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01.06.2012
A leading American scholar on Ukraine has threatened to sue pro-presidential lawmaker Vadym Kolesnichenko for breach of copyright for using one of his articles without permission. Timothy Snyder, a Yale University history professor, said that two Ukraine-based nongovernmental organizations associated with Kolesnichenko reprinted his blog post in a book called “OUN-UPA: An Investigation of the Creation of ‘Historical’ Myths,” which came out earlier this year, without his permission... |
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01.06.2012
Relations between Germany and Russia appear to be approaching a new ice age. Berlin is more dependent on Moscow than ever before, but Merkel has little trust in newly re-elected President Vladimir Putin. She would like to strengthen the opposition. It was supposed to be a gesture of solidarity, a major public event: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Joachim Gauck, his German counterpart, working on a puzzle together in Moscow's Red Square, right outside the Kremlin's gates. Along with carefully selected guests, the two heads of state were to assemble the 1,023 individual pieces of the puzzle, an oversized copy of the self-portrait of German artist Albrecht Dürer, an iconic painting in European art... |
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01.06.2012
European Championship co-hosts Ukraine and Poland denounced a BBC report that portrayed their fans as racist, and European soccer’s governing body reiterated that all foreign guests will be safe. The BBC Panaroma documentary, titled “Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate,” showed fans in the two nations giving the Nazi salute and taunting black players with monkey noises. Asian students were also shown being attacked at Metalis Stadium in Kharkiv, one of the host venues... |
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01.06.2012
Ukraine’s united democratic opposition recently adopted an Action Program that defines its goals in stark opposition to the Regionnaire regime of President Viktor Yanukovych. Since the democrats can lose the October parliamentary elections only if the Regionnaires engage in massive fraud and get away with it, the Action Program may be a harbinger of things to come. Share inShare.2EmailPrintThe preamble says it all: Today Ukraine needs change as never before. All power in the country belongs to the criminal-oligarchic regime headed by president [sic] Yanukovych, who is leading Ukraine toward an abyss... |
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08.05.2012
The Ukrainian government is negotiating the issue of rouble-denominated government bonds, making the country no longer reliant on International Monetary Fund assistance. Ukraine's 2010 IMF assistance package of US$15.6 billion was suspended in March 2011 because of the country's refusal to continue with IMF reforms, in particular raising household utility prices to reduce subsidies to the state gas company Naftohaz Ukrainy. This confirms what the Nikolai Azarov government has been discussing since summer 2011... |
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07.05.2012
Vladimir Putin, Russia's Prime Minister and former President, is not renowned for his love of literature. But on Sunday he gave Russian journalists an unexpected reading tip: the diaries of Anton Denikin, a commander in the White Army, which fought the Bolsheviks after the revolution in 1917. (See TIME's photos of last year's war in Georgia.) "He has a discussion there about Big Russia and Little Russia — Ukraine," Russian news wires quoted Putin as saying after laying a wreath in Moscow at the grave of Denikin, who is now portrayed as a Russian patriot. "He says that no one should be allowed to interfere in relations between us; they have always been the business of Russia itself." ... |
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07.05.2012
The Regionnaires must be getting desperate. When the vast majority of Ukraine’s population thinks of you as thugs, crooks, and vandals a few months before an election you can’t possibly win, there’s only one thing to do. No, not go straight, silly. You go to Burson-Marsteller, of course, a self-styled “leading global public relations and communications firm” that has a special relationship with the world’s rogues. You pay B-M a ton of money and you hope they can remove your stench... |
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04.05.2012
 On April 19 representatives from the Ukrainian Canadian community concluded a successful trip to Ukraine as members of the delegation accompanying International Cooperation Minister, the Honourable Beverley Oda's recent mission to Ukraine. The Minister's meetings included Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, Economy Minister Petro Poroshenko and Agriculture Minister Nikolai Pryasyazhnuk. The delegation also visited the National Holodomor Museum in Kyiv, and met with representatives of oblast, regional and local government officials; representatives from civil society groups; CIDA administrators; local project partners and opposition party representatives... |
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04.05.2012
On June 30, 1941 as the Soviets were fleeing and the Nazis invading the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists convened an assembly at the Lviv “Prosvita” building and there proclaimed the renewal of Ukrainian statehood. The proclamation was read by the head of the temporary government Jaroslaw Stetsko. The Germans insisted that Stetsko rescind the proclamation. When he refused he was arrested, incarcerated, sent first to Berlin, then to the Saksenhausen concentration camp where he spent most of the war years like his leader and colleague, Stepan Bandera... |
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17.04.2012
Which Ukrainian political parties are extremist? Most people would point to the right-wing Svoboda party under the leadership of the charismatic demagogue, Oleh Tyahnybok. And they’d be right. Svoboda (or, ironically, “Freedom”) is xenophobic, radical, and anti-democratic: the three defining features of extremism. But they’d be only partly right. No less xenophobic, no less radical, and no less anti-democratic are two other political groups—the Communist Party of Ukraine and the Party of Regions. Suffice to say that Ukraine’s Communists are still Stalinist and proud of it... |
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