Most viewed Wikipedia articles on February 25 , 2022

On 24 February 2022, Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, its neighbour to the southwest, marking a major escalation of the Russo‑Ukrainian War that had been ongoing since 2014. The campaign was preceded by a prolonged Russian military buildup since early 2021, and demands by Russia to legally prohibit Ukraine from joining NATO, an alliance of European states with the U.S. and Canada. Days prior to the invasion, Russia recognised of two self-proclaimed Ukrainian states, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, followed by an incursion of the Russian Armed Forces to the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine on 21 February.

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and north-east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west; and Romania, Moldova, Crimea, and the Black Sea to the south. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km² (233,062 sq mi), and is the second-largest country in Europe after Russia. Excluding Crimea, Ukraine has a population of about 42 million, making it the eighth-most populous country in Europe. Its capital and largest city is Kyiv.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and a former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, previously being in the office from 1999 until 2008. He was also Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012.

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy is a Ukrainian politician and former actor and comedian and who is the sixth and current president of Ukraine.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 European and North American countries. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. NATO constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's Headquarters are located in Evere, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons, Belgium.

The Russo-Ukrainian War is a protracted conflict between Russia and Ukraine that began in February 2014. The war has centered around the status of the Ukrainian regions of Crimea and Donbass.

NATO is an international alliance that consists of 30 member states from North America and Europe. It was established at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Article Five of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it shall be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary.

Ketanji Brown Jackson is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

The Battle of Snake Island took place on 24 February 2022 in Snake Island during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black, Azov, and Caspian seas in the south. Russia covers over 17,125,191 square kilometres (6,612,073 sq mi), stretching more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area, with eleven time zones, and bordering 16 sovereign nations. Moscow is the country's capital and largest city, while Saint Petersburg is the second-largest city.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a federal socialist state in Northern Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, it was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian SFSR. Other major urban centers were Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Tashkent, Alma-Ata and Novosibirsk. It was the largest country in the world by surface area, spanning over 10,000 kilometers (6,200 mi) east to west across 11 time zones and over 7,200 kilometers (4,500 mi) north to south. Its territory included much of Eastern Europe, parts of Northern Europe, and all of Northern and Central Asia. Its five climate zones were tundra, taiga, steppes, desert, and mountains. Its diverse population was collectively known as Soviet people.

Kyiv or Kiev is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. Its population in July 2015 was 2,887,974, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe.

Sally Clare Kellerman is an American actress, activist, author, producer, singer, and voice artist.

Anna Vadimovna Sorokina is a Russian-born fraudster. She moved to New York City in 2013 and created the fictitious identity of Anna Delvey, pretending to be a wealthy German heiress. In 2019, she was convicted of multiple counts of attempted grand larceny, theft of services, and larceny in the second degree for defrauding New York hotels and wealthy acquaintances.

The Ghost of Kyiv is an urban legend as the nickname given to an unconfirmed MiG-29 Fulcrum flying ace who is credited with shooting down six Russian planes in the Kyiv Offensive on 24 February 2022. It is unlikely that the Ghost of Kyiv is a real flying ace, but their status was credited as a major morale boost for the Ukrainian population.

Elden Ring is an upcoming action role-playing game developed by FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The game is a collaborative effort between game director Hidetaka Miyazaki and fantasy novelist George R. R. Martin and is scheduled for release on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

The Chernobyl disaster was caused by a nuclear accident that occurred on Saturday 26 April 1986, at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history and was caused by one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.

Snake Island, also known as Serpent Island, is an island belonging to Ukraine located in the Black Sea, near the Danube Delta, with an important role in delimiting Ukrainian territorial waters.

Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Ocheretnaya is the former wife of Vladimir Putin, the current President and former Prime Minister of Russia.

Russia–Ukraine relations refers to the relations between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Currently, the two countries are engaged in the Russo-Ukrainian War which started in 2014 following the Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

The President of Ukraine is the Ukrainian head of state. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties. The president is directly elected by the citizens of Ukraine for a five-year term of office, limited to two terms consecutively.

Vitali Volodymyrovych Klitschko is a Ukrainian politician and former professional boxer. He currently serves as Mayor of Kyiv and head of the Kyiv City State Administration, having held both offices since June 2014. Klitschko is a former leader of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and a former Member of the Ukrainian Parliament. He became actively involved in Ukrainian politics in 2005 and combined this with his professional boxing career until his retirement from the sport in 2013.

