Nikopol

closedas of 2026-10-011639Zaporozhzhia

A city on Mykytyn Rih: Khmelnytskyi's first hetman capital — and the most shelled city in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

The ESU dates the city from 1639, when the Zaporozhians founded Mykytyn Sich on Mykytyn Rih. In 1648, after Bohdan Khmelnytskyi's uprising, it became his first hetman capital — from here the Cossack army set out for Zhovti Vody. Nothing is left of the Sich itself: the current washed away the fortifications with their kurins, chapel and cemetery, and what remained of the Great Meadow went under the Kakhovka reservoir. In 1780 the settlement was renamed Nikopol — "city of the victor" in Greek; in 1853–1856 Mykola Pyrohov set up a military hospital here. On 1 January 2020 the city had 109,122 residents. Since July 2022 russia has shelled Nikopol from the left bank every day: as of 14 August 2025 Suspilne counted 94 killed, 700 wounded and more than 7,500 damaged buildings over more than 1,130 days. Transport, water, electricity and gas are working; shops close or cut their hours.