This week in history

February 4, 1648. A liberation war began in Ukraine with the uprising of Zaporizhian Cossacks.

1945. The beginning of the Crimean Conference in Yalta, where the leaders of three countries (UK, US, and USSR) discussed the postwar world organization.

February 5, 1919. The last military unit of the Ukrainian Peoples’ Republic, sichovi striltsi (riflemen; part of the Austrian army before 1918) abandoned Kyiv. The city was occupied by the regiments of Mykola Shchors and Vasyl Bozhenko.

1977. Helsinki Group members Mykola Rudenko and Oleksa Tykhy were arrested.

February 6, 1919. The Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR sent a note of protest to the governments of Great Britain, the US, France, and Japan against their intervention into southern Ukraine.

1958. The Union of Film Directors was established in Ukraine.

February 7: 1919. The Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR decreed to form the “workers’ and peasants’ militia” (police).

1995. The Treaty On Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation was drafted in Kyiv.

February 8, 1994. Ukraine joined NATO’s Peace program in Brussels.

1995. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passed a law on nuclear energy utilization and radiological safeguards.

February 9, 1918. The Brest Litovsk peace treaty was signed, one of the positive results of which was recognition of Ukraine as an independent state by Germany, Austria, Turkey and Bulgaria.

1932. A resolution was passed to restructure the administrative and territorial division; establish oblasts, and adopt a three-tier system of government (center - oblast - district).

February 10, 1940. The first phase in the deportation of the Western Ukrainian population began, that affected lives of 220,000 people.

1940. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists was split into OUN- B, led by Stepan Bandera, and OUN-M, led by Andriy Melnyk.