List of wars involving Ukraine

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). 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. 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), and since 2014, the Russian Federation (Russo-Ukrainian War).





Kingdom of Ruthenia and other Rus' principalities (1240–1500)
Following the end of Kievan Rus' in 1240, it split into many Rus' principalities. The Principality, later Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (Ruthenia) would control most of the territory of modern Ukraine for a century, after which the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Crown of the Kingdom of Poland would dominate the region.

Cossack Ukraine (1500–1764)
This section contains list of wars involving Zaporozhian Cossacks (including Danubian Sich) and Cossack Hetmanate (both of right-bank and left-bank).

War of independence (1917–1921)
This section contains list of wars involving different Ukrainian states de facto existed between 1917 and 1922 (Ukrainian People's Republic, Ukrainian State, Western Ukrainian People's Republic, Hutsul Republic, Komancza Republic) and other Ukrainian anti-bolshevik state formations (Kuban People's Republic, Makhnovshchina, Ukrainian Republic of the Far East).

Interwar period (1922–1938)
In 1922, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was incorporated into the Soviet Union. No major armed conflicts on Soviet Ukrainian territory would take place until 1939, although Ukrainian 'national units' would be used as national military formations of the Red Army until 1934 and, as such, fight in Soviet armed conflicts elsewhere in the world. Also, as a response to the collectivization, various peasant rebellions took place in 1929-1933 across the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, which were suppressed by the Soviet authorities. The western areas of Ukraine (including most of the former West Ukrainian People's Republic's claimed territories) that were annexed by the Second Polish Republic similarly saw no fighting in the interwar period until 1939, although some small and brief armed conflicts did occur elsewhere in Poland in this period.

World War II (1939–1945)
This section contains only military activity of non-Soviet and non-Nazi Ukrainian organizations.