Armenians first appeared in Ukraine during the times of
Kyivan Rus'. During the 10th century individual Armenian merchants, mercenaries and craftsmen served at the courts of various
Ruthenian rulers. A larger wave of Armenians settled in southeastern Ukraine after the fall of the Armenian capital of
Ani to
Seljuks in the 11th century. They arrived mainly at the Crimean peninsula and established colonies in Kaffa (
Feodosiya),
Sudak and Solcati (
Staryi Krym). Their numbers were further strengthened throughout the 12th–15th century by Armenians fleeing from a Mongol invasion. This gave the peninsula the name Armenia Maritima in medieval chronicles. Smaller Armenian communities were established in central Ukraine, including
Kyiv, and the western regions of
Podolia and
Halychyna, concentrating around
Lviv which in 1267 became the center of an Armenian eparchy. in
Lviv. At the end of the thirteenth century, when members of the
Armenian diaspora moved from the
Crimean peninsula to the
Polish-Ukrainian borderland, they brought
Armeno-Kipchak, a
Turkic language with them. Armeno-Kipchak of the
Kipchak people was still current in the 16th and 17th centuries among the
Armenian communities settling in the
Lviv and
Kamianets-Podilskyi area of what is now Ukraine. After Crimea fell to the
Ottoman Turks in 1475 many Crimean Armenians moved further to the north-west to the already flourishing Armenian communities which gradually integrated into the local Polish and Ukrainian communities while maintaining their distinct identity through the
Armenian Catholic Church. In the 18th century Crimea fell under influence of the
Russian Empire, which encouraged Crimean Armenians to settle in Russia and a large group of them came to the town of
Rostov on Don in 1778, twenty years later Russia having conquered the peninsula called to colonize it and many Armenians arrived from Turkey, establishing new Armenian colonies. During
World War II in 1944 Armenians were deported en masse along with Greeks, Bulgarians and Tatars as a "antisoviet element" and allowed to return only in the 1960s. During Soviet rule Armenians came together with people from other Soviet ruled nations to Ukraine to work in the heavy industry located in the eastern parts of the country. ==Armenian community in modern Ukraine==