List of Ukrainian rulers

This list encompasses all rulers and leaders of what is today Ukraine, from ancient to modern times.

The term "Ukrainians" is used according to the modern definition of "the inhabitants of the land Ukraine" not just those who identify with the ethnic group. This list includes only local rulers whose seat of power was located in the modern Ukraine and only the rulers whose power was derived directly from the people of the territory at the time, and does not include the governors who received their authority from some foreign powers (as during Lithuanian, Polish, Hungarian, Austrian, Russian, Czechoslovakian and Romanian overlordship).

This is not a list of sovereigns. Throughout its history the territory of modern Ukraine had various forms of governance from monarchies to democratic republics.

Scythia was a loose state that originated as early as the 8th century BC. Little is known of them and their rulers. Most detailed description came down to us from Herodotus.

The shores of Crimea were settled by Greeks since the 7th century BC. The kingdom was established around 480 BC. It was ruled by three consecutive dynasties: Archaenactidae (480 BC – 438 BC), Spartocids (438 BC – 108 BC), and Pontids (108 BC – 16 BC). After Pontids the territory became a Roman client kingdom.

Pontids

In Eastern Europe the The Great Migration Period kicked off with the descent of the Goths from the Baltic region into the territory of modern Ukraine, about AD 200. They either took over or assimilated with the local Slavic tribes. The Goths were in turn pushed out by aggressively encroaching Huns, about 375. The Goths went on to conquer Southern Europe and the Huns moved to the Balkans and created a Hunnic Empire which lasted for a hundred years. After splitting of the Empire, some of the Huns moved back north in the territories of modern Ukraine and formed Patria Onoguria, now known as Old Great Bulgaria. In the 7th century Onoguria largely defected to Khazaria – an expanding Turkic state centered in the North Caucuses which controlled the Eurasian steppe until the 9th century.

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Wikipedia