Belarus–Ukraine relations
Belarus–Ukraine relations (, "Byelaruska-ŭkrainskiya adnosiny", , "Ukrains'ko-Bilorus'ki vidnosyny", , "Belorussko-ukrainskiye otnosheniya") are foreign relations between Belarus and Ukraine. Both countries were successively ruled by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Second Polish Republic, and ultimately, the Russian Empire. Prior to the 1991 breakup, both countries were part of the Soviet Union as the Belarusian SSR and Ukrainian SSR when they were the founding members of the United Nations in 1945. Being Slavic nations, both Belarus and Ukraine share closely related cultures and are predominantly inhabited by the East Slavic ethnic groups of Belarusians and Ukrainians respectively, along with a few Russians. Today, the two countries share an 891–km border.
Historical background of the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine
Previously a sparsely populated region, large amounts of ethnic Ukrainian settlers first came to the land that is now Kharkiv Oblast around the time of the 1648–57 Khmelnytsky uprising. These settlers had fled fighting between Ukrainian Cossacks and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth near the Dnieper River. The area that they settled in was named "Sloboda Ukraine" (, "Slobodskaya Ukraina"). Over the following centuries, multiple waves of immigration to Sloboda Ukraine brought both ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. Prior to the 19th century, only smalls amounts of Russians settled in the area. They tended to live in cities, whilst rural areas were dominated by ethnic Ukrainians. The region had an autonomous Cossack government until it was abolished by Catherine the Great in 1765. By 1832, the urban-rural divide became firmly entrenched: 50% of merchants were ethnic Russians, as were 45% of factory owners. In line with this increasing Russification, the name Sloboda Ukraine was replaced by Kharkov Governorate in 1835. Ethnic Russians in agriculture-dominated Kharkiv were never as numerous as in the industrial Donbass, and the region always retained a distinct Ukrainian culture. This is illustrated by the Imperial Census of 1897, which recorded the native language of 80.6% of the population of Kharkov Governorate as Ukrainian, whereas Russian was recorded as the native language of only 17.7% of the population.