Iranian peoples. The east Aryan group of peoples of the Indo-European family that today inhabit Iran, Soviet Central Asia and Transcaucasia, Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan, Turkey, and Iraq. In ancient times they also inhabited southeastern Europe. During the 1st millennia BC and AD Ukraine was inhabited consecutively by the Iranian-speaking Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, and Irano-Turkic Khazars. These peoples interacted with the indigenous proto-Slavs and influenced their cultural development.