How and why Budjak became part of Ukraine

Budjak lies between the lower Dniester, the Danube and the Black Sea, forming the southwestern part of Ukraine's Odesa Oblast. Its cities include Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Izmail, Bolhrad, Kiliia and Reni. The region's connection with Ukraine emerged through repeated changes of sovereignty, the Soviet division of Bessarabia in 1940 and Ukrainian independence in 1991. Its diverse population and strategic location make that history more complicated than a single territorial transfer.

1. An Ottoman and Moldavian Frontier

Budjak's name derives from a Turkic word meaning “corner” or “borderland.” During the medieval period, parts of the region came under the influence of the Golden Horde, Moldavia and other northern Black Sea powers.

By the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the Ottoman Empire controlled important fortresses along the Black Sea and lower Danube. Akkerman, now Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, and Kiliia formed part of this frontier system.

The surrounding steppe was also associated with Nogai Tatars, whose political connections extended to the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire. Budjak was therefore a meeting place of the Ottoman Balkans, Moldavian lands and Pontic steppe. Its frontier character intensified as the Russian Empire expanded toward the Black Sea during the eighteenth century.

2. Russian Annexation and Nineteenth-Century Settlement

The Russo-Turkish War of 1806–1812 brought a decisive territorial change. Under the Treaty of Bucharest in 1812, the Ottoman Empire ceded territory between the Prut and Dniester to Russia, including eastern Moldavian lands and Budjak.

Russian authorities applied the name Bessarabia to the whole acquisition, although the term had previously been associated more specifically with the south. Budjak entered a wider imperial administrative framework.

The annexation accompanied major demographic changes. Much of the Nogai population had departed, and the imperial government encouraged settlement. Ukrainians, Moldavians, Bulgarians, Gagauz, Russians, Germans and other communities established themselves through organized colonization and migration.

Many Bulgarian and Gagauz settlers arrived from Ottoman lands south of the Danube. German agricultural colonies and Ukrainian settlements also contributed to a diverse regional society. This population pattern later complicated any attempt to assign Budjak to a republic on a single ethnic principle.

3. Southern Bessarabia Changed Hands Again

Russia's defeat in the Crimean War led to the Treaty of Paris in 1856. Territories around Cahul, Bolhrad and Izmail passed to Moldavia, reducing Russian access to the lower Danube.

Moldavia subsequently united with Wallachia, creating the political foundation of modern Romania. Part of southern Bessarabia thus became connected to the developing Romanian state.

The arrangement lasted only about two decades. After another Russo-Turkish war, the Congress of Berlin in 1878 recognized Romanian independence but required Romania to return those southern Bessarabian territories to Russia. Romania received Northern Dobruja in the same settlement.

Budjak was reunited under Russian administration within the Bessarabia Governorate. These changes reflected strategic competition over the Danube and Black Sea rather than a stable border separating homogeneous national populations.

4. Revolution and Romanian Rule

The Russian Revolution of 1917 broke apart imperial authority. In Bessarabia, the regional council Sfatul Țării emerged amid military disintegration and competing political movements.

Romanian troops entered in early 1918, and Sfatul Țării voted for union with Romania that March. Romania regarded the decision as legitimate unification; Soviet Russia and later the Soviet Union rejected Romanian sovereignty over Bessarabia. Its circumstances and legal interpretation remained contested.

Budjak stayed under Romanian administration for most of the interwar period, including within the counties of Cetatea Albă and Ismail. Its population remained highly mixed, with Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Romanian and Moldavian, German and Jewish communities.

Soviet claims persisted. The Tatarbunary uprising of 1924 reflected regional unrest and communist activity, although its causes and organization have been debated. That year, Moscow also established the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic east of the Dniester within Soviet Ukraine, maintaining a political focus on Bessarabia.

5. The Soviet Takeover and Division of 1940

The secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 recorded Soviet interest in Bessarabia and German political disinterest there. Romania's isolation increased after France's defeat in 1940.

On 26 June 1940, Moscow demanded Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Romania accepted the ultimatum, and Soviet troops began entering on 28 June as Romanian forces withdrew.

The Soviet government then divided the acquired territory. On 2 August, it created the Moldavian SSR from much of central Bessarabia and part of the existing autonomous republic east of the Dniester. Northern Bessarabia around Khotyn and most of southern Budjak were assigned to the Ukrainian SSR.

This was not a straightforward ethnic division. Budjak contained substantial Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Russian and Moldavian or Romanian-speaking communities. Geography, infrastructure and economic links also mattered: its ports and northern districts connected with Odesa and the wider Black Sea economy. The allocation gave Soviet Ukraine a coastal region reaching the Danube while placing central Bessarabia, including Chișinău, in the Moldavian SSR.

6. Soviet Reorganization, War and the Holocaust

Soviet authorities created Akkerman Oblast within the Ukrainian SSR in August 1940. In December, its administrative center moved to Izmail and it became Izmail Oblast.

The new administration dismantled Romanian institutions and imposed Soviet political and economic structures. Arrests and deportations targeted people classified as hostile or unreliable. Most Bessarabian Germans were also resettled to German-controlled territory under German-Soviet agreements, ending many established communities.

Soviet control was interrupted in 1941 when Germany invaded the USSR with Romanian participation. Romanian and German forces occupied the region, and Romanian administration returned.

The Jewish population suffered catastrophic persecution. Romanian authorities and forces participated in mass killings and deportations from Bessarabia and Bukovina, including to Transnistria, where victims died through executions, starvation, disease and brutal conditions. The Holocaust and wartime displacement permanently altered the region's society.

The Red Army returned in 1944. Soviet control and the administrative division established in 1940 were restored, placing Budjak again within the Ukrainian SSR.

7. Integration into Odesa Oblast

The Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 confirmed the postwar Soviet-Romanian frontier. Romania did not recover Budjak, and its inclusion in Soviet Ukraine became part of the wider territorial settlement.

Izmail Oblast survived into the early postwar years but was abolished in 1954. Its territory was incorporated into Odesa Oblast, establishing the administrative arrangement through which most of Budjak later entered independent Ukraine.

The region retained its varied communities, with neighboring villages and towns often differing in language and ethnic composition. Its ports, particularly Izmail and Reni, and its agriculture became increasingly integrated into the Ukrainian SSR's economy.

The boundary with the Moldavian SSR remained internal to one Soviet state. Although it separated republican administrations, its international significance was limited compared with the frontiers that had previously divided the region.

8. Independence Turned a Republican Boundary into a State Border

Ukraine declared independence on 24 August 1991, and voters confirmed it in the referendum of 1 December. The former Ukrainian SSR's republican boundaries became those of independent Ukraine.

Because most of Budjak had been assigned to Soviet Ukraine in 1940, restored to it after the war and incorporated into Odesa Oblast in 1954, it formed part of the independent Ukrainian state. Moldova likewise became independent within the boundaries of the former Moldavian SSR.

Budjak's position therefore resulted from several historical layers: Ottoman frontier rule, Russian annexation and settlement, Romanian administration, Soviet annexation and internal division, and finally the dissolution of the USSR. The decisive connection was the republican allocation of 1940. In 1991, a line once separating two Soviet republics became an international frontier, and Budjak remained within Ukraine.