Maria Vorontsova, also referred to as Maria Faassen, is a Russian pediatric endocrinologist. She is the eldest daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis is an ongoing military confrontation and international crisis between Russia and Ukraine that started on March 3, 2021, and escalated in late 2021, when NATO denied the Kremlin "guarantees of Ukraine's non-accession". The crisis has caused international tension, also involving NATO, the United States, the European Union, the Lublin Triangle, the Union State, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the CSTO.

Olena Volodymyrivna Zelenska is the current First Lady of Ukraine as the wife of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth President of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019.

Crimea is a peninsula located on the northern coast of the Black Sea in Eastern Europe that is almost completely surrounded by both the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov to the northeast. The status of Crimea is disputed. It is claimed by Ukraine and recognized as Ukrainian by most other countries, although it has been administered by Russia following its annexation to the country in 2014. Crimea is located south of the Ukrainian region of Kherson, to which it is connected by the Isthmus of Perekop, and west of the Russian region of Kuban, from which it is separated by the Strait of Kerch though linked by the Crimean Bridge since 2018. The Arabat Spit is located to the northeast, a narrow strip of land that separates a system of lagoons named Sivash from the Sea of Azov. Across the Black Sea to its west is Romania, and to its south, Turkey.

Relations between Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) started in 1992. Ukraine applied to begin a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) in 2008. Plans for NATO membership were shelved by Ukraine following the 2010 presidential election in which Viktor Yanukovych, who preferred to keep the country non-aligned, was elected President. Amid the Euromaidan unrest, Yanukovych fled Ukraine in February 2014. The interim Yatseniuk Government which came to power initially said, with reference to the country's non-aligned status, that it had no plans to join NATO. However, following the Russian military invasion in Ukraine and parliamentary elections in October 2014, the new government made joining NATO a priority. On 21 February 2019, the Constitution of Ukraine was amended, the norms on the strategic course of Ukraine for membership in the European Union and NATO are enshrined in the preamble of the Basic Law, three articles and transitional provisions.

The Crimean Peninsula, north of the Black Sea in Eastern Europe, was annexed by the Russian Federation between February and March 2014 and since then has been administered as two Russian federal subjects—the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol. The annexation from Ukraine followed a Russian military intervention in Crimea that took place in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and was part of wider unrest across southern and eastern Ukraine.

Katerina Tikhonova is a Russian acrobatic dancer, and director of two initiatives at Moscow State University: the National Intellectual Development Foundation (NIDF) and the National Intellectual Reserve Centre (NIRC). She is the second daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The number of deaths in the Russo-Ukrainian War has climbed into the thousands, with almost all of them occurring during the war in Donbas.

World War III and the Third World War are names given to a hypothetical third worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and II. The term has been in use since at least as early as 1941. Some have applied it loosely to refer to limited or smaller conflicts such as the Cold War or the War on Terror, while others assumed that such a conflict would surpass prior world wars both in its scope and in its destructive impact.

Azov Special Operations Detachment, often known as Azov Detachment, Azov Regiment, or Azov Battalion, is a right-wing extremist and Neo-Nazi Ukrainian National Guard unit, based in Mariupol, in the Azov Sea coastal region. It saw its first combat experience recapturing Mariupol from pro-Russian separatists forces in June 2014. Azov initially formed as a volunteer militia on 5 May 2014 during the Ukrainian crisis. On 12 November 2014, Azov was incorporated into the National Guard of Ukraine, and since then all members are contract soldiers serving in the National Guard of Ukraine.

Prehistoric Ukraine, as part of the Pontic steppe, played an important role in Eurasian cultural contacts, including the spread of the Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age, Indo-European expansion and the domestication of the horse.

Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus and formerly known as Byelorussia or Belorussia, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) is forested. Its major economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. Until the 20th century, different states at various times controlled the lands of modern-day Belarus, including Kievan Rus', the Principality of Polotsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire.

Cleopatra VII Philopator was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. As a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. After the death of Cleopatra, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the second to last Hellenistic state and the age that had lasted since the reign of Alexander. Her native language was Koine Greek, and she was the only Ptolemaic ruler to learn the Egyptian language.

Wladimir Wladimirowitsch Klitschko is a Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2017. He held the world heavyweight championship twice, including the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, IBO, and Ring magazine titles. A strategic and intelligent boxer, Klitschko is considered to be one of the best heavyweight champions of all time. He was known for his exceptional knockout power, using a strong jab, straight right hand and left hook, as well as great footwork and mobility, unusual for boxers of his size.

