Modern history of Ukraine local elite. Many members of the Soviet leadership came from Ukraine, most notably Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev a Soviet leader from 1964 to 1982, as well as many prominent Soviet sportsmen, scientists and artists. In 1954, the Russian-populated oblast of Crimea was transferred from the Russian to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. However, the relatively underdeveloped industrial branches such as coal- and iron ore mining, metallurgy, chemical and energy industry dominated the republic's economy. Once a Cossack steppe, the southern oblasts of Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia were turned into a highly industrialised area with rapidly increasing impact on its environment and
Russian language in Ukraine the ancestors of a small ethnic group of Russians - Goriuns resided in Putyvl region (what is modern northern Ukraine) in the times of Grand Duchy of Lithuania or perhaps even earlier, the Russian language in Ukraine has primarily come to exist in that country through two channels: through the migration of ethnic Russians into Ukraine and through the adoption of the Russian language by Ukrainians. The first new waves of Russian settlers onto what is now Ukrainian territory came in the late 16th century to the empty lands of Slobozhanshchyna that Russia gained from the Tatars, although Ukrainian peasants