Ukraine (officially Україна, Ukraina) is a large country on the north side of the Black Sea, bordering Russia to the east. Except for a brief period of independence during the Russian Revolution (1917-20) Ukraine was part of Russian or Soviet empires from the mid seventeenth century until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Meanwhile the coastline of the Black Sea was mostly under the control of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire until it was taken by Russia during a series of wars in the second half of the 1700s. The Black Sea's northern coast is in several sections. In the west is the Bight of Odessa, named for Ukraine's largest port. In the center is the diamond-shaped peninsula of Crimea. To the east is the Sea of Azov, connected to the rest of the Black Sea by the narrow Kerch Strait at the eastern end of Crimea. In March 2014 Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, separating the Ukrainian coast into two sections: one on the Bight of Odessa in the west and one on the the northwestern side of the Sea of Azov in the east. In February 2022 Russian troops invaded eastern Ukraine, beginning a war that continues to the present. Since the end of 2022 Russia has occupied about 20% of Ukraine but a much larger percentage, more thn 80%, of Ukraine's coastline. Russia controls all of Crimea and the Azov Sea coast as well as the western Kherson region south of the Dnipro (Dnieper) River. Ukraine is divided into provinces called oblasts (область), and the oblasts are divided into county-level districts called raions (райони). This page includes the lighthouses of Mykolaiv Oblast including the Bug River, the lower Dnipro-Bug estuary, and a short section of the Bight of Odessa coast. The Ukrainian word for a lighthouse is mayak (маяк); ostriv (острів) is an island, mys (мис) is a cape, richka (річка) is a river, and havan' (гавань) is a harbor. Lighthouses in Ukraine are maintained by Derzhhidrohrafiyu, the hydrography and navigation service of the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Most of Ukraine's lighthouses were destroyed or heavily damaged during World War II (known in Ukraine and Russia as the Great Patriotic War), but most of them were restored to their original design and appearance after the war. There is little or no available information about the fate of lighthouses during the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russian forces. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. UA numbers are the Ukrainian light list numbers as reported by Ukrainian Lighthouses on the Air. Admiralty numbers are from volume N of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 113. The Ukrainian light list, Вогні і знаки Чорного та Азовського морів (Lights and Signs of the Black and Azov Seas), is not available online.
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![]() Stara Bohdanivka Range Front Light, Stara Bohdanivka, August 2020 Google Maps photo by Igor Vasylyshin |
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![]() Kozyrsky Range Front Light, Kozyrka, May 2009 photo copyright Capt. Peter Mosselberger; used by permission |
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![]() Dnipro-Bugskiy Range Front Light, Parutyne, May 2009 photo copyright Capt. Peter Mosselberger; used by permission |
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![]() Vostochniy Range Rear Light, Dniprovska Bay, May 2009 photo copyright Capt. Peter Mosselberger; used by permission |
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![]() Adzhygolskyy Range Middle Light, Dniprovska Bay, September 2009 photo copyright Douglas Cameron; used by permission |
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![]() Dnipro-Limanskiy Range Front Light, Ochakiv, May 2009 photo copyright Capt. Peter Mosselberger; used by permission |
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![]() Karabush Light, Kobleve, May 2019 contributed photo copyright Javier Ortuño; used by permission |
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: East: Dnipro River | Southeast: Occupied Ukraine; West Kherson | West: Odessa Oblast
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Posted February 19, 2007. Checked and revised October 14, 2025. Lighthouses: 47. Site copyright 2025 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.