Timeline Ukraine
Return to home
Viburnum opulus (kalyna) is the national
symbol of Ukraine.
(SSFC, 3/25/12, p.N2)
1500BC
Chersonesos on the edge of Sevastopol was the Greek world’s most
northern colony.
(SFC,12/190/97, p.F6)
400-300BC A mint of this time served Chersonesos
with a population of 10,000 to 20,000.
(SFC,12/190/97, p.F6)
911AD Sep 2, Viking monarch
Oleg of Kiev, Russia, signed a treaty with the Byzantines.
(MC, 9/2/01)
988 Prince Vladimir of Kiev
accepted Byzantine Orthodoxy. This is the traditional date for the
beginning of Russian Christianity.
(DVD, Criterion, 1998)(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A14)
1237-1240 Mongols conquered Russian lands.
(DVD, Criterion, 1998)
1240 Dec 6, Mongols under Batu
Khan occupied and destroyed Kiev.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1347-1350 The Black Death: A Genoese trading post
in the Crimea was besieged by an army of Kipchaks from Hungary and
Mongols from the East. The latter brought with them a new form of
plague, Yersinia pestis. Infected dead bodies were catapulted into
the Genoese town. One Genoese ship managed to escape and brought the
disease to Messina, Sicily. The disease quickly became an epidemic.
It moved over the next few years to northern Italy, North Africa,
France, Spain, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, the Low
countries, England, Scandinavia and the Baltic. There were lesser
outbreaks in many cities for the next twenty years. An estimated 25
million died in Europe and economic depression followed. In 2005
John Kelly authored “The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the
Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time.”
(NG, 5/88, p.678)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(SSFC,
3/6/05, p.B1)(SFC, 10/13/11, p.A6)
1399 Chersonesos in the
southern Crimean peninsula, the Byzantine world’s largest trading
outpost, was sacked by the Mongols.
(SFC,12/190/97, p.F6)
1399 Russian chronicles state
that when Kiev was threatened by the Tartars, Kiev citizens had to
pay to Khan Timur Kutluk a contribution of 3000 Lithuanian roubles.
(VilNews, 12/17/10)
1418 Feb 25, At the
Constance church synod the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev and
Lithuania, Gregory Camblak, proposed a union between the Orthodox
and Catholic church.
(LHC, 2/25/03)
1482 Sep 1, Krim-Tataren
plundered Kiev.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1595 Dec, Bogdan Khmelnitsky
(d.1657), leader of the Ukrainian Cossacks, was born.
(SSFC, 2/9/03, p.C14)
1648 May 6, Battle at Zolty
Wody-Bohdan: Chmielricki's Cossacks beat John II Casimir.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1648 Jun 24, Cossacks
slaughtered 2,000 Jews and 600 Polish Catholics in Ukraine.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1648 Jul 22, Some 10,000 Jews
of Polannoe were murdered in a massacre led by Cossack Bogdan
Chmielnicki (55).
(PC, 1992, p.241)(MC, 7/22/02)
1648 Sep 21, In Poland at the
Battle at Pilawce Bohdan Chmielricki beat John II Casimir.
(PCh, 1992, p.241)(MC, 9/21/01)
1648-1649 It is estimated that 100,000-200,000
Jews died in the Chmielnicki (Khmelnytskyi) revolt that lasted from
1648-1649. This wave of destruction is considered the first modern
pogrom.
(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Poland.html)
1653 Oct 1, Russian parliament
accepted annexation of Ukraine.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1654 Jan 18, The union of
Ukraine and Russia was announced.
(LHC, 1/18/03)
1657 Aug 6, Bohdan Khmelnytskyi
(b.1595/6), founder of the Hetman state (Ukraine), died. In 1648
Ukrainian officer Bogdan Chmielnicki, with the support of the Tatar
Khan of Crimea, roused the local peasants to fight with him and the
Russian Orthodox Cossacks against the Jews.
(http://tinyurl.com/5pe5gf)(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Poland.html)
1667 Jan 30, Lithuania, Poland
and Russia signed a 13.5 year treaty at Andrusov, near Smolensk.
Russia received Smolensk and Kiev.
(LHC, 1/30/03)
1709 Jun 28, Russians defeated
the Swedes and Cossacks at the Battle of Poltava. [see July 8]
(HN, 6/28/98)
1709 Jul 8, Peter the Great
defeated Charles XII at Poltava, in the Ukraine, effectively ending
the Swedish empire. [see June 28]
(HN, 7/8/98)
1763 Russia annexed the Crimea
peninsula from Crimean Tartars and Ottoman Turks.
(SFC, 2/4/09, p.A5)
1727 May 7, Jews were expelled
from Ukraine by Empress Catherine I of Russia.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1779 Mar 31, Russia and Turkey
signed a treaty by which they promised to take no military action in
the Crimea.
(HN, 3/31/99)
1783 Catherine the Great
annexed the Crimea to the Russian empire. 83% or the residents were
Tatars.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A8)(Econ, 2/25/06, p.55)
1789 Russian soldiers under the
leadership of Jose Pascual Domingo de Ribas y Boyons (aka Osip
Deribas) chased Ottoman forces from the barracks hamlet of
Khadjibey. He recognized the site’s potential for a military base to
control the mouths of the Danube, Dniester, Dnieper and Bug rivers.
Odessa became the name of the city built there.
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.91)
1794 Jun 23, Empress Catherine
II granted Jews permission to settle in Kiev.
(MC, 6/23/02)
1794 Ukraine’s port city of
Odessa was founded. Josef de Ribas, a Naples-born adventurer, after
leading an assault on a Turkish Black Sea fortress called
Yeni-Dunai, convinced Catherine the Great that the site of Odessa
would be a good one for a Russian port. A nearby site called Odessos
had long been a Greek colony.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.86)
1803 Alexander I chose
Frenchman Duc de Richelieu to serve as governor of Odessa
(1803-1814). Richelieu imported acacia tress from Vienna and
distributed them free to the residents, who lined them on Primorsky
Boulevard.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.86)
1809 Mar 31, Nikolai V. Gogol
(d.1852), Ukrainian-born Russian writer, was born (NS) in
Sorochyntsi, Poltava Governorate (later Ukraine). Some sources give
April 1 as his birthday. His work included the play “The Inspector
General” (1836) and the novels “Taras Bulba” (1835) and “Dead
Souls” (1842).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Gogol)(WSJ,
4/14/09, p.D7)
1810 Oct 16, Rabbi Nachman
(b.1772) of Bratslav died and was buried in Uman, Ukraine.
Nachman was renowned for his mystical interpretations of
Jewish texts and his belief that higher spirituality could be
achieved through a combination of prayer, meditation and good deeds.
On his deathbed, he is said to have promised to be an advocate for
anyone who would come and pray beside his tomb.
(AP,
9/9/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachman_of_Breslov)
1814 Mar 9, Taras Shevchenko,
Ukraine’s most famous poet, was born.
(SFC, 3/10/01, p.A8)
1819 Russia declared Odessa to
be a free port.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.86)
1829 Sardinian architect Franz
Boffo designed Odessa’s stock exchange as a neo-classical palace. In
2004 it housed the city council.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.86)
1853 Jul, Supported by Britain,
the Turks took a firm stand against the Russians, who occupied the
Danubian principalities (modern Romania) on the Russo-Turkish
border. The Crimean War got under way in October. It was fought
mainly on the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the
British, French, and Ottoman Turkish, with support, from January
1855, by the army of Sardinia-Piedmont. The war aligned Anglican
England and Roman Catholic France with Islam’s sultan-caliphs
against the tsars, who saw themselves as the world’s last truly
Christian emperors.
(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/143040/Crimean-War)(Econ,
10/2/10, p.89)
1853 Sep 14, The Allies landed
at Eupatoria on the west coast of Crimea.
(HN, 9/14/98)
1853 Sep 20, The Allies
defeated the Russians at the battle of Alma on the Crimean
Peninsula.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1854 Mar 28, During the Crimean
War, Britain and France declared war on Russia.
(AP, 3/28/97)
1854 Sep 14, Allied armies,
including those of Britain & France, landed in Crimea.
(MC, 9/14/01)
1854 Oct 25, During the Crimean
War, a brigade of British light infantry was destroyed by Russian
artillery as they charged down a narrow corridor in full view of the
Russians. The Crimean War is largely remembered for the Charge of
the Light Brigade, a hopeless but gallant British cavalry charge
against a heavily defended Russian force. The battle began when the
Russians attacked the British-French supply depot at Balaclava, some
eight miles from Sevastopol, on the Black Sea Crimean Peninsula.
Taken by surprise, the British counterattacked but failed to follow
up. Through a staff error, Gen. Lord Cardigan's Light Brigade of 673
horsemen was ordered to charge the Russian position through a
mile-long valley and prevent them from carrying away some captured
cannon. The Light Brigade advanced up the valley, taking casualties
all the way, and reached the guns. But once there, they could not
hold their position and were forced to retreat. Of the 673 men who
took part in the senseless charge, only 195 were present at roll
call that night. The Charge of the Light Brigade ended the battle,
but Balaclava remained in the hands of the British-French Allies.
The event was described in a poem by Tennyson. French General
Bosquet remarked "It is magnificent, but it is not war."
(AP, 10/25/97)(HNPD, 10/25/98)(HN, 10/25/98)(MC,
10/25/01)
1854 Nov 4, Florence
Nightingale and her nurses arrived in the Crimea.
(HN, 11/4/98)
1854 Nov 5, The British and
French defeated the Russians at Inkerman, Crimea.
(HN, 11/5/98)
1855 Jun 17, Heavy
French-British shelling of Sebastopol killed over 2000.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1855 Sep 10, Sevastopol, under
siege for nearly a year, capitulated to the Allies in the Crimean
war.
(HN, 9/10/98)
1855 Nov 26, Several thousand
people staged a parade and banquet at South Park, SF, to celebrate
the Allied victory over the Russians in the Crimean War, the capture
of the Malakoff fortress in Sevastopol.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.WBb3)
1855 The English Commons voted
for an inquiry into the conduct of the Crimean campaign.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.67)
1856 Mar 30, Russia signed the
Treaty of Paris ending the Crimean War. It guaranteed the integrity
of Ottoman Turkey and obliged Russia to surrender southern
Bessarabia, at the mouth of the Danube. The Black Sea was
neutralized, and the Danube River was opened to the shipping of all
nations. In 2010 Allen Lane authored “Crimea: The Last Crusade.”
(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/143040/Crimean-War)
1859 Feb 18, Shalom Aleichem
(Solomon Rabinowitz, d.1916), Russian-Yiddish playwright,
author and humorist, was born in the Ukraine. "To want to be the
cleverest of all is the biggest folly."
(AP,
1/13/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholem_Aleichem)
1871 A pogrom took place
against the Jews in Odessa and the governor made no effort to
suppress it.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.88)
1881 May 5, Anti-Jewish rioting
took place in Kiev, Ukraine.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1881 A large pogrom took place
against the Jews in Odessa.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.88)
1887 Geographers of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire set fixed points to measure altitude in
connection with the European measurement of meridional and parallel
degrees. One marker at Rakhiv, Ukraine, was later mis-interpreted to
mark the center of Europe.
(WSJ, 7/14/04, p.A1)
1890 Feb 28, Vaslav Nijinsky,
ballet dancer (3/12 NS), was born in Kiev, Ukraine. He was the
pre-eminent ballet artist of his day and at 20 became the protege
and lover of Sergei Diaghilev. He spent some time in psychotherapy
during which he made a number of abstract drawings. Nijinsky died in
1950 in London. [see Mar 12]
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.E5)(MC, 2/28/02)
1890 Mar 12, Vasav Nijinsky
(d.1950), Russian dancer, was born. He was considered the world's
greatest ballet dancer. [see Feb 28]
(HN, 3/12/99)
1891 Jan 20, Mischa Elman, US
violinist, was born in Talnoye, Ukraine.
(MC, 1/20/02)
1891 Jan 26, Ilya G.
Ehrenburg, writer, propagandist (Fall of Paris, The Thaw), was
born in Kiev, Ukraine.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1891 Apr 23, Sergey Sergeyevich
Prokofiev, composer (Peter & the Wolf), was born in Ukraine.
[see Apr 27]
(MC, 4/23/02)
1891 Apr 27, Sergei Sergeyevich
Prokofiev, composer, was born. [see Apr 23]
(MC, 4/27/02)
1898 May 3, Golda Mier
(d.1978), 4th Prime Minister of Israel (1969-1974) and the first
woman PM, was born in Kiev, Ukraine. "Whether women are better than
men, I cannot say -- but I can say they are certainly no worse."
(AP, 5/11/97)(HN, 5/3/02)(MC, 5/3/02)
1898 Oct 1, Jews were expelled
from Kiev, Russia.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1904 Oct 1, Vladimir Horowitz,
Russian-born American virtuoso pianist, was born in Kiev, Ukraine.
(HN, 10/1/98)(MC, 10/1/01)
1905 Another large pogrom took
place against the Jews in Odessa, Ukraine. Many began to leave,
mainly for the USA.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.88)
1906 Jul 23, Pogroms took place
against Jews in Odessa.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1906 Dec 19, Leonid Brezhnev,
Soviet General Secretary of the Communist arty and President of the
Supreme Soviet from 1964 until 1982, was born in the Ukraine.
(HN, 12/19/98)(MC, 12/19/01)
1906 Lew Grade (born Louis
Winogradsky; d.1998 at 91), was born in Tokmak. He went to London at
age 6 and in 1955 founded Associated Television, the first
commercially funded channel in Britain.
(SFC, 12/14/98, p.C4)
1908 Sep 30, David Oistrakh,
violinist and professor at the Moscow Conservatory, was born in
Odessa, Russia (Ukraine).
(HN, 9/30/00)(MC, 9/30/01)
1911 Sep 14, Russian Premier
Piotr Stolypin was mortally wounded in an assassination attempt at
the Kiev opera house.
(HN, 9/14/98)
1914 Mar 20, Svyatoslav
Richter, pianist (Stalin Prize-1945), was born in Zhitomir, Ukraine.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1914 Oct 29, A Turkish fleet
including 2 German cruisers stormed the Black Sea and bombarded
Odessa, Sevastopol and Theodosia. [see Nov 2]
(PC, 1992, p.706)
1916 Oct 19, Emil Gilels,
pianist (Brussels Competition-1938), was born in Odessa, Ukraine.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1917 Jun 29, The Ukraine
proclaimed independence from Russia.
(HN, 6/29/98)
1918 Feb 14, Warsaw
demonstrators protested the transfer of Polish territory to the
Ukraine.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1918 Feb 22, Germany claimed
the Baltic states, Finland and Ukraine from Russia.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1918 Feb 20, The Soviet Red
Army seized Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine.
(HN, 2/20/98)
1918 Mar 3, Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Russia signed the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ended Russian participation in World
War I. Germany and Austria forced Soviet Russia to sign the Peace of
Brest, which called for the establishment of 5 independent
countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine. The
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ended Russian participation in World
War I, was annulled by the November 1918 armistice. The treaty
deprived the Soviets of White Russia.
(HN, 3/3/99)(LHC, 3/1/03)(AP, 3/3/08)
1918 Mar 22, Ukrainian mobs
massacred the Jews of Seredino Buda. Other sites date the event to
March 8 and March 9.
(www.ukraine-observer.com/articles/205/612)
1919 Feb, The Polish–Soviet War
began and continued to March 1921. It was an armed conflict between
Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine against the Second Polish Republic
and the Ukrainian People's Republic, four states in post-World War I
Europe.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-Soviet_War)
1919 Aug 10, Ukrainian National
Army massacred 25 Jews in Podolia, Ukraine.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1919 Aug 31, The Ukrainian
(Petlyura) Army recaptured Kiev. Petlyura's Ukrainian Army killed 35
members of a Jewish defense group.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1919 Jimmy Winkfield
(1882-1974), former US Kentucky Derby winner, helped lead 262 horses
from the Odessa (Ukraine) race track to Warsaw, Poland, in a 3-month
journey in front of the advancing Red Army.
(SSFC, 5/7/06,
p.P8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Winkfield)
1920 Apr 27, Pogrom leader
Petljoera (Petlyura) declared Ukraine Independence.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1920 Isaac Stern (d.2001),
Russian-Jewish immigrant to the US and legendary violinist, was born
in the Ukraine. His family arrived in San Francisco a year later. In
1960 he saved Carnegie Hall from the wrecking ball.
