Hrabove (, also spelled as ''Grabove''), also known as Grabovo () is a village in

Horlivka Raion Horlivka Raion (; ) is a prospective raion (district) of Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. It was formally created in July 2020 as part of the reform of administrative divisions of Ukraine. The center of the raion is in the town of Horlivka. Population: ...

(

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, municip ...

) in

Donetsk Oblast Donetsk Oblast, also referred to as Donechchyna (, ), is an Oblasts of Ukraine, oblast in eastern Ukraine. It is Ukraine's most populous province, with around 4.1 million residents. Its capital city, administrative centre is Donetsk, though d ...

of eastern

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. Its population was 1,000 as of the

2001 Ukrainian census The 2001 Ukrainian census 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.Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Kuala Lumpur that was shot down by Russian-backed forces with a Buk missile system, Bu ...

, 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, and 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 () is a city in Horlivka Raion, Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine, currently occupied by Russia. Regionally, the city is the administrative center of the Shakhtarsk urban hromada. Population: History Urban-type se ...

, and on the border between the Donetsk and

Luhansk Oblast Luhansk Oblast (; ), also referred to as Luhanshchyna (), is the easternmost Administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) of Ukraine. Its administrative center is the city of Luhansk. The oblast was established in 1938 and bore the n ...

History

The village was founded in the late 15th century 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) was a short-lived state in Eastern Europe. Prior to its proclamation, the Central Council of Ukraine was elected in March 1917 Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, as a result of the February Revolution, ...

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

Makhnovshchina The Makhnovshchina (, ) was a Political movement#Mass movements, mass movement to establish anarchist communism in southern Ukraine, southern and eastern Ukraine during the Ukrainian War of Independence of 1917–1921. Named after Nestor Makhno, ...

, led by the anarchist revolutionary

Nestor Makhno Nestor Ivanovych Makhno (, ; 7 November 1888 – 25 July 1934), also known as Bat'ko Makhno ( , ), was a Ukrainians, Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary and the commander of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine during the Ukrainian War o ...

. After the Ukrainian–Soviet War, Hrabove became part of the

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the area was occupied by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

at the conclusion of Operation Barbarossa. It returned to Soviet control following the Donbas strategic offensive of August 1943. Following the outbreak of the war in Donbas in 2014, Hrabove fell under the control of the Russian-backed breakaway

Donetsk People's Republic The Donetsk People's Republic (DPR; , ) is Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, occupied territory in Ukraine that the Russian Federation has claimed to annex and declared as a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia, comprising parts o ...

. In 2022, Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine and unilaterally annexed Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. In Ukrainian law, Hrabove and the other annexed regions remain part of the "

temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine The Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine are areas of southern and eastern Ukraine that are controlled by Russia as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War and the ongoing invasion. In Ukrainian law, they are defined as the "temporarily occu ...

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. The 777 is the world's largest twinjet and the most-built wide-body airliner. ...

operating

Malaysia Airlines Malaysia Airlines ( Malay: ''Penerbangan Malaysia'') is the flag carrier of Malaysia, headquartered at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The airline flies to destinations across Europe, Oceania and Asia from its main hub at Kuala Lumpur Int ...

Flight 17 from

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

, 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 The war in Donbas, or the Donbas war, was a phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. The war Timeline of the war in Donbas (2014), began in April 2014, when Russian separatist forces in Ukraine, Russian para ...

, and since 2014 has been under the control of the

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 percent Ukrainian speaking and 22.0 percent Russian speaking, with a handful of

Belarusian Belarusian may refer to: * Something of, or related to Belarus * Belarusians, people from Belarus, or of Belarusian descent * A citizen of Belarus, see Demographics of Belarus * Belarusian language * Belarusian culture * Belarusian cuisine * Byelor ...

speakers. Most people living in the village identify as Ukrainian.

References

{{War in Donbas 15th-century establishments in Ukraine 1789 establishments in the Russian Empire Don Host Oblast Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Villages in Horlivka Raion Chystiakove urban hromada