Overall, 77.8% of Ukraine's population self-identified as ethnically Ukrainian and 17.3% as ethnically Russian. Several other ethnic groups amounted to less than one percent of the country's population each – for example, Crimean Tatars 0.5%; Bulgarians 0.4%; Hungarians 0.3%; Jews 0.2%; Roma 0.1%.
Russians continue to be the largest minority, though they now constitute less than one-fifth of the population.
In Ukraine, the Ukrainians are the ethnic majority throughout the country, except in Crimea and the northeast. In these areas, Russians, the second largest overall ethnic group, are the majority, though Crimean Tatars make up a sizable minority in Crimea.
Main languages: Ukrainian, Russian. Main religions: Christianity (Orthodox and Uniate Catholic). As recorded in the 2001 census, the main minority groups include Russians 8,334,100 (17.3%), Belarusians 275,800 (0.6%), Moldovans 258,600 (0.5%), Crimean Tatars 248,200 (0.5%) and Bulgarians 204,600 (0.4%).
According to geneticists, "Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians have almost identical proportions of Caucasus and Northern European components and have virtually no Asian influence".
The history of Ukrainian nationality can be traced back to the kingdom of Kievan Rus' of the 9th to 12th centuries. It was the predecessor state to what would eventually become the Eastern Slavic nations of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.
Overall, 77.8% of Ukraine's population self-identified as ethnically Ukrainian and 17.3% as ethnically Russian.
The M.V. Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Research of the National Academy of Sciences ("Institute") published a study on the impact of COVID-19 on poverty. According to its results, by the end of 2020, 45% of the population of Ukraine fell into the poor category.
The law identifies the Crimean Tatars, Crimean Karaites, and Krymchaks as indigenous peoples of Ukraine.
The sex ratio of the total population was 0.852 (852 males per 1,000 females) which is lower than global sex ratio. The global sex ratio in the world was approximately 1,016 males to 1,000 females as of 2022. Below are the key figures for Ukraine population in 2022: 469,842 live births.
While the majority of Ukrainians practice some form of Christian Orthodoxy, a minority of Ukrainians practice Ukrainian Greek-Catholicism, a denomination that combines Byzantine religious rite, Catholic faith, and Ukrainian culture.
Ukraine ranked 62nd in the survey of Quality of Life Index for Country 2019, which annually compiles the Numbeo service. As a result of using these metrics, we have standardized values of quality of life for comparison and ranking. The assessment includes the factors that affect the outcome differently.
Ukraine is an overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian nation, with nearly eight-in-ten adults (78%) identifying as Orthodox (compared with 71% in Russia), according to a 2015 Pew Research Center survey of much of the country (some contested areas in eastern Ukraine were not surveyed).
Language and daily life
As of 2022, 81% of the population of Ukraine speak the Ukrainian language in their personal life, at the same time 34% speak Russian, meaning that significant portion of Ukrainian residents constituting 19% of people speak both languages regularly.
Ukrainian, the official language, belongs with Russian and Belarusian to the East Slavic branch of the Slavic language family. Ukrainian is closely related to Russian but also has distinct similarities to the Polish language.
According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, 67.5% of Ukrainians (citizens of Ukraine) and 85.2% of ethnic Ukrainians named Ukrainian as their mother-tongue, and 14.8% named Russian as their mother-tongue. This census does not cover Ukrainians living in other countries.
Though Russia's Indigenous peoples only make up 0.2% of the total population, or 250,000 people total, they inhabit about 2/3 of Russia's territory. The Indigenous peoples of Russia are so varied and diverse that it would be a disservice to try and provide a cultural overview.
Since the Russian annexation of Crimea, several ethnic groups who self-identify as Indigenous have come under Russia's control: the Crimean Tatars, the Krymchaks and the Karaim; however, Russia has not recognised this self-identification.
The modern population of Bulgarians settled in the region at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, at the time of feudal sedition in the Ottoman Empire and after the Russo-Turkish Wars. Particularly significant waves of emigration began after the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1806–1812 and 1828–1829.
The country has abundant reserves of coal, iron ore, natural gas, manganese, salt, oil, graphite, sulfur, kaolin, titanium, nickel, magnesium, timber, and mercury.
The ten poorest countries in Europe, based on GNI per capita, are Ukraine, Moldova, Albania, Republic of Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Russia. Among the poorest countries in Europe, Ukraine ranks as the poorest with a GNI per capita of $3,540.
Today, roughly one in three families in Ukraine — 11 million people — are food insecure. Nearly one-third of the population is unemployed.
Russia is a multinational state, home to over 193 ethnic groups nationwide. In the 2021 Census, roughly 81% of the population were ethnic Russians, 19% of the population were ethnic minorities.
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, mainly inhabiting Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.
Russian and Ukrainian are different in pronunciation. To non-native speakers and for those not familiar with the language, they can sound the same. However, they are only roughly similar, and enough to be noticeable by people familiar with the languages.