(SSFC, 9/23/01, p.A24)(SFC, 9/24/01, p.G1)
1921 Oct 18, Russian Soviets
granted Crimean independence.
(HN, 10/18/98)
1922 Dec 30, Vladimir I. Lenin
proclaimed the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics. Soviet Russia was renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics. The Soviet Union was organized as a federation of RSFSR,
Ukrainian SSR, Belorussian SSR and Transcaucasian SSR.
(AP, 12/30/97)(HN, 12/30/98)
1926 May 25, Symon Petlyura
(47), leader of Ukraine (pogroms), was assassinated.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1927 Josef Stalin purged much
of the Tatar intelligentsia in the Crimea.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A8)
1927 Stephen Timoshenko,
Ukraine-born railroad engineer, arrived in Michigan and joined the
Univ. of Michigan where he became the world’s leading authority on
applied mechanics. His 18 textbooks were published in 36 languages.
(MT, Summer/04, p.7)
1932 Walter Duranty of the NY
Times won a Pulitzer Prize for his series on the Soviet Union. In
2003 a historian argued, without success, that the prize should be
revoked due to Duranty's deliberate failure to cover the forced
famine in the Ukraine that killed millions of people. In 2004 David
C. Engerman authored "Modernization from the Other Shore," an
American view of the Soviet experience."
(SFC, 10/23/03, p.A3) (SFC, 11/22/03, p.A3)(WSJ,
2/24/04, p.D8)
1932-1933 Stalin imposed terror and famine on the
Ukraine, Kuban and Kazakhstan that was carried out be Lazar
Kaganovich. Millions died in the famine. Stalin provoked what the
Ukrainians called the Great Famine as part of his campaign to force
Ukrainian peasants to give up their land and join collective farms.
During the height of the famine, which was enforced by methodical
confiscation of all food by the Soviet secret police, cannibalism
was widespread.
(WSJ, 2/14/96, p.A-15)(SFC, 4/3/97, p.C2)(AP,
11/26/05)
1933 Mar 29, The front page of
the New York Evening Post said "Famine Grips Russia — Millions
Dying." The report was by Welsh journalist Gareth Jones who had
recently sneaked into Ukraine, at the height of a famine engineered
by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Jones was killed by bandits in 1935
while covering Japan's expansion into China. In 2009 the diaries of
Jones were put on display for the first time in London.
(AP, 11/13/09)
1933 Malcolm Muggeridge,
American writer and reporter, broke the story on the famine in the
Ukraine.
(WSJ, 4/17/96, p.A-18)
1939 Mar 15, The Republic of
Carpatho-Ukraine, led by Avhustyn Voloshyn (d.1945), declared
independence amid the Nazi dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.
Independence ending that same evening by an invasion from Hungary.
In 1946 the area became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist
Republic, as the Zakarpattia Oblast ('Transcarpathian Oblast').
After the break-up of the Soviet Union, it became part of
independent Ukraine as Zakarpattia Oblast.
(Econ, 3/14/09,
p.57)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpatho-Ukraine)
1939-1945 During WW II the Germans and Ukrainians
used Transdniestria as a killing field to purge Europe of some
150,000 Jews.
(SSFC, 2/12/06, p.E2)
1940 Mar 5, Stalin among others
signed an Order for the massacre at Katyn, Poland. Soviet agents
shot 21,768 Polish military officers, intellectuals and priests who
had been taken prisoner during the invasion. Between April and May
some 25,700 (15,000) Polish citizens were massacred by the Soviets
in the Katyn and Miednoje (Mednoye) forests on the outskirts of
Moscow and at Kharkov in western Russia (later Ukraine). Some 14,700
Polish officers were identified by their uniforms. Documents were
made public in 1992 by Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet
leader. They included a letter by Lavrenty Beria, head of the secret
police, recommending the execution of the Polish prisoners of war.
The letter bears the signatures of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and
three other members of the Politburo. Excavations of the sites began
in 1994. 6,313 Polish officers were all shot in the back of the head
near Mednoye. 9,000 Russians were also massacred at the site. In
2008 Andrzej Wajda directed the film “Katyn.” In 2004 Russia's top
military prosecutor closed the investigation after concluding that
the massacre did not constitute genocide. In 2009 Russia's Supreme
Court rejected appeals to re-open the investigation. On April 7,
2010, Russian PM Vladimir Putin attended a memorial ceremony. Hours
later he said Stalin had ordered the atrocity as revenge for the
death of Red Army soldiers in Polish prisoner of war camps in 1920.
(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.16)(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.A18)(AP,
3/6/05)(Econ, 6/21/08, p.65)(AP, 1/29/09)(SFC, 4/8/10, p.A2)(AP,
4/28/10)
1941 Jun 25, Germans invaded
Dubno, Poland, and encouraged the Ukrainians to do whatever they
want to 12,000 Jews living there.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1941 Jul 3, German soldiers
arrive in Kolomiya, which belonged to Poland at this time, and
tacked up posters the declared in three languages “Death to All
Jews.” Blanca Rosenberg (d.1998) wrote a memoir in 1993, “To Tell at
Last,” that described how she survived the Holocaust.
(SFC, 9/29/98, p.C2)
1941 Jul 21, 200 Jewish Torahs
were burned in Ukraine.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1941 Jul 27, The German army
entered Ukraine.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1941 Jul, The 16,000 sq. mile
area of the Ukraine named Transnistria was granted by Hitler to the
Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu for Romania’s participation in the
war against the soviet Union. Jews from Bessarabia, Bukovina and
were Moldova were transferred here and many thousands were murdered
from 1941-1944 by the Romanian Gendarmeric, the Einsatrzgruppe D,
Ukrainian police and Sonderkommando R.
(WSJ, 7/30/97, p.A15)
1941 Jul, Metropolitan Andrij
Sheptysky, leader of the Greek Catholics, greeted the German army
for liberation from Russia.
(SFC, 6/27/01, p.A12)
1941 Aug 13, Red army evacuated
Smolensk.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1941 Aug 21-Sep 26, The Soviet
Union's greatest defeat in WWII occurred during the encirclement of
the Ukrainian city of Kiev. The Germans took some 665,000 Soviet
prisoners.
(HNQ, 8/12/98)
1941 Sep 19, The German army
conquered Kiev.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1941 Sep 21, The German Army
cut off the Crimean Peninsula from the rest of the Soviet Union.
(HN, 9/21/98)
1941 Sep 24, There was a bomb
explosion in German headquarters in Hotel Continental in Kiev.
(MC, 9/24/01)
1941 Sep 26, In Ukraine some
33,711 Jews of Kiev were killed over 3 days before Yom Kippur in the
ravine at Babi Yar by the Nazis. Over the next 2 years some 100-200
thousand more people, mostly Jews, were killed at the site.
(SFC, 10/29/96, p.A6)(SFC, 6/25/01, p.A8)(SFC,
6/26/01, p.A8)(AP, 11/16/07)
1941 Sep 29, 30,000 Jews were
gunned down in Kiev when Henrich Himmler sent four strike squads to
exterminate Soviet Jewish civilians and other “undesirables.”
(HN, 9/29/00)
1941 Sep 30, 3,721 Jews were
buried, some still alive, at Babi Yar ravine (near Kiev) Ukraine.
[See Sep 26,29]
(MC, 9/30/01)
1941 Oct 3, All elderly Jewish
men of Kerenchug Ukraine, were killed by SS.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1941 Oct 8, The Germans arrived
in Mariupol, Ukraine, and immediately instituted anti-Jewish
measures.
(WSJ, 1/19/08, p.W8)
1941 Oct 12, Thousands of Jews
were killed in Ivano Frankivsk, Ukraine, by men of the Security
Police (Sicherheitspolizei; SiPo), assisted by members of the German
Order Police (Ordnungspolizei) and the railroad police.
(Econ, 1/23/10,
p.48)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivano-Frankivsk)
1941 Oct 15, Odessa, a Russian
port on the Black Sea which had been surrounded by German troops for
several weeks, was evacuated by Russian troops.
(HN, 10/15/98)
1941 Oct 18, The Germans forces
in Mariupol, Ukraine, murdered some 9,000 local Jews.
(WSJ, 1/19/08, p.W8)
1941 Oct 22-23, Some 39,000
[20,000] Jews were killed by Romanian troops over 2 days in Odessa.
Many of them were burned to death in a public square or in
warehouses that were locked shut. Altogether some 90,000 Jews were
killed in Odessa.
(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A11)(WSJ, 3/23/04, p.D8)
1941 Oct 25, 16,000 Jews were
massacred in Odessa, Ukraine. [see Oct 22-23]
(MC, 10/25/01)
1941
Nov 6, Einsatz death groups killed some 18
thousand Jews of Rovno, Ukraine. “Einsatzgruppen” were special
soldiers who followed the fighting forces and “cleaned up” the area.
(www.members.tripod.com/~ebionite/zikkar.htm#nov)
1941 Nov, Nazis in the Ukraine
set up a concentration camp near the village of Gvozdavka-1, near
Odessa, and killed about 5,000 Jews. Their mass grave was found in
2007.
(AP, 6/5/07)
1941 Dec 3, Hitler viewed
Poltava, Ukraine.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1941 Dec-1942 Jan, A massacre
of Jews began when Romanian and Ukrainian troops nailed shut one of
the pigsties' doors and windows in Bogdanovka, then torched it,
burning all inside alive. The killing went on for three weeks in
late December 1941 and early January 1942. An estimated 48,000
people were killed.
(AP, 9/9/07)
1941 According to later day
Holocaust researchers a force in Ukraine under the command of Roman
Shukhevych took part in pogroms in which 4,000 Jews were killed. In
2007 Shukhevych was posthumously named a Hero of Ukraine.
(AP, 11/16/07)
1941-1944 Germany occupied the Crimean peninsula.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A8)
1942 May 8, German summer
offensive opened in Crimea.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1942 May 12, The Soviet Army
launched its first major offensive of the war and took Kharkov in
the eastern Ukraine from the German army.
(HN, 5/12/99)
1942 Jun 30, Col-gen Von
Paulus' 6th Army stormed into the Ukraine.
(MC, 6/30/02)
1942 Summer, Members of Kiev’s
Dynamo soccer team were brought out from forced labor to play a
series of exhibition games. The last game was against Flakelf, a
Luftwaffe team, which lost to Dynamo 5-2. Dynamo members were later
arrested. One died of torture and 3 more were killed near the Babi
Yar ravine. In 2002 Andy Dougan authored “Dynamo: Triumph and
Tragedy in Nazi-Occupied Kiev.”
(WSJ, 9/6/02, p.W10)
1942 Jul 13, 5,000 Jews of
Rovno, Polish Ukraine, were executed by Nazis.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1942 The Ukrainian Insurgent
Army, or UPA, was created and battled both Soviet and Nazi forces
during the war. Hostility toward the partisans later ran deep
because they initially sought support from the Nazis, believing the
Germans would grant Ukraine independence.
(AP, 10/15/07)
1943 Nov 6, Soviet forces
reconquered Kiev.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1943 Some 35,000 Poles in Lviv
were massacred by extreme Ukrainian nationalists. Poland opened
investigations around 2001.
(SFC, 6/27/01, p.A12)
1944 Apr 10, Soviet forces
liberated Odessa from Nazis.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1944 May 6, The Red Army
besieged and captured Sevastopol in the Crimea.
(HN, 5/6/99)
1944 May 9, Russians recaptured
Crimea by taking Sevastopol. [see May 6]
(MC, 5/9/02)
1944 May 18, The expulsion of
more than 200,000 Tartars from Crimea by Soviet Union began. They
were accused of collaborating with the Germans.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1944 Josef Stalin deported some
250,000 Tatars from Crimea to Uzbekistan. They did not being to
return home until the fall of the Soviet Union.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A8,9)
1944 The Soviet army
re-conquered Bessarabia. Only then were the two parts of present-day
Moldova joined together to form the Moldavian SSR. At the same time,
about one-third of Bessarabia, including its entire Black Sea
coastline, was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. The
Transdniester region, having long been part of the Russian Empire
and then the Soviet Union, remained more Russified and Sovietized
than Right-Bank Moldavia.
(http://tinyurl.com/b7m4b)
1945 Feb 4-12, President
Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet
leader Josef Stalin began a wartime conference at Yalta, in the
southern Ukraine.
(AP, 2/4/97)(WUD, 1994, p.1653)
1945 Feb 19, Ivan Kozhedub of
the Ukraine became the only Soviet pilot to shoot down a
Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter and, on April 19, 1945, he downed
two Focke-Wulf Fw-190s to bring his final tally to 62--the top
Allied ace of the war. He was the Allies’ top ace and one of only
two Soviet fighter pilots to be awarded the Gold Star of a Hero of
the Soviet Union three times during World War II. Ironically
prevented from fighting because his skill as a pilot made him more
useful as an instructor, Kozhedub did not fly his first combat
mission until March 26, 1943.
(HNQ, 4//01)
1945 Aug 16, The communist
dominated Polish government signed a treaty with the USSR to
formally cede eastern territories, including Galicia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_areas_annexed_by_the_Soviet_Union)(Econ,
7/7/07, p.51)
1954 The Crimea was ceded to
Ukraine as a gift from Russia by Nikita Khrushchev. In 2004 ethnic
Russian made up a majority of the population.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.A8)(WSJ, 12/21/04, p.A14)
1959 Oct 15, Stepan Bandera
(b.1909), a Ukrainian nationalist, was assassinated in Munich by a
KGB agent who used a spray gun to fire cyanide gas into his face. In
2010 Ukraine Pres. Yushchenko issued a decree posthumously awarding
the nation's highest award to Bandera weeks before his term ended in
February. Yushchenko called Bandera patriot, but the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish rights group, said Bandera's
followers were linked to the deaths of thousands of Jews. In April
2010 a court overturned the decree.
(WSJ, 11/21/96, p.A10)(AP,
4/3/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera)
1967 Viacheslav Chornovil was
arrested by Soviet authorities for dissident activities. His 3 year
sentence was later cut in half.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C2)
1972 Oct 26, Igor Sikorsky
(b.1889), Ukraine-born helicopter pioneer, died in Connecticut.
(HNPD, 10/27/98)(ON, 3/06,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sikorsky)
1972 Viacheslav Chornovil was
again arrested for publishing an underground newsletter and
sentenced to 6 years in prison and e years in exile.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C2)
1973 Aug 28, Princess Anne
became the first member of the British royal family to visit the
Soviet Union when she arrived in Kiev for an equestrian event.
(www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/site/this_day_in_history/this_day_August_28.php)
1976 An 86-pound topaz crystal
was found in the central Zhytomyr region. In 1997 it was stolen from
a Kiev museum.
(SFC, 2/1/97, p.A15)
1977 Nov 16, Oksana Baiul,
Ukraine figure skater (Olympic-gold-1994), was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oksana_Baiul)
1980 Apr, Viacheslav Chornovil
was again arrested and sentenced to 5 years in prison, but was
released in 1983.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C2)
1980 An explosion at the
Gorskaya mine killed 66 miners.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.A17)
1986 Apr 26, The world's worst
nuclear accident occurred in Pripyat, Ukraine, north of Kiev, at
1:23 a.m. as the Chernobyl atomic power plant exploded. A
300-hundred-square-mile area was evacuated and 31 people died as
unknown thousands were exposed to radioactive material that spread
in the atmosphere throughout the world. An exploded at Chernobyl,
Ukraine, and burned for 10 days. About 70% of the fallout fell in
Belarus. Damage was estimated to be up to $130 billion. By 1998
10,000 Russian "liquidators" involved in the cleanup had died and
thousands more became invalids. It was later estimated that the
released radioactivity was 200 times the combined bombs dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was later found that Soviet scientists
were authorized to carry out experiments that required the reactor
to be pushed to or beyond its limits, with safety features disabled.
(WSJ, 11/8/95, p.A-1)(SFC, 4/27/98, p.A14)(SFC,
12/18/99, p.C4)(AP, 4/26/05)(Econ, 10/6/07, p.18)
1986 Apr 28, The Soviet Union
informed the world of the Apr 26 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl,
saying the accident damaged a reactor and that aid was being
rendered to "those affected."
(AP, 4/28/02)
1986 Jun 15, Pravda announced
that the high-level Chernobyl staff in Ukraine was fired.
(http://tinyurl.com/ydptos)
1986-1992 Leonid Kuchma led the Soviet Yuzmash
rocket plant.
