Verkhovna Rada in the context of "Supreme Soviet"

There are 463 populated places in Ukraine that have been officially granted city status (Ukrainian: місто, romanized: misto) by the Verkhovna Rada, the country's parliament, as of 23 April 2025. Settlements with more than 10,000 people are eligible for city status although the status is typically also granted to settlements of historical or regional importance.

Smaller settlements are rural settlements (Ukrainian: селище, romanized: selyshche) and villages (Ukrainian: село, romanized: selo).

A city with special status (Ukrainian: місто зі спеціальним статусом, romanized: misto zi spetsial'nym statusom), formerly a "city of republican subordinance", is a type of first-level administrative division of Ukraine. Kyiv and Sevastopol are the only two such cities. Their administrative status is recognized in the Ukrainian Constitution in Chapter IX: Territorial Structure of Ukraine and they are governed in accordance with laws passed by Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Most of Ukraine's 27 first-level administrative divisions are oblasts (regions).

The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are the military forces of Ukraine. All military and security forces, including the Armed Forces, are under the command of the president of Ukraine and subject to oversight by a permanent Verkhovna Rada parliamentary commission. They trace their lineage to 1917, while the modern armed forces were formed again in 1991. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are the fifth largest armed force in the world in terms of both active personnel as well as total number of personnel with the eighth largest (14th largest) defence budget in the world, and it also operates one of the largest and most diverse drone fleets in the world. Due to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been described as "the most battle-hardened in Europe," but has suffered many casualties.

Ukraine's armed forces are composed of the Ground Forces, the Air Force, the Navy, the Air Assault Forces, the Marine Corps, the Special Operations Forces, the Unmanned Systems Forces, and the Territorial Defense Forces. Ukraine's navy includes its own Naval Aviation. The Sea Guard is the coast guard service of Ukraine, and it is organized as part of the Border Guard Service, not subordinate to the navy. The National Guard serves as a paramilitary reserve component of the Armed Forces.

The Revolution of Dignity (Ukrainian: Революція гідності, romanized: Revoliutsiia hidnosti), also known as the Maidan Revolution or the Ukrainian Revolution, took place in Ukraine in February 2014 at the end of the Euromaidan protests. Scores of protesters were killed by government forces during clashes in the capital Kyiv. Parliament then voted to remove President Viktor Yanukovych, return to the 2004 Constitution of Ukraine, and call new elections. The revolution prompted Russia to occupy Crimea, starting the Russo-Ukrainian War.

In November 2013, a wave of large-scale protests known as "Euromaidan" began in response to President Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union (EU), instead choosing closer ties to Russia. Euromaidan soon developed into the largest democratic mass movement in Europe since 1989. The Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) had overwhelmingly approved finalizing the EU association agreement; Russia had pressured Ukraine to reject it. The scope of the protests widened, with calls for the resignation of Yanukovych and the Azarov government. Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption and abuse of power, the influence of Russia and oligarchs, police brutality, human rights violations, and repressive anti-protest laws.

Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych (born 9 July 1950) is a former Ukrainian politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He also served as the prime minister of Ukraine several times between 2002 and 2007 and was a member of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) from 2006 to 2010. Yanukovych was removed from the presidency during the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, which followed months of protests against him. Since then, he has lived in exile in Russia.

Yanukovych was a member of the pro-Russian Party of Regions. Before entering national politics, Yanukovych was the governor of his native Donetsk Oblast from 1997 to 2002. He was simultaneously the chairman of the oblast's legislature from 1999 to 2001. He first ran for president in the 2004 election, where he was declared the winner against Viktor Yushchenko. However, allegations of electoral fraud and voter intimidation caused widespread protests, in what became known as the Orange Revolution. The Ukrainian Supreme Court nullified the election and ordered a rerun, which Yanukovych lost to Yushchenko. Yanukovych ran for president again in 2010, this time beating Yulia Tymoshenko in an election deemed free and fair by international observers.

The Constitution of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Конституція України, romanized: Konstytutsiia Ukrainy, pronounced [konstɪˈtuts⁽ʲ⁾ijɐ ʊkrɐˈjinɪ]) was adopted and ratified at the 5th session of the Verkhovna Rada, the parliament of Ukraine, on 28 June 1996. The constitution was passed with 315 ayes out of 450 votes possible (300 ayes minimum). All other laws and other normative legal acts of Ukraine must conform to the constitution. The right to amend the constitution through a special legislative procedure is vested exclusively in the parliament. The only body that may interpret the constitution and determine whether legislation conforms to it is the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. Since 1996, the public holiday Constitution Day is celebrated on 28 June.

In 2004, amendments were adopted that significantly changed Ukraine's political system; these changes are sometimes referred to as the 2004 Constitution. In 2010, then-President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych reverted these changes on the basis of a ruling made by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. Following the events of Euromaidan (2013–2014), the 2004 amendments were reinstated.

Moldovan or Moldavian (Latin alphabet: limba moldovenească, Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet: лимба молдовеняскэ) is one of the two local names for the Romanian language in Moldova. Moldovan was declared the official language of Moldova in Article 13 of the constitution adopted in 1994, while the 1991 Declaration of Independence of Moldova used the name Romanian. In 2003, the Moldovan parliament adopted a law defining Moldovan and Romanian as glottonyms for the same language. In 2013, the Constitutional Court of Moldova interpreted that Article 13 of the constitution is superseded by the Declaration of Independence, thus giving official status to the name Romanian. On 16 March 2023, the Moldovan Parliament approved a law on referring to the national language as Romanian in all legislative texts and the constitution. On 22 March, the president of Moldova, Maia Sandu, promulgated the law.

The breakaway region of Transnistria continues to recognize "Moldavian" as one of its official languages, alongside Russian and Ukrainian. Ukraine also recognized "Moldovan" as a minority language in the country until 3 December 2025, when the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, approved a bill excluding Moldovan from its list of languages protected in accordance with the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

A raion (Ukrainian: район, romanized: raion; pl. райони, raiony), often translated as district, is the second-level administrative division in Ukraine. Raions were created in a 1922 administrative reform of the Soviet Union, to which Ukraine, as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, belonged.

On 17 July 2020, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) approved an administrative reform to merge most of the 490 raions, along with the "cities of regional significance", which were previously outside the raions, into just 136 reformed raions. Most tasks of the raions (education, healthcare, sport facilities, culture, and social welfare) were taken over by new hromadas, the subdivisions of raions. The 136 new districts include ten in Crimea, which have been de facto outside Ukrainian control since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014.

Lyman Raion (Ukrainian: Лиманський район) was a raion (district) in Odesa Oblast of Ukraine. Its administrative center was the urban-type settlement of Dobroslav. The raion was abolished on 18 July 2020 as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Odesa Oblast to seven. The area of Lyman Raion was split between Berezivka and Odesa Raions. The last estimate of the raion population was 72,605 (2020 est.).

On 21 May 2016, Verkhovna Rada adopted decision to rename Kominternivske Raion to Lyman Raion and Kominternivske to Dobroslav according to the law prohibiting names of Communist origin.