Oblast in the context of "Russian SFSR"

A federated state (also state, province, region, canton, land, governorate, oblast, emirate, or country) is a territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federation. A federated state does not have international sovereignty since powers are divided between the other federated states and the federal government. Unlike international sovereign states, which have what is often referred to as Westphalian sovereignty (such as exercised by their federal government), federated states operate under their domestic or federal law with relation to the rest of the world.

Federated states do not have automatic standing as entities of international law. Instead, the federal union (federation) as a single entity is the sovereign state for purposes of international law. Depending on the constitutional structure of a particular federation, a federated state can hold various degrees of legislative, judicial, and administrative jurisdiction over a defined geographic territory and is a form of regional government. A federated state may nonetheless establish offices internationally, for example, to promote trade or tourism, while still operating only within the trade policy or other applicable law of their federation, and their host country. They also may enter into international regional agreements under the laws of their federation and state, such as to protect a cross-border resource like water or other shared matters.

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR) and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia, was a socialist state from 1917 to 1922, and afterwards the largest and most populous constituent republic of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1922 to 1991, until becoming a sovereign part of the Soviet Union with priority of Russian laws over Union-level legislation in 1990 and 1991, the last two years of the existence of the USSR. The Russian SFSR was composed of sixteen smaller constituent units of autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group. The capital of the Russian SFSR and the USSR as a whole was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad (Petrograd until 1924), Stalingrad (Volgograd after 1961), Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, Gorky and Kuybyshev.

On 7 November 1917 [O.S. 25 October], as a result of the October Revolution, the Russian Soviet Republic was proclaimed as a sovereign state and the world's first constitutionally socialist state guided by communist ideology. The first constitution was adopted in 1918. In 1922, the Russian SFSR signed a treaty officially creating the USSR. On 12 June 1990, the Congress of People's Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty. On 12 June 1991, Boris Yeltsin, supported by the Democratic Russia pro-reform movement, was elected the first and only President of the RSFSR, a post that would later become the Presidency of the Russian Federation. The August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt in Moscow with the temporary brief internment of President Mikhail Gorbachev destabilised the Soviet Union. Following these events, Gorbachev lost all his remaining power, with Yeltsin superseding him as the pre-eminent figure in the country. On 8 December 1991, the heads of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belovezha Accords declaring dissolution of the USSR and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as a loose replacement confederation. On 12 December, the agreement was ratified by the Supreme Soviet (the parliament of the Russian SFSR); therefore the Russian SFSR had renounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russia's independence from the USSR itself and the ties with the other Soviet republics.

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.

The Right-bank Ukraine is a historical and territorial name for a part of modern Ukraine on the right (west) bank of the Dnieper River, corresponding to the modern-day oblasts of Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, as well as the western parts of Kyiv and Cherkasy. It was separated from the left bank during the Ruin.

Right-bank Ukraine is bordered by the historical regions of Volhynia and Podolia to the west, Moldavia to the southwest, Yedisan and Zaporizhzhia to the south, left-bank Ukraine to the east, and Polesia to the north.

The Left-bank Ukraine is a historic name of the part of Ukraine on the left (east) bank of the Dnieper River, comprising the modern-day oblasts of Chernihiv, Poltava and Sumy as well as the eastern parts of Kyiv and Cherkasy.

A krai or kray is one of the types of federal subjects of modern Russia, and was a type of geographical administrative division in the Russian Empire and the Russian SFSR.

Etymologically, the word is related to the verb кроить (kroítǐ [krɐˈitʲ]), meaning 'to cut'. Historically, krais were vast territories located along the periphery of the Russian state, since the word krai also means 'border' or 'edge', i.e., 'a place of the cut-off'. In English the term is often translated as 'territory'. As of 2015, the administrative usage of the term is mostly traditional, as some oblasts also fit this description and there is no difference in constitutional legal status in Russia between the krais and the oblasts.

41°45′N 23°15′E / 41.750°N 23.250°E / 41.750; 23.250

Blagoevgrad Province (Bulgarian: област Благоевград, oblast Blagoevgrad or Благоевградска област, Blagoevgradska oblast), also known as Pirin Macedonia or Bulgarian Macedonia (Bulgarian: Пиринска Македония; Българска Македония), (Pirinska Makedoniya or Bulgarska Makedoniya) is a province (oblast) of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, the Greek region of Macedonia to the south, and North Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns. Its principal city is Blagoevgrad, while other significant towns include Bansko, Gotse Delchev, Melnik, Petrich, Razlog, Sandanski, and Simitli.

42°40′N 23°40′E / 42.667°N 23.667°E / 42.667; 23.667

Sofia Province (Bulgarian: Софийска област, romanized: Sofiyska oblast) is a province (oblast) of Bulgaria. The province does not include Sofia in its territories, but Sofia remains the seat of its administration. The province borders on the provinces of Pernik, Kyustendil, Blagoevgrad, Pazardzhik, Plovdiv, Lovech, Vratsa, Montana, and "Sofia City Province" (which is in a separate oblast, see Sofia Administration), and borders with Serbia to the northwest.