History of Ukraine |
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The following is a list of major conflicts fought by Ukraine, by Ukrainian people or by regular armies during periods when independent states existed on the modern territory of Ukraine, from the Kievan Rus' times to the present day. It also includes wars fought outside Ukraine by Ukrainian military.
Kievan Rus' is considered the first Ukrainian state (together with Belarus and Russia), the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (Ruthenia) its political successor, and after the period of domination by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth the Cossack states (the Cossack Hetmanate and the Zaporozhian Sich).[1] The Ukrainian Cossacks were also related to the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate, having many conflicts with them. By the late 18th century, Ukraine didn't have independent states anymore, because it was ruled by the more powerful states of the time, namely the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire and the Austrian Empire.[2][3] There were several internal armed conflicts between various Ukrainian ideological factions (sometimes with foreign support) in the first half of the 20th century (especially during the 1917–1921 Ukrainian War of Independence and the 1939–1945 Second World War), but modern Ukrainian militaries (since 1917) have been mostly fighting with armies of neighbouring states, such as the Russian Provisional Government (Kiev Bolshevik Uprising November 1917), the Russian SFSR (Ukrainian War of Independence 1917–1921), the Second Polish Republic (Polish–Ukrainian War 1918–1919), Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (Second World War and post-War resistance),[1] and since 2014, the Russian Federation (Russo-Ukrainian War).