(SFC, 2/13/01, p.A10)
1989 Viacheslav Chornovil was
instrumental in the formation of the pro-independence Popular Rukh.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C2)
1990 Mar 4, Voters in the
Soviet republics of Russia, Byelorussia and the Ukraine participated
in local and legislative elections, resulting in notable gains for
reformists and nationalists.
(AP, 3/4/00)
1990 Jul 16, The Ukraine
Parliament approved a declaration of State Sovereignty. The people's
deputies vote 339-5 to proclaim July 16 a national holiday.
(www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2001/340119.shtml)
1990 The fiercely anti-Russian
Ukrainian National Assembly was created, and its paramilitary wing
UNA-UNSO in 1991 after the abortive putsch in Moscow.
(AP, 1/1/05)
1991 Aug 1, President Bush,
visiting the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, urged Soviet republics to
show restraint in their demands for more autonomy.
(AP, 8/1/01)
1991 Aug 24, Ukraine declared
independence from USSR.
(www.users.bigpond.com/kyroks/ukrhist10.html)
1991 Dec 1, Ukrainians voted
overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union. Viacheslav
Chornovil finished 2nd to Leonid Kravchuk.
(WP 6/29/96, p.A20)(AP, 12/1/97)(SFC, 3/27/99,
p.C2)
1991 Dec 8, Russia, Byelorussia
and Ukraine declared the Soviet national government dead, forging a
new alliance to be known as the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Boris Yeltsin, Ukrainian Pres. Leonid Kravchuk, and Belarus Pres.
Stanislav Shuskevich met in a hunting lodge to proclaim the Soviet
Union null and void and to form a loose Commonwealth of Independent
States. The declaration later became known as the "Belavezha
Accords."
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A10)(AP,
12/8/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislau_Shushkevich)
1991 Jews erected a menorah
monument memorial at the WW II Babi Yar site. [see Sep 1941]
(SFC, 6/26/01, p.A8)
1991 Ukraine deregulated
prices.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.86)
1992 Feb 14, The former Soviet
republics of Ukraine, Moldova and Azerbaijan rejected a proposal for
a unified army, sharply rebuffing Russian President Boris N.
Yeltsin.
(AP, 2/14/02)
1992 Sevastopol was opened to
the outside world.
(SFC,12/190/97, p.F6)
1994 Mar 27, Ukraine held its
first parliamentary elections since the collapse of the Soviet
Union.
(AP, 3/27/99)
1994 Jul 19, Leonid
Kuchma (b.1938) took office as the 2nd president of Ukraine.
(Econ, 1/23/10,
p.48)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Kuchma)
1994 Sunday Adelaja (27), a
Nigerian evangelist, began prayer meetings in Kiev, Ukraine, for
alcoholics, drug addicts and petty crooks. By 2006 he claimed some
25,000 members.
(WSJ, 7/21/06, p.A1)
1995 Mar 1, Vitaly Massol,
Ukraine premier, resigned.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1995 May 12, President Clinton,
during a stopover in Ukraine, visited Babi Yar, where the Nazis
massacred more than 30,000 Kiev Jews in 1941.
(AP, 5/12/00)
1995 Dec, Accord to be signed
in Canada. The country was committing to close down the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant by the turn of the century. Closure is estimated
to cost $4 bil. The group of seven industrialized nations has
offered $2 bil in credits to reshape the energy sector.
(WSJ, 12/20/95, p.A-10)
1995 In Kiev police outside St.
Sophia Cathedral beat demonstrators, who tried to bury Orthodox
Patriarch Volodymyr at an unauthorized site.
(SFC, 3/10/01, p.)
1996 Apr 9, Drinking water in
most of Ukraine’s cities isn’t potable because of industrial
pollution and aging water pipes. From a study by the Health
Ministry.
(WSJ, 4/9/96, p.A-15)
1996 Apr 16, Anatoly Onoprienko
was arrested in western Ukraine. He later admitted to the murder of
some 52 people in a serial killing spree from 1989 to 1996 that
first came to attention in 1995. He went on trial in 1998. In 1999
the former sailor was sentenced to death.
(www.thecrimeweb.com/anatolyonoprienko.html)(WSJ,
11/24/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.A1)
1996 May 28, Ukraine’s
president, Leonid Kuchma, fired his prime minister, Yevhen Marchuk,
in a dispute over economic reforms, and named ally Pavlo Lazarenko
as prime minister.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. A-18)(SFC, 5/29/96, p.A8)
1996 Jun 3, A hepatitis
epidemic has hospitalized nearly 3,000 residents of Sevastopol so
far this year. All nuclear weapons have been transferred to Russia
for dismantling. The US paid $267 mil for the removal.
(WSJ, 8/8/95, p. B6D) (WSJ, 8/8/95, p. A1)
1996 Jun 28, Pres. Leonid
Kuchma pushed through parliament, called the Rada, a new
constitution. It established a clear right to own private property,
and Ukrainian as the only state language.
(WP. 6/29/96, p.A20)
1996 Jul 16, Prime Minister
Pavlo Lazarenko escaped an assassination attempt. He proceeded to
the Donbass coalfields where 200,000 miners were on strike.
(WSJ, 7/17/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 2, The government
planned to introduce its new currency, the hyrvna. The old
karbovanets would be swappable for only 2 weeks.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 24, Yeltsin of Russia
and Kuchma of the Ukraine agreed to divide the Black Sea Fleet.
(WSJ, 10/25/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 3, Yevhen Shcherban,
Ukrainian businessman and politician, and his wife were assassinated
at Donetsk Airport by several men posing as police officers.
Prosecutors have stated the murder was intended to eliminate
competition for control of Ukraine’s natural gas industry. In 2002,
eight men were arrested and tried for the murder. All of them were
found guilty, with three receiving life sentences.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevhen_Shcherban)(http://tinyurl.com/8xlflju)
1996 Ukrainian men had one of
the highest infertility rates in the world, ever since the Chernobyl
disaster 10 years ago. Nearly one of five Ukrainian babies dies
shortly after birth, and there have been more deaths than births
since 1990.
(G&M, 1/31/96, p.A-24)
1996-1998 Pavel Lazarenko was later accused of
siphoning $72.1 million in public funds into a series of Swiss bank
accounts during this period.
(SFC, 6/4/99, p.A16)
1997 May 24, In the Ukraine the
first McDonald’s restaurant opened.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.A10)
1997 May 31, Russia and the
Ukraine signed a friendship treaty. Boris Yeltsin traveled to Kiev
to sign the treaty.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 14, It was reported
that a huge sinkhole in Dnepropetrovsk had swallowed houses, schools
and a 9-story apartment. It was due to flash flooding and an
underground river.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 19, Pres. Kuchma
removed prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko under pressure from Western
donors who saw him as an opponent to free-market policies. Lazarenko
was accused of corruption. In 1998 Lazarenko was indicted by Swiss
authorities on money-laundering charges.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A22)(SFEC, 12/20/98, p.A32)
1997 Jul 17, In the Ukraine the
parliament confirmed Valery Pustovoitenko as prime minister. He was
an ally of Pres. Kuchma and vowed to work with lawmakers.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 17, A Ukrainian
jetliner from Odessa, a Yakoviev 42, was missing as it approached
the Greek city of Salonica with 70-71 people onboard. The wreckage
was located near Fotina, Greece, on Dec 20, as a Greek military
plane, searching for the wreckage, crashed north of Athens. All five
people aboard the C-130 transport plane were killed.
(WSJ, 12/18/97,
p.A1)(www.cnn.com/WORLD/9712/20/greece.plane.pm/)
1997 The Ukrainian film “A
Friend of the Deceased” starred Alexandre Lazarev and Angelika
Nevolina. It was directed by Vyacheslav Krishtofovich.
(SFC, 5/15/98, p.C3)
1997 Former Soviet republics
(Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova) formed Guuam
to seek cooperation outside Russian influence.
(WSJ, 3/4/05, p.A13)
1998 Mar 24, Vasyl Koryak,
mayor of Lubny in central Poltava, was badly wounded when gunmen
opened fire on his car.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.A11)
1998 Mar 29, Parliamentary
elections gave the Communists about 121 of 450 seats.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar, The government issued
a warrant for Petro Kyrytchenko, a partner to Pavel Lazarenko in a
money laundering operation.
(SFC, 6/4/99, p.A16)
1998 Apr 4, In the Ukraine a
gas explosion at the Skochinsky coal mine outside Donetsk killed 63
men.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.A20)(AP, 4/4/08)
1998 Jul 17, In Eritrea a
Ukrainian IL-78 transport plane crashed near Asmara and killed 9
people.
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.A14)
1998 Jul 28, The Ukraine faced
a financial crises as $1 billion in bond payments came due and
parliament rejected austerity measures.
(WSJ, 7/28/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 12, Prime Minister
Valery Pustovitenko called 1,500 executives to a civil defense base
to solve the question of their debts. A previous summons had net 70
million, but was not sufficient to cover the $3.5 billion budget
deficit.
(SFC, 8/14/98, p.A10)
1998 Sep 4, Ukraine clinched a
$2.2 billion IMF loan and announced a de facto currency devaluation
for its hryvnia to between 2.5 and 3.5 to the dollar.
(WSJ, 9/8/98, p.A23)
1998 Sep 9, The UN General
Assembly elected Uruguay’s foreign minister as president for its
53rd session. Didier Opertiti replaced Hennadiy Udovenko of Ukraine.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.C2)
1998 Sep 13, Victor Verloo
(64), a Peace Corps volunteer from Sacramento, was stabbed to death
by robbers in Chernihiv, north of Kiev.
(SFC, 9/16/98, p.A3)
1998 Former prime minister
Pavlo Lazarenko purchased the former Eddie Murphy California Bay
Area mansion for $6.7 million.
(SFC, 6/4/99, p.A16)(SFC, 6/2/00, p.A19)
1999 Jan 19, From the Ukraine
it was reported that the number of HIV cases had risen to between
38,000 and 110,000. In 1994 44 people tested positive.
(SFC, 1/19/99, p.A6)
1999 Jan, Former Prime Minister
Lazarenko was detained by US authorities and transferred to a
detention center in Dublin, Ca., to await a hearing on extradition
charges filed by the Swiss government. Lazarenko maintained his
affiliation with the Hromada Party and his position as candidate for
presidency in the October elections.
(SFC, 6/4/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 19, The Ukraine
Parliament withdrew the immunity of former prime minister Lazarenko
and issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of embezzlement and
misuse of government funds.
(SFC, 2/23/99, p.A14)
1999 Mar 7, Ukraine restarted
nuclear reactor No. 3 at Chernobyl following repairs that began Dec
15.
(SFC, 3/8/99, p.A16)
1999 Mar 25, Viacheslav
Chornovil (61), prominent politician and former Soviet political
prisoner, died in a car crash.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C2)
1999 Apr 1, In Zhytomyr,
Ukraine, Anatoly Onoprienko was sentenced to death for the deaths of
52 men, women and children between 1989 and 1996. 43 of the killings
occurred in a 6 month period.
(OTD)
1999 May 19, Ukrainian
authorities on 19 May 1999 arrested four Russian citizens who were
attempting to smuggle 20kg of “enriched uranium ore” to Western
Europe.
(http://tinyurl.com/3cydhn)
1999 May 24, The Ukraine
reported that it had lost $220 million in trade since the NATO war
against Yugoslavia began. 90% of the Ukraine population was against
the NATO bombing.
(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A8)
1999 May 24, A methane gas
explosion in a mine killed 39 [50] and injured 48 in the Donetsk
region.
(WSJ, 5/26/99, p.A1)(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.A17)
1999 Jun 18, In California
Peter Kirichenko, a Ukrainian citizen, was arrested in Tiburon. He
was wanted by Swiss authorities for aiding former Ukrainian Prime
Minister Pavel Lazarenko in a money laundering scheme.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.C2)
1999 Jul, Pres. Kuchma and the
parliament agreed to deploy 800 soldiers for peacekeeping in Kosovo
with financial assistance from NATO.
(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.A20)
1999 Jul 31, The Ukraine and
the US agreed to extend the nuclear weapon and ballistic missile
dismantling program for 6 years.
(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.A20)
1999 Sep, Leonid Kuchma ordered
his police and tax authorities to undertake a campaign of threats
and intimidation to guarantee an election victory. Recordings of
this were made public in 2001.
(SFC, 2/20/01, p.A9)
1999 Oct 2, Natalia Vitrenko of
the leftist Progressive Socialist Party was wounded in a grenade
attack at a campaign meeting in Inguletsk.
(WSJ, 10/4/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 31, Elections were
held and Pres. Kuchma was favored. Kuchma came in 1st with 36.5% of
the vote vs. Communist leader Petro Symonenko with 22.2%. A runoff
was scheduled in 2 weeks.
(WSJ, 10/29/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)(SFC,
11/2/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 14, Pres. Kuchma won a
2nd term by a 56% margin over Petro Symonenko with 97% of the
ballots counted.
(SFC, 11/15/99, p.A17)
1999 Nov 26, Reactor No. 3, the
functioning power plant at Chernobyl and site of the 1986 accident,
reopened.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.A22)(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A18)
1999 Dec, Pres. Kuchma
abolished over 10,000 Soviet-era collective farms. He decreed that
the land be divided among the farm workers. The plots averaged 6 to
7.5 acres and the owners had the right to rent the land but not to
sell it.
(WSJ, 7/24/00, p.B19F)
1999 Victor Yuschenko became
Ukraine’s prime minister and served to 2001. He managed to reverse
the country’s economic decline.
(Econ, 10/30/04, p.27)
2000 Mar 11, A methane gas
explosion at the Barakova mine on the eastern border killed at least
80 workers.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.A17)
2000 Mar 15, The IMF announced
that Ukraine had provided false data on its currency reserves
between 1996 and 1998 in order to get 3 loans approved.
(SFC, 3/16/00, p.A15)
2000 Apr 6, Prime Minister
Viktor Yushchenko won parliamentary approval for a 5-year plan to
cut state bureaucracy, deregulate business, open up privatization
efforts, create a private land market, lower taxes and improve tax
collection.
(WSJ, 4/7/00, p.A15)
2000 May 18, Former Ukraine
prime minister Pavel Lazarenko was indicted by a San Francisco grand
jury for money laundering and transportation of stolen property. In
2003 he put up an $86 million bail and was confined to a SF
apartment. In 2004 a federal judge in SF dismissed nearly half the
charges against Lazarenko. On June 3, 2004, Lazarenko was convicted
on 29 felony charges. His money laundering was guessed to be in
excess of $40 million.
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.A19)(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.A25)(SFC,
5/8/04, p.B3)(SFC, 6/4/04, A3)
2000 cMay, Troops accidentally
fired a missile into an apartment building in Kiev and 4 people were
killed.
(SFC, 10/10/01, p.A20)
2000 Jun 5, Pres. Clinton met
with Pres. Kuchma in Ukraine and Kuchma announced the closure of the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant by Dec 15. Clinton pledged $80 million
to help pay the $750 million cost to stabilize the sarcophagus of
the ruined reactor.
(SFC, 6/6/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 5, The Chernobyl
nuclear plant drew pledges of $715 million from Western nations for
a 5-year project to replace the protective tomb built to close off
the 1986 nuclear accident.
(WSJ, 7/6/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul, Ukraine’s Pres.
Kuchma authorized the sale of an advanced $100 million radar system
to Iraq in violation of UN sanctions. Evidence of the sale emerged
in 2002.
(SFC, 4/16/02, p.A7)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A18)
2000 Aug 31, Pres. Kuchma
declared 4 villages near Mykolaiv an ecological disaster zone due to
illnesses of some 400 residents since July 4. Chemical poisoning
from Soviet-era rocket fuel leaks was blamed.
(SFC, 9/1/00, p.D5)
2000 Sep 16, Hrihori Gongadze
(31), journalist, disappeared in Kiev. He was an outspoken critic of
the government and of high-level corruption. A beheaded body,
believed to be his, was found in Nov. Gongadze was the founder of
the Internet news site Ukrainian Truth. In 2001 the government
announced that he was killed by criminals who were also murdered and
that the killings had nothing to do with politics. Suspects in the
murder were arrested in 2005. In 2005 a commission investigating the
kidnapping and killing of Gongadze accused parliament's Speaker
Volodymyr Lytvyn of instigating the slaying. Findings stemmed from
recordings in which voices resembling those of Lytvyn, former
President Leonid Kuchma and other officials are heard allegedly
conspiring against Gongadze. The trial of three former police
officers charged with killing Gongadze opened in 2006. In 2008 a
court in Kiev jailed three former police officers for between 12 and
13 years for the murder of Ukrainian journalist Georgy Gongadze. In
2009 National Security Service agents arrested the fourth suspect,
Olexiy Pukach, who was working as the chief of the Interior
Ministry's surveillance department at the time of the killing.
