Voroshilov was born Verkhnyeye, Bakhmut uyezd, Yekaterinoslav. The place is now part of Lysychansk in Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine. He was born into a railway worker's family of Russian ethnicity. According to the Soviet Major General Petro Grigorenko, Voroshilov himself alluded to the heritage of his birth-country, Ukraine, and to the previous family name of "Voroshilo".