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February 2015

Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine's army began to withdraw its heavy weapons from the front line in the eastern part of the country. Pro-Russian rebels claimed to also have begun this process. The truce agreement included the removal of heavy weapons from both sides.

Ukraine was the center of the first eastern Slavic state, Kyivan Rus, which during the 10th and 11th centuries was the largest and most powerful state in Europe. The cultural and religious legacy of Kyivan Rus laid the foundation for Ukrainian nationalism through subsequent centuries. A new Ukrainian state, the Cossack Hetmanate, was established during the mid-17th century after an uprising against the Poles. During the latter part of the 18th century, most Ukrainian ethnographic territory was absorbed by the Russian Empire.

Following the collapse of czarist Russia in 1917, Ukraine was able to achieve a short-lived period of independence (1917-20). Final independence for Ukraine was achieved in 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR. A peaceful mass protest, the "Orange Revolution," in the closing months of 2004 forced the authorities to overturn a rigged presidential election and to allow a new internationally monitored vote that swept into power a reformist slate under Viktor Yushchenko.

In October 2012, Ukraine held Rada (parliament) elections, widely criticized by Western observers as flawed due to use of government resources to favor ruling party candidates, interference with media access, and harassment of opposition candidates. President Yanukovych's backtracking on a trade and cooperation agreement with the EU in November 2013 - in favor of closer economic ties with Russia - led to a three-month protest occupation of Kyiv's central square. The government's eventual use of force to break up the protest camp in February 2014 led to all out pitched battles, scores of deaths, international condemnation, and the president's abrupt departure to Russia.

On 1 March 2014, Russian President Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula claiming the action was to protect ethnic Russians living there. On 16 March 2014, a "referendum" was held regarding the integration of Crimea into the Russian Federation.

Ukraine is slightly smaller than Texas. Most of Ukraine's terrain consists of fertile plains (steppes) and plateaus, mountains being found only in the west (the Carpathians), and in the Crimean Peninsula in the extreme south. The natural resources of Ukraine include: iron ore, coal, manganese, natural gas, oil, salt, sulfur, graphite, titanium, magnesium, kaolin, nickel, mercury, timber, and arable land.

CIA World Factbook, 6/2014

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