The book discusses historical path of the creation of Ukrainian State and the genesis of UkrainianRussian conflict. It considers the influence of various factors (national, political, economic) in the process of creating the modern Ukraine. This process is traced from Kievan Rus, according to official history the origin of today's East Slavic states. It points to the first manifestations of Ukraine and the Ukrainian ethnos at the time of the partition of Rzeczpospolita and to the role of Poland in developing the concept of a separate Ukrainian nation, which was later taken over by Austria-Hungary. The emergence of Ukraine and the Ukrainian nation followed at the beginning of the 20th century. After gaining independence in 1991 Ukraine choose the confrontation with the Russian population and with Russia. So, it became a ground for the development of not the once prosperous republic of the USSR, but an anti-Russian state, a factor of instability and conflict. Decades of independence did not contribute to calming the contradictions, but rather deepened the conflict with a powerful neighbor, so that it eventually turned into an armed conflict.