Commentary

The ICSU welcomes the visit to Poland by President Barack Obama. His visit is an important response to Russia’s unrelenting overt and covert military aggression against Ukraine, and the threat that this poses to regional peace and stability, and to America’s vital national security interests. From the outset of Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukrainian sovereign territory, the Ukrainian diaspora community and those of Ukraine’s democratic neighbors, have been strong advocates of greater support for Ukraine by the West...

The Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper today to discuss the crisis in Ukraine. Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv is in Canada for a ten-day visitation of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy (Diocese) of Toronto. The Major Archbishop told the Prime Minister that his Church has consistently called for peace and reconciliation in Ukraine...

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird released the following statement after the close of voting in the presidential elections in Ukraine: “On behalf of all Canadians, I wish to extend my congratulations to the citizens of Ukraine who peacefully exercised their sovereign right to vote during this critical phase in their country’s democratic history.Canada looks forward to the official announcement of the elections’ final results...

It seems to me that the significance of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War 2 which came about largely because of D-Day, was that ultimately good had prevailed over evil. It was a victory over tyranny and imperialism. Granted Soviet forces were an integral part of the culmination, but, let's be honest, Soviet involvement occurred only because Hitler attacked the USSR in 1941. In 1939 Stalin and Hitler had collaborated to carve up Eastern Europe with no regard for other nations. Soviet propaganda aside, Stalin's participation in the war was hardly altruistic. Furthermore, history has judged that in terms of criminality Stalin was at least Hitler's equal...

On 26 May 2014 Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) President Euge­ne Czo­lij called Uk­raine’s President-elect Petro Poroshenko and congratulated him on his victory in the Presidential Election held on 25 May 2014. The UWC President underlined that the strong support obtained by President-elect Petro Poroshenko from the citizens of Ukraine, who turned out in significant numbers to express their will, gives him a firm mandate to move Ukraine forward and overcome its current crisis...

Since 2001, Canadian and Ukrainian archaeologists and historians have cooperated in exploring the antiquities of Baturyn in Chernihiv oblast,Ukraine. Excavations in the town and the dissemination of their findings have been sponsored by the Kowalsky Program for the Study of Eastern Ukraine at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS),University of Alberta, the Shevchenko Scientific Society of America, the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at the University of Toronto, and the Ucrainica Research Institute inToronto. The leading historian of the Hetmanate, ex-director of CIUS and present director of the Kowalsky Program, Prof. Zenon Kohut, heads this undertaking. The late poetess Volodymyra Wasylyszyn and her husband, the artist Roman Wasylyszyn of Philadelphia, have been generous patrons of the historical and archaeological research on Baturyn. The Baturyn Canada-Ukraine archaeological expedition is based at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Chernihiv...

On Palm Sunday, the capital of our nation played host to theUKchoir “The Bulava Chorus” under the direction of its conductor Pavlo Hunka, the famous international opera singer. Both conductor and choir had long planned this trip to Kyiv and its purpose was two-fold – learning and artistic. After numerous successful performances inBritainand in other European countries, the choristers initially decided to travel toUkraineto test their vocal skills and artistic performance of their choral repertoire by the harshest critics – in front of a Ukrainian audience, on the very soil where this musical culture was first created and performed...

An initiative to showcase the Ukrainian folk music with a modern twist came to light on Thursday, May 15 – on a rainy evening at theToronto’s local venue, the Placebo Space. Musicians of a Ukrainian descent, Yana (Yanina Bilyk) – a songwriter, vocalist and a piano player, and Stacey Yerofeyeva – DoVira’s band lead singer, came up with the idea to share the stage to perform Eastern European folk repertoire rearranged with influences of the newer musical genres, such as contemporary, jazz, rock and electro...

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus cried. Ukrainians know a similar agony. Over Easter I thought on Ukraine’s Passion. Conspired against by Vladimir Putin, a high priest of Russian revanchism and zealot who believes the Soviet Union’s collapse was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, Ukraine’s crucifixion proceeds. First Crimea, Ukraine’s garden, was captured by a braying crowd of thugs-for-hire and Russian soldiers. Its indigenous people, Crimean Tartars, are now persecuted, and Ukrainian speakers harassed – their exodus to the still-free lands of Ukraine already begun...

A notice ordering all Jews in the eastern Ukraine city of Donetsk to register with the pro-Russian separatists or face deportation has been pasted near the local synagogue, according to the Novosti Donbassa news agency. According to the report, the notice was distributed by "three unidentified men wearing balaclavas and carrying the flag of the Russian Federation." The notice was reported by members of the Jewish community of Donetsk. Novosti Donbassa speculated that the men involved were provocateurs who "tried to provoke a conflict, then to blame the attack on separatists."...