Ukraine: the spoils of war for the great powers since 1921

A map of Ukraine’s borders over the last one hundred years offers a lens through which to view the complex territorial history of Central and Eastern Europe. 

In 1918 the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic was formed and declared its independence. However, the Bolsheviks consolidated control over much of the former Russian empire and established the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which eventually became a  constituent republic of the Soviet Union when it was established in 1922.

On 18 March 1921, the Treaty of Riga was signed between the Soviet Union and Poland, in which Soviet Ukraine and Belarus were recognized by Poland and a border between the countries was established. This constitutes the first of the map’s layers and signals how Ukraine's geography and fate have been and still are entwined and largely decided by the surrounding great powers.  

During the Second World War, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic once again became a theatre for war and its consequences, undergoing a second phase of territorial change. On 28 September 1939, following its defeat by Hitler from the west and Stalin from the east, the Polish state ceased to exist, and its eastern territories were incorporated into the Soviet republics (SSR) of Ukraine and Belarus. But in 1941, Nazi Germany took the whole of Poland and also occupied Soviet Ukraine, which was liberated by Soviet troops in the autumn of 1944. 

Post-war Ukraine was essentially a composite of the postwar settlement of the Allies at Yalta, consisting of a Soviet Ukraine (1921–40), a Polish-administered Ukraine (1921–40) around Lviv, two areas under Romanian administration, which were also ceded in 1940, and a Czechoslovak-administered Ukraine on the borders of present-day Slovakia and Hungary, which was ceded to the Ukrainian SSR in 1945. 

A final change to Ukraine's borders during the Soviet era occurred with the 1954 repatriation of Crimea, which coincided with the 300^th anniversary of the 'reunification of Ukraine with Russia', notably a year after Stalin’s death. The subsequent period of relative border stability lasted until 2014, with the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation following a sham referendum on the peninsula, and the declarations of independence by the Moscow-supported mini-republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The separatist-controlled areas were fought over until 2022, when Putin’s full-scale invasion confirmed the imperial intentions he had first exhibited eight years earlier.

In February 2022, Russian troops entered Ukraine via Belarus to the north, the Black Sea to the south and the Donbas and Kharkiv flank to the east. On 30 September 2022, Putin signed laws annexing the four southern Oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. As in 2014 in Crimea, referendums were held with soldiers reportedly collecting votes from residents. Unlike Crimea, however, significant parts of all four regions were and continue to be held by Ukraine. Nearly three years after the start of the war, the zone under Russian control is advancing towards the Dnipro River – and even bordering it to the south.

Ukraine’s fate is to be sandwiched between major powers – Russia to the east and the European states united in the EU and NATO to the west. After 1991 Ukraine acted as a buffer zone and, since 2022, it is now a frontline state, with areas of its territory under hostile occupation and others under threat. With Russia’s encroachment, Ukraine is being pushed physically into its western territories as Russian troops advance towards the European border.