History of the Russian language in Ukraine

The first known mention of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine refer to a small ethnic sub-group of Russians known as the Goriuns who resided in Putyvl region (what is modern northern Ukraine). These mentions date back to 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: the migration of ethnic Russians into what later becmae Ukraine and through the adoption of the Russian language as a language of communication by Ukrainians.

The first waves of Russian settlers onto what became Ukrainian territory came in the late 16th century to the area known as Slobozhanschyna or Sloboda Ukraina, in what is now northeastern Ukraine. This territory was settled after being abandoned by the Tatars. Russian settlers however were outnumbered by Ukrainian settlers who were escaping harsh exploitative conditions in the west.

More Russian speakers appeared in the northern, central and eastern territories that are now Ukraine during the late 17th century, following the Cossack Rebellion (1648–1657) which Bohdan Khmelnytsky led against Poland. The Khmelnytsky Uprising led to a massive movement of Ukrainian settlers to the Slobozhanschyna region, which converted it from a sparsely inhabited frontier area to one of the major populated regions of the Tsardom of Russia. Following the Pereyaslav Rada of 1654 the parts which were under the Cossack Hetmanate (a predecessor of modern Ukraine entered the Russian Tsardom. This brought significant, but still small, wave of Russian settlers into what is now central Ukraine (primarily several thousand soldiers stationed in garrisons, out of a population of approximately 1.2 million non-Russians).

Beginning in the late 18th century, large numbers of Russians settled in newly acquired lands in what is now southern Ukraine, a region then known as Novorossiya ("New Russia"). These lands had been largely empty prior to the 18th century due to the threat of Crimean Tatar raids, but once Russia had eliminated the Tatar state as a threat, Russian nobles were granted large tracts of fertile land that was worked by newly arrived peasants, most of whom were ethnic Ukrainians but many of whom were Russians.

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