A penalty from Frank Lampard has spared England's blushes in their opening home game of the World Cup qualifying campaign.
Roy Hodgson's men were frustrated by Oleg Blokhin's resolute unit, who got plenty of men behind the ball in the first half.
Jermain Defoe thought that he had opened the scoring in the 10th minute when he struck beyond Andriy Piatov. However, the referee had already blown his whistle for a free kick to Ukraine.
Tom Cleverley spurned a glorious chance to give England the lead when he scuffed a shot with virtually an open goal to aim at.
The decisive moment of the first 45 minutes came when Yehven Konoplianka drifted inside from the left before unleashing a shot that Joe Hart could do nothing to stop.
England saw plenty of the ball in the second half as they probed for an opening, but found creativity hard to come by in the final third.
Roy Hodgson brought on Daniel Sturridge and Danny Welbeck as he chased the game - and the Manchester United man nearly made an instant impact as he struck the post with a stabbed right-footed effort.
Ukraine looked fairly comfortable in seeing out victory until Yevhen Khacheridi handled inside the area giving Lampard the chance to level the scores.
The Chelsea man stepped up to send the keeper the wrong way and snatch a point.
England finished the game with 10 men as Steven Gerrard was sent off late in the game for two bookable offences.
