Timeline Ukraine
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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 Oct, Sailors from Genoa
arrived in Messina, Sicily. Plague had broken out earlier among the
troops of the Kipchak Khan, who was besieging the Black Sea port of
Kaffa. He catapulted dead bodies over the city walls. When Italian
trading vessels in the harbor returned to Genoa, the carried the plague
to Europe. The plague, an infectious fever caused by the bacillus
Yersinia pestis, appears in several varieties: bubonic (which involves
swelling of the lymph glands), pneumonic (which involves the lungs) and
septicemia (which involves severe infection in the bloodstream).
(SFEM, 10/12/97, p.31)(HNQ, 1/20/01)(SSFC, 3/6/05,
p.B4)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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 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 Malcolm Muggeridge, American
writer and reporter, broke the story on the famine in the Ukraine.
(WSJ, 4/17/96, p.A-18)
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. 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.
(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.16)(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.A18)(AP,
3/6/05)
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 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 Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian
nationalist, was assassinated by a KGB agent who used a spray gun to
fire cyanide gas into his face.
(WSJ, 11/21/96, p.A10)
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 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.
(RTH, 8/28/99)
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.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A10)(AP, 12/8/01)
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 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 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: www.pravda.com.ua 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.
(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)
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)
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 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 Yanukovich, 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)
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 Yanukovich 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 Yanukovich 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 Yanukovich. 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.
(AP, 3/4/05)
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 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.
(Econ, 7/7/07, p.51)
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.
(Reuters, 3/23/08)
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)
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