This is a list of military engagements during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine encompassing land, naval, and air engagements as well as campaigns, operations, defensive lines and sieges. Campaigns generally refer to broader strategic operations conducted over a large territory and over a long period. Battles generally refer to short periods of intense combat localised to a specific area and over a specific period. However, use of the terms in naming such events is not consistent.

Chechnya, officially the Chechen Republic, is a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, close to the Caspian Sea. The republic is part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with the country of Georgia to its south; and borders the Russian republics of Dagestan to its east and north, Ingushetia and North Ossetia–Alania to its west; while sharing a border with Stavropol Krai to its northwest.

Eight sovereign states have publicly announced successful detonation of nuclear weapons. Five are considered to be nuclear-weapon states (NWS) under the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In order of acquisition of nuclear weapons these are the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China.

The war in Donbas, or the Donbas war, is an armed conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine, part of the Ukrainian crisis and the broader Russo-Ukrainian War. From the beginning of March 2014, in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and the Euromaidan movement, protests by Russia-backed anti-government separatist groups took place in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine, collectively called the Donbas region. These demonstrations, which followed the February–March 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and which were part of a wider group of concurrent protests across southern and eastern Ukraine, escalated into an armed conflict between the separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, and the Ukrainian government. While the initial protests were largely native expressions of discontent with the new Ukrainian government, Russia took advantage of them to launch a co-ordinated political and military campaign against Ukraine. Russian citizens led the separatist movement in Donetsk from April until August 2014, and were supported by volunteers and materiel from Russia. As the conflict escalated in May 2014, Russia employed a "hybrid approach", deploying a combination of disinformation tactics, irregular fighters, regular Russian troops, and conventional military support to destabilise the Donbas region. According to the Ukrainian government, at the height of the conflict in the summer of 2014, Russian paramilitaries were reported to make up between 15% to 80% of the combatants.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), legally S.W.I.F.T. SCRL, is a Belgian cooperative society that serves as an intermediary and executor of financial transactions between banks worldwide. It also sells software and services to financial institutions, mostly for use on its proprietary "SWIFTNet", and ISO 9362 Business Identifier Codes (BICs), popularly known as "SWIFT codes". Swift Transfer is also called International Money Transfer.

Gangubai Kathiawadi is an upcoming Indian Hindi-language biographical crime film based on a chapter of Hussain Zaidi's book Mafia Queens of Mumbai about Gangubai Kothewali, the madam of a brothel in Kamathipura, and directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The film stars Alia Bhatt as Gangubai, while Shantanu Maheshwari, Vijay Raaz and Seema Pahwa play supporting roles, with special cameos by Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi and Huma Qureshi.

The following notable deaths occurred in 2022. Names are reported under the date of death, in alphabetical order. A typical entry reports information in the following sequence:

• Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent nationality, what subject was noted for, cause of death, and reference.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine is the military of Ukraine. They are the principal deterrent force against any aggression that could be shown against the sovereign state of Ukraine. All military and security forces, including the Armed Forces, are under the command of the President of Ukraine, and subject to oversight by a permanent Verkhovna Rada parliamentary commission.

The Russo-Georgian War was a war between Georgia, Russia and the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The war took place in August 2008 following a period of worsening relations between Russia and Georgia, both formerly constituent republics of the Soviet Union. The fighting took place in the strategically important Transcaucasia region. It was regarded as the first European war of the 21st century.

Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a Ukrainian politician who served as the fourth President of Ukraine. After rejecting the Ukrainian-European Association Agreement, Yanukovych was ousted from office in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. He currently lives in exile in Russia.

Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is a Russian politician serving as Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia since 2020. Medvedev served as President of Russia from 2008 to 2012 and Prime Minister to Vladimir Putin from 2012 to 2020.

Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko or Alyaksandr Ryhoravich Lukashenka is a Belarusian politician and army officer who has served as the first and only president of Belarus since the establishment of the office 26 years ago, on 20 July 1994. Before launching his political career, Lukashenko worked as director of a state farm (sovkhoz), and served in the Soviet Border Troops and in the Soviet Army.

The Battle of Chernobyl was a military confrontation in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone between the Russian Armed Forces and the Ukrainian Armed Forces, starting on 24 February 2022, during the first day of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian forces, who invaded from the country of Belarus, seized the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant area by the end of that day.