(SFC, 11/17/00, p.D6)(SFC, 12/14/00, p.C4)(SFC,
5/16/01, p.D14)(SFC, 3/2/05, p.A3)(AP, 9/21/05)(AP, 1/10/06)(AFP,
3/15/08)(AP, 7/22/09)
2000 Dec 6, The last working
reactor at Chernobyl was shut down due to a malfunction 9 days
before a scheduled permanent shut down. It was later powered back up
prior to the official shut down.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.C10)(SFC, 12/15/00, p.D2)
2000 Dec 15, In Ukraine the
last working nuclear plant at Chernobyl was shut down. It had
recently undergone $300 million in safety improvements. The
destroyed reactor, which contained up to 66 tons of melted nuclear
fuel and 37 tons of radioactive dust, was still leaking radiation. A
new sarcophagus was expected to cost $758 million.
(SFC, 12/15/00, p.D2)(SFC, 12/16/00, p.A22)
2000 Dr. Andrew Wilson,
historian and analyst at the European Council on foreign relations,
authored “The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation.”
(www.amazon.com/Ukrainians-Unexpected-Dr-Andrew-Wilson/dp/0300083556)
2001 Jan 21, Nine miners died
and 15 were injured in a gas explosion in the Donetsk coal region.
318 miners were killed in 2000.
(WSJ, 1/22/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 26, The 198-foot
vessel Pamyat Merkuriya sank in the Black Sea and at least 14 people
were killed. The ship was enroute to Yevpatoria, Ukraine, from
Istanbul.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A11)
2001 Feb 6, Up to 5,000
protesters marched in Kiev and demanded the resignation of Pres.
Kuchma. Kuchma’s voice on recent private recordings included an
order for a journalist’s abduction and threats to a judge.
(SFC, 2/7/01, p.A14)
2001 Feb 11, Some 5-10 thousand
protesters called for the resignation of Pres. Kuchma. Kuchma fired
2 top security officials amid the growing scandal of a journalist
killed while investigating graft.
(SFC, 2/12/01, p.B1)(WSJ, 2/12/01, p.A1)
2001 Feb 12, Pres. Kuchma and
Pres. Putin met at the Yuzmash rocket plant and agreed to reconnect
their countries’ electricity grids and made 14 other agreements
securing Russian orders from Ukrainian factories.
(SFC, 2/13/01, p.A10)
2001 Feb 13, Yulia Tymoshenko,
Ukraine’s former Deputy Prime Minister and a principal opponent to
Pres. Kuchma, was arrested on charges dating back to 1996 when she
was head of United Energy Systems. Ms. Tymoshenko made her fortune
in murky gas trades between Russia and the Ukraine in the early
1990s.
(SFC, 2/14/01, p.A14)(Econ, 10/6/07, p.59)
2001 Mar 8, Flooding in the
Ukraine and northeastern Hungary left at least 5 people dead. Tens
of thousands were driven from their homes as the Tisza and other
Carpathian streams rose.
(WSJ, 3/9/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 9, In Ukraine tens of
thousands of demonstrators rioted in Kiev to force Pres. Kuchma from
office.
(SFC, 3/10/01, p.A8)
2001 Mar 26, Pres. Kuchma fired
his interior minister.
(WSJ, 3/27/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 26, In Ukraine the
parliament voted 263-59 to dismiss Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko.
A large crowd of his supporters called for the impeachment of Pres.
Kuchma.
(SFC, 4/27/01, p.D2)
2001 May 3, US federal agents
broke up a smuggling ring that brought hundreds of Ukrainians into
the US through Mexico.
(WSJ, 5/4/01, p.A1)
2001 May 22, Pres. Kuchma
planned to nominate Anatoly Kinakh (46), a close ally and
industrialist, as prime minister.
(SFC, 5/23/01, p.C4)
2001 May 29, The Parliament
confirmed Anatoly Kinakh as prime minister.
(SFC, 5/30/01, p.A12)
2001 Jun 23, Pope John Paul II
began his 5-day visit to Ukraine, where the Greek Catholic Church
had 5 million followers who observed Byzantine rites but were loyal
to Rome. He hoped to mend a rift with the Eastern Orthodoxy.
(SFC, 6/22/01, p.A14)
2001 Jun 25, Pope John Paul II
planned to visit Babi Yar where some 200,000 Jews and other Nazi
victims are buried. Pope John Paul II visited Babi Yar, the site of
a Nazi massacre of at least 100,000 Jews. [see 1941]
(SFC, 6/25/01, p.A8)(WSJ, 6/26/01, p.A1)
2001 Jul 3, TV director Ihor
Alexandrov was beaten to death by unknown assailants in Slaviansk.
In 2000 a European court on Human Rights had cleared him of charges
for violating laws on campaign coverage.
(WSJ, 7/9/01, p.A1)(SFC, 7/11/01, p.A8)
2001 Aug 19, A methane and coal
dust explosion killed 36 miners at the Zasiadko mine in the Donetsk
region.
(SFC, 8/20/01, p.A9)
2001 Sep 28, The Ukraine began
military exercises with attacks planned against unmanned drones.
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.A17)
2001 Oct 4, A chartered Russian
Tupelov-154 airplane crashed in to the Black Sea and all 78 people
aboard were killed. The Sibir Airlines jet was bound to Novosibirsk
from Tel Aviv. An accidental missile strike from Ukrainian military
forces was suspected but denied by Ukraine officials. Pres. Putin
said terrorists might have been responsible. Later evidence
indicated that flight 1812 was hit by an S-200 missile. On Oct 12
Ukraine and Russia acknowledged that an errant missile was the
probable cause. In 2003 Ukraine agreed to pay $200,000 for each
Israeli killed.
(SFC, 10/6/01, p.A11)(WSJ, 11/21/03,
p.A1)(www.ncsj.org/AuxPages/100501crash.shtml)
2001 Oct 24, Pres. Kuchma
accepted the resignation of his defense minister and suspended all
missile and anti-aircraft firing. He also apologized to Russia and
Israel for the Oct 4 accident.
(SFC, 10/25/01, p.C2)
2001 Nov 28, A UN report on
AIDS noted Ukraine as the 1st European nation to report 1% of its
adults infected. Rapid spread was noted across Eastern Europe.
(WSJ, 11/29/01, p.A1)
2002 Jan 17, Sergei Belousov,
co-editor of the Berdyansk Delovoi newspaper, suffered a concussion
when his Toyota Land Cruiser steering failed. He and his wife
reported on official corruption in the country.
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 28, Tatyana
Goriachova, co-editor of the Berdyansk Delovoi newspaper and wife of
Sergei Belousov, was attacked with hydrochloric acid to her face.
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A6)
2002 Mar 31, In Ukraine
elections the pro-Western Our Ukraine led by former PM Viktor
Yuschenko led with 23%. The Communist Party had 20%. Pres.
Kuchma’s United Ukraine had 13% and expected 119 seats in
parliament. The parties provide half the 450 sets of the parliament,
known as the Verkhovna Rada. Direct elections decide the other half.
(SFC, 4/1/02, p.A6)(SFC, 4/2/02, p.A6)(SFC,
4/3/02, p.A7)
2002 Apr 15, Evidence was made
public that Pres. Kuchma in 2000 authorized the sale of an advanced
$100 million radar system to Iraq in violation of UN sanctions.
(SFC, 4/16/02, p.A7)
2002 Jun, Computer hackers from
around the world gathered in Odessa, Ukraine, for summit on trading
tips and setting up rules for bilking targets.
(SSFC, 10/23/11, p.F2)
2002 Jul 7, In eastern Ukraine
rescue workers found the bodies of 35 miners killed in one of two
fires over the weekend in mines.
(AP, 7/7/02)(AP, 7/8/02)
2002 Jul 21, A methane gas
explosion tore through a Ukrainian coal mine, killing at least six
miners and leaving more than 28 missing.
(AP, 7/21/02)
2002 Jul 27, In Lviv, Ukraine,
a fighter jet slammed onto the tarmac and sliced through a crowd
watching an air show, killing 85 people and injured 116.
(AP, 7/28/02)(WSJ, 8/8/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 31, In Ukraine a coal
mine blast killed 19 miners, 3,557 underground.
(SFC, 8/1/02, p.A14)
2002 Sep 16, In Ukraine, some
15,000 demonstrators marched in Kiev and tens of thousands of others
gathered in public squares around the country, demanding that
President Leonid Kuchma resign or call new elections.
(AP, 9/16/02)
2002 Oct 12, In Ukraine tens of
thousands of protesters laid out their charges against President
Leonid Kuchma at a "people's tribunal" , and opposition lawmakers
said prosecutors promised to review their complaints.
(AP, 10/12/02)
2002 Oct 15, A judge opened a
criminal case against embattled Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, a
day after U.S. and British experts began investigating allegations
that he approved the sale of a radar system to Iraq.
(AP, 10/15/02)
2002 Nov 16, Ukraine Pres.
Leonid Kuchma fired the government of Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh
and nominated Victor Yanukovych, governor of the Danetsk coal
region, as PM.
(AP, 11/16/02)(SSFC, 11/17/02, p.A19)
2002 Nov 17, Ukraine Pres.
Leonid Kuchma went to China seeking support for his request that
U.N. inspectors verify that his government did not transfer radar
systems to Iraq.
(AP, 11/17/02)
2002 Dec 23, In central Iran a
Ukrainian An-140 aircraft, carrying Ukrainian and Russian aerospace
scientists from Turkey, flew into a mountainside while preparing to
land killing all 46 people on board. Airport officials said pilot
"carelessness" caused the plane to crash.
(AP, 12/24/02)
2002 The Ukraine military
offered a half-hour flight on the MiG-29 for $8,500.
(SFC, 9/13/02, p.A12)
2002 A European firm won a $43
million settlement against the Ukraine state in a dispute over an
oil-refinery contract. Ukraine refused to pay and the company seized
2 Ruslan transport planes, one in Canada and one in Brussels.
(WSJ, 1/19/05, p.A1)
2002 Semion Mogilevich
(b.1946), a Ukrainian businessman, and Igor Fisherman were indicted
in Philadelphia on charges of money laundering and securities fraud
in connection with the collapse of YBM Magnex, Inc. in which
investors lost some $150 million. In 2006 Mogilevich was under
investigation for possible links to natural gas deals between Russia
and Ukraine.
(WSJ, 12/22/06, p.A11)
2002-2004 The US funneled $57.8 million to the
Ukraine to support of pro-Democracy activities.
(SSFC, 12/19/04, p.A3)
2003 Jan 18, Serhiy Naboka
(47), one of Ukraine's best-known journalists, and a reporter for a
U.S.-funded radio station, was found dead in his hotel room.
(AP, 1/18/03)
2003 Apr 28, Ukraine's Pres.
Leonid Kuchma signed a bill prohibiting media censorship amid claims
by journalists that his administration is meddling in their work.
(AP, 4/28/03)
2003 May, Ukraine reformed its
tax code along Russian lines with a 13% top marginal rate.
(WSJ, 7/11/03, p.A8)
2003 Oct 22, Tensions spiraled
between Ukraine and Russia over a small island controlling access to
disputed waters. Pres. Leonid Kuchma cut short a Latin American trip
to return home to deal with the issue. The dispute centers on
construction of a dike from the Russian mainland out into the Kerch
Strait that connects the Black and Azov Seas.
(AP, 10/23/03)
2003 Oct 28, In southern Iraq 7
Ukrainian peacekeepers were wounded when militants attacked their
patrol. 1,650 Ukrainian troops served in the Polish-led
stabilization force.
(AP, 10/29/03)
2003 Dec 17, In the Ukraine a
bus veered off a mountain road and plunged into a deep ditch on the
Crimean peninsula, killing 17 people and injuring 19 others.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 24, Ukraine's
parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, gave initial approval to
constitutional amendments allowing the president to be elected by
the legislature rather than by popular vote.
(AP, 12/24/03)(WPR, 3/04, p.28)
2003 Dec 30, Ukraine's
Constitutional Court ruled that President Leonid Kuchma can run for
a third five-year term next year.
(AP, 12/30/03)
2003 Ukraine’s President Leonid
Kuchma authored a book called “Ukraine Is Not Russia.”
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.58)
2004 Mar 4, Ukrainian
authorities pulled a private station off the air, four days after it
began broadcasting U.S.-funded Radio Liberty's shortwave
programming.
(AP, 3/4/04)
2004 Apr 9, Investigators in
the Ukraine reported that the bodies of at least 50 people believed
to have been killed by Nazi troops have been unearthed from a mass
grave in the Crimean peninsula, 550 miles southeast of Kiev.
(AP, 4/10/04)
2004 Jul 19, In eastern Ukraine
a coal mine methane gas explosion killed at least 34 miners near
Donetsk.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2004 Aug 2, Ukraine's prime
minister called for reducing the country's troop contingent in Iraq,
openly disagreeing with top defense officials who want to increase
the force.
(AP, 8/2/04)
2004 Aug 8, President Leonid
Kuchma, joined by other top officials, attended the startup of
nuclear reactor No. 2 at the Khmelnitskyi plant in western Ukraine.
(AP, 8/8/04)
2004 Oct 23, In Ukraine tens of
thousands of people supporting opposition presidential candidate
Viktor Yushchenko rallied in Kiev demanding that next week's
presidential election be free and fair.
(AP, 10/23/04)
2004 Oct 31, Ukrainians cast
ballots in a presidential vote. The opposition complained of
violations just hours into the polling. Key contenders included
pro-Russian PM Viktor Yanukovych and former PM Viktor Yushchenko, a
reformist candidate. Yushchenko won by .5%, but failed to get a
majority setting up a runoff vote for Nov 21. Observers from NATO
and Europe said the balloting did not meet democratic standards.
(AP, 10/31/04)(AP, 11/1/04)(WSJ, 11/19/04, p.A12)
2004 Nov 6, In Ukraine tens of
thousands of supporters of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko
filled Kiev's main square, joining nationwide protests over alleged
election fraud.
(AP, 11/6/04)
2004 Nov 10, After a delayed
final tally reformist opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko edged
the prime minister in the first round of Ukraine's presidential
vote.
(AP, 11/10/04)
2004 Nov 21, Ukrainians cast
ballots in a presidential run-off.
(AP, 11/21/04)
2004 Nov 22, Ukraine’s central
electoral commission said that with 99.38 percent of polling
stations reporting, PM Viktor Yanukovych had secured 49.42 percent
of the vote compared to 46.7 for his Western-leaning rival, Viktor
Yushchenko. Tens of thousands of demonstrators jammed downtown Kiev
in freezing temperatures, denouncing Ukraine's presidential runoff
election as fraudulent and chanting the name of their reformist
candidate. The color orange spread as the symbol of protest and the
movement began to be called the Orange Revolution.
(AP, 11/22/04)(WSJ, 11/29/04, p.A1)
2004 Nov 23, Opposition leader
Viktor Yushchenko declared victory in Ukraine's presidential
election and took a symbolic oath of office. About 200,000
supporters gathered in the capital to protest alleged election
fraud. He won a court-ordered revote in December 2004.
(AP, 11/23/04)(AP, 11/23/05)
2004 Nov 24, Ukraine's election
commission declared Viktor Yanukovych, the Kremlin-backed prime
minister, as winner. Ukraine's opposition called for a new round of
presidential elections to resolve the political crisis gripping the
nation. EU leaders, alleging fraud, warned of "consequences" if the
poll was not reviewed.
(AP, 11/24/04)
2004 Nov 25, Ukraine's Supreme
Court prohibited making the results of the nation's disputed
presidential election official until it considers an appeal.
(AP, 11/25/04)
2004 Nov 27, Ukraine's
parliament declared invalid the disputed presidential election that
triggered a week of growing street protests and legal maneuvers,
raising the possibility that a new vote could be held.
(AP, 11/27/04)
2004 Nov 28, Ukraine’s outgoing
President Leonid Kuchma called on opposition supporters to end their
four-day blockade of government buildings, saying compromise is
needed to solve the political crisis.
(AP, 11/28/04)
2004 Nov 30, Opposition
supporters tried to rush through the doors of the parliament
building after Ukrainian lawmakers appeared to backslide from
supporting measures that would overturn the results of last week's
disputed presidential election.
