Genetics of Ukraine

The haplogroups that make the Ukrainian genetic pool are :

R1a: 42.85% – North Slavic
I2a: 22.58% – South Slavic/Sclavenian
R1b: 8.57% – There is a Western-European and Anadolian branch, I don’t have more precise data but I believe that most of Ukrainian R1b is from the Western-European branch
E1b: 6% – Eastern Mediterran, pre-Slavic Balkan population
G2a: 4.58% – Common among Ashkenazi Jews/people from Caucasus region. Most likely Scythian
I1: 5% – North Germanic/Viking
J2: 3.71% – Mediterran
J1: 3.5% – Arab/Jewish
T,Q,L: 1.5% – Mongol+Arab+ many more

ANCIENT PEOPLE:

Slavs: 65.43%
Germano-Celtic: 13.57%
Mediterran people: 9.71%
Scythian +Mongol+ Tatar: around 5%
Arab/Jewish: around 4%

SIMILARITIES WITH OTHER NATIONS (RANDOMLY SELECTED):

Slovakia: 83.18%
Belarus: 78.85%
Poland: 78.43%
Russia: 71.91%
Croatia: 70.99%
Bulgaria: 61.19%
Romania: 53.88%

The only surprising thing to me was that Ukrainians are the closest to Slovaks, since I expected it to be Belarus.

BRIEF HISTORY OF UKRAINE

According to archaeology and confirmed by genetic researchers, the area between Dnieper and Dniester has been the original homeland of Slavs. Throughout history, people of modern day Ukraine have suffered more than any other Slavic people. The geographic position as the borderline of Europe and Asia has always lead to aggression of aggressive eastern and western neighbors.

In the 7th century BC, Greeks established Scythians and Sarmatians as the people living in what is now Ukraine. Later the Greeks settled on the north coast of the Black Sea and they founded city-states there.  We can’t be sure whether Slavs were mistaken for Sarmatians at that time. In our article about king Bož, we have proven that Slavs lived in present-day Ukraine around 350-400 AD.

Then, in the 9th century, Rus sailed along rivers into the heart of Eastern Europe. Some of them settled in Ukraine. In 882, a Rus named Oleg captured Kiev and it became the capital of a powerful state. In 988 under Vladimir I, people of Ukraine converted to Christianity.

However, in the 11th and 12th centuries the state broke up into fragments. Disaster struck in 1240 when the Mongols, led by Batu, grandson of Genghis Khan, conquered the southern and eastern parts of modern Ukraine. The Rus state was conquered. However, northern and western Ukraine remained independent until the 14th century when it was taken over by the Poles and Lithuanians. They gradually drove back the Mongols or Tartars. But the Tatars still held Crimea, and in the 15th century they came under the domination of the Turkish Empire.

In the 15th and 16th centuries some serfs (halfway between slaves and freemen) ran away from their Polish landlords and settled on the steppes of Ukraine. They were called Kozaky (Cossacks), which means ‘freemen’. The Cossacks formed their own, self-governing communities. Eventually, they united to form the Cossack Hetmanate led by a hetman (general). However, in the late 17th century Poland came to dominate western Ukraine while Russia dominated eastern Ukraine. Then in the 18th century, Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, was determined to absorb eastern Ukraine into Russia.

The Cossack Hetmanate was abolished in 1764. Meanwhile, in the 18th century Poland was declining and in 1772-1795 Russia and Austria decided to help themselves to Polish territory. Most of western Ukraine was taken by Russia (except for a small strip in the far west, which went to Austria). Finally, in 1783 Russia conquered Crimea. Catherine the Great also founded Odessa.

It was hard to find a reliable source about Ukrainian DNA, so I used several sources and combined their results. Those sources are:
Source 1
Source 2
Source 3
Source 4
Source 5

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