The Battle of Antonov Airport, also known as the Battle of Hostomel Airport, was a battle which took place on 24 and 25 February 2022, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Two waves of Russian forces attacked Antonov Airport in Hostomel. The first wave, consisting of Russian paratroopers, landed on 24 February and briefly occupied the airport before being defeated. The second wave, consisting of Russian ground forces advancing from Belarus, seized the airport after a skirmish on 25 February.

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. In a state of total war, directly involving more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, resulting in 70 to 85 million fatalities, with more civilians than military personnel killed. Tens of millions of people died due to genocides, premeditated death from starvation, massacres, and disease. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, including in strategic bombing of population centres, the development of nuclear weapons, and the only two uses of such in war.

The Mikoyan MiG-29 is a twin-engine jet fighter aircraft designed in the Soviet Union. Developed by the Mikoyan design bureau as an air superiority fighter during the 1970s, the MiG-29, along with the larger Sukhoi Su-27, was developed to counter new U.S. fighters such as the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle and the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. The MiG-29 entered service with the Soviet Air Forces in 1982.

The Bible is a collection of religious texts or scriptures sacred to Christians, Jews, Samaritans, Rastafari and others. It appears in the form of an anthology, a compilation of texts of a variety of forms that are all linked by the belief that they are collectively revelations of God. These texts include theologically-focused historical accounts, hymns, prayers, proverbs, parables, didactic letters, erotica, poetry, and prophecies. Believers also generally consider the Bible to be a product of divine inspiration.

Anonymous is a decentralized international activist/hacktivist collective/movement widely known for its various cyber attacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations, and the Church of Scientology.

Valimai (transl. Strength) is an upcoming Indian Tamil-language action thriller film written and directed by H. Vinoth and produced by Boney Kapoor under Bayview Projects LLP. The film stars Ajith Kumar, Huma Qureshi, Pearle Maaney and Kartikeya Gummakonda. The film's music is composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, whilst cinematography performed by Nirav Shah.

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, officially the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant, is a closed nuclear power plant located near the abandoned city of Pripyat in northern Ukraine, 16.5 kilometers (10 mi) northwest of the city of Chernobyl, 16 kilometers (10 mi) from the Belarus–Ukraine border, and about 100 kilometers (62 mi) north of Kyiv. The plant was cooled by an engineered pond, which is fed by the Pripyat River about 5 kilometers (3 mi) northwest from its juncture with the Dnieper.

Transnistria, Transdniestria, or Pridnestrovie, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, is a breakaway state in the narrow strip of land between the river Dniester and the Ukrainian border that is internationally recognized as part of Moldova. Its capital is Tiraspol. Transnistria has been recognised only by three other mostly non-recognised states: Abkhazia, Artsakh, and South Ossetia.

The president of the Russian Federation, is the head of state of the Russian Federation, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Russian Armed Forces. It is the highest office in Russia.

Loretta Jane Swit is an American stage and television actress known for her character roles. Swit is best known for her portrayal of Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on M*A*S*H, for which she won two Emmy Awards.

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Russian and former Soviet politician who served as the first President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. A member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1990, he later stood as a political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with liberalism and Russian nationalism.

The Revolution of Dignity, also known as the Maidan revolution, took place in Ukraine in February 2014 at the end of the Euromaidan protests, when a series of violent events involving protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv culminated in the ousting of elected president Viktor Yanukovych and the overthrow of the Ukrainian government.

This timeline is a dynamic list, and as such may never satisfy criteria of completeness. Furthermore, please note that some events may only be fully understood and/or discovered in retrospect.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a Russian and former Soviet politician. The eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, he was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. He was also the country's head of state from 1988 until 1991, serving as the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990, and president of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991. Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism, although he had moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s.

The Ukrainian Air Force is a part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Air Force headquarters is located in the city of Vinnytsia. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, many aircraft were left on Ukrainian territory. Ever since, the Ukrainian Air Force has been downsizing and upgrading its forces. The main inventory of the air force still consists of Soviet-made aircraft. Currently 36,300 personnel and 225 aircraft are in service in the Ukrainian Air Force and Air Defense forces.

The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances refers to three identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary on 5 December 1994 to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers: the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. China and France gave somewhat weaker individual assurances in separate documents.

A Molotov cocktail, also known as a petrol bomb, gasoline bomb, bottle bomb, poor man's grenade, fire bomb, fire bottle or just Molotov, sometimes shortened as Molly, is a generic name used for a variety of bottle-based improvised incendiary weapons.

