Vocabulary notes

constitutional composition	конституційний склад
suffrage	виборче право
secret ballot	таємне голосування
to adopt	приймати, затверджувати
to take the oath	присягати
to be a guarantor of state sovereignty	бути гарантом державного суверенітету
the observance of the Constitution	дотримання Конституції
to enjoy the right of immunity	користуватися правом недоторканності
to be mandatory for execution	бути обов’язковим для виконання
with the consent	за пропозицією/за поданням
to appoint	призначати
local state administrations	місцеві державні адміністрації
to administer	виконувати
in accordance with	згідно з
to operate	діяти
determined by law	визначений законом

Ukraine

Ukraine is an independent country in Eastern Europe with 47 million people and an area of 603,700 km [ 233,200 sq. miles]. It is larger than France and is fifth in Europe for population. Ukraine's territory is so large that you could easily fit into its area eight countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Hungary and Albania. The capital of Ukraine is Kiev [Kyiv] with 3 million population.

In ancient times Ukraine was named Scythia and the legendary Amazons lived here. Ukrainian wheat fed ancient Greece and since then Ukraine has been known as the 'breadbasket of Europe'. The medieval kingdom of Kiev Rus was the largest in Europe a thousand years ago and the Kiev royal family intermarried with the royal families of France, Hungary, Byzantium, Poland, Germany and Scandinavia. The Ukrainian princess Anna Yaroslavna was Queen of France in the 11^th century. Even Queen Elizabeth II has a Ukrainian ancestor, King Vladimir Monomakh. The Ukrainian slave girl Roxolana became the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent of the Turkish Empire.

Kiev was one of Europe's greatest cities and St. Sophia Cathedral [1036 A.D. ] is a century older than Notre Dame of Paris. In 1187 the name Ukraine, meaning borderland, was first used to designate Southern Rus below Kiev. In 1240 the Mongol-Tatar armies, founded originally by Genghis Khan, captured Kiev and ended the existence of the state of Rus or Ruthenia. In the last 759 years up to 1999 Ukraine has only known 21 years of independence because it fell under Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Austrian, Hungarian and German rule over the centuries.

In World War II [ 1941-1945 ] Ukraine lost 10 million population including 8 million killed and over 2 million young Ukrainian ostarbeiter slave labourers taken to Germany and whose fate is mostly unknown. In spite of the Kaganovich 1933 famine genocide and the war Ukraine became a highly industrialized country. For example, the first computer in Europe [ and second after the USA ] was built in Kiev. The Ukrainian scientist Serhiy Korolev built the world's first ICBM and was the genius who conquered space. He put Sputnik in space, the first man in space and was the first to hit the Moon with a rocket. NASA used the theory of the Ukrainian Yuri Kondratiuk to land the first-man on the Moon. Both Korolev and Kondratiuk have their Ukrainian names on craters on the far side of the Moon.

Ukrainian American Igor Sikorsky, the inventor of the helicopter, built his first two helicopters as a young man in his hometown Kiev. In March 1999 the Sea Launch project of Boeing successfully launched a Ukrainian Zenit rocket into space from the equator in the Pacific Ocean and is scheduled to use many more Ukrainian rockets to place satellites in space. The world's largest rocket factory, of which Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma was CEO, is located in Dnipropetrovsk. It has had over 100 rockets successfully launched into space .