Eastern Ukraine

For centuries the eastern steppe was the Wild Fields, grazed by nomads and raided by the Crimean Tatars. From the mid-17th century Cossacks and peasants fleeing wars on the right bank settled the frontier under Muscovite protection, founding Kharkiv around 1654 as the centre of Sloboda Ukraine. Kharkiv's university, founded in 1804 by Vasyl Karazin, made the city a cradle of Ukrainian scholarship and publishing in the 19th century.

The Donbas took shape with coal. In 1869 the Welsh industrialist John Hughes founded a steel works around which grew Yuzivka, later Stalino and, from 1961, Donetsk, and mines, metal works and chemical plants drew workers from across the Russian Empire. Luhansk grew from an iron foundry of the 1790s. Kharkiv served as the capital of Soviet Ukraine from 1919 to 1934, the era of the constructivist Derzhprom and of the writers later purged in the Terror. The Holodomor, the German occupation and fierce battles around Kharkiv scarred the region.

In 2014, after the Revolution of Dignity, Russian-backed armed groups seized parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, proclaiming separatist "people's republics"; Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over the region that July. Ukrainian forces retook Sloviansk and Mariupol, and a front line froze across the Donbas. In 2022 Russia launched its full-scale invasion, besieged and largely destroyed Mariupol, occupied most of Luhansk Oblast and much of Donetsk, and claimed to annex both, a claim not recognised internationally. Ukraine retook much of Kharkiv Oblast in autumn 2022, and fighting across the Donbas has continued since.

The east was for generations Ukraine's most Russian-speaking region, shaped by industrial migration and Soviet planning, and politics before 2014 leaned towards parties favouring close ties with Russia. The war has changed identities in complicated ways: millions have fled the fighting and occupation, and those remaining under occupation live under Russian rule, schooling and documents.

Kharkiv is an intellectual and artistic city: the home of Ukraine's 1920s avant-garde, a well-known school of documentary photography, and contemporary writers and musicians such as Serhiy Zhadan, whose novels and songs describe the east. During the war much of its public life has moved underground, and the metro has served as a shelter.

The Donbas built a culture around the mines and mills, with football, brass bands and pride in hard physical work; Donetsk's Shakhtar club carries the miner in its name. The Azov coast around Mariupol was settled in the late 18th century by Greeks from Crimea, whose villages kept Rumeíka Greek or the Tatar speech of the Urums. The Sviatohirsk Lavra, on the chalk cliffs of the Siverskyi Donets, was the east's main pilgrimage site.

Kharkiv, with about 1.4 million people before 2022, is the second city of Ukraine. Before 2014 Donetsk had around 900,000 residents and Luhansk around 400,000; both have been under occupation since then. Kramatorsk became the provisional administrative centre of Ukrainian-held Donetsk Oblast, and Sievierodonetsk served the same role for Luhansk Oblast until its capture in 2022.

The economy was built on coal, steel, chemicals and heavy engineering, with Kharkiv adding tractors, turbines, tanks, aircraft, IT and a large university sector. War has destroyed or closed much of this industry, including Mariupol's steelworks, and many mines have flooded. In Kharkiv, much of public life has moved underground, and underground schools have opened since 2024.

Daily life in Ukrainian-held towns is shaped by frequent attacks, damaged power and water supplies, curfews and repeated evacuations of families from front-line districts. Towns close to the fighting have been largely emptied, leaving mainly older residents. In the occupied areas, residents have been pressed to take Russian passports, men have been conscripted into Russian-controlled forces, and independent reporting is very limited.

Eastern cooking is plain, filling industrial-town food built on the Ukrainian staples: borscht, varenyky, holubtsi, potatoes, salo and dark bread, with Russian and Soviet dishes such as pelmeni dumplings and layered salads common in canteens and at family tables. Pork and chicken shashlyk grilled outdoors are the centre of summer weekends, and home preserving — pickled tomatoes and cucumbers, lecho pepper stew, jams — fills cellars in autumn.

The steppe grows wheat, sunflowers and melons, and sunflower seeds are a constant snack. The Azov coast had its own dishes from the region's Greek settlers, including meat pies, and the sea and rivers supplied gobies and other small fish, dried and salted to eat with beer. Kharkiv's markets and restaurants mixed all these influences with modern Ukrainian cooking.

The Donbas had notable drinks industries before the war: Bakhmut was home to a sparkling-wine producer that aged its bottles in old gypsum mines, and nearby Soledar mined rock salt sold across the country. Beer, kvas and horilka are the everyday drinks.

Kharkiv, in normal times the region's main destination, is built around Freedom Square, one of the largest city squares in Europe, and the constructivist Derzhprom beside it. The Karazin university, the Annunciation and Dormition cathedrals, Shevchenko Park, the Central Park (named after Gorky until 2023) and the Mirror Stream fountain are nearby. Much of the city has been damaged by shelling, drone and missile attacks since 2022.

Donetsk, a city of wide avenues and parks, and Luhansk, with its old foundry heritage and museum of the lexicographer Volodymyr Dal, who was born there, have been under occupation since 2014 and cannot be visited from Ukrainian-controlled territory. Other Donbas towns once visited for their industrial heritage and landscapes, including Mariupol on the Azov coast and the salt and wine town of Soledar and Bakhmut, have been devastated.

The region's best-known natural area is the Holy Mountains, a national park of chalk cliffs, pine and oak forest along the Siverskyi Donets, crowned by the Sviatohirsk Lavra and its cave churches; the monastery was damaged in the fighting of 2022. Further east, the reserves of the Luhansk Nature Reserve protect areas of steppe, but they lie in occupied territory.