Other duties include fight against crimes that endanger the peace and security of mankind, terrorism, corruption, and organized criminal activities in the sphere of management and economy, as well as other unlawful acts immediately threatening Ukraine's vital interests.

In particular, the failure of the government to conduct a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation into the 2000 disappearance and murder of independent journalist Georgiy Gongadze has had a negative effect on Ukraine's international image.

The title ( гетьман ) was used by Ukraine's Cossacks from the 16th century, and by the Czechs ( hejtman ) in Bohemia from the Hussite Wars ( 15th century ) on.

Ukraine's declaration of independence, in particular, led the leaders of then Belarusian SSR to realize that the Soviet Union was on the brink of dissolving, which it did.

Ukraine officially declared itself an independent state on August 24, 1991, when the communist Supreme Soviet ( parliament ) of Ukraine proclaimed that Ukraine will no longer follow the laws of USSR and only the laws of the Ukrainian SSR, de facto declaring Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union.

As of 25 March 2012, as a result of the Anti-monopoly committee of Ukraine's decision to allow the consolidation of the Ukrainian Aviation Group's physical and operational assets, Donbassaero and Dniproavia no longer operate flights with their own codes, but rather on behalf of their parent company Aerosvit.

Upon the Soviet Union's dissolution and perestroika, the Ukrainian SSR was transformed into the modern nation-state of Ukraine, although Ukraine's new constitution was only ratified on June 28, 1996.

John Laughland ( who said that reports of mass graves in Iraq were exaggerated for political purposes ) characterised some supporters of Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko as " neo-Nazis " and many of those backing him on the streets as " druggy skinheads from Lvov " whereas principal elements of the Jewish community supported Yushchenko.

* Report on Ukraine's Constitutional Court striking down internal passport laws from Ukrainian Weekly

The General Prosecutor of Ukraine's Office canceled its resolution to deny opening of criminal cases against former President Leonid Kuchma and other politicians within the Gongadze-case on 9 October 2010.

In the opinion of Mazepa, this blatantly violated the Treaty of Pereyaslav, since Russia refused to protect Ukraine's territory and left it to fare on its own.

Mykolaiv is located on a peninsula in Ukraine's steppe region from the Black Sea along the estuary of the Southern Buh river ( where it meets the Inhul River ).

Katerynoslav, also Catharinoslav on old maps ) is Ukraine's fourth largest city, with about one million inhabitants.

It is located southeast of Ukraine's capital Kiev on the Dnieper River, in the south-central part of the country.

Later that year, on 5 December 1991 he was elected to the new position of President of Ukraine after Ukraine's first presidential elections.

The sculpture of Kiev founders depicted on Ukraine's Karbovanets # Third_karbovanets | interim bank note in 1990s.

The Russian lease on port facilities in Sevastopol, Ukraine's main port on the Black Sea, used by the Russian Navy, is set to expire in 2017.

After he received asylum, Melnychenko started to become actively involved in Ukraine's politics and foreign relations, making comments for media and writing books based on his records.

Ukraine's 1991 independence from the Soviet Union generated further discussion on the Chernobyl topic, because the Rada, Ukraine's new parliament, was composed largely of young reformers.

Speaking in Turkey, Russia's President Putin strongly warned against foreign interference in Ukraine's new election, accusing Western countries of trying to impose their definition of democracy on Ukraine.

During a nationally televised address on 22 February Tymoshenko said of President-elect of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and " Yanukovych's team " ( she referred to them in the speech as " The oligarchy "): " They need cheap labour, poor and disenfranchised people who can be forced to work at their factories for peanuts, they also need Ukraine's riches, which they have been stealing for the last 18 years.

During a Cabinet of Ministers meeting on 24 February Tymoshenko stated " The moment of truth has arrived: The decision whether or not to side with Yanukovych will show who values the preservation of Ukraine's independence and self-identity and who does not ".

Ukraine's prosecutor's office re-opened on 12 May 2010 a 2004 criminal case against Tymoshenko on accusations she had tried to bribe Supreme Court judges.

In 1993, he was appointed Chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine ( Ukraine's central bank ).

The Kiev Bank Union works with Committees of the Verkhovna Rada ( the Ukrainian parliament ); the National Bank of Ukraine ( Ukraine's central bank ); the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice, and the tax administration of Ukraine to discuss improvement of banking legislation and other relevant matters.

Varvarovsky Most ( Bridge ) ( in Russian Варваровский мост ) is Ukraine's Southern-most bridge that crosses the Southern Buh River.

In Ukraine's rural west, they are popular dances for weddings.

