in 2018, spans the Strait of Kerch, linking the peninsula with Krasnodar Krai in Russia. The Arabat Spit, located to the northeast, is a narrow strip of land that separates the Syvash lagoons from the Sea of Azov. Across the Black Sea to the west lies Romania and to the south is Turkey. The population is 2.4 million, and the largest city is Sevastopol. The region, internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, has been under Russian occupation since 2014.

Called the Tauric Peninsula until the early modern period, Crimea has historically been at the boundary between the classical world and the steppe. Greeks colonised its southern fringe and were absorbed by the Roman and Byzantine Empires and successor states while remaining culturally Greek. Some cities became trading colonies of Genoa, until conquered by the Ottoman Empire. Throughout this time the interior was occupied by a changing cast of steppe nomads, coming under the control of the Golden Horde in the 13th century from which the Crimean Khanate emerged as a successor state. In the 15th century, the Khanate became a dependency of the Ottoman Empire. Lands controlled by Russia and Poland-Lithuania were often the target of slave raids during this period. In 1783, after the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), the Russian Empire annexed Crimea. Crimea's strategic position led to the 1854 Crimean War and many short lived regimes following the 1917 Russian Revolution. When the Bolsheviks secured Crimea, it became an autonomous soviet republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. It was occupied by Germany during World War II. When the Soviets retook it in 1944, Crimean Tatars were ethnically cleansed and deported under the orders of Joseph Stalin, in what has been described as a cultural genocide. Crimea was downgraded to an oblast in 1945. In 1954, the USSR transferred the oblast to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Treaty in 1654.

The Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine are areas of southern and eastern Ukraine that are controlled by Russia as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War and the ongoing invasion. In Ukrainian law, they are defined as the "temporarily occupied territories". As of 2024, Russia occupies almost 20% of Ukraine and about 3 to 3.5 million Ukrainians are estimated to be living under occupation; since the invasion, the occupied territories lost roughly half of their population. The United Nations Human Rights Office reports that Russia is committing severe human rights violations in occupied Ukraine, including arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture, crackdown on peaceful protest and freedom of speech, enforced Russification, passportization, indoctrination of children, and suppression of Ukrainian language and culture.

The occupation began in 2014 with Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea, and its de facto takeover of Ukraine's Donbas during a war in eastern Ukraine. In 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion. However, due to fierce Ukrainian resistance and logistical challenges (e.g. the stalled Russian Kyiv convoy), the Russian Armed Forces retreated from northern Ukraine in early April. In September 2022, Ukrainian forces launched the Kharkiv counteroffensive and liberated most of that oblast. Another southern counteroffensive resulted in the liberation of Kherson that November.

The Isthmus of Perekop, literally Isthmus of the Trench (Ukrainian: Перекопський перешийок; transliteration: Perekops'kyi pereshyiok; Russian: Перекопский перешеек; transliteration: Perekopskiy peresheek, Crimean Tatar: Or boynu, Turkish: Orkapı; Greek: Τάφρος; transliteration: Taphros), is the narrow, 5–7 kilometres (3.1–4.3 mi) wide strip of land that connects the Crimean Peninsula to the mainland of Ukraine. The isthmus projects between the Black Sea to the west and the Syvash to the east. The isthmus takes its name of "Perekop" from the Tatar fortress of Or Qapi.

The border between Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Kherson Oblast runs through the northern part of the isthmus. Since the start of the Russian military occupation and subsequent annexation of Crimea in 2014, this is also the de facto northern border of the Russian Republic of Crimea. The cities of Perekop, Armiansk, Suvorove (Crimea) [uk] and Krasnoperekopsk are situated on the isthmus. The North Crimean Canal ran through the isthmus, supplying Crimea with fresh water from the Dnieper River. Ukraine closed the canal in 2014, and the water supply was only partially replaced by other local and Russian sources.

The Russia–Ukraine border is the de jure international boundary between Russia and Ukraine. Over land, the border spans five Russian oblasts and five Ukrainian oblasts. Due to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in early 2014, the de facto border between Russia and Ukraine is different from the legal border recognized by the United Nations. As of 2024, Russia is militarily occupying a significant portion of Ukraine, and Ukraine is militarily occupying a very small portion of Russia.

According to a 2016 statement by Viktor Nazarenko, the head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, the Ukrainian government did not have control over 409.3 kilometres (254.3 mi) of the international border with Russia. This stretch of land was formerly controlled by pro-Russian separatists under the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic (see War in Donbas), both of which were annexed by Russia in September 2022, seven months after the beginning of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine has also not had authority over the Kerch Strait since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea; the Ukrainian administration was pushed out of Crimea and Russian checkpoints were set up at the boundary with Kherson Oblast.

A military counteroffensive was launched by Ukraine on 29 August 2022 to expel Russian forces occupying the southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts.

Military analysts consider the counteroffensive to be the third strategic phase of the war in Ukraine, along with the concurrent eastern counteroffensive, after the initial invasion and the battle of Donbas.

On 11 November 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated and recaptured the city of Kherson and other areas of the Kherson Oblast and parts of the Mykolaiv Oblast on the right bank of the Dnipro River from Russian control. The Russian Armed Forces, which had occupied the city since 2 March 2022, withdrew and retreated to the left bank of the Kherson Oblast over the course of 9–11 November 2022.

The Ukrainian soldiers were greeted with cheers and large celebrations in the city square. The events were the culmination of the 2022 Kherson counteroffensive, and were seen as a large blow to Russian president Vladimir Putin, who had declared Kherson to be "part of Russia forever".

The North Crimean Canal, formerly known as the North Crimean Canal of the Lenin's Komsomol of Ukraine in Soviet times, is a land improvement canal for irrigation and watering of Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula. The canal has multiple branches throughout Kherson Oblast and Crimea, and is normally active from March until December.

Preparation for construction began in 1957, soon after the transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. The main project works took place in three stages between 1961 and 1971. The construction was conducted by the Komsomol members sent by the Komsomol travel ticket (Komsomolskaya putyovka) as part of shock construction projects and accounted for some 10,000 volunteer workers.