Ukraine

On 19-21 January 2015, various Ukrainian governmental ministries, army and volunteer battalions, medical services, and volunteers gathered for a conference at the Ukrainian House in Kyiv, Ukraine. The conference was organized by Patriot Defence, a Ukrainian World Congress initiative that trains Ukrainian combatants and volunteers in essential tactical medical first aid. Patriot Defence has trained over 11,000 Ukrainian servicemen and women and has issued over 8,000 Individual First Aid Kits (IFAKs). The conference was about the development, standardization, and ...

The soldiers sing in somber tones as they drive through the grey night. Beneath a full moon, dull and yellow behind the clouds, the five men speed eastward along straight highways, across the flat Ukrainian countryside towards the Donbas region, the front line in this ongoing war. They are from Right Sector, one of the pro-Ukrainian militia groups fighting against separatist and Russian forces. The driver with the nom de guerre Nightengale (for his singing voice) sings along with a CD that plays on repeat – songs of killing separatists, of lost love. Panaz, the group’s commander, sits...

On Friday, November 28th, Member of Parliament James Bezan, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence accompanied the latest shipment of non-lethal military equipment and gear from the Canadian Armed Forces to the Ukrainian Security Forces. In the official hand over of winter uniforms, PS Bezan made the following remarks on behalf of the Government of Canada: "Since the beginning of the Putin regime`s hostility towards Ukraine, Canada – under Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s leadership - has been at the forefront of the international community’s response. "In coordination with our key...

Mr Schuler wrote: "I also had the Honor of visiting a Ukraine Military Hospital in Kyiv. I spoke to several front line wounded Soldiers and they were very, very pleased that a Canadian Politician would visit them. I was not allowed to ask about their deployment, neither could we take any pictures of them. It was very emotional for me as one of the wounded who is all of 20 years old, asked if I would like to see his wounds, unknown to him I swallowed very hard, I felt a little nauseas, but I smiled and said of course I would love to! I realized he could be my son. He had been hit "5" times and showed me where the bullets and shrapnel hit him. As he spoke I realized that his spirits were high, but after what he's been...

The Anna Mazurenko Children’s Health Centre was inaugurated in Lviv. It will be located near the Western Ukrainian Specialized Children’s Medical Centre, better known as the Chornobyl Hospital. The expertise for the Anna Mazurenko Centre will be provided by specialists who worked in long-term cooperation with similar children’s health centres in Toronto (Canada) and Los Angeles (USA). The uniqueness of the Mazurenko Centre is that unlike existing centres, it will focus primarily on mental health problems of children, which is a very important but often neglected area of health care. The services of the Mazurenko Centre will be delivered in accordance with modern European standards, protocols of diagnostics and therapy in children’s health. Dr. Antin Kushnir, head of the...

Russian attempts to fabricate anti-Semitic attack in Ukraine have yet again clashed head on with reality. This time the Odessa Jewish Community has been forced to issue a statement denying every part of the ‘story’ after being deluged with anxious calls from around the world. The claims were indeed alarming. In an article entitled “Right Sector” has declared war on Jews in Odessa”, Izvestia asserted that “radicals” had desecrated graves and the monument to victims of the Holocaust with swastikas. 20 Jewish people had supposedly been savagely beaten up by ultra-nationalist Right Sector members and an anonymous police source was reported...

The early Ukrainian parliamentary elections are set to take place on October 26, 2014, and there will be no shortage of Canadian observers to monitor this important day in Ukraine’s history. This will be the seventh parliamentary election since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, and it comes at a crucial time. Currently, Ukraine is in the process of trying to implement much needed reforms across many sectors, while also fighting off Russian-backed terrorists in the Donbas. “I hope to see a free and fair election take place,” said Denys Volkov, “So many people have died in Ukraine since the start of the protests in November 2013 so it’s important to see the will of the people being...

UNLIKE its western counterpart, eastern Christianity has always maintained close ties to the state. But the visit to Kyiv on July 27th of Patriarch Kirill I of the Russian Orthodox Church and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, took the concept to a new level. Celebrating the 1,025th anniversary of the baptism of Kyivan Rus, a medieval federation of eastern Slavic princedoms, both sent a clear message: Don’t stray from the common space of our Russian-Orthodox civilisation. The event took place amid rising concerns in Russia over Ukraine’s future. European Union officials hope to sign an Association Agreement with the post-Soviet nation at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in November this year. If the agreement comes into force, a recent report from Chatham House, a think tank in London, argues, this could mean “game over for Russia”. To prevent this outcome...

Batkivschyna faction leader Arseniy Yatseniuk has said he believes that only the Ukrainian Navy should be present in Crimea. “I think that the signing and ratification of the so-called Kharkiv agreements was a key mistake made by the incumbent president. This was an unconstitutional, anti-state and anti-Ukrainian decision. Only the Ukrainian Navy should be based in Sevastopol,” he told reporters at a briefing in Kyiv on Sunday at the monument to Prince Volodymyr. “We can defend ourselves on our own, and, if necessary, we can also defend our neighbors, I mean the Russians,” Yatseniuk said. As reported, in April 2010, the presidents of Ukraine and Russia signed the so-called Kharkiv agreements that extended a lease on the stationing of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea for another 25 years (after 2017) with its possible...

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. The Institute was founded thanks to a generous donation from Petro and Ivanna Stelmach of Mississauga, Canada, who established an endowment fund at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies in 1989. With the support of two prominent historians, Professor Yaroslav Dashkevych (d. 2010) and Dr. Frank Sysyn, the Institute has supported the initiation of changes in the research and teaching of Ukrainian history in independent Ukraine. In celebration of its twentieth anniversary, the IHR held a conference on “Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Ukrainian History: New Approaches and Interpretations.” Among the prominent historians who took part were...