HISTORY (XX-XXI centuries)

1917: Ukraine tried to recover its independence and proclaimed itself an autonomous republic.

1918: The German army briefly occupied the country.

1921: The Treaty of Riga established that Galicia and Volhynia were transferred to Poland, leaving the rest of Ukraine for the Bolsheviks.

1921-22: Several million people died of hunger.

1922: Soviet Ukraine became one of the federated republics of the USSR.

1932-33: Process of collectivization of agriculture, which met with the opposition of most of the Ukrainian peasants (kulaks).

1939: Stalin annexed all the western Ukraine, northern Bukovina and a part of Bessarabia.

1941-44: Occupation of Ukraine by the Germans, which produced enormous losses, both in lives and property.

1945: The USSR annexed to Ukraine the Galitzia, Bukovina, Bessarabia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia.

1946: Religious persecutions by the Soviets against the uniatas faithful to Rome, forced to merge with the Russian Orthodox Church, and massive deportations in the Gulag.

1954: Nikita Khrushchev decided that the Crimean peninsula, although with a Russian majority, would come to depend on Ukraine.

1962-84: The Kremlin endeavored on a policy of assimilation and fusion maintained throughout the period of L. Brezhnev.

1985: Arrival to the power in the Soviet Union of M. Gorbachev, that marked a flexibilización of the rigid Soviet structures, but without that it supposed an immediate resurgence of the Ukrainian secessionism.

1986: Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, with some 150,000 affected in an area of 40,000 km².

1989: The Ruj (movement) was constituted, an organization that grouped a heterogeneous series of nationalist movements.

1990: The Supreme Soviet adopted a radical declaration of sovereignty, giving priority to Ukrainian legislation over that of the Soviet Union.

1991: Leonid Kravchuk proclaimed the independence of Ukraine, ratified in a referendum by 90% of the voters.

1992: The assembly of the Crimean peninsula adopted a declaration of independence, and the region was granted the status of a republic.

1994: Elected the Russophile and former Prime Minister Leonid D. Kuchma as President of the Republic.

1996: The new Constitution was characterized by providing the president with broad powers, abolished local councils (former Soviets) and declared the Ukrainian as the only official language.

1997: The new government agreed on important economic reforms. Ukraine signed a treaty of friendship with Russia in order to resolve the conflict of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. The first Minister

Lazarenko was replaced, and Kuchma relieved him by Vasyl Durdynets.

1998: The conflict around Crimea was revived, when the Supreme Council of Crimea promulgated a law that required five years of residence in the Autonomous Republic to obtain citizenship.

1999: In the general elections, L. Kuchma obtained sufficient support for a second term.

2000: Russia and Ukraine signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, by which the Russians renounced their territorial claims on the Crimean peninsula and the port of Sevastopol.

2002: No party reached an absolute majority in the general elections and opposition parties to Kuchma alleged that electoral fraud was committed.

2004: The leader of the opposition Víktor Yushchenko conducted a campaign of citizen mobilization (the Orange Revolution) to protest against the fraudulent elections that gave the victory to Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian candidate.

2006: Yulia Tymoshenko became the Prime Minister in coalition with the party of President Yushchenko.

2010: Yanukovych won the presidential elections and the parliament voted in favor of stopping the process of access to NATO.

2012: The party of President Yanukovych (Party of the Regions) won the parliamentary elections. However, observers from the United Nations and the European Union expressed doubts about the legality of the elections.

2013: Thousands of demonstrators took to the central streets of Kiev and other major cities, to protest against the government’s decision to abandon the Association Agreement with the European Union. In addition, they accused the government of giving in to Russian pressures and corruption. These protests acquired the name of Euromaidan.

2014-February: Security forces fatally injured 77 demonstrators in Kiev. President Yanukovych fled to Russia, and the opposition took over the government.

2014-March: Russian forces annexed Crimea, creating one of the biggest conflicts between East and West since the Cold War. As a result, the European Union and the United States imposed sanctions on Russia.

2014-April: The pro-Russian armed groups took parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The Ukrainian government launched a military operation in response.

2014-May: Petró Poroshenko won the presidential elections and signed the Association Agreement with the European Union.

2014-September: The government signed the Minsk peace treaty with the pro-Russian armed groups of eastern Ukraine. NATO confirmed that Russian troops were entering through eastern Ukraine.

2014-November: The Donetsk and Luhansk regions held elections not foreseen by the Minsk plan and, as a result, the government rescinded its request to acquire regional autonomy.

2017: The Association Agreement was ratified and came into force in September.