The Donbas or Donbass is a historical, cultural, and economic region in south-eastern Ukraine. The word Donbas is a portmanteau formed from Donets Basin, an abbreviation of "Donets Coal Basin". The name of the coal basin is a reference to the Donets Ridge, the latter is associated with the river Donets. Multiple definitions of the region's extent exist.

Bheemla Nayak is an upcoming Indian Telugu-language action thriller film directed by Saagar K. Chandra with the screenplay written by Trivikram Srinivas. It is a remake of the 2020 Malayalam film Ayyappanum Koshiyum by Sachy. Produced by Suryadevara Naga Vamsi of Sithara Entertainments, the film stars Pawan Kalyan, Rana Daggubati, Nithya Menen, and Aishwarya Rajesh.

During the Kyiv Offensive of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian ground forces entered Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine and engaged Ukrainian forces in battle. Russia aims to dominate the capital of Ukraine in which Ukraine's military command and political government is based.

YouTube is an American online video-sharing platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service, created in February 2005 by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—was bought by Google in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion and now operates as one of the company's subsidiaries. YouTube is the second most-visited website in the world after Google Search, according to Alexa Internet rankings.

The Donetsk People's Republic is a self-proclaimed state in the eastern Ukrainian Oblast of Donetsk. The proto-state is recognised only by the partially recognised South Ossetia and Russian-backed proto-state Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). The capital city and largest city within the DPR is Donetsk. The current head of state is Denis Pushilin.

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and the United States and their respective allies, the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc, after World War II. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but the period is generally considered to span the 1947 Truman Doctrine to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by the two powers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany in 1945. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD) discouraged a pre-emptive attack by either side. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events and technological competitions such as the Space Race.

The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad, are the 15 sovereign states that were union republics of the Soviet Union; that emerged and re-emerged from the Soviet Union following its dissolution in 1991.

Hayden Lesley Panettiere is an American actress, model, and singer. She is best known for her starring role as Claire Bennet on the NBC superhero series Heroes (2006–2010) and Juliette Barnes in the ABC/CMT musical drama series Nashville (2012–18), the latter of which earned her two nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film.

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly known as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military forces of the Russian Federation, established after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union (1988–1991) was the process of internal disintegration within the USSR, which began with growing unrest in its various constituent republics developing into an incessant political and legislative conflict between the republics and the central government, and ended when the leaders of three primal republics declared it no longer existed, later accompanied by 11 more republics, resulting in President Mikhail Gorbachev having to resign and what was left of the Soviet parliament formally acknowledging what had already taken place.

Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The capital city is Chișinău.

Euphoria is an American teen drama television series created and written by Sam Levinson for HBO, loosely based on the Israeli miniseries of the same name. It follows a group of high school students through their experiences of sex, drugs, friendships, love, identity and trauma. The series stars Zendaya in the lead role, alongside an ensemble cast consisting of Maude Apatow, Angus Cloud, Eric Dane, Alexa Demie, Jacob Elordi, Barbie Ferreira, Nika King, Storm Reid, Hunter Schafer, Algee Smith, Sydney Sweeney, and Colman Domingo. It premiered on June 16, 2019. In July 2019, the series was renewed for a second season, to be preceded by two one-hour specials in December 2020 and January 2021.

Inventing Anna is an upcoming American drama streaming television miniseries created and produced by Shonda Rhimes, based on the New York article "How Anna (Sorokin) Delvey Tricked New York's Party People" by Jessica Pressler. The series is set to premiere on Netflix on February 11, 2022. Julia Garner stars in the titular role.

Religion in Ukraine is diverse, with a majority of the population adhering to Christianity. A 2018 survey conducted by the Razumkov Centre found that 71.7% of the population declared themselves believers. About 67.3% of the population declared adherence to one or another strand of Orthodox Christianity, 7.7% 'Christian' with no declared denominational affiliation, 9.4% Ukrainian Byzantine Rite Catholics, 2.2% Protestants and 0.8% Latin Rite Catholics, 2.5 % Islam, Judaism was 0.4%; while a small percentage follow Hinduism, Buddhism and Paganism (Rodnovery). A further 11.0% declared themselves non-religious or unaffiliated. According to the surveys conducted by Razumkov in the 2000s and early 2010s, such proportions have remained relatively constant throughout the last decade, while the proportion of believers overall has decreased from 76% in 2014 to 70% in 2016 and 72% in 2018.

