Ukrainian Greeks

A Greek presence throughout the Black Sea area existed long before the beginnings of Kyivan Rus'.

These colonies traded with various ancient nations around the Black Sea, including Scythians, Maeotae, Cimmerians, Goths and predecessors of the Slavs.

The Urums and Rumaiic Pontic Greeks lived among the Crimean Tatars until the Russian Empire conquered the Crimea in 1783.

The Greeks of present-day Ukraine are mainly the descendants of various waves of especially Pontic Greek refugees and "economic migrants" who left the region of Pontus and the Pontic Alps in northeastern Anatolia between the fall of the Empire of Trebizond in 1461 and the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829, although some had settled in Ukraine in the late-19th or early-20th centuries.

Higher estimates such as 160,000[1] were reported previously, the fall being explained by assimilation forced by the Soviet government.

[5] One Greek expatriate was reported by AFP to have perished in eastern Ukraine, in which Greece had blamed it on Ukrainian soldiers.

[6][7] Following the Mariupol hospital airstrike, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted on 18 March 2022 that "Greece is ready to rebuild the maternity hospital in Mariupol, the center of the Greek minority in Ukraine, a city dear to our hearts and symbol of the barbarity of the war".

Greek colonies of the Northern Black Sea, 8th - 3rd century BCE
Greek Coin from Cherronesos in Crimea depicting Diotimus 2nd century BCE. ( Odesa Numismatics Museum )
Non-commissioned officers and men of the Greek Balaklava Infantry battalion , 1797-1830
Greeks in the Ukrainian SSR (1926)
Greeks in Donetsk Oblast (2001)