The traditional view (mostly influenced by Russian and Polish historiography) on the etymology of Ukraine is that it came from the oldSlavic term ukraina which meant "border region" or "frontier". Many contemporary Ukrainian historians translate the term "u-kraine" as "in-land", "home-land" or "our-country".It became the colonies of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and the Byzantine Empire, such as Tyras, Olbia, and Hermonassa, were founded, beginning in the 6th century BC, on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea, and thrived well into the 6th century AD. The Goths stayed in the area but came under the sway of the Huns from the 370s AD. In the 7th century AD, the territory of eastern Ukraine was the center of Old Great Bulgaria. At the end of the century, the majority of Bulgar tribes migrated in different directions, and the Khazars took over much of the land.
Golden Age of Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rus, located in present day Ukraine, was the center of East Slavic Civilisation from tbhe ninth through the twelfth centuries. The Kievan State collapsed into a seris of smaller principilaties on the eve of the Mongol invsions in the thirteenth century, and out of the East slavic tribes a slow differentiation gave rise to three separate identities. Russians, Ukranians, And the Belorussians. From the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries came under the influence of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the seventeenth century , Ukrainian Cossacks revolted , their leaders swearing allegiance to the Muscovite tsar in exchange for autonomy and protection. The autonomy was subsequently eliminated, and most of Ukriane fell to Russian control. Western Ukraine, however, remained outside the Russian-Empire under Austro-Hungarian rule not until 1940,when Stalin incorporated Western Ukraine into the Soviet Union from Poland where Ukrainians united a single political entity. 
The Ukrainian national idea persevered during the twenties, but with Stalin’s rise to power and the campaign for collectivization, the Soviet leadership imposed a campaign of terror that ravaged the intellectual class. Stalin also created an artificial famine (called the Holodomor in Ukrainian) as part of his forced collectivization policies, which killed millions of previously independent peasants and others throughout the country. Estimates of deaths from the 1932-33 famine alone range from 3 million to 7 million.
When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, some Ukrainians, particularly in the west, welcomed what they saw as liberation from Communist rule, but this did not last as they quickly came to understand the nature of Nazi rule. Nazi brutality was directed principally against Ukraine's Jews (of whom an estimated 1 million were killed), but also against many other Ukrainians. Babyn Yar in Kiev was the site of one of the most horrific Nazi massacres of Ukrainian Jews, ethnic Ukrainians, and many others. Kiev and other parts of the country were heavily damaged.
After the Nazi and Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939, the western Ukrainian regions were incorporated into the Soviet Union. Armed resistance against Soviet authority continued as late as the 1950s. During periods of relative liberalization--as under Nikita Khrushchev from 1955 to 1964 and during the period of “perestroika” under Mikhail Gorbachev -- Ukrainian communists pursued nationalist objectives. The 1986 explosion at the Chornobyl (Chernobyl in Russian) nuclear power plant, located in the Ukrainian SSR, and the Soviet government’s initial efforts to conceal the extent of the catastrophe from its own people and the world, was a watershed for many Ukrainians in exposing the severe problems of the Soviet system. Ukraine became an independent state on August 24, 1991, and was a co-founder of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, although it has not officially joined the organization.
Following free elections held on December 1, 1991, Leonid M. Kravchuk, former chairman of the Ukrainian Rada, was elected president for a five-year term. At the same time, a referendum on independence was approved by more than 90% of the voters. Political groupings in Ukraine include former communists, socialists, agrarians, liberals, nationalists and various centrist and independent forces.
Shortly after becoming independent, Ukraine named a parliamentary commission to prepare a new constitution, adopted a multi-party system, and adopted legislative guarantees of civil and political rights for national minorities. A new, democratic constitution was adopted on June 28, 1996, which mandates a pluralistic political system with protection of basic human rights and liberties.