(AP, 11/30/04)
2004 Dec 1, Ukraine's
parliament brought down the government of PM Viktor Yanukovych with
a no-confidence motion in a show of the opposition's strength. The
outgoing president called for an entirely new presidential election
to be held to resolve the spiraling political crisis.
(AP, 12/1/04)
2004 Dec 3, Ukraine’s Supreme
Court overturned the results of the disputed presidential elections
and ordered a new runoff by Dec 26.
(SFC, 12/4/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 8, Ukraine's
parliament adopted electoral and constitutional changes in a
compromise intended to defuse the nation's political crisis.
(AP, 12/8/04)
2004 Dec 9, In Kiev, Ukraine,
opposition protestors lifted their 2-week siege.
(SFC, 12/10/04, p.A3)
2004 Dec 11, Doctors in Austria
determined that Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko
had been poisoned with dioxin, which caused the severe disfigurement
and partial paralysis of his face.
(AP, 12/11/05)
2004 Dec 27, Ukraine election
officials said opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko won 51.99 percent
to 44.19 percent for Moscow-backed PM Viktor Yanukovych. Supporters
of the pro-Russian PM vowed to challenge the results in court.
(AFP, 12/28/04)
2004 Dec 27, Ukrainian
Transport Minister Heorhiy Kirpa, a supporter of the trailing
candidate in the presidential election, was found dead in his house
from a gunshot wound. Opposition figures claimed that Kirpa
allocated trains to ferry Yanukovych supporters to vote at multiple
polling sites in Nov. 21 presidential balloting that eventually was
annulled by the Ukraine Supreme Court.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 31, Ukrainian PM
Viktor Yanukovych resigned, acknowledging that he had little hope of
reversing the election victory of his Western-leaning rival, Viktor
Yushchenko.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2004 Inflation in the Ukraine
hit a 4-year high of 12.3%.
(WSJ, 3/28/05, p.A14)
2004 The Ukraine Kryvorizhstal
steelworks was privatized at half its market value to two of the
country’s richest men, Victor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of Pres.
Kuchma, and Rinat Akhmetov.
(Econ, 10/30/04, p.27)(Econ, 12/18/04, p.102)
2005 Jan 1, Ukraine was
forecast for 7% annual GDP growth with a population at 46.9 million
and GDP per head at $1,630.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.90)
2005 Jan 3, Ukraine gave in and
agreed to pay Turkmenistan a third more for natural gas following a
shut-off.
(WSJ, 1/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 9, In Iraq 7 Ukrainian
soldiers and one Kazakh serving with the U.S.-led coalition were
killed in an explosion while loading bombs that could be used by
warplanes.
(AP, 1/9/05)
2005 Jan 10, Ukraine's Election
Commission declared Viktor Yushchenko the winner of the presidential
vote.
(AP, 1/10/06)
2005 Jan 11, The Ukrainian
parliament called for an immediate withdrawal of the nation's
peacekeepers from Iraq. The vote was non-binding but reflected
growing national dismay over the mission.
(AP, 1/11/05)
2005 Jan 23, Viktor Yushchenko
was sworn in as president of Ukraine.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2005 Jan 24, Ukraine President
Viktor Yushchenko, visiting Moscow on a trip to mend relations after
a bitter election campaign, appointed top ally Yulia Tymoshenko as
prime minister.
(AP, 1/24/05)
2005 Feb 4, The Ukraine
Parliament unanimously approved fiery opposition leader Yulia
Tymoshenko as PM, along with her government's new program to raise
living standards, tackle corruption and set Ukraine on a westward
course.
(AP, 2/4/05)
2005 Feb 4, A Ukraine
intelligence official said secret indictments and arrests have taken
place against at least 6 arms dealers accused of selling nuclear
capable missiles to China and Iran.
(SFC, 2/4/05, p.A5)
2005 Feb 22, In Belgium a Nato
summit announced a 12-year program to destroy Soviet-era weapons in
Ukraine. Ukraine’s Pres. Viktor Yushchenko attended.
(WSJ, 2/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 26, The Ukraine
cabinet stripped former president Leonid Kuchma of a plush and
widely criticized retirement package that featured a monthly
pension, two cars, a government home and much more.
(AP, 2/26/05)
2005 Mar 1, Ukraine’s top
security body decided to Ukrainian troops from Iraq.
(SFC, 3/2/05, p.A12)
2005 Mar 4, Ukraine's former
interior minister was found dead of an apparent suicide, just before
he was to meet with prosecutors for questioning about the 2000
slaying of an investigative journalist. The minister had two shots
to the head.
(AP, 3/4/05)(Econ, 4/2/11, p.50)
2005 Mar 12, Ukraine withdrew
150 servicemen from Iraq, starting a gradual pullout that officials
have said will be completed by October.
(AP, 3/12/05)
2005 Mar 18, In Kiev
prosecutors said Ukrainian weapons dealers smuggled 18
nuclear-capable cruise missiles to Iran and China in 2001 during
former President Leonid Kuchma's administration.
(AP, 3/18/05)
2005 Apr 6, A joint session of
US Congress listened to Ukrainian Pres. Yushchenko as he called for
an end to trade barriers and a new era in US-Ukraine relations.
(SFC, 4/7/05, p.A8)
2005 May 12, Austrian
authorities reported the break up a major human trafficking ring led
by Romanian, Moldovan and Ukrainian criminals who smuggled more than
5,000 East Europeans to the West, many enduring horrific conditions
in tiny hiding spaces in cars, trucks and trailers.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 20, A federal judge in
SF tossed out half of the convictions against former Ukrainian Prime
Minister Pavlo Lazarenko in a multi-count money-laundering and fraud
verdict, but refused to grant a new trial.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 26, The US and Ukraine
signed an agreement to safeguard nuclear waste and upgrade storage
facilities in Ukraine.
(SFC, 5/27/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 2, In southern Ukraine
a freight train crashed into a passenger bus at a railroad crossing,
killing 14 people. In a separate accident, a train crashed into a
car at another crossing point, killing three people.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 13, Ukraine
prosecutors said authorities had arrested the former head of
Ukraine's peacekeeping troops in Iraq on charges of smuggling.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Aug 12, Leaders of Georgia
and Ukraine called for an alliance that would champion democracy in
the former Soviet lands.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 28, A Jewish student
was attacked by 7 young men near the Central Synagogue School in
Kiev, where he studied. He remained in a coma after 2 days and
Ukraine's Pres. Yushchenko condemned the brutal beating and ordered
senior officials to take personal control of the case.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Sep 5, In the Ukraine
Oleksandr Zinchenko, a close aide to President Viktor Yushchenko who
was a chief organizer of the "Orange Revolution" protests, said he
had resigned from the government because of systemic corruption.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 8, Ukraine President
Viktor Yushchenko dismissed his Cabinet amid swirling allegations of
corruption, saying members of the fragile coalition formed after
last year's Orange Revolution had turned on one another.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 20, Ukraine’s Pres.
Viktor Yushchenko failed to win support for his candidate as
premier. Yuri Yekhanurov, a middle-of-the-road technocrat and ally
of the president, won 223 votes, three short of the required
majority in the 450-seat assembly.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 22, Ukrainian
President Viktor Yushchenko forged an awkward alliance with Viktor
Yanukovych's Party of the Regions, his archrival and Orange
Revolution enemy, to get his choice for new PM through parliament.
Parliament approved Yuriy Yekhanurov with 289 votes.
(AP, 9/22/05)
2005 Oct 7-2005 Oct 8, More
than 330 school children in western Ukraine were hospitalized with
food poisoning, including four who were in critical condition. A
preliminary investigation showed that the source of infection as a
dysentery bacteria in kefir, a popular drink made of fermented milk.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 14, President Viktor
Yushchenko dismissed Ukraine's top prosecutor less than a week after
he launched investigations against a presidential ally, deepening
the confusion in the former Soviet republic.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 23, Pope Benedict XVI
named five new saints at the close of a 3-week Synod of Bishops.
They included: Josef Bilczewski, archbishop of Lviv, who was greatly
admired by Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews alike during
World War and the Rev. Zygmunt Gorazdowski, who founded the
Congregation for the Sisters of St. Joseph to care for the sick and
poor.
(AP, 10/23/05)
2005 Oct 24, NATO pledged to
help Ukraine push through military reforms seen as essential to
prepare the country for membership in the Western alliance, a
prospect viewed with concern in Russia.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 24, Ukraine auctioned
a 93% stake in Kryvorizhstal, its largest steel mill, to Mittal
Steel, the world’s biggest steelmaker, for $4.8 billion.
(Econ, 10/29/05, p.50)
2005 Nov 27, Pirates freed a
Ukrainian cargo ship seized nearly 40 days ago off the coast of
Somalia. The Panahia and its 22 crew members were seized Oct 18. It
was not immediately clear if the $700,000 ransom demanded by the
pirates had been paid.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Dec 2, In Kiev 9
presidents from Baltic and Black Sea nations pledged to strengthen
democracy in a region traditionally considered Russia's
neighborhood. They included Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Macedonia, Moldova, Slovenia, Romania and the Ukraine.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 3, Ukraine reported
its first outbreak of bird flu, discovered among some 1,500 dead
chickens and geese in the Black Sea region of Crimea.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 8, Ukraine said it had
detected the highly pathogenic type of bird flu that is dangerous to
humans, the strain known as H5N1. The September outbreak was located
in several villages in the Crimean peninsula where about 2,500 birds
died within hours.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 20, Ukraine began
pulling its remaining 876 troops out of Iraq, the defense ministry
said, making it the latest nation to wind down its presence in the
U.S.-led coalition.
(AP, 12/20/05)
2005 Dec 27, Ukraine and
Bulgaria said all their troops had left Iraq. Poland said it would
remain but reduce its number of troops by 600 next year.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 29, Russia bought up
gas supplies from Turkmenistan to prevent Ukraine from getting them.
Russia was demanding a quadruple increase in gas prices.
(WSJ, 12/30/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 31, President Vladimir
Putin ordered Russia's state-owned natural gas monopoly to supply
Ukraine with natural gas at the current price for three months, if
the government in Kiev immediately agreed to a big price hike to
take effect later.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Marina Lewycka (b.1946), a
British writer of Ukrainian origin, authored “A Short History of
Tractors in Ukrainian.” The novel was hailed as one of the funniest
of the year.
(Econ, 4/21/07, p.95)
2006 Jan 1, Russia's natural
gas monopoly halted sales to Ukraine in a price dispute and began
reducing pressure in transmission lines that also carry substantial
supplies to western Europe. Supplies of natural gas to Poland have
been hit by cuts imposed by Russia on the amount of gas entering the
pipeline system in neighbouring Ukraine.
(Reuters, 1/1/06)(AFP, 1/1/06)
2006 Jan 2, Russia's
state-controlled natural gas monopoly accused Ukraine of diverting
about $25 million worth of Russian gas intended for other customers,
a day after Moscow halted deliveries to Kiev in a price dispute
whose effects were spreading across Europe.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, A
heavily-criticized Russia promised to restore full gas supplies to
Europe after Germany warned that its dispute with Ukraine over
deliveries could hurt its long-term credibility as an energy
supplier.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 3, Russian and
Ukrainian officials agreed to resume talks on resolving a dispute
over the price of natural gas that has reverberated across the
continent and left Ukraine cut off from its supplies.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 4, The Russian and
Ukrainian natural gas companies agreed on a plan to resume gas
shipments to Ukraine that allowed both sides to claim victory after
a commercial and political dispute that had raised fears of gas
shortages in Europe.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 10, Ukraine’s
Parliament fired the Cabinet because of a new deal with Russia that
nearly doubled what Ukraine pays for natural gas. PM Yuri Yekhanurov
and the justice minister, however, said the vote was nonbinding and
vowed that the current Cabinet would continue working.
(AP, 1/10/06)
2006 Jan 13, Ukrainian
President Viktor Yushchenko said that his country should produce its
own nuclear fuel for power plants.
(AP, 1/13/06)
2006 Jan 23, The US Trade
Representative's Office said a 2nd layer of sanctions on Ukraine has
been removed because of that country's progress in fighting piracy
of US music and films.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 25, An Arctic weather
front wreaked more havoc across a wide swath of eastern Europe,
killing 53 people overnight in Ukraine alone and severely disrupted
transport networks in half-a-dozen countries.
(AFP, 1/25/06)
2006 Feb 2, Russia and Ukraine
announced the signing of an agreement finalizing their Jan 4
compromise on natural gas prices.
(WSJ, 2/3/06, p.A10)
2006 Feb 14, A senior Russian
official said Russia will not pay more to base its Black Sea Fleet
in a Ukrainian port, rebuffing Ukrainian demands and setting the
stage for the latest dispute between the ex-Soviet neighbors.
(AP, 2/14/06)
2006 Feb 17, David Sampson,
America’s Deputy Sec. of Commerce, announced in Kiev that the US now
recognized Ukraine as a market economy.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.86)
2006 Mar 9, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov said new customs rules imposed by Ukraine to
tighten its border with Moldova's breakaway region violate a 1997
agreement and are an attempt to pressure the separatist
Russian-speaking enclave.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 26, Ukrainians cast
ballots in a parliamentary election that could tip this divided
ex-Soviet republic back toward Russia just 16 months after the
Orange Revolution helped put it on a westward course.
(AP, 3/26/06)
2006 Mar 27, In Ukraine early
election results showed pro-Russia party led by Viktor Yanukovych
taking the largest number of votes, followed by the president's
former ally, Yulia Tymoshenko. President Viktor Yushchenko's party
was a distant third, a stinging rebuke to his West-leaning
administration. Yanukovych's party, which has pledged to make
Russian a second state language, drop plans to join NATO and restore
frayed ties with Moscow, was dominating in the Russian-speaking east
and south.
(AP, 3/27/06)
2006 Mar 28, Ukraine President
Viktor Yushchenko met separately with both his estranged Orange
Revolution ally and an old pro-Moscow adversary as he sought to form
a coalition after most voters rejected his party in weekend
parliamentary elections.
(AP, 3/28/06)
2006 Apr 13, The three parties
that were central to Ukraine's Orange Revolution signed a protocol
aimed at advancing the formation of a coalition government and
ending their wrangling after last month's elections.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 18, Greenpeace said in
a new report that more than 90,000 people were likely to die of
cancers caused by radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,
countering a United Nations report that predicted the death toll
would be around 4,000.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 22, In eastern Ukraine
homemade bombs exploded in lockers at two supermarkets, wounding as
many as 14 people.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, Two British
scientists reported that the long-term effects of the Chernobyl
disaster could cause up to 66,000 extra deaths from cancer, 15 times
more than UN officials predicted last year. Their report was titled
"The Other Report on Chernobyl."
(AFP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 24, The annual Goldman
Environmental Prizes were awarded in San Francisco. The winners
included Craig Williams (58) for helping to persuade Congress to
order the Defense Dept. to consider alternatives to incinerating
chemical weapons; Tarcisio Feitosa (35) of Brazil for his campaign
against rampant logging; Olya Melen (26) of Ukraine for her suits
forcing the government to scale back a large canal project impacting
wetlands; Yu Xiaogang (35) of China for his reports on damages
caused by new dams; Silas Siakor (36) of Liberia for his
documentation showing how logging was used to fund civil war; and
Anne Kajir of Papua New Guinea for her work to get reimbursements
from logging companies to peasants.
(WSJ, 4/24/06, p.B7)
2006 May 19, Ukraine cultural
figures and celebrities criticized efforts to grant the Russian
language special status, calling it an act of war against the
Ukrainian language. Council officials said their decision is based
on a European charter, which was ratified by the Ukrainian
parliament in 2003, that protects regional and minority languages.
(AP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 21, In SF some 62,000
runners participated in the annual Bay to Breakers race. Gilbert
Okari (27) of Kenya won in 34 minutes and 20 seconds. Among the
women Ukrainian Tetyana Hladyr won in 39:09. Mayor Newsom finished
the 7.46 miles in 59:04.
(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 11, Teams of
veterinarians were sent to destroy domestic poultry in northern
Ukraine after the first appearance of bird flu in the region.
(Reuters, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 11, US troops sent to
the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea to prepare for joint war games
left Ukraine after two weeks of protests organized by pro-Russian
parties prevented them from carrying out their mission.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 21, The parties behind
Ukraine's Orange Revolution agreed to form a coalition government,
ending three months of tense talks to preserve a pro-Western
government that has sought to shed Russia's influence.
