All articles
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Erased in 1946, Back Aboveground 43 Years Later: The Greek Catholic Church
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which keeps the Eastern rite while being in communion with the Pope of Rome, began with the union of 1596. This article traces its path from being dissolved by the Soviet "sobor" of 1946, through continuing worship underground, to being recognized again in 1989, along with the spread of its faithful shown in a 2025 survey.
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Kharkiv, Capital of Soviet Ukraine, and the Derzhprom Building
From late 1919 until June 1934, the capital of Soviet Ukraine was not Kyiv but Kharkiv. To bring the capital's government offices together in one place, the authorities built Derzhprom (the House of State Industry), nine blocks linked by bridges. This article sets out when Kharkiv became and stopped being the capital, how the building came to be, its listing on UNESCO's Tentative List, and the damage it suffered in 2024.
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Floating Wreaths on the River, Leaping Over Fire: The Midsummer Festival of Ivan Kupala
Ukraine's midsummer festival Ivan Kupala survives as a pre-Christian ritual that came to overlap with the feast day of John the Baptist. Under the old calendar it fell in July, but the 2023 calendar reform moved the church feast to June 24. This article covers the wreath and fire customs, the songs, and the changes of the Soviet era as recorded in the encyclopedias.
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The 220,000-Hectare Reserve Created Inside Chornobyl’s Exclusion Zone
In 2016, Ukraine's largest nature reserve was established around Chornobyl, which residents left after the 1986 accident. This article traces, through legislation and announcements from the reserve and the IAEA, the goals stated in the presidential decree, the reserve's four zones, the animals and plants recorded there, and the fires and land mines that remained after Russian forces occupied it in 2022.
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The National Film Archive: 30 Years of the Dovzhenko Centre
The Dovzhenko Centre in Kyiv, Ukraine's largest film archive, was created by a 1994 presidential decree and, as of January 2025, holds more than 62,000 items of film. This article sets out what it preserves and has recovered, how the 2022 “reorganization” order and the ensuing court case ended, and the path to its being granted national status in 2025.
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Taras Shevchenko: The Poet the Tsar Forbade to Write or Paint
Born a serf, Shevchenko had his freedom bought with the proceeds of a portrait raffle and was also a painter trained at the Academy of Arts. After his arrest in 1847, he spent 10 years under the Tsar's order forbidding him to write or paint — and still wrote poems and made pictures. This is the life of the poet who made Ukrainian the language of modern literature.
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Still Built on a 1993 Law, as the Number Passes 1.3 Million: Ukraine’s War Veterans
The foundation of Ukraine's system of support for war veterans is a law enacted in 1993, two years after the Soviet collapse. The government's own strategy says that veterans, the families of the fallen, and people disabled by the war together number more than 1.3 million, and admits the old law no longer fits reality. This article covers the support available under “combatant” status and the review under way as of September 2026.
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The Ravine Whose Monument Didn’t Say “Jews”: Kyiv’s Babyn Yar
On September 29 and 30, 1941, Nazi German forces shot Jews at Babyn Yar, a ravine in occupied Kyiv. The killing continued for two years, and the monument the postwar Soviet Union built in 1976 made no mention of Jews. This article traces where the death-toll figures come from, the reserve established after independence, and events up to Russia's missile strike of March 1, 2022.
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IDP Housing Allowance: The Extension Cap Rises From Two Six-Month Periods to Six
Since March 2022, Ukraine has paid internally displaced persons a housing allowance of 2,000 hryvnias a month (3,000 hryvnias for people with disabilities and children). The monthly form of payment for the duration of martial law changed to a payment made every six months in August 2023, and the cap on the number of extensions has been raised from two in August 2024 to six in September 2026. There is also a rule under which payment stops if a person leaves the country for more than 30 days.
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Even After Public Broadcasting Pulled Out, Ukraine’s “United News” Continues on State Funding
The month after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, the National Security and Defense Council decided to merge the country's news television channels into a single round-the-clock program, “United News.” Even after public broadcasting withdrew in 2024, the program has continued on the state budget. In its 2025 report, the European Commission called for it to be reviewed no later than when martial law is lifted.