Mimmediately after the overthrow of the autocracy , the question arose about the creation of an autonomous Ukraine, the basis of which was to be the provinces where the majority of Ukrainians were. At the same time, as stated in the declaration adopted by the Central Rada in May 1917, it was planned to "incorporate Ukrainian parts from adjacent provinces into the Ukrainian region." This thesis was echoed in the III Universal of the Ukrainian SSR adopted on November 20, 1917 . And although according to the law of the Ukrainian SSR dated November 24 on the elections to the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly, among the list of counties whose population was to participate in the elections, Bilhorodskyi was not named (because the majority in it were Russians), its accession to Ukraine became a practical necessity, because together with the southern part of the Korochan district, it was surrounded by Ukrainian territory on three sides. Already in the law on the new administrative-territorial division of Ukraine passed on March 6, 1918, Bilhorodshchyna was defined as the territory of the Ukrainian People's Republic.

Neither the UNR nor the Hetmanate of Skoropadsky , which replaced it at the end of April 1918, was able to fully legitimize the annexation of Bilhorod to Ukraine - the agreement on borders, the conclusion of which was negotiated between the Ukrainian State and the RSFSR in May-October, never happened. signed However, despite this, the Belgorod District as part of the Kharkiv Governorate was included in the composition of Ukraine by the resolution of the Council of Ministers dated August 14, 1918.

After the revolution in Germany, the Bolsheviks decided to fight for power in Ukraine under the banner of Soviet Ukraine , and Bilhorod's Ukrainian affiliation came in handy. Even before its capture, the city was visited by a delegation from the CP(b)U led by Volodymyr Zatonskyi and Heorhiy Pyatakov, who became the main organizers of the new governmental center of Soviet Ukraine. In particular, on November 23, in an address to Joseph Stalin, Volodymyr Zatonsky noted: "We are announcing today in Belgorod." And on the same day, Stalin informed Lenin: "Day before yesterday morning, Bilhorod was taken by Ukrainian Soviet troops. Today the Provisional Government will be proclaimed." However, it did not work out then - German troops stood in the way.

The creation of the government of Soviet Ukraine was announced in a railway car at the station in Kursk on November 28, 1918, and the Ukrainian city of Suja was named its center at the time, which, together with Bilhorod, became part of the Kharkiv province on August 14 . Bolshevik troops finally captured Belgorod on December 20 , where on December 27, at a government meeting headed by Georgy Pyatakov, a decision was made to move the next day: "On November 28, the government moves to Belgorod." However, the government did not have time to settle in a new place, because already on January 3, 1919, the Red Army captured Kharkiv , where it immediately moved.

On January 13, the Soviet government decided to include the Belgorod district in the USSR as a part of the Kharkiv province. This caused a negative reaction from the leadership of the Kursk province, which included the Belgorod district before the revolution , and on January 27, the issue of borders with Russia was again discussed at a meeting of the Ukrainian government, which decided to submit a request to the Soviet People's Committee of the RSFSR to include the Belgorod and Graivoron districts in the Kharkiv province. and the transfer of all counties of the Chernihiv province to the USSR as a temporary border. However, after a direct instruction from Moscow, he was forced to give up the named counties, and on February 7, 1919, the resolution of the RSC of the Ukrainian SSR "On administrative management in the territory of the front-line strip of Ukraine" was approved (published on February 11), which was the border of the Kharkiv province, and, therefore, USSR, its pre-war borders were determined.

On February 25, at a meeting with representatives of the RSFSR, the Ukrainian side once again tried to defend the Belgorod district, citing its economic and cultural attraction to Ukraine. However, it was refused, just as in March 1920 , when the Presidium of the Ukrainian Central Committee of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic appealed to the Kremlin with a request to transfer the Belgorod District to the USSR.

The issue of Bilhorod was again raised by the USSR shortly after the formation of the USSR , now in the context of the entire territory of Slobozhanshchyna, inhabited mainly by Ukrainians, which remained part of the RSFSR. In order to solve it in the summer of 1924, a commission of the Central Committee of the USSR on the issue of changing the borders between the USSR and the RSFSR was created on a parity basis, which unanimously decided "to base the settlement of the borders between the USSR and the RSFSR on the ethnographic principle in the sense of joining the republic of the territory directly bordering it and inhabited by the absolute or relative majority of the population of the corresponding republic". However, despite neither the principles, nor even the decision made by this commission, according to which, in particular, Belgorod was to be transferred to the USSR, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) decided otherwise.

After the 1926 census , the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U again raised the issue of the border. However, this time as well, the request submitted to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Ukraine (b) in May 1928 "On the transfer to the Ukrainian SSR of the districts with the majority of the Ukrainian population in the Kursk and Voronezh provinces, in connection with the zoning of the Central Black Earth Region" was refused.

Another question about borders was raised in February 1929 at a meeting of Ukrainian writers with the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) Joseph Stalin , to which the answer was received: "We in the Central Committee studied the issue twice and left it without consequences. We must be especially careful, because such changes provoke enormous opposition from some Russians."