(AP, 6/21/06)
2006 Jun 22, Parties backing
the "Orange Revolution" agreed to form a coalition government to
keep the pro-Western administration on course for bringing Ukraine
out of Russia's shadow and into the European mainstream.
(AP, 6/22/06)
2006 Jun 29, Ukraine's
opposition party prevented members of a newly formed ruling
coalition from taking their seats in parliament, stopping a vote on
returning ousted PM Yulia Tymoshenko to her former job.
(AP, 6/29/06)
2006 Jul 6, Ukraine's
pro-Russian opposition ended a 10-day parliament blockade and
lawmakers elected a speaker. The pro-Western coalition was sent into
a tailspin by a ballot that in a surprise move saw its smallest
faction, the Socialists, join with pro-Russian parties to elect its
leader Olexander Moroz as speaker.
(AP, 7/6/06)
2006 Jul 11, Ukraine's newly
created pro-Russian governing coalition proposed Viktor Yanukovych,
a bitter rival of President Viktor Yushchenko, as the next prime
minister, an appointment that would mark a humiliating defeat for
the president.
(AP, 7/11/06)
2006 Jul 29, Marathon talks to
end Ukraine's political paralysis broke off without an agreement
between President Viktor Yushchenko and the pro-Russian
parliamentary majority that has nominated his former Orange
Revolution rival as prime minister.
(AP, 7/29/06)
2006 Aug 3, Ukrainian Pres.
Viktor Yushchenko nominated former foe Viktor Yanukovych for prime
minister after Yanukovych signed a memorandum on national unity.
(SFC, 8/3/06, p.A3)
2006 Aug 4, The Ukraine
Parliament named Viktor Yanukovych prime minister. His fraud-tainted
2004 presidential victory was turned back by the Orange Revolution.
(AP, 8/4/06)
2006 Aug 22, A Russian
passenger jet with at least 170 people aboard crashed in Ukraine
after sending a distress signal. The Pulkovo airlines Tupolev 154,
en route from the Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa to St.
Petersburg, crashed near the Ukrainian city of Donetsk.
(AP, 8/22/06)
2006 Sep 14, Ukraine’s
pro-Russia premier suspended a bid to join NATO.
(WSJ, 9/15/06, p.A1)
2006 Sep 20, In eastern Ukraine
a methane blast ripped through a coal mine, killing 13 miners and
injuring 36 others.
(AP, 9/20/06)
2006 Oct 14, Ukrainian
nationalist fighters who battled both Soviet and Nazi forces during
World War II rallied in their country's capital, demanding the same
financial and moral recognition as Red Army veterans.
(AP, 10/14/06)
2006 Oct 18, In Kiev Steven
Spielberg and Victor Pinchuk hosted the premiere of "Spell Your
Name," a film by director Sergey Bukovsky on the Holocaust in
Ukraine.
(www.spielbergfilms.com/general/1098)
2006 Oct 19, Four ministers
from President Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party resigned after
the collapse of talks to create a broad ruling coalition in the
ex-Soviet state.
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Nov 14, In Ukraine Bohdan
Datsko, director of a Christmas tree ornament factory, was shot to
death in the western city of Lviv in what authorities said was the
second attack on an executive there in less than a month.
(AP, 11/14/06)
2006 Nov 28, The Ukraine
Parliament adopted a bill recognizing the Soviet-era forced famine
as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.
(AP, 11/28/06)
2006 Dec 1, Ukraine lawmakers
fired the foreign minister and interior minister, setting the stage
for a legal battle between the president and the premier.
(AP, 12/1/06)
2006 Dec 22, In Ukraine
Russia’s Pres. Putin and Pres. Yushchenko oversaw the signing of
numerous bilateral accords. Putin assured his Ukrainian counterpart
that Moscow wants good relations, in a meeting that both leaders
presented as a break from the strained relationship of the past.
(AP, 12/22/06)
2006 Askold Krushelnycky
authored “An Orange Revolution: A Personal Journey Through Ukrainian
History.”
(Econ, 5/6/06, p.84)
2006 Anders Aslund and Michael
McFaul edited “Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine’s
Democratic Breakthrough.”
(Econ, 5/6/06, p.84)
2007 Jan 17, Yevgeny Kushnaryov
(55), described as "the right-hand man" to Ukraine's pro-Russian PM,
Viktor Yanukovych, died from his wounds one day after being shot by
one of his hunting companions.
(www.alertnet.org/thenews/pictures/MOS11.htm)
2007 Jan 18, Borys Tarasyuk,
Ukraine's foreign minister, accused the Cabinet of PM Yanukovych of
cutting off funds to his ministry, leaving it unable to pay its
employees or contribute dues to international organizations.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 25, Ukraine’s PM
Yanukovych said that he is working to completed a pipeline to carry
Caspian-region oil directly to the EU.
(WSJ, 1/27/06, p.A4)
2007 Jan 30, Borys Tarasyuk,
Ukraine's pro-Western foreign minister, resigned saying a monthlong
struggle between him and the government dominated by a
Russia-leaning party risked damaging the country's international
reputation.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Mar 27, In Kiev, Ukraine,
a Russian businessman allied with Ukraine's president was killed by
a sniper as he was escorted from a courthouse during a break in his
extortion trial.
(AP, 3/28/07)
2007 Apr 2, Ukraine’s president
called early elections for May 27 amid a standoff with the
pro-Russian premier, who vowed to fight what he called a coup.
(WSJ, 4/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 3, Thousands of
Ukrainian protesters streamed into the capital in the most serious
confrontation between the prime minister and the president since the
two men faced off during the Orange Revolution.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 4, Thousands of
supporters of Ukraine's Russian-leaning prime minister marched to
the office of the pro-Western president, protesting a presidential
order to hold early elections.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 7, Thousands of
supporters of Ukrainian PM Viktor Yanukovych rallied for a fifth day
in the streets of Kiev, calling for stability amid a political
crisis over the president's dissolution of parliament.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 14, The Egyptian state
news agency MENA said that Neo-Nazis had attacked an Egyptian
diplomat in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. The Ukrainian government has
said it deeply regrets the incident.
(Reuters, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 17, Egypt launched
EgyptSat 1, its first remote sounding satellite, from Baikonur
Cosmodrome. The spacecraft was jointly developed by Egypt's National
Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences and the Yuzhnoye
Design Bureau in Ukraine. Israeli officials suspected it to be a spy
satellite. In 2010 ground-controllers lost it.
(http://claudelafleur.qc.ca/Spacecrafts-2007.html)(Econ, 10/30/10,
p.50)
2007 Apr 25, Ukraine’s
President Viktor Yushchenko pushed back the date of snap
parliamentary elections until June 24. The move was seen as a
conciliatory gesture as the Constitutional Court began deliberations
on the legality of his decree dissolving parliament.
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 May 4, Ukraine's president
and prime minister reached agreement on holding early parliamentary
elections in a bid to end a political standoff between the rival
leaders.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 7, A large explosion
in Ukraine knocked out of service one of the main pipelines which
carries Siberian gas through Ukraine to Germany and other EU
clients. Shifting soil led to a break in the pipeline.
(AP, 5/7/07)(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 17, In Ukraine Petro
Balabuyev (75), a lead designer of the world's largest aircraft, the
An-225, died.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 26, In Ukraine several
thousand interior troops streamed to Kiev, strengthening President
Viktor Yushchenko's hand in a bitter dispute with the nation's prime
minister that stoked up fears of violence.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 27, Ukraine's feuding
president and prime minister agreed to hold an early parliamentary
election on Sept. 30, defusing a crisis that threatened to escalate
into violence when the president sent troops streaming toward the
capital.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 Jun 7, PepsiCo Inc., the
nation's second biggest soft drink company, and an affiliated
Midwest-based beverage bottler said they will pay $542 million for
an 80% stake in Sandora LLC, a Ukraine-based juice company.
(AP, 6/7/07)
2007 Jun 19, It was reported
that political troubles in the Ukraine were being aggravated by
soaring bread prices as the worst drought in a century hit the
region.
(WSJ, 6/19/07, p.A1)
2007 Jun 28, The European
Commission said all Indonesian airlines and several from Russia,
Ukraine and Angola will be banned from flying to the EU due to
safety concerns.
(AP, 6/28/07)
2007 Jul 17, In western Ukraine
a train carrying yellow phosphorus derailed, releasing a cloud of
toxic gas into the air over 14 villages. 20 people were hospitalized
and hundreds evacuated.
(AP, 7/17/07)
2007 Jul 18, A Ukraine bus
taking vacationers to the Black Sea overturned when its brakes
failed, killing six people and injuring 46.
(AP, 7/19/07)
2007 Jul 23, Israeli police
said 9 Israelis suspected of trafficking in organs and humans have
been arrested and remain in custody. The case was opened when an
Israeli woman filed a police complaint charging that she was not
paid after her kidney was removed in Ukraine.
(AP, 7/23/07)
2007 Jul 26, Turkish police
arrested Maksym Yastremskiy (24), a Ukrainian data-theft suspect.
The US Secret Service had been investigating him since 2004. Losses
to US individuals from identity theft thieves, online and offline,
totaled $49 billion in 2006.
(WSJ, 8/10/07, p.A6)
2007 Sep 17, Ukrainian
officials signed a $505 million contract with a French-led
consortium for construction of a new shelter for the Chernobyl
reactor, the site of the word's worst nuclear accident.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 30, Ukrainians began
voting in an early parliamentary election meant to bring an end to a
months-long political standoff between the nation's two feuding
leaders. Victor Yushchenko’s party earned only about 16% of the
parliamentary vote. PM Viktor Yanukovych, had about 30% of the vote.
Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc was leading with 33%.
(AP, 9/30/07)(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 3, President Viktor
Yushchenko ordered Ukraine's feuding parties to strike a deal on a
post-election government, a move likely to aggravate a political
deadlock that has stalled economic reforms. With more than 99% of
the vote counted, Regions Party had 34.3% and its Communist Party
ally 5.4. The Tymoshenko bloc had polled 30.8 and Our Ukraine 14.2%.
(Reuters, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 10, Ministers from
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine signed a deal to
build an oil pipeline linking the Black and Baltic seas.
(WSJ, 10/11/07, p.A18)
2007 Oct 13, At least 15 people
were killed in a natural gas blast that partly destroyed an
apartment building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk.
(AFP, 10/13/07)(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Nov 11, A severe storm
broke the Volganeft-139, a small Russian oil tanker, in two in the
Strait of Kerch, spilling at least 560,000 gallons of fuel into the
strait between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. A Russian official
said it was an "environmental disaster." 8 seamen were left missing.
Two freighters nearby also sank under 18-foot waves in storm. As
many as 10 ships sank or ran aground in the area.
(AP, 11/11/07)(Reuters, 11/12/07)(SFC, 11/12/07,
p.A15)
2007 Nov 18, A methane blast
ripped through a coal mine in eastern Ukraine, killing 101 workers.
In 2008 the head of an investigative commission said negligence by
coal mine managers eager to ratchet up output led to a methane blast
in Ukraine's deadliest mining disaster since the Soviet breakup.
(AP, 11/18/07)(AP, 11/19/07)(AP, 1/25/08)
2007 Nov 23, Ukrainian PM
Viktor Yanukovych submitted his resignation as a new parliament was
sworn in and rival parties jostled to form a government after
September elections.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 28, Two Hungarians and
a Ukrainian were arrested in eastern Slovakia and Hungary in an
attempted sale of a kilo (2.2 lbs) of uranium, material
believed to be from the former Soviet Union. Police said it was
enriched enough to be used in a radiological "dirty bomb."
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, Ukraine's two
pro-Western parties forged a majority coalition in parliament,
paving the way for forming a government.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Dec 2, In Ukraine 5
workers looking for the bodies of miners killed in the country’s
worst mine explosion since the Soviet collapse were killed in a new
explosion. A day earlier 44 people were injured in an explosion in
the same section of the mine.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 9, A charter aircraft
flying from the Czech Republic crashed near Kiev airport in Ukraine
killing at least 5 people.
(AFP, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 11, Ukraine's
parliament narrowly rejected the candidacy of Orange Revolution
leader Yulia Tymoshenko for prime minister, but was expected to hold
a further vote.
(AFP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 18, Ukraine's
pro-Western coalition appointed Orange Revolution leader Yulia
Tymoshenko prime minister and named a government that favors the
ex-Soviet republic winning NATO and EU membership.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 30, Ukrainian
President Viktor Yushchenko signed off on Ukraine's 2008 budget,
which he hailed as proof that the country's razor-tight
parliamentary majority was functioning effectively.
(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 Ukraine’s population
numbered about 48 million. This included some 8 million ethnic
Russians.
(Econ, 7/7/07, p.51)(Econ, 9/13/08, p.16)
2008 Jan 25, A World Trade
Organization (WTO) accession committee approved Ukraine's membership
bid, clearing the way for the former Soviet republic to join the
body.
(AP, 1/25/08)
2008 Jan 25, Russia's lower
house of parliament annulled an agreement with Ukraine on using
Soviet-built military radars, citing Kiev's bid to join NATO.
(AP, 1/25/08)
2008 Feb 6, Ukraine's main
opposition party vowed to continue its blockade of parliament, a day
after fist fights and protests over NATO membership caused the
president to cancel his state of the nation speech.
(AP, 2/6/08)
2008 Feb 12, Russia agreed to
eliminate a murky middleman company from its gas trade with Ukraine
in exchange for 50% share of Ukraine’s domestic gas market.
(WSJ, 2/13/08, p.A5)
2008 Mar 3, Russia quelled
protests in Moscow following the elections and reduced natural gas
supplies to Ukraine over $600 million in alleged nonpayments for
past deliveries.
(WSJ, 3/4/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 4, Ukraine's natural
gas company warned that if Russia further cuts its gas supplies, it
could begin diverting shipments intended for western Europe.
(AP, 3/4/08)
2008 Mar 5, Russia's state gas
monopoly announced that it was ending a reduction in natural gas
supplies to Ukraine after the two countries' presidents and gas
company chiefs reached an agreement aimed at ending a debt and
contract dispute.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 22, Eighteen Ukrainian
sailors were missing after their tug boat sank off the Hong Kong
coast following a collision with a cargo ship. 7 people were
rescued. On Dec 13, 2010, a Hong Kong court convicted four seamen
over the deaths of the 18 Ukrainian sailors.
(Reuters, 3/23/08)(AFP, 1/13/10)
2008 Mar 27, A helicopter
belonging to Ukraine's border guards crashed off an island in the
Black Sea. One officer was rescued and 12 were missing.
(Reuters, 3/27/08)
2008 Apr 1, In Ukraine
President Bush said he is putting his full weight behind the desire
by Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO even though Russia is opposed
and the alliance is split.
(AP, 4/1/08)
2008 Apr 3, President Bush won
NATO's endorsement for his plan to build a missile defense system in
Europe over Russian objections. The proposal also advanced with
Czech officials announcing an agreement to install a missile
tracking site for the system in their country. NATO decided not to
put Georgia and Ukraine on track to join the alliance after vehement
Russian opposition, but the alliance pledged that the strategically
important Black Sea nations will become members one day.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 28, A Ukrainian
helicopter crashed onto an offshore drilling platform in the Black
Sea, killing all 20 people on board.
(Reuters, 4/28/08)
2008 May 21, Ukraine moved to
strengthen its currency, the hryvnia, by revising its peg to the
dollar form 5.05 hryvnia per dollar to 4.85.
(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.C14)
2008 Jun 6, Russia's new Pres.
Medvedev met with leaders of a fractious alliance of ex-Soviet
republics, warning Ukraine and Georgia not to lead their countries
into NATO.
(AP, 6/6/08)
2008 Jun 8, In eastern Ukraine
a powerful explosion tore through a mine, trapping at least 37
miners who had been making repairs to improve safety conditions in
the mine. 23 miners were rescued on June 9.
(AP, 6/8/08)(Reuters, 6/9/08)
2008 Jul 27, Floods in western
Ukraine killed 22 people, including 4 children, and 5 in neighboring
Romania after 5 days of nonstop rain. A senior government official
described them as the worst in a century. Heavy rain in the
southwestern Carpathian Mountains caused the Prut and Dniestr rivers
to overflow. The flooding affected more than 40,000 houses and led
to the evacuation of some 20,000 people.
