Hrabove ( uk, Грабове,

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: Грабово, ''Grabovo'', also spelled ''Grabove'') is a village in Shakhtarsk Raion (

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...

) in Donetsk Oblast of eastern

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. Its population was 1,000 as of the

2001 Ukrainian census The Ukrainian Census of 2001 is to date the only census of the population of independent Ukraine. It was conducted by the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine on 5 December 2001, twelve years after the last Soviet Union census in 1989.

. It is known for being the crash site of

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down by Russian forces on 17 July 2014, while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed. Cont ...

, which was shot down by

Igor Girkin Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin ( rus, И́горь Все́володович Ги́ркин, p=ˈiɡərʲ ˈfsʲevələdəvʲɪdʑ ˈɡʲirkʲɪn; born 17 December 1970), also known by the alias Igor Ivanovich Strelkov ( rus, И́горь Ива́ ...

, Sergey Dubinsky, Leonid Kharchenko and crashed in the south of the village. Hrabove is located beside the

Mius The Mius (, ) is a river in Eastern Europe that flows through Ukraine and Russia. It is long, and has a drainage basin of .Миус< ...

river, some ten kilometers north-east of

Shakhtarsk Shakhtarsk (, ) or Shakhtyorsk (russian: Шахтёрск) is a city in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. Regionally, the city is an administrative urban enclave also consisting of cities Torez and Snizhne and surrounded by Shakhtarsk Raion. It serves ...

, and on the border between the Donetsk and

Luhansk Oblast Luhansk Oblast ( uk, Луга́нська о́бласть, translit=Luhanska oblast; russian: Луганская область, translit=Luganskaya oblast; also referred to as Luhanshchyna, uk, Луга́нщина) is the easternmost oblast ...

History

The village was founded in the late 15th centuryИстория городов и сел Украинской ССР: Донецкая область. — Ин.-т истории АН УССР-К.: Глав.ред. Украинской Сов. Энциклопедии. стр. 745
/ref> on the left bank of the river

Mius The Mius (, ) is a river in Eastern Europe that flows through Ukraine and Russia. It is long, and has a drainage basin of .Миус< ...

; it was repositioned to its present site in 1787. A stone church, the Holy Trinity Church, was built in 1803. Its basic form survives to this day, though it was substantially rebuilt in 1903. After the fall of the Russian Empire, Hrabove was part of the

Ukrainian People's Republic The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR), or Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), was a country in Eastern Europe that existed between 1917 and 1920. It was declared following the February Revolution in Russia by the First Universal. In March 1 ...

. In February 1918, it fell under the control of the

Makhnovshchina The Makhnovshchina () was an attempt to form a stateless anarchist society in parts of Ukraine during the Russian Revolution of 1917–1923. It existed from 1918 to 1921, during which time free soviets and libertarian communes operated un ...

, led by the anarchist revolutionary

Nestor Makhno Nestor Ivanovych Makhno, The surname "Makhno" ( uk, Махно́) was itself a corruption of Nestor's father's surname "Mikhnenko" ( uk, Міхненко). ( 1888 – 25 July 1934), also known as Bat'ko Makhno ("Father Makhno"),; According to ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the area was occupied by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

at the conclusion of Operation Barbarossa. It returned to Soviet control following the Donbas strategic offensive of August 1943. Since 2014, Hrabove has been under the control of the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic. The government of Ukraine considers it a part of its Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.

Shootdown of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

The village came to international attention when it became the site of much of the debris from the destruction of the

Boeing 777 The Boeing 777, commonly referred to as the Triple Seven, is an American long-range wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It is the world's largest twinjet. The 777 was designed to bridge the gap betw ...

serving

Malaysia Airlines Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB; ms, Penerbangan Malaysia Berhad), formerly known as Malaysian Airline System (MAS; ), and branded as Malaysia Airlines, is the flag carrier airline of Malaysia and a member of the Oneworld airline alliance. (Th ...

Flight 17 from

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = ''Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...

, which was shot down in the region on 17 July 2014, killing all 298 on board. At the time, Hrabove was in the area contested by Ukrainian military forces and Russian people's militias as part of the

war in Donbas War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

Politics and national identities

Since 2010 the head of the village council has been Volodymyr Berezhnyi (born 1955). The 2001 census indicated a population of 1,000 people, categorized according to preferred mother tongue as 77.5% Ukrainian speaking and 22.0% Russian speaking, with a handful of Belarusian speakers. Most people living in the village identify as Ukrainian.

References

{{2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine 15th-century establishments in Ukraine 1789 establishments in the Russian Empire Don Host Oblast Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Villages in Horlivka Raion