Ukraine historical timeline

Chronology

1. c. 32,000 BC — Humans have inhabited the territory of Ukraine since at least this date.
2. 6th century BC — Greek, then Roman and Byzantine colonies are founded on the north-eastern Black Sea shore — Tyras and Chersonesus among them — and thrive into the 6th century AD. Chersonesus, on the edge of Sevastopol, is a World Heritage site.
3. 980–1015 — Vladimir the Great introduces Christianity, and through the 10th and 11th centuries Kievan Rus' becomes the largest and most powerful state in Europe. Both Ukraine and Russia trace their foundation to it, which is part of why the present war is argued in historical terms.
4. 1240 — The Mongols destroy Kyiv after a siege, ending the Golden Age; the western principalities of Halych and Volhynia carry on.
5. 1349 — After the wars over Halych and Volhynia the region is partitioned between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
6. 1569 — The Union of Lublin creates the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and moves most Ukrainian lands from Lithuania to the Polish Crown. Lviv's architecture is the visible half of those two centuries.
7. 1648 — Bohdan Khmelnytsky leads the largest Cossack uprising against the Commonwealth and founds the Cossack Hetmanate, followed by the thirty-year war for control of it known as The Ruin, 1657–1686.
8. 1764–1781 — Catherine the Great incorporates much of central Ukraine into the Russian Empire, abolishing both the Cossack Hetmanate and the Zaporozhian Sich.
9. 1861 — Serfdom, maintained here until this year, ends; industrialisation arrives later than in western Europe as a result.
10. 1919 — The Act of Reunification of the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, 22 January, is still commemorated annually across the country.
11. 1921 — The Peace of Riga of 18 March gives Poland modern western Ukraine and the Soviets the east and centre — a division whose traces are still visible in architecture, religion and politics.
12. 1933 — The Holodomor: collectivisation and the confiscation of crops by Soviet authorities produce a major famine, photographed in the streets of Kharkiv.
13. 1991 — Ukraine gains independence as the Soviet Union dissolves, declaring itself neutral; Kravchuk and Yeltsin sign the Belavezha Accords on 8 December. A new constitution follows in 1996.
14. 2004 — The presidential election contested between Viktor Yanukovych, backed by the outgoing president and by Russia, and his opponent — the dispute that becomes the Orange Revolution.
15. 2014 — The Revolution of Dignity is followed in March by Russia's annexation of Crimea. Parliament votes to repeal the law on regional languages, making Ukrainian the sole state language at every level.
16. 2022 — Russia invades in February. Martial law is declared and continues; Ukraine, which had been preparing to apply for EU membership in 2024, signs its application that same month instead.