(Reuters, 7/27/08)(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul, In the Ukraine a
16th-century Caravaggio painting, "The Taking of Christ, or the Kiss
of Judas," was stolen from the Museum of Western and Eastern Art in
Odessa. It was valued at several million euros. In 2010 Berlin
recovered the painting and arrested four members of an international
gang of art thieves as they tried to sell it to an interested buyer.
(AP, 6/28/10)
2008 Aug 5, The UN said heavy
rains and storms have led to some of the worst floods in 40 years in
parts of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania since July 22, causing great
damage to homes, infrastructure and farmland. In Ukraine, 34 people
have been killed in the west of the country along the Dnestr and
Prut rivers; in Moldova, three people are reported to have drowned
in the capital Chisinau; in Romania five people have been killed.
(AFP, 8/5/08)
2008 Sep 2, Ukraine lawmakers
loyal to PM Yulia Tymoshenko sided with opposition parties to pass a
law weakening presidential powers and boosting those of the prime
minister.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, Ukraine's Pres.
Yushchenko ordered the creation of a new governing coalition and
threatened fresh elections, accusing his rival prime minister and
opposition parties of attempting a "constitutional coup."
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 5, In Kiev US Vice
President Dick Cheney pledged US support for Ukraine following last
month's war between neighboring Russia and Georgia.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 9, The 27-member EU
stopped short of offering Ukraine membership during an EU-Ukraine
summit hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. But the two sides
began work on an "association accord," a step that offers closer
political and economic ties and in the past has been designed to
prepare nations for eventual membership.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 16, Ukraine's
pro-Western coalition collapsed, paving the way for complicated
coalition talks or yet another early parliamentary election.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 17, Ukrainian PM Yulia
Tymoshenko said she would not resign as required following the
collapse of the country's ruling pro-Western coalition.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 25, Pirates seized the
530-foot, Ukrainian cargo vessel, MV Faina, with 21 people aboard
off eastern Somalia. Russia's navy soon sent a warship to Somalia's
coast a day after pirates seized the Ukrainian vessel loaded with 33
tanks, ammunition and 3 Russian crew members. The ITAR-Tass news
agency said the military equipment had been sold to Kenya. It was
later reported that the arms were destined for southern Sudan and
that Kenya’s cooperation would be rewarded in the future with cheap
oil. The shipped was released on Feb 5, 2009, following a ransom of
$3.2 million. Viktor Pinchuk, A top Ukrainian businessman, paid the
"lion's share" of the ransom.
(AP, 9/26/08)(SFC, 9/27/08, p.A5)(Econ, 10/4/08,
p.49)(AP, 2/5/09)(AP, 3/3/09)
2008 Sep 27, A Ukrainian ship,
sailing under a North Korean flag, sank in the Black Sea and all
crew members were missing. the 5,000-ton Tolstoy was carrying a
cargo of scrap metal to the Turkish port of Nemrut.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 29, US warships and
helicopters surrounded a hijacked cargo ship loaded with Sudan-bound
tanks and other arms to keep the weapons from falling "into the
wrong hands." The shipment of 33 Russian-designed tanks, rifles and
ammunition on the Ukrainian-operated Faina was headed for Sudan, not
Kenya as previously claimed by Kenyan officials. Somali pirates
demanded a $20 million ransom.
(AP, 9/29/08)(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A12)
2008 Oct 9, Ukrainian President
Viktor Yushchenko called early general elections after dissolving
parliament when parties failed to resurrect a ruling pro-Western
coalition in the former Soviet state.
(AFP, 10/9/08)
2008 Oct 10, Ukraine's PM Yulia
Tymoshenko said there will be no early parliamentary elections,
defying a presidential decree and raising the stakes in her fierce
political battle with the president. She said Ukraine has no money
for an early election and predicted that parliament will not pass
the necessary legislation.
(AP, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 15, The IMF said
Ukrainian authorities have asked the International Monetary Fund for
help in stemming a financial crisis in the country. The government
took emergency measures to rescue banks and stabilize the national
currency, the hryvna, after worried depositors withdrew more than
US$1 billion from their accounts this month.
(AP, 10/15/08)
2008 Oct 22, Russia's foreign
minister said Moscow wants to negotiate an extension of its lease at
Ukraine's Black Sea port of Sevastopol. The move would keep Russia's
Black Sea Fleet in the port where it has been stationed for
centuries.
(AP, 10/22/08)
2008 Oct 23, The Ukrainian
currency plunged against the dollar as people raced to exchange
booths to convert their savings into US currency. Ukraine's Foreign
Ministry said in a statement that the Russia’s desire to extend its
port lease at Sevastopol "cannot be a subject of discussion." It
said that Russian ships will have to leave Ukrainian waters in 2017.
(AP, 10/23/08)
2008 Oct 26, The IMF said it
has reached a tentative agreement to provide Ukraine with $16.5
billion in loans over the next 2 years to help the country out of
financial turmoil.
(SFC, 10/27/08, p.D1)
2008 Nov 5, Libya's Moamer
Kadhafi met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in his
traditional Bedouin tent during a visit to Kiev expected to focus on
energy and military cooperation.
(AFP, 11/6/08)
2008 Dec 9, Ukraine lawmakers
forged a 3-party coalition ending months of deadlock. It put back
together the fractured alliance of Pres. Yuschenko and rival PM
Tymoshenko along with another smaller party.
(SFC, 12/10/08, p.A4)
2008 Dec 24, Russian energy
giant Gazprom threatened to cut gas deliveries to Ukraine on January
1 if a new contract is not signed by then for 2009 but pledged to
honor its supply obligations to Europe.
(AFP, 12/24/08)
2008 Dec 24, In southern
Ukraine an apartment building was destroyed in a nighttime explosion
that killed 27 people in the Crimea peninsula resort of Yevpatoria.
The explosion was likely caused by a leak from oxygen canisters in
the building's basement.
(AP, 12/25/08)(AFP, 12/26/08)
2008 Dec 30, The Ukrainian
government issued a decree saying two state banks would lend state
energy company Naftogaz Ukrainy up to $2 billion to pay its arrears
to Russia’s Gazprom. Disagreements remained on future gas costs.
(WSJ, 12/31/08, p.A5)
2008 Kiev university students
established Femen, a group whose main aims are to improve the role
of women in Ukraine's male-dominated, post-Soviet society. By 2010
it had become a small army of 300 mainly student activists ready to
peel off in public to support Ukrainian women's rights.
(Reuters, 11/15/10)
2009 Jan 1, Russia cut off the
gas to Ukraine after a contract dispute but increased supplies to
other European states to try to reassure customers worried about
possible disruption.
(Reuters, 1/1/09)
2009 Jan 2, Ukraine sought
support in European capitals a day after Russia cut off gas supplies
and hardened its stance on prices. The cutoff came after Ukraine
made a $1.5 billion overdue payment, but Russia demanded another
$600 million, including $450 million penalties for the late payment
for gas shipped in November and December. The two sides also have
not agreed on prices for 2009. Russia accused Ukraine of stealing
gas destined for the rest of Europe.
(AP, 1/2/09)(Reuters, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 3, Russian gas flows
to four European Union countries fell normal levels after Moscow cut
off supplies to Ukraine in a pricing row with no talks in sight to
resolve the dispute. Bulgaria's Bulgargaz joined energy firms in
Poland, Romania and Hungary in saying they had noted falls in
supply.
(Reuters, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 4, Russia asked the EU
to provide monitoring of Ukraine's gas transit system and charged
Ukraine was stealing gas bound for Europe, as Kiev leveled its own
charges. Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said that the state-controlled
company wanted $450 per 1,000 cubic meters, up from its last offer
of $418. The reductions in gas supplies spread to the Czech Republic
and Turkey.
(AP, 1/4/09)(Reuters, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 6, A natural gas
crisis loomed over Europe, as a contract dispute between Russia and
Ukraine shut off Russian gas supplies to six countries and reduced
gas deliveries to several others. Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia,
Romania, Croatia and Turkey all reported a halt in gas shipments.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 7, The EU said Russia
and Ukraine will accept using international monitors to verify the
transit of natural gas from Russia through Ukraine's pipelines.
Russia's gas giant Gazprom completely stopped sending gas to
European consumers at 7:44 a.m. (0544 GMT). 80% of Russian gas
shipped via Ukraine.
(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 8, Russia's
state-controlled gas monopoly said it would restore supplies to
Europe through Ukraine, cut off after a dispute between Moscow and
Kiev, as soon as international monitors are in place.
(Reuters, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 10, Russia and the EU
took a step toward securing the resumption of gas flows to Europe
when the two signed a deal on monitoring the supplies through
Ukraine. PM Vladimir Putin said Russia will restart gas supplies to
Europe once an EU-led monitoring mission begins to track gas transit
via Ukraine.
(AP, 1/10/09)(Reuters, 1/10/09)
2009 Jan 11, Russia, Ukraine,
and the EU struck an agreement to try to resume Russian supplies
through Ukraine to Europe. President Dmitry Medvedev said energy
giant Gazprom would only resume gas supplies once Russia had a copy
of the document signed by Ukraine and once the various teams of
international observers were in place. The text of the accord calls
for the EU, Russia and Ukraine to each provide 25 experts to "carry
out checks on the basis of equal parity both on Ukrainian and
Russian territory.
(Reuters, 1/11/09)(AFP, 1/11/09)
2009 Jan 12, Russia's state-run
monopoly Gazprom announced it will resume shipping natural gas to
Europe, where tens of thousands of homes and buildings have been
left without heat in freezing weather.
(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 13, Russia and Ukraine
hotly blamed each other as Russia restarted natural gas supplies but
little or no gas flowed toward Europe. EU officials watched in
dismay and criticized both nations for their intransigence.
(AP, 1/13/09)
2009 Jan 14, Russia and Ukraine
wrangled over gas supplies again. Bulgaria and Slovakia, cut off by
the row for a freezing week, launched missions to plead for Russian
gas flow to be restored.
(Reuters, 1/14/09)
2009 Jan 15, Ukraine rejected
Russia's latest request to pipe natural gas westward to increasingly
frustrated EU consumers, deepening the bitter economic and political
dispute that has paralyzed energy shipments to Europe.
(AP, 1/15/09)
2009 Jan 17, Russia and Ukraine
held gas crisis talks in Moscow that the European Union said were
the "last and best chance" to resolve the row that has left Europe
struggling without key gas supplies.
(AFP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 18, Russia and Ukraine
announced a deal to end the bitter dispute that has blocked Russian
natural gas from Europe following talks between Russian PM Vladimir
Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko. Under the
terms, Ukraine will pay 20 percent less than the European "market
price" price for gas this year, which Russia says is $450 per 1,000
cubic meters. That's more than twice as much as the $179.50 Ukraine
paid in 2008.
(AP, 1/18/09)
2009 Jan 19, Russia and Ukraine
signed a deal that restores natural gas shipments to Ukraine and
paves the way for an end to the nearly two-week cutoff of most
Russian gas to a freezing Europe.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Jan 20, Russian gas
reached Europe via Ukraine for the first time in two weeks after
Moscow and Kiev ended a contract row that cut supplies to about 20
European countries.
(Reuters, 1/20/09)
2009 Feb 5, Somali pirates said
that they were freeing, a Ukrainian ship carrying tanks and other
heavy weapons after receiving a $3.2 million ransom. The MV Faina
was seized last September 25. The Kenyan government claimed to the
cargo, which included 33 Soviet-designed battle tanks.
(AP, 2/5/09)
2009 Feb 20, In Egypt 5 crew
members died when a Ukrainian cargo plane crashed during takeoff,
burst into flames and slid down the runway in the city of Luxor.
(AP, 2/20/09)
2009 Feb 25, Standard and
Poor's said on it had cut Ukraine's credit ratings to a level
indicating vulnerability to default, amid worries over whether Kiev
will receive the next slice of a vital IMF loan.
(AP, 2/25/09)
2009 Feb 25, Russia issued a
DVD and a thick book of historical documents to dispute claims that
the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s amounted to genocide. It was
argued that the Stalin-era famine was a common tragedy across Soviet
farmlands.
(SFC, 2/26/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 4, Ukrainian masked
and armed security agents searched the headquarters of Naftogaz,
Ukraine's natural gas company, in a raid that the firm said
threatened a deal with Russia over the shipment of gas supplies to
Europe. The raid was said to be connected to a criminal
investigation launched this week into the alleged diversion of some
7.4 billion hryvna ($900 million) in Russian gas by officials at
Naftogaz.
(AP, 3/4/09)
2009 Mar 5, Ukraine’s Naftogaz
paid its February bill for Russian gas just hours after Pres. Putin
said Russia would halt supplies if Ukraine failed to meet a March 7
deadline.
(WSJ, 3/6/09, p.A10)
2009 Apr 14, Ukrainian
officials said security agents have arrested a regional lawmaker and
two companions for trying to sell a radioactive substance that could
be used in making a dirty bomb. The legislator in the western
Ternopyl region and two local businessmen were detained last week
for trying to sell 8.2 pounds (3.7 kilograms) of radioactive
material to an undercover agent of the security service.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 May 7, The European Union
extended its hand to former Soviet republics, holding a summit to
draw them closer into the EU orbit despite Russia's deep misgivings.
Presidents, premiers and their deputies from 33 nations signed an
agreement meant to extend the EU's political and economic ties. The
six ex-Soviet republics to whom the partnership would apply are
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In eastern Ukraine
9 people were killed in an explosion at a gambling hall in
Dnipropetrovsk.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 22, Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev challenged EU leaders meeting at a summit in
Khabarovsk to help Ukraine pay its gas bills in order to prevent
disruption of Russian supplies to Europe.
(Reuters, 5/22/09)
2009 May 26, Libya and Ukraine
signed deals to cooperate in both peaceful civilian nuclear energy
and in defense during a visit by Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 Jun 7, Ukrainian PM Yulia
Tymoshenko said that talks with the main opposition party on forming
a coalition have collapsed, indicating a continuation of the turmoil
that has plagued the country's politics and hobbled its response to
the severe economic crisis.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 17, In Nigeria a
Ukrainian plane made an emergency landing due to technical problems
in the northern city of Kano. Eighteen crates of mines and
ammunition, destined for Equatorial Guinea, were found aboard the
aircraft. The crew and a Nigerian collaborator were detained and
soon transferred to Abuja for questioning.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 21, Ukrainian border
guards seized 250 turtles being smuggled into the country on a train
from Uzbekistan, where they had been hidden and strapped down with
tape to prevent them from moving.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jul 14, In Afghanistan a
NATO-contracted helicopter was shot down killing six Ukrainian crew
members on board and an Afghan child on the ground in Helmand
province. A roadside bomb killed one Italian soldier and wounded
three others in western Afghanistan. Another roadside blast hit a
civilian vehicle in Uruzgan province, killing three people and
wounded six others. US coalition and Afghan forces searched
compounds in Kandahar and found bomb-making materials, mortar
rounds, AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and 100 pounds (45
kilograms) of opium.
(AP, 7/14/09)(SFC, 7/15/09, p.A2)(AP, 7/26/09)
2009 Jul 27, The leader of the
Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, led solemn prayers in
Kiev on the first day of 10-day visit aimed at reasserting Moscow's
dominance over church leaders in Ukraine.
(AP, 7/27/09)
2009 Sep 1, Ukrainian PM Yulia
Tymoshenko said Russia and Ukraine have resolved a long standing
dispute over natural gas supplies, after meeting her Russian
counterpart Vladimir Putin at a resort on the Baltic coast in
northern Poland.
(Reuters, 9/1/09)
2009 Oct 31, The Ukrainian
government ordered schools nationwide to close for 3 weeks due to
swine flu, which has left 33 people dead. Public gatherings were
also banned and restrictions on travel were imposed to stop the
spread of the virus.
(SSFC, 11/1/09, p.A6)
2009 Nov 18, A San Francisco
federal judge reduced the 9-year sentence of Pavel Lazarenko (56), a
former prime minister of Ukraine (1996-1997), by 11 months. The
judge also imposed a $9 million fine and nearly $26 million in
forfeitures to the US government, including the value of his sold
Novato mansion. Lazarenko was sentenced in 2006 for money laundering
and other charges. He was said to have amassed a $250 million
fortune in extortions following Ukraine’s independence in 1992.
(SFC, 11/17/09, p.C2)
2010 Jan 17, Ukrainians voted
in presidential elections. Voters in the first round gave opposition
leader Viktor Yanukovych, the 2004 Orange Revolution's chief target,
a 35.4% to 25% lead over Orange heroine and PM Yulia Tymoshenko.
