Ukrainian SSR in the context of "Volhynia Governorate"

The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic or Moldavian SSR (Romanian: Republica Sovietică Socialistă Moldovenească, Moldovan Cyrillic: Република Советикэ Сочиалистэ Молдовеняскэ), also known as the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, Moldovan SSR, Soviet Moldavia, Soviet Moldova, or simply Moldavia or Moldova, was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union that existed from 1940 to 1991. The republic was formed on 2 August 1940 from parts of Bessarabia, a region annexed from Romania on 28 June of that year, and parts of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, an autonomous Soviet republic within the Ukrainian SSR.

From the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic Supreme Soviet's adoption of the declaration of sovereignty on 23 June 1990 to 23 May 1991, the country was internationally recognized as the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova. Furthermore, from 23 May 1991 until the declaration of independence on 27 August 1991, it was renamed to the Republic of Moldova while remaining a constituent republic of the USSR. Its independence was officially recognized by the international community on 26 December of that year when the USSR was dissolved.

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional intergovernmental organisation in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an area of 20,368,759 km (7,864,422 sq mi) and has an estimated population of 246,200,194. The CIS encourages cooperation in economic, political, and military affairs and has certain powers related to the coordination of trade, finance, lawmaking, and security, including the prevention of cross-border crime.

As the Soviet Union disintegrated, Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine signed the Belovezha Accords on 8 December 1991, declaring that the Union had effectively ceased to exist and proclaiming the CIS in its place. On 21 December, the Alma-Ata Protocol was signed, but Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania chose not to participate. Georgia withdrew its membership in 2008 following a war with Russia. Ukraine formally ended its participation in CIS statutory bodies in 2018, although it had stopped participating in the organisation in 2014 following the Russian annexation and occupation of Crimea. In the aftermath of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Moldova voiced its intention to progressively withdraw from the CIS institutional framework.

The Reichskommissariat Ukraine (RKU; lit. 'Reich Commissariat of Ukraine') was an administrative entity of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories of Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944. It served as the German civilian occupation regime in the Ukrainian SSR and parts of the Byelorussian SSR, Russian SFSR, and eastern Poland during the Eastern Front of World War II.

Reichskommissariat Ukraine was established after the early success of the Wehrmacht's Operation Barbarossa for territory under the military administration of Army Group South Rear Area. The German civil administration was based in Rovno (Rivne) with Erich Koch serving as the only Reichskommissar during its existence.

The Union of Russia and Ukraine Tercentenary or the Reunification of Ukraine with Russia Tercentenary (Russian: 300-летие воссоединения Украины с Россией, 300-letiye vossoyedineniya Ukrainy s Rossiyei; Ukrainian: 300-річчя возз'єднання України з Росією) was a republic-wide celebration within the Soviet republics of Russia and Ukraine, starting in February 1954, in celebration of the union between Russia and Ukraine formed by the 1654 Pereiaslav Agreement.

In preparation for the event, a special Republican commission for commemoration of the union between Russia and Ukraine Tercentenary was formed, headed by the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine Alexei Kirichenko. A three-volume body of documents and materials titled as "Reunification of Ukraine with Russia" was published in 1953 in Moscow, prepared jointly by the History Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, History Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, and the Ukrainian Directorate of Archives, and included 747 documents of the period between 1620 and 1654. The materials were prepared by a group of Soviet Russian and Ukrainian historians organized in 1952 and approved by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Lwów Voivodeship (Polish: Województwo lwowskie) was an administrative unit of interwar Poland (1918–1939). Because of the Nazi invasion of Poland in accordance with the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, it became occupied by both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army in September 1939. Following the conquest of Poland however, the Polish underground administration existed there until August 1944. Only around half of the Voivodeship was returned to Poland after the war ended. It was split diagonally just east of Przemyśl; with its eastern half, including Lwów itself, ceded to the Ukrainian SSR at the insistence of Joseph Stalin during the Tehran Conference confirmed (as not negotiable) at the Yalta Conference of 1945.

Novorossiya is a historical name, used during the era of the Russian Empire for an administrative area that would later become the southern mainland of Ukraine: the region immediately north of the Black Sea and Crimea. The name Novorossiya, which means "New Russia", entered official usage in 1764, after the Russian Empire conquered the Crimean Khanate, and annexed its territories, when Novorossiya Governorate (or Province) was founded. Official usage of the name ceased after 1917, when the entire area (minus Crimea) was annexed by the Ukrainian People's Republic, precursor of the Ukrainian SSR.

Novorossiya Governorate was formed in 1764 from military frontier regions and parts of the southern Hetmanate, in anticipation of a war with the Ottoman Empire. It was further expanded by the annexation of the Zaporozhian Sich in 1775. At various times, Novorossiya encompassed the modern Ukraine's regions of the Black Sea littoral (Prychornomoria), Zaporizhzhia, Tavria, the Azov Sea littoral (Pryazovia), the Tatar region of Crimea, the area around the Kuban River, and the Circassian lands.

During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries allocated to it in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into three different SSRs), as well as Latvia (became Latvian SSR), Estonia (became Estonian SSR), Lithuania (became Lithuanian SSR), part of eastern Finland (became Karelo-Finnish SSR) and eastern Romania (became the Moldavian SSR and part of Ukrainian SSR). Apart from the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and post-war division of Germany, the Soviets also occupied and annexed Carpathian Ruthenia from Czechoslovakia in 1945 (became part of Ukrainian SSR). These occupations lasted until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990 and 1991.

Below is a list of various forms of military occupations by the Soviet Union resulting from both the Soviet pact with Nazi Germany (ahead of World War II), and the ensuing Cold War in the aftermath of Allied victory over Germany.

Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrainian: Івано-Франківськ, IPA: [iˈwɑno frɐnˈkiu̯sʲk] ), formerly Stanyslaviv, Stanislav and Stanisławów, is a city in western Ukraine. It serves as the administrative centre of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast as well as Ivano-Frankivsk Raion within the oblast. Ivano-Frankivsk also hosts the administration of the Ivano-Frankivsk urban hromada. Its population is 238,196 (2022 estimate), 227,827 (2024 estimate).

Built in the mid-17th century as a fortress of the Polish Potocki family, Stanisławów was annexed to the Habsburg Empire during the First Partition of Poland in 1772, after which it became the property of the State within the Austrian Empire. Throughout this time, it was within the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. The fortress was slowly transformed into one of the most prominent cities at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. After World War I, for several months, it served as a temporary capital of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. Following the Peace of Riga in 1921, Stanisławów became part of the Second Polish Republic. After the Soviet invasion of Poland at the onset of World War II, the city was annexed by the Soviet Union, only to be occupied by Nazi Germany two years later. With the liberation of Soviet Ukraine in 1944 and the shifting of borders, the city remained part of the Ukrainian SSR and was renamed in 1962 after Ivan Franko. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the city become part of newly-independent Ukraine.