Commentary

Having read Per Anders Rudling’s article ‘They Defended Ukraine’: The 14.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Galizische Nr. 1) Revisited, I am reminded why, a half century ago, I chose to study Engineering rather than the “Humanities” to which my aptitude tests should have steered me. Even at that tender age I understood the lack of objectivity, truth and reality in the Humanities. I knew that my marks would always depend on currying favor with professors; and being a born contrarian, that was never going to happen...

The following contains researched material made available to swiftly counter cases of defamation and calumny against Ukraine and Ukrainians. “Project FACTS” Backgrounder: Conflicting Disinformation The Ukrainian Resistance/Liberation Movement led by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) had been accused by both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia of supporting the opposing side during World War II. FACTS: This conflicting disinformation that was promoted by Hitler’s and Stalin’s propaganda machines is reflected in countless documents of the time. To witness...

On what grounds was the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 1783 after Crimea came out of Ottoman protection with the Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca in 1774? What was the reaction of the Ottoman Empire to what happened in this period? It’s all about geopolitics. The Tsardom of Muscovy, the predecessor of the Russian Empire, was a land-locked country. Muscovy’s first access to the sea was in the far north, but for much of the year the waters there were frozen. Access to warm-water ports became the major goal of Muscovy and later Russia. After gaining access to the Baltic Sea in the west, Russia set out to reach the Black Sea in the south. There it confronted the Ottoman Empire against which Muscovy/Russia conducted a series of wars from the mid-seventeenth to late eighteenth century. As long as Russia persisted, sooner or later Ottoman lands, including the Crimean Khanate, would be annexed to the tsarist empire...

'Russia has proven, time and again, that it's willing to flout international law, invade neighbouring states, target civilian aircraft, and use chemical and radioactive weapons, endangering the lives of hundreds of people.' On Nov. 22, 2006, a man died an agonizing death three weeks after drinking tea in a London hotel. On July 17, 2014, a civilian airliner was shot down in eastern Ukraine. All 298 people on board died. On Oct. 16, 2014, an explosion occurred at an arms depot in Vrebtice, Czech Republic, killing two people. On March 4, 2018, a man and his daughter were poisoned in Salisbury, England. What do these four seemingly unconnected events have in common? The Russian government was behind all of them...

Hot information war, creeping escalation and other warnings and developments indicate that Russia is moving towards another attack on Ukraine. Will it be annexation of Donbas, a launch of full-scale military operations or insertion of Russian ‘peacekeepers’? More than six years have passed since the so-called Minsk II accords brought an end to the last high-intensity military conflict in Ukraine. But it would be unduly complacent to suppose that this hiatus will last much longer. Since the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreement [of 5 September 2014] was signed by the representatives of Russia, Ukraine, the OSCE and the unrecognised leaders of the two self-proclaimed Donbas republics on 12 February 2015, more Ukrainian servicemen have been killed in the ensuing low-intensity conflict than in...

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz used a private jet linked to fugitive oligarch Dmytro Firtash to travel from a high-profile meeting in Tel-Aviv. The young Austrian chancellor isn’t the first Austrian politician caught in bed with the Kremlin-linked oligarch, who is fighting off a U.S. extradition warrant. The U. S. has charged Firtash with bribery and racketeering. According to Austrian news website ZackZack, Firtash lives in a Vienna villa owned by Alexander Schutz, a major donor to Kurz’s governing Austrian People’s Party. The website also writes that the party’s former leader, Michael Spindelegger, who is also Austria’s ex-vice chancellor, is employed by the oligarch’s Agency for the Modernization of Ukraine, which exists only on paper. Firtash’s connections to the top echelons of Austrian politics aren’t surprising. The oligarch made his fortune on mingling with political heavyweights. Firtash, who was described by the U. S. Department of Justice as an “upper-echelon (associate) of Russian organized crime,” made a fortune on reselling Russian gas to Ukraine at inflated prices...

When Volodymyr Zelensky won the Ukrainian presidency two years ago, his election owed much to promises of ending the country’s undeclared war with Russia. Many of Zelensky’s supporters hoped the charismatic comic and political outsider would be able to move beyond the hostility that had poisoned bilateral ties since 2014 and reach a negotiated settlement with Vladimir Putin. He certainly seemed to be cut out for such a role. In contrast to the vocal patriotism of his predecessor Petro Poroshenko, Zelensky had made a name for himself as a Russian-speaking Ukrainian celebrity with a following throughout the former USSR. He boasted a Kremlin-friendly record of repeatedly poking fun at the symbols of Ukrainian national identity throughout his comedy career...

In a pandemic, cultural institutions were forced to reconsider their approaches to work, learn and engage visitors without actually opening their doors. The lockdown did not prevent the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide from implementing two international and eight national projects. Olesya Stasiuk, Head of the museum, shared her experience amid a pandemic, the museum’s digital efforts and countering Russian disinformation. Who are the core visitors of the museum? What age groups do you focus on? Before the pandemic, 60% of our visitors were foreign tourists, while 40% were Ukrainians. During a pandemic, the ratio remains the same; however I would like to see the opposite. We do not focus specifically on a particular age category, but do try to engage the young, the old and the survivors. Through interviews, we help survivors talk about their pain, let them understand that their memories are important. Their suffering and this crime will be remembered. Last year, a single online resource, Svidchennia [Testimonies], was launched. Our volunteers digitized and published eyewitness accounts of the Holodomor and the mass artificial famines of 1921-1923 and 1946-1947...

Larysa Petrivna Kosach, known to the world under the literary pseudonym Lesia Ukrainka, spent much of his life traveling the three continents of Europe, Asia, Africa in search of sleep. From a young age, the inquisitive girl was attracted by the “distant world”, the mysterious infinity of the sea and the meandering roads. She even admitted that she dreamed of traveling around the world. However, due to her illness the writer visited numerous cities and resorts not as a “tourist” but as a “patient.” Lesia Ukrainka justified her love for travel as part of her nature inherited from her distant ancestors, according to the legends of her relatives, she referred to the ancestors as “the backwaters of the Greek family.” It is not without reason that from the height of a century the writer began to be called a “distant princess”, mysterious and unattainable. In search of a healing climate, most often her roads led to the Crimea, which became the second home of her talent. In Crimea she worked on many literary works, which brought her recognition as a talented masters of the word. Her poetic cycles “Crimean Memories” (1890-1891) and “Crimean Reviews” (1897) are full of travels to the peninsula...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a decree on February 2 sanctioning and effectively blocking three Kremlin-linked Ukrainian television channels. NewsOne, 112 and Zik are all officially owned by Ukrainian MP Taras Kozak but are believed to be controlled by Viktor Medvedchuk, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine. Kozak and Medvedchuk are both members of Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin Opposition Platform-For Life party. The decision to block the channels is being widely touted as Zelenskyy’s boldest move to date in the battle against Russian aggression. Russia’s ongoing hybrid war relies heavily on disinformation, leading many to argue that the three targeted TV channels constitute a national security risk. Nevertheless, there are also concerns that this drastic measure undermines Ukraine’s commitment to freedom of speech at a time when the future of the country’s fledgling democracy remains far from assured...