Section
Understanding Society
The institutions, economy and social trends behind the news.
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Three Days at 8 Degrees or Below: Ukraine’s Rule for Turning On the Heat
District heating, which sends hot water from heat-producing plants to buildings, is widely used in Ukraine's cities. The heating season is set by local authorities based on outdoor temperature, tariffs are set by the regulator and local authorities, and household tariff increases are frozen under martial law. This article traces the rules as they stood in legal texts as of September 2026.
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Categories 1 Through 4: How Ukrainian Law Defines a “Chornobyl Victim”
In Ukraine, the status of people affected by the Chornobyl nuclear disaster has been defined by a February 1991 law. It separates those who worked on the accident cleanup from residents who were affected, sorting them into categories 1 through 4 with corresponding benefits. This article traces the contaminated-zone system, from the 2014 benefit cuts to the Constitutional Court's rulings, through the text of the law.
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Does One in Ten Speak Surzhyk, or One in Five? A Mixed Speech That Changes with How You Count
Surzhyk is a form of speech mixing Ukrainian and Russian. Its name comes from mixed grain flour. Depending on the survey, the share of speakers who use it comes out at 11–18% when interviewers judge by ear, and close to one in five say they speak "both about equally" when asked directly. This article lays out how dictionaries and encyclopedias describe it, why survey figures diverge, how it is evaluated, and how it appears in literature and on stage.
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From Single-Member Districts to Proportional and Back to Mixed: Verkhovna Rada Elections, 1990–2019
The way Ukraine's 450-seat Verkhovna Rada is elected changed three times across nine elections between 1990 and 2019: single-member districts, a mix of party lists and districts, a purely proportional list system, and back to a mix. The electoral threshold moved between 4%, 3%, and 5%, and turnout fell from 70.78% to 49.24%. This article builds a timeline from the text of the electoral laws and the protocols of the Central Election Commission.
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Whose Words Are “the World’s Largest”? The Menorah Jewish Center in Dnipro
The Menorah Jewish community center, which opened in Dnipro in 2012, houses a synagogue, a museum, research institutes, and consulates. The community that runs it calls it "the world's largest," but no basis for the comparison is given. Using the community's own published materials and two encyclopedias, this article traces the center's origins and the history of Jews in the city once known as Katerynoslav.
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A Town Planned in 1986 for Nuclear Plant Workers: Slavutych
Slavutych was established by a construction decision in October 1986, following the Chornobyl accident, as a town where the power plant's staff and their families could live. Eight Soviet republics took part in its construction, and the town is divided into 14 districts. Using materials from the city, the power plant, and the statistics service, this article traces the commute to the plant, changes in population, and the March 2022 occupation.
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Seven Amendment Laws, One Struck Down as Unconstitutional: Thirty Years of Ukraine’s Constitution
Ukraine's Constitution, adopted on June 28, 1996, was amended by seven laws through 2019. The 2004 amendment was struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2010 for a procedural violation, and parliament restored it in 2014. This article traces, through the text of the amendment laws, the rewriting of the judiciary chapter, the policy of joining the EU and NATO, and the provision that bans amendments under martial law.
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Officials Had a Year to Learn Ukrainian: The “Ukrainization” That Began in 1923
On August 1, 1923, the Soviet Ukrainian government ordered officials to learn both Ukrainian and Russian within a year, on pain of dismissal. This article traces the content of the decisions behind "Ukrainization," which began as part of the Soviet Union's broader policy of "indigenization"; how it played out in the capital, Kharkiv; the figures for schools and newspapers; and its reversal in the early 1930s.
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Hutsuls, Boikos, and Lemkos: Ukrainians of the Carpathian Mountains
The Hutsuls, Boikos, and Lemkos are ethnographic groups of Ukrainians who have lived in the Carpathian Mountains. They are arranged from east to west, and the Hutsul region, with little farmland, has lived by herding. The Lemko region, the westernmost, lies mostly within today's Poland and Slovakia, and the resettlements of 1944–1947 moved many of its people to the Ukrainian lowlands and to various parts of Poland.
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Bulgarians and Gagauz Who Settled the Budjak Steppe
In southwestern Odesa Oblast, ethnic Bulgarians who moved north from below the Danube in the 19th century, and the Gagauz, Orthodox Christians who speak a Turkic language, live in concentrated communities. In the 2001 census, 60% of the residents of the former Bolhrad district were Bulgarians. In the 2020 reorganization of districts, Bulgaria's parliament and Ukraine's foreign ministry exchanged statements over how this district would be treated.