The Battle of Kyiv is an ongoing military battle that is taking place as a part of Russia's Kyiv Offensive during its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

NATO maintains foreign relations with many non-member countries across the globe. NATO runs a number of programs which provide a framework for the partnerships between itself and these non-member nations, typically based on that country's location. These include the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council and the Partnership for Peace.

Alina Maratovna Kabaeva is a Russian politician, model, actress, retired individual rhythmic gymnast, and Honored Master of Sports.

Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the east by Azerbaijan, and to the south by Armenia and Turkey. The capital and largest city is Tbilisi. Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres (26,911 sq mi), and its approximate population is about 3.718 million. Georgia is a unitary parliamentary republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy.

The Moscow Kremlin, or simply the Kremlin, is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River to the south, Saint Basil's Cathedral and Red Square to the east, and the Alexander Garden to the west. It is the best known of the kremlins, and includes five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Kremlin Wall with Kremlin towers. In addition, within this complex is the Grand Kremlin Palace that was formerly the Tsar's Moscow residence. The complex now serves as the official residence of the President of the Russian Federation and as a museum with almost 3 million visitors in 2017.

The FGM-148 Javelin is an American man-portable fire-and-forget anti-tank missile fielded to replace the M47 Dragon anti-tank missile in US service. It uses automatic infrared guidance that allows the user to seek cover immediately after launch, as opposed to wire-guided systems, like the Dragon, which require the user to actively guide the weapon throughout the engagement. The Javelin's HEAT warhead is capable of defeating modern tanks by attacking them from above where their armor is thinnest, and is also useful against fortifications in a direct attack flight.

World War I was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously known as the Great War or "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated 9 million combatant deaths and 13 million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the related 1918 Spanish flu pandemic caused another 17–100 million deaths worldwide, including an estimated 2.64 million Spanish flu deaths in Europe and as many as 675,000 Spanish flu deaths in the United States.

The Sukhoi Su-27 is a Soviet-origin twin-engine supermaneuverable fighter aircraft designed by Sukhoi. It was intended as a direct competitor for the large United States fourth-generation fighters such as the Grumman F-14 Tomcat and F-15 Eagle, with 3,530-kilometre (1,910 nmi) range, heavy aircraft ordnance, sophisticated avionics and high maneuverability. The Su-27 was designed for air superiority missions, and subsequent variants are able to perform almost all aerial warfare operations. It was designed with the Mikoyan MiG-29 as its complement.

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet politician who ruled the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. During his years in power, he served as both General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (1941–1953). Despite initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he ultimately consolidated power to become the Soviet Union's de facto dictator by the 1930s. A communist ideologically committed to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, Stalin formalised these ideas as Marxism–Leninism while his own policies are known as Stalinism.

The Minsk agreements were a series of international agreements which sought to end the war in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The actual number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ace are varied, but is usually considered to be five or more.

Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. Neighbouring countries include the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. The main island of Taiwan has an area of 35,808 square kilometres (13,826 sq mi), with mountain ranges dominating the eastern two-thirds and plains in the western third, where its highly urbanised population is concentrated. Taipei is the capital as well as the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Other major cities include New Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, Tainan and Taoyuan. With 23.57 million inhabitants, Taiwan is among the most densely populated countries.

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky, officially Zelenskyi, is the 6th and current president of Ukraine.

Gangubai Kothewali was a sex worker, and the madam of a brothel in Kamathipura, Maharashtra, India in the 1960s.

Russian oligarchs are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth during the era of Russian privatization in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested, which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials as a means to acquire state property. Historian Edward L. Keenan has drawn a comparison between the current Russian phenomenon of oligarchs and the system of powerful boyars which emerged in late-Medieval Muscovy.

Prior to 1991, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and had Soviet nuclear weapons in its territory.

Kanye Omari West is an American rapper, record producer, and fashion designer. He has been influential in the 21st-century development of mainstream hip hop and popular music in general.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States, or America, is a country primarily located in North America, consisting of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, it is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area. With a population of more than 328 million people, it is the third most populous country in the world. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City.

Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on the night of 21 November 2013 with public protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv. The protests were sparked by the Ukrainian government's decision to suspend the signing of an association agreement with the European Union, instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. The scope of the protests soon widened, with calls for the resignation of President Viktor Yanukovych and his government. The protests were fueled by the perception of "widespread government corruption", "abuse of power", and "violation of human rights in Ukraine". Transparency International named President Yanukovych as the top example of corruption in the world. The situation escalated after the violent dispersal of protesters on 30 November, leading to many more protesters joining. The protests led to the 2014 Ukrainian revolution.