POLITICS
- Conventional Long Form Name: None
- Capital City: Kyiv (Kiev)
- Type of Government: Republic
- Date of Independence: 24 August 1991
- National Holidays: Independence Day, 24 August (1991); note - 22 January 1918, the day Ukraine first declared its independence (from Soviet Russia) and the day the short-lived Western and Greater (Eastern) Ukrainian republics united (1919), is now celebrated as Unity Day
Chief of State: President Viktor Yanukovych
Heads of Government
- Description of Executive Branch/Powers: President with Prime Ministers and a cabinet of other ministers. National Security and Defense Council tasked with developing national security policy on domestic and international matters and advising the president; a Presidential Administration helps draft presidential edicts and provides policy support to the president.
- Description of Legislative Branch/Powers: unicameral Supreme Council or Verkhovna Rada (450 seats; 50% of seats allocated on a proportional basis to those parties that gain 5% or more of the national electoral vote and 50% to members elected in single mandate districts; members serve five-year terms)
- Description of Judicial Branch/Powers: Supreme Court of Ukraine (consists of 95 judges organized into civil, criminal, commercial, and administrative chambers, and a military panel); Constitutional Court (consists of 18 justices). Supreme Court judges proposed by the Supreme Council of Justice or SCJ (a 20-member independent body of judicial officials and other appointees) and appointed by presidential decree; judges initially appointed for 5 years and, if approved by the SCJ, serve until mandatory retirement at age 65; Constitutional Court justices appointed - 6 each by the president, by the SCU, and by the Verkhovna Rada; justices appointed for 9-year non-renewable terms. Specialized high courts; Courts of Cassation; Courts of Appeal; regional, district, city, and town courts
- Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal
- Ukraine Ambassador in the US: Oleksandr Motsyk
- Ukraine Embassy in the US: 3350 M Street NW, Washington, DC 20007
- Ukraine Consulate(s): Chicago, New York, San Francisco
- Our ambassador to them: Geoffrey R. Pyatt
- US Embassy in Ukraine: 4 Igor Sikorsky Street, 04112 Kyiv
- US Consulates in Ukraine: N/A
- Ukraine Representative to UN: Yuriy Serheyev
Two equal horizontal bands of azure (top) and golden yellow represent grain fields under a blue sky
- National Symbol(s): Trident
- Description of International Disputes: Refugees and internally displaced persons, illicit drugs, and trafficking in persons
- Quantities of refugees and country(ies) of origin of refugees: N/A
- Quantity of Internally Displaced Persons: N/A
- Quantity of Stateless Persons: 35,000
- Description of current human trafficking issues related to this country: Ukraine is a source, transit, and, increasingly, destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking, Ukraine does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so
- Description of Illicit Drug trafficking/use: limited cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy, mostly for CIS consumption; some synthetic drug production for export to the West