Analysts said Yanukovych's lead, with 97.7% of votes counted, is
misleading, because Tymoshenko is likely to pick up most of the
votes of 16 also-rans in a Feb 7 runoff. Almost 67% of eligible
voters cast ballots.
(Reuters, 1/17/10)(AP, 1/18/10)
2010 Jan 18, Ukrainian PM Yulia
Tymoshenko rushed to the east of the country after an explosion in a
hospital killed seven people.
(Reuters, 1/18/10)
2010 Feb 3, Ukraine's security
service said 5 Russian FSB agents were detained last month after
being caught trying to obtain confidential military information from
a Ukrainian citizen. The FSB said the Ukrainian citizen its agents
were working with had himself been apprehended in November while
allegedly spying on neighboring Moldova's Moscow-backed breakaway
Trans-Dniester republic.
(AP, 2/3/10)
2010 Feb 7, Ukrainians voted
between two presidential candidates in a run-off between PM Yulia
Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich which could push
the country into a fresh bout of instability. Yanukovich ended with
48.95% to Tymoshenko's 45.47%, a lead of 3.48 percentage points or
some 888,000 votes.
(Reuters, 2/7/10)(AP, 2/10/10)
2010 Feb 8, International
monitors hailed Ukraine's presidential election as "professional,
transparent and honest," increasing pressure on PM Yulia Tymoshenko
to concede to opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, who held a 2.7%
point lead with all but 1.7% of the ballots cast counted.
(AP, 2/8/10)
2010 Feb 10, Ukrainian
opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich called on defeated rival Yulia
Tymoshenko to resign as prime minister, turning up the pressure even
as her camp contested the result of the Feb 7 presidential election.
(Reuters, 2/10/10)
2010 Feb 14, Ukraine's election
commission proclaimed pro-Russian Victor Yanukovych the official
winner of the presidential poll, even as his rival Yulia Tymoshenko
vowed to contest the results in court.
(AFP, 2/14/10)
2010 Feb 20, Ukrainian PM Yulia
Tymoshenko dropped her legal challenge to her rival's presidential
election victory, saying she had lost faith in the country's courts.
(AFP, 2/20/10)
2010 Feb 24, Ukrainian PM Yulia
Tymoshenko challenged her opponents to oust her in a no-confidence
vote, aiming to show they don't have enough votes to do so.
(AP, 2/24/10)
2010 Mar 1, Ukraine’s Pres.
Viktor Yanukovych visited Brussels saying "Our priorities will
include integration into the European Union, bringing up
constructive relations with the Russian Federation, and developing
friendly relations with strategic partners such as the United
States."
(AP, 3/1/10)
2010 Mar 2, In Ukraine PM Yulia
Tymoshenko's pro-Western "Orange" coalition dissolved, losing its
majority in parliament and paving the way for the new president to
consolidate his power.
(AP, 3/2/10)
2010 Mar 3, The Ukrainian
parliament ousted the government of PM Yulia Tymoshenko in a
no-confidence vote, dealing a final blow to the leadership of the
pro-Western Orange Revolution and leaving her to lead the opposition
in parliament. The no-confidence resolution passed with 243 votes in
the 450-seat chamber.
(AP, 3/3/10)
2010 Mar 11, Ukrainian
lawmakers formed a new majority coalition around President Viktor
Yanukovych. Before forming the new governing coalition, Yanukovych
signed a new law allowing individual deputies to break away from
their parliamentary factions, which allowed his coalition to
eventually control 235 of the chamber's 450 seats. Mykola Azarov,
who served as Yanukovych's campaign strategist in this year's
presidential elections, was chosen as premier.
(AP, 3/11/10)
2010 Apr 21, The presidents of
Ukraine and Russia agreed to extend the stay of Russia's Black Sea
Fleet in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol to 2042 after the existing
lease expires in 2017. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that
Kiev will receive large discounts on gas shipments in return for
certainty over the base's future, $100 for every 1,000 cubic meters
of gas or 30 percent if the benchmark price falls below $330.
(AP, 4/21/10)(SFC, 4/22/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 24, Ukraine's
political opposition sought to rally people against a decision by
President Viktor Yanukovich to allow the Russian navy to stay in
Ukraine's Crimea until 2042.
(Reuters, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 27, Ukraine's
parliament erupted into chaos as deputies scuffled and hurled smoke
bombs during a tumultuous session that ratified a bitterly contested
deal with Russia extending a naval base lease.
(AFP, 4/27/10)
2010 May 5, Ukraine Communists
unveiled a monument to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in front of the
party's office in the city of Zaporizhya., sparking the anger of
Ukrainian nationalists.
(AP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 17, Russian Pres.
Medvedev visited Kiev, Ukraine, and oversaw the signing of several
cooperation deals with the new Moscow-friendly leadership of Pres.
Viktor Yanukovych.
(SFC, 5/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Jun 1, Ukraine's new
president, accused by opponents of moving the country into Moscow's
orbit, outlined a foreign policy bill that ditches his predecessor's
aim to join NATO but keeps EU membership as a long-term goal.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 3, Ukraine's
Parliament, prodded by pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych,
approved a bill that cements the country's neutrality and prevents
it from joining NATO.
(AP, 6/3/10)
2010 Aug 20, Ukraine President
Viktor Yanukovych said he is taking control of the case of Vasyl
Klymentyev, an investigative reporter who has been missing for a
week. Klymentyev reportedly was threatened after refusing to accept
a bribe to halt publication of a story about a regional prosecutor
accused of accepting bribes to close criminal cases.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Sep, The FBI and its
counterparts in Ukraine, the Netherlands and Britain took down a
cyber-theft ring they first got wind of in May 2009 when a financial
services firm tipped the bureau's Omaha, Neb., office to suspicious
transactions. Since then, the FBI's Operation Trident Breach has
uncovered losses of $14 million and counting.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Oct 1, Ukraine's
Constitutional Court shifted key powers from parliament to the
presidency, a move that boosted the influence of pro-Russian
President Viktor Yanukovych, but also threw the country into legal
uncertainty.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 6, Local media
reported that Ukraine has adopted a dress code for government
workers. The code called on men working at the Cabinet of Ministers
to wear mostly gray and dark blue suits and not wear the same suit
to work two days in a row. Women were asked to stick to business
suits and low-heeled shoes, as well as refrain from excessive makeup
and jewelry.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 12, In eastern Ukraine
a train crashed into a crowded bus, killing 43 people on the bus,
including two children, and injuring nearly a dozen others. PM
Mykola Azarov ordered his government to pay the family of each of
the dead victims 100,000 hryvna ($12,600). He also instructed
transport officials to install automated crossing gates at all the
nation's railway crossings to prevent cars, buses and trucks from
ignoring the siren.
(AP, 10/12/10)(SFC, 10/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 13, In the Ukraine for
the second time in two days, a vehicle ignored a warning light at a
railroad crossing and was hit by a train in a fatal accident killing
2 people.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 31, Ukraine voted for
local councils and mayors in an election which should provide the
first real clues to Pres. Yanukovich's standing at home since his
election last February. Exit polls said Yanukovych’s swept elections
to regional councils throughout the country.
(Reuters, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Dec 16, A fierce fight in
Ukraine's parliament sent at least six lawmakers to the hospital
with concussions, a fractured jaw and multiple bruises, setting a
new low for the often-tumultuous body. Pro-Tymoshenko legislators
had been blocking legislative work all day, protesting a corruption
probe against her.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 16, Human Rights Watch
urged the EU to stop returning migrants and asylum seekers to
Ukraine, saying that they faced abuse and torture in the former
Soviet republic.
(Reuters, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 26, Ukraine's security
service detained former interior minister Yuri Lutsenko, the latest
move in a crackdown on the previous government since Pres.
Yanukovich took power. The state prosecutor's office this month
charged Lutsenko with abuse of office, saying he had embezzled state
funds. He denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the charges as
politically motivated.
(Reuters, 12/26/10)
2011 Jan 27, Ukraine's state
prosecutors office announced new criminal charges against former PM
Yulia Tymoshenko over the alleged illegal purchase of 1,000 vehicles
in the run-up to the 2010 presidential election.
(Reuters, 1/27/11)
2011 Feb 19, Dirar Abu Sisi
(42), a Palestinian engineer, went missing "under unknown
circumstances" after boarding a train in the Ukraine city of Kharkiv
bound for the capital Kiev. The UN refugee agency later confirmed
his wife's fears that he is being held in prison by the Israeli
secret service. Sisi's Ukrainian wife, Veronika (32), alleged the
Israeli secret service Mossad carried out the abduction in order to
sabotage a key electric power plant in the Hamas-controlled Gaza
Strip where he worked as a senior manager.
(AP, 3/10/11)
2011 Mar 24, Former Ukraine
Pres. Leonid Kuchma said he has been charged in the 2000 slaying of
investigative reporter Heorhiy Gongadze.
(SFC, 3/25/11, p.A2)
2011 May 4, Ukrainian
prosecutors said they have opened a criminal investigation against
the former head of the Kiev Zoo, where hundreds of animals have died
or gone mysteriously missing in recent years. Svitlana Berzina was
suspected of embezzling some $47,000 (euro32,000) from the zoo by
commissioning projects that weren't fully carried out, if at all.
Berzina was fired last year after nearly one-half of the zoo's
animals either died or disappeared.
(AP, 5/4/11)
2011 Jun 20, Chinese President
Hu Jintao made a rare visit to Ukraine to sign a strategic
partnership declaration as Beijing seeks to revive ties with the
ex-Soviet state after years of neglect. Hu Jintao oversaw the
signing of business deals worth $3.5 billion.
(AFP, 6/20/11)(AP, 6/20/11)
2011 Jun 24, Ukraine's former
prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko went on trial on charges of abuse of
office, insisting during a chaotic hearing that the case is a plot
by the nation's president to keep her out of politics.
(AP, 6/24/11)
2011 Jul 2, In Germany Wladimir
Klitschko of the Ukraine became the undisputed world heavyweight
champion by beating Great Britain's David Haye on a unanimous points
decision at Hamburg's football stadium.
(AFP, 7/2/11)
2011 Jul 10, In western
Ukraine a fire tore through a home for the elderly, killing 16
people in the village of Bile.
(AP, 7/10/11)
2011 Jul 29, In eastern Ukraine
a pre-dawn methane explosion at the notoriously dangerous
Suhodilska-Eastern mine in the Luhansk region killed 20 workers.
Hours later an elevator used to transport miners and equipment into
and out of the Bazhanova mine in the eastern Donetsk region
collapsed, killing 7 workers. 10 miners all told remained missing.
(AP, 7/29/11)(AP, 7/30/11)
2011 Aug 5, Ukraine police
arrested former PM Yulia Tymoshenko during her abuse-of-office trial
for violations of court procedures.
(SFC, 8/6/11, p.A2)
2011 Aug 24, In Ukraine over
5,000 opposition activists rallied on the 20th anniversary of
Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union, protesting the arrest
of former PM Yulia Tymoshenko and demanding early elections.
(AP, 8/24/11)
2011 Sep 1, Ukraine opened
shale gas development to Western giants, assigning its first
exploration contract to the Anglo-Dutch firm Shell in a deal worth
up to $800 million (555 million euros).
(AFP, 9/1/11)
2011 Sep 3, In Tajikistan
leaders from eight former Soviet states (Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan)
gathered to celebrate enduring cooperation over the two decades
since their nations collectively gained independence, but mutual
acrimony and recriminations cast a shadow over the event.
(AP, 9/3/11)
2011 Oct 11, Ukraine's former
PM Yulia Tymoshenko (50) was sentenced to 7 years in prison on
charges of abuse of office in signing a gas deal with Russia, a
verdict immediately condemned by the European Union as politically
motivated. The sentence also included a 3-year ban on public office
and a fine of $190 million.
(AP, 10/11/11)(Econ, 10/15/11, p.59)
2011 Oct 13, Ukraine's Pres.
Viktor Yanukovych, facing harsh Western criticism, said that he
backs legal reforms that could allow the release of imprisoned
former PM Yulia Tymoshenko.
(AP, 10/13/11)
2011 Dec 8, Kiev's
Shevchenkivsky Court ordered former PM Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko
arrested as part of a probe into the activity of an energy company
she headed 15 years ago.
(AP, 12/9/11)
2011 Charles King authored
“Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams.”
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.90)
2012 Jan 6, The Czech Republic
granted asylum to Oleksandr Tymoshenko, the husband of jailed former
Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko. He requested asylum because a
criminal investigation has been launched against him in Ukraine in
an attempt to increase pressure on his jailed wife.
(AP, 1/6/12)
2012 Jan 28, At Davos,
Switzerland, 3 topless Ukrainian protesters were detained while
trying to break into an invitation-only gathering of international
CEOs and political leaders to call attention to the needs of the
world's poor. Separately, demonstrators from the Occupy movement
marched to the edge of the gathering.
(AP, 1/28/12)
2012 Jan 31, Ukrainian
authorities said that the number of people who died of hypothermia
in recent days has reached 30 as the country grapples with an
unusually severe cold spell. In all, at least 58 people have died
from the cold in Europe over the last week.
(AP, 1/31/12)
2012 Jan 31, The ship, Vera,
with 10 Ukrainian and one Georgian crew, was sailing to Turkey's
Aliaga port from Russia when it sank off the coast of Eregli in
stormy waters. 8 of the crew were reported missing following the
rescue of 3 people.
(AP, 2/1/12)
2012 Feb 1, The death toll from
a severe cold spell in Eastern Europe rose to 71, including 43 in
the Ukraine, most of them homeless people.
(AP, 2/1/12)
2012 Feb 3, Ukraine's
government blamed Russia for natural gas shortages in some European
countries as a severe cold spell grips the region. Germany, Italy
and Austria have reported cutbacks in Russian gas supplies, but
Russia's energy giant Gazprom has blamed them on Kiev, accusing
Ukraine of siphoning off gas destined for European consumers.
(AP, 2/3/12)
2012 Feb 3, The death toll from
a severe cold spell in Eastern Europe rose to 222, including 101 in
the Ukraine, 37 in Poland, 24 in Romania and 16 in Bulgaria.
(AFP, 2/1/12)
2012 Feb 4, The Ukrainian
Security Service detained a man sought by Russian authorities on
charges of terrorism and two of his accomplices in Odessa. On Feb 27
the detainees were reported to be linked to an anti-Putin plot.
(AP, 2/27/12)
2012 Feb 5, Bosnia used
helicopters to evacuate people and deliver food to those stranded by
heavy snowfall. The cold snap across Eastern Europe has left at
least 280 people dead including 131 in Ukraine.
(SFC, 2/6/12, p.A2)
2012 Feb 15, Authorities said
more than 600 people in Eastern Europe have died during a
record-breaking cold snap. Officials in the Czech Republic blamed
two massive car pile-ups on blinding snow. Authorities in Russia
said 205 people have died, while in Ukraine there have been 112
fatalities; in Poland, 107. Authorities said 7 people have died in
Romania in the past 24 hours, bringing the total there to 86 deaths.
(AP, 2/15/12)
2012 Mar 9, In Ukraine Oksana
Makar (18) was invited by two young men, ages 21 and 23, to their
friend's apartment, where the three men allegedly gang-raped her,
tried to choke her to death, wrapped her in a sheet, took her to a
construction site, dumped her in a pit and set her on fire. After
surgery 55% of her skin was gone, her kidneys were completely
burned, and one of her arms and both her feet had to be amputated.
The suspects were arrested the next day, but two of them were
released soon after. The two men who were released are the sons of
former government officials.
(AP, 3/18/12)
2012 Mar 9, In Ukraine Oksana
Makar (18) was invited by two young men, ages 21 and 23, to their
friend's apartment, where the three men allegedly gang-raped her,
tried to choke her to death, wrapped her in a sheet, took her to a
construction site, dumped her in a pit and set her on fire. After
surgery 55% of her skin was gone, her kidneys were completely
burned, and one of her arms and both her feet had to be amputated.
The suspects were arrested the next day, but two of them were
released soon after. The two men who were released are the sons of
former government officials. On March 13 the two men were arrested,
and all three suspects were charged with attempted murder. Makar
died of her injuries on March 29. Murder was added to the rape
chargers against the suspects.
(http://tinyurl.com/798q68z)(AP, 3/29/12)
2012 Apr 6, A Russian-Ukrainian
crew of 8 on board the 29-meter Scorpius yacht, that set sail in
September on an historic expedition around the South and North
Poles, went missing in the Antarctic.
(AFP, 4/6/12)
Go to
http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Ukraine
End of file