Southern Ukraine in the context of "Moesia Inferior"

The Khazars (/ˈxɑːzɑːrz/) were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who established a major commercial empire in the late 6th century CE spanning modern southeastern Russia, southern Ukraine, and western Kazakhstan. It was the most powerful polity to emerge from the break-up of the Western Turkic Khaganate. Astride a major artery of commerce between Eastern Europe and Southwestern Asia, Khazaria became one of the foremost trading empires of the early medieval world, commanding the western marches of the Silk Road and playing a key commercial role as a crossroad between China, the Middle East, and Kievan Rus'. For some three centuries (c. 650–965), the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus.

Although they were likely a confederation of different Turkic-speaking peoples, the precise origins and nature of the Khazars are uncertain, since there is no surviving record in the Khazar language and the state was multilingual and polyethnic. Their native religion is thought to have been Tengrism, like that of the North Caucasian Huns and other Turkic peoples, although their multiethnic population seems to have included pagans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Although there is evidence that the ruling elite of the Khazars had converted to Rabbinic Judaism in the 8th century, the scope of the conversion to Judaism within the khanate remains uncertain.

Moesia (/ˈmiːʃə, -siə, -ʒə/; Latin: Moesia; Greek: Μοισία, romanized: Moisía) was a Roman province situated in the Balkans south of the Danube River. Created after the Danubian-Balkan conquest during the reign of Augustus, Moesia included most of the territory of modern eastern Serbia, Kosovo, north-eastern Albania, northern parts of North Macedonia (Moesia Superior), Northern Bulgaria, Romanian Dobruja and small parts of Southern Ukraine (Moesia Inferior).

On 6 September 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched a major counteroffensive against the Russian military during the Russo-Ukrainian war. As Ukraine announced the start of the Kherson counteroffensive in southern Ukraine in late August, Ukrainian forces also began a second counteroffensive in early September in Kharkiv Oblast, in eastern Ukraine.

As the Ukrainian military broke through Russian defensive lines, it recaptured multiple cities in a matter of days. On 7 September, the second day of the counteroffensive, the Ukrainian military advanced over 20 kilometres (12 mi) into Russian-held territory. The next day, Ukraine recaptured Balakliia and Shevchenkove as Russian forces withdrew and fled. On the 9th, Russia began announcing for evacuations in nearby areas as the Ukrainian military continued its advance. The next day, Ukraine retook the key cities of Izium and Kupiansk, securing access to the Oskil River. By the 11th, Ukraine successfully advanced up to 70 kilometres (43 mi) from the pre-counteroffensive front line. In turn, Russia's defence ministry announced the withdrawal of all forces west of the Oskil.

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.

Kherson (Ukrainian and Russian: Херсон, Ukrainian: [xerˈsɔn] , Russian: [xʲɪrˈson]) is a port city in southern Ukraine that serves as the administrative centre of Kherson Oblast. Located by the Black Sea and on the Dnieper River, Kherson is the home to a major ship-building industry and is a regional economic centre. At the beginning of 2022, its population was estimated at 279,131.

From March to November 2022, the city was occupied by Russian forces during their invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian forces recaptured the city on 11 November 2022. In June 2023, the city was flooded following the Russian destruction of the nearby Kakhovka Dam.

The Cossack raids largely developed as a reaction to the Crimean–Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe, which began in 1441 and lasted until 1774. From c. 1492 onwards, the Cossacks (the Zaporozhian Cossacks of southern Ukraine and the Don Cossacks of southern Russia) conducted regular military offensives into the lands of the Crimean Khanate, the Nogai Horde, and the Ottoman Empire, where they would free enslaved Christians and return home with a significant amount of plunder and Muslim slaves. Unlike the Tatars, Cossack raiders were capable of capturing and devastating highly fortified cities. Though difficult to calculate, the level of devastation caused by the Cossack raids is roughly estimated to have been on par with that of the Crimean–Nogai slave raids. According to History of Ruthenians, Cossack raids during Sirko's era were a hundred times more devastating than Crimean–Nogai raids.

Nestor Ivanovych Makhno (Ukrainian: Нестор Іванович Махно, pronounced [ˈnɛstor iˈwɑnowɪtʃ mɐxˈnɔ]; 7 November 1888 – 25 July 1934), also known as Bat'ko Makhno (Ukrainian: Бáтько Махно́ [ˈbɑtʲko mɐxˈnɔ], lit. 'Father Makhno'), was a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary and the commander of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine during the Ukrainian War of Independence. He established the Makhnovshchina (loosely translated as "Makhno movement"), a mass movement by the Ukrainian peasantry to establish anarchist communism in the country between 1918 and 1921. Initially centered around Makhno's home province of Katerynoslav and hometown of Huliaipole, it came to exert a strong influence over large areas of southern Ukraine, specifically in what is now the Zaporizhzhia Oblast of Ukraine.

Raised by a peasant family and coming of age amid the fervor around the 1905 Revolution, Makhno participated in a local anarchist group and spent seven years imprisoned for his involvement. With his release during the 1917 Revolution, Makhno became a local revolutionary leader in his hometown and oversaw the expropriation and redistribution of large estates to the peasantry. In the Ukrainian Civil War, Makhno sided with the Soviet Russian Bolsheviks against the Ukrainian nationalists and White movement, but his alliances with the Bolsheviks did not last. He rallied Bolshevik support to lead an insurgency, defeating the Central Powers' occupation forces at the Battle of Dibrivka and establishing the Makhnovshchina. Makhno's troops briefly integrated with the Bolshevik Red Army in the 1919 Soviet invasion of Ukraine, but split over differences on the movement's autonomy. Makhno rebuilt his army from the remains of Nykyfor Hryhoriv's forces in western Ukraine, routed the White Army at the Battle of Perehonivka, and captured most of southern and eastern Ukraine, where they again attempted to establish anarchist communism.