Country information

The territory of Ukraine has been populated by various cultures and civilizations throughout history.
One of the oldest, most aggressive, and most documented groups of ancient history to tread upon this land were the Scythians.

Archeological discoveries have shown a plethora of ancient Scythian settlements. The Scythians are also mentioned in the Bible Col. 3:11; According to tradition, the Apostle Andrew evangelized ancient Scythia (now Ukraine) and accurately prophesied the future site of a Church in Ukraine.

Centuries later, the Kiev - Rus empire was formed. Kiev is one of the oldest and most important of Slavic cities and is often considered the "mother" city of Ukraine, of the Russian Empire, and of the Slavic Orthodox churches. There is an old legend which tells of three brothers who founded Kiev at the end of the fifth century. The brothers Kiy, Khoriv, and Shchek, along with their sister, Lybid, decided to name this newly founded land "Kiev," after their elder brother.

In 988, Kiev's Prince Volodymyr the Great introduced Christianity to Kiev making it the official religion. He forced the city to take part in a mass baptism. In the 1600's, Polish Jesuits began to impose Catholicism on the Ukrainians by force. This rallied the Orthodox Cossacks (Ukraine's informal army), and in 1648 the Cossacks drove the Poles out of part of Ukraine. Fearing that their independent state was too weak to stand alone, the Cossacks, under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytsky requested that Moscow rule them in 1654. They were under the assumption that Moscow would not control them but instead provide protection. The Cossacks believed that they could trust the Orthodox Muscovites; they were mistaken. Moscow tightened its grip on the Ukrainians decade after decade, reducing the Cossack's power and completing the process of enserfment. Ukrainian mistrust of Russians dates back to this period in history. This led to a long period of domination by the Russian Empire and ultimately the Soviet Union.

The Ukrainians have endured many hardships, but perhaps the most notable was the Great Famine of 1932 - 1933. Josef Stalin began collecting huge amounts of grain to export and deliberately starved nearly seven million people.

Attention from the West turned to Ukraine after the nuclear meltdown at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986.

The Soviet government immediately downplayed the extreme gravity of the situation. At the same time, high level Soviet governmental officials quickly sent their families to other cities or even abroad. The foreign press reported the incident before the Soviets. This great cover-up resulted in millions of people being exposed to extremely high levels of radiation and radioactive dust. Today, in spite of normal level radiation in Kiev, thyroid cancer and other deadly illnesses are common among those who were exposed, so this people need your help, and open for Gospel.