In July 1994, Leonid Kuchma was elected as Ukraine's second president in free and fair elections. Kuchma was reelected in November 1999 to another five-year term, with 56 percent of the vote. International observers criticized aspects of the election, especially slanted media coverage; however, the outcome of the vote was not called into question. In March 2002, Ukraine held its most recent parliamentary elections, which were characterized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as flawed, but an improvement over the 1998 elections. The pro-presidential For a United Ukraine bloc won the largest number of seats, followed by the reformist Our Ukraine bloc of former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, and the Communist Party.
The campaign leading to the October 31, 2004 presidential election was characterized by widespread violations of democratic norms, including government intimidation of the opposition and of independent media, abuse of state administrative resources, highly skewed media coverage, and numerous provocations. The two major candidates – Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leader (and former Prime Minister) Viktor Yushchenko – each garnered between 39 and 40 percent of the vote and proceeded to a winner-take-all second round. The November 21 runoff election was marred by credible reports of widespread and significant violations, including illegal expulsion of opposition representatives from election commissions, multiple voting by busloads of people, abuse of absentee ballots, and an abnormally high number of (easily manipulable) mobile ballot box votes. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Kiev and other cities to protest electoral fraud and express support for Yushchenko, and conducted ongoing peaceful demonstrations.
The OSCE International Election Observation Mission found that the election "did not meet a considerable number of OSCE commitments and Council of Europe and other European standards for democratic elections…Overall, State executive authorities and the Central Election Commission (CEC) displayed a lack of will to conduct a genuine democratic election process." Other independent observers were similarly critical. On November 24, the CEC declared PM Yanukovych the winner with 49.46 percent compared to 46.61 for Yushchenko. The U.S. and Europe refused to accept the result as legitimate due to the numerous, uninvestigated reports of fraud. European leaders traveled to Kiev to mediate a political solution between the parties. On November 27, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Parliament) passed a resolution declaring that the election results as announced did not represent the will of the people. On December 1, the Rada passed a vote of "no confidence" in the government. On December 3, Ukraine’s Supreme Court invalidated the CEC’s announced results and mandated a repeat of the second round vote to take place on December 26. An agreement mediated by the European leaders resulted in new legislation being passed by the Rada and signed by the President December 8. The Electoral law was reformed to close loopholes that had permitted pervasive electoral fraud. The Constitution was amended, effective not earlier than September 2005, to transfer power, especially with respect to appointment of Ministers, from the President to the Cabinet. Yet another law was passed, in first reading, to devolve some powers of the central government to regional councils. In addition, Prime Minister Yanukovych requested and was granted a leave of absence, and Prosecutor General Hennadiy Vasilyev submitted his resignation.
The December 26 re-vote took place in an atmosphere of calm. While irregularities were noted, observers found no systemic or massive fraud. The OSCE Mission, in a preliminary statement, noted that "campaign conditions were markedly more equal, observers received fewer reports of pressure on voters, the election administration was more transparent and the media more balanced than in previous rounds…in our collective view Ukraine’s elections have moved substantially closer to meeting OSCE and other European standards." On January 10, 2005, after the CEC and the Supreme Court had considered and rejected numerous complaints and appeals filed by the Yanukovych campaign, the CEC certified the results. Yushchenko won 51.99 percent of the votes, with 44.20 percent for Yanukovych. 2.34 percent voted against both, and 1.45 percent of ballots were invalidated. The Yanukovych campaign filed one last appeal with the Supreme Court, which rejected it on January 20 and authorized the publication of the results in "Government Courier" and "Voice of Ukraine," rendering them official and final. President Yushchenko was inaugurated January 23, 2005.
Ukraine established its own military forces of about 780,000 from the troops and equipment inherited from the Soviet Union. It has reduced this figure to approximately 295,000 (plus 90,000 civilian workers in the Ministry of Defense), with the goal of further reductions to around 275,000 by 2005. Ukraine’s stated national policy is Euro-Atlantic integration, including with both NATO and the European Union. Ukraine has a Distinctive Partnership with NATO and has been an active participant in Partnership for Peace exercises and in Balkans peacekeeping. Ukrainian units have been serving in Kosovo, in the U.S. sector, and in Iraq, in the Polish-led division
