Ukraine history timeline

Cucuteni-Trypillia culture

before 3200 to 2950 BCE. more than 250 years. Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

Farmers of Moldova, north-eastern Romania and western Ukraine who painted spiral pottery and built mega-sites such as Talianki, covering 335 hectares. They burned and rebuilt their settlements every 60 to 80 years, for reasons still debated.

Scythians

c. 700 to 250 BCE. about 450 years. Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

Iranic horse archers who held the Pontic steppe between the Danube and the Don, buried their kings in rich royal kurgans and faced an invasion by Darius I in 513 BC whose outcome is unclear. The Sarmatians later conquered them.

Sarmatians

c. 300 BCE to 375 CE. about 674 years. Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

Iranian nomads who came to dominate the Scythians by 200 BC and attacked the Roman frontier on the Danube. Some of their warrior graves hold armed women. After the Huns arrived, many joined the Goths and Vandals in the West.

Chernyakhov culture

c. 200 to 400 CE. about 200 years. Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

A culture of Ukraine, Moldova, Romania and Belarus, thought to be a multiethnic mix of Gothic, Geto-Dacian and Sarmatian peoples. Peter Heather ties it to Gothic rule of the Pontic region, which others dispute. It declined after the Huns arrived around 370.

Khazar Khaganate

c. 650 to 969 CE. about 319 years. capital Balanjar, then Samandar, then Atil. Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

A Turkic khaganate between the Volga, the Don and the Caucasus that fought the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates in the 7th and 8th centuries. Its ruling elite converted to Judaism in the 8th century. Sviatoslav of Kiev took its capital Atil by 969.

Kievan Rus

882 to 1240 CE. about 358 years. capital Kiev. Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

According to the Primary Chronicle, the Varangian prince Oleg took Kiev in 882 and imposed tribute on the East Slav tribes. Vladimir I adopted Orthodox Christianity in 988. The state split into rival principalities and fell to the Mongols in 1240.

Galicia-Volhynia

1199 to 1349 CE. about 150 years. capital Halych, later Lviv. Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

Roman the Great joined Galicia and Volhynia in 1199, and his son Daniel was crowned king by a papal legate in 1253. Poland took Galicia and Lithuania took Volhynia in the 1340s.

Crimean Khanate

1441 to 1783 CE. about 342 years. capital Bakhchysarai. Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

Founded by Haci Giray, it became an Ottoman vassal in 1475 and lived on slave raids into Poland and Russia, burning Moscow in 1571. Catherine the Great annexed it in 1783.

Zaporozhian Sich

c. 1552 to 1775 CE. about 223 years. capital the Sich on the Dnieper rapids. Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

A self-governing Cossack host below the Dnieper rapids that elected its leaders and fought Tatars, Turks and Poles. Catherine the Great's army destroyed the Sich in 1775.

Cossack Hetmanate

1648 to 1764 CE. about 116 years. capital Chyhyryn, then Baturyn, then Hlukhiv. Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

Bohdan Khmelnytsky's rising against Poland created a Cossack state in central Ukraine that accepted Russian protection in 1654. Catherine the Great abolished the office of hetman in 1764.

Ukrainian People's Republic

1917 to 1921 CE. about 4 years. capital Kyiv. Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

Proclaimed by the Central Rada after the October Revolution, it declared independence in January 1918. It lost its remaining territory to the Bolsheviks during the Polish-Soviet War, and its government went into exile after the Peace of Riga in 1921.

Ukrainian SSR

1919 to 1991 CE. about 72 years. capital Kharkiv, then Kyiv (from 1934). Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

Established in 1919 as the Bolsheviks defeated the independent Ukrainian People's Republic, and a constituent republic of the Soviet Union from 1922. It was governed through the Communist Party of Ukraine. Ukraine declared independence in 1991.

Ukraine

1991 CE to the present. about 34 years so far. capital Kyiv. Russia and the Steppe, Europe.

Independent after a referendum in December 1991. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and backed separatists in the Donbas, then launched a full-scale invasion in 2022.