Statistics published by Ukraine's Central Electoral Commission indicate that most of the swing came from minor parties and a swing away from the Socialist Party and to a lesser extent Our Ukraine.

* Carpathian Ruthenia-region in Central Europe, now mostly in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast, East Slovakia, Poland's Lemkovyna and Romanian Maramureş.

On the same day the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, declared the poll results invalid, and also passed a vote of no confidence in Ukraine's Central Election Commission.

He was the country's greatest modern historian, foremost organizer of scholarship, leader of the pre-revolution Ukrainian national movement, head of the Central Rada ( Ukraine's 1917 – 1918 revolutionary parliament ), and a leading cultural figure in Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s.

National history as cultural process: A survey of the interpretations of Ukraine's past in Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian historical writing from the earliest times to 1914.

Symon Vasylyovych Petliura (; ; also known as Simon Petlura, Symon Petlura, or Symon Petlyura, May 10, 1879 – May 25, 1926 ) was a publicist, writer, journalist, Ukrainian politician, statesman, and national leader who led Ukraine's struggle for independence following the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Carpathian Ruthenia, Carpatho-Ukraine, or Zakarpattia ( Rusyn and Ukrainian: Карпатська Русь, Karpats ’ ka Rus ’; or Закарпаття, Zakarpattya ; ; Slovak and Czech: Podkarpatská Rus ; ; ; ); ( Russian: Подкарпатская Русь, Podkarpatskaya Rus ’; or Закарпатье, Zakarpatye, is a region in Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast ( Ukrainian: Zakarpats ’ ka oblast ’), with smaller parts in easternmost Slovakia ( largely in Prešov kraj and Košice kraj ) and Poland's Lemkovyna.

The northern border of the oblast is part of Ukraine's international border abutting Belarus's Homyel Voblast in the north-west and the Russian Bryansk Oblast in the north-east, respectively.

Although between 1946 and 1989 it was forcibly adjoined to the Russian Orthodox Church by Soviet authorities, it would come out of the catacombs as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the prelude to Ukraine's independence.

Rakovsky simultaneously served as Soviet Ukraine's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and a member of the South West Front's Revolutionary Military Council, contributing to the defeat of the White Army and Ukrainian nationalists during the Russian Civil War, while theorizing that " Ukraine was a laboratory of internationalism " and " a decisive factor in world revolution ".

In May 2009 the Russian foreign ministry stated in an answer to Ukraine's preparations to mark the 300th anniversary of the battle of Poltava and plans to erect a monument to Mazepa that those were attempts at an " artificial, far-fetched confrontation with Russia.

Moscow also agreed to Goskino of Ukraine's request to release the film with its original Ukrainian soundtrack intact rather than re-dub the dialogue into Russian for Soviet-wide release, in order to preserve its Ukrainian flavor.

The Russian Empire's Black Sea Navy Headquarters was in Mykolaiv for more than 100 years until the Russian Navy moved it to Sevastopol, near the Southern tip of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

As a result, Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko announced that the Black Sea Fleet would henceforth need permission to cross the Ukrainian border to enter and leave to Sevastopol, to which a Russian admiral retorted that the President of the Russian Federation and not Ukraine commands the Black Sea Fleet.

As a consequence of Ukraine's Yushchenko government announcing that the lease of Russian naval bases on the Crimea will not be extended beyond 2017, the Russian Black Fleet initiated the expansion of its base in Novorossiysk.

It is commonly spoken in most of eastern Ukraine's rural areas, with the exception of the large metropolitan areas of Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk, and especially Crimea, where the majority of the population uses standard Russian.

Fakty i Kommentarii (, translated as Facts and Commentaries ), founded in 1997, is Ukraine's biggest selling Russian language tabloid newspaper, with a circulation of more than 1. 1 million.

The Russian recognition of the Ukraine's separation exacted at Brest-Litovsk represented the key element in German efforts to keep Russia perpetually subservient.

Skoropadsky became a conservative leader in Ukraine's unsuccessful struggle for independence following the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The party favoures Ukraine's full-scale entry in the Eurasian Economic Community ( including its Customs Union ); the protection of the non-aligned status of Ukraine ; abolition of NATO exercises in Ukraine ; giving the Russian language status as official language along with Ukrainian ; annulment of former President Viktor Yushchenko's decrees on awarding the title of Hero of Ukraine.

Following the gradual loss of Ukraine's autonomy and suppression of the local Ukrainian and Polish cultures, Kiev experienced growing Russification in the 19th century by means of Russian migration, administrative actions ( the Valuev Circular of 1863 ), and social modernization.