Commentary

The Holodomor was the man-made famine that devastated the Ukrainian people killing millions from 1932 to 1933. The Holodomor is also known as the “Terror-Famine” and sometimes referred to as the “Great Famine”. The word Holodomor means "death by hunger". Many scholars and people debate as to the exact reason why Stalin had decided to do this, but I believe that his motives were financial and power. It is no secret that out of all of the countries that were part of the Soviet Union Ukrainians resisted the new government the most and were the least cooperative. They refused to follow the new Soviet rules and give up who they were to become minions to the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union formed, they began the Sovietization of Ukraine. They wanted to destroy all Ukrainian culture and Ukrainians didn’t like this idea and many rebelled. So, they had to be punished for it. Stalin had to show the other Soviet countries that such behaviour would not be tolerated. Stalin wanted money and power. By creating this famine, the Soviet Union could sell their people's food to the rest of the world and sit on a growing pile of money while also getting rid of the people that questioned their government the most. Even though some people would write letters back then to friends and family in other countries nobody believed them...

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) welcomes the addition of the Russian Imperial Movement (Russkoe Imperskoe Dvizhenie - RID) to the list of terrorist entities designated in Canada’s Criminal Code. “Extremist, terrorist organizations such as the RID and the government that harbours them are a clear threat to global security. Today’s listing of the RID is an important step in keeping Canadians safe,” stated Alexandra Chyczij, National President of the UCC. “We applaud today’s announcement and call on the Government of Canada to investigate the RID’s possible links to the Russian authorities.” In April 2020, the UCC wrote to the Honourable Bill Blair, Canada’s Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness urging the Government of Canada to list the RID as a terrorist entity and to take stronger action in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine...

During World War II, 130,000 female prisoners from 30 different nationalities passed through the gates of Ravensbrück — up to 90,000 of them never walked back out. It is suggested, by some estimates, that up to 8000 of these women came from Ukrainian territories. The purpose of the Ravensbrück Project, at the UCRDC, was to search and document Ukrainian women who were incarcerated at Ravensbrück. UCRDC is fortunate to have, on file, oral histories of several women who were imprisoned for their involvement in anti-Nazi activities during the war. These women, in turn, provided the names of other Ukrainians they met at Ravensbrück - and the project took off from there. With the help of the internet as well as librarians (Natalia Barykina at the Petro Jacyk Resource Centre at the Robarts Library, University of Toronto, and Anna Skorupsky at the Ekstein Holocaust Resource Library in Toronto) books, articles, monographs and databases were searched for women who were either specifically identified as Ukrainian or who were documented as born within the 'accepted' boundaries of Ukraine...

To obtain strategically important aerospace technologies, China is making a new attempt to acquire shares from one of the world’s largest manufacturers of missile, helicopter, and jet engines: Ukraine’s JSC Motor Sich. China’s company Beijing Skyrizon Aviation – a subsidiary of Beijing Xinwei Technology Group – is bidding with support from a local partner, DCH Group, which belongs to Ukrainian businessman Oleksandr Yaroslavsky. Following previously failed solo attempts from Skyrizon, on September 23, the two submitted a joint application to the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) to purchase a stake in Ukraine's aerospace giant. In the past, the United States convinced Ukraine to deny such a deal as part of its broader efforts to curb China’s growing clout and presence in Ukraine and across Europe. This time, however, Motor Sich is seriously considering China’s offer and the enticing economic benefits it would bring. This would be a strategic mistake for Ukraine. The potential deal, which may also benefit Russia, would come with serious consequences to Ukraine’s national security. The incoming Biden administration ought to take note...

Ukrainians marked the Day of Dignity and Freedom on November 21, continuing a seven-year tradition that seeks to place the country’s 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution in a broader historical context. This might also be something for the international community to consider. While Ukraine’s two people power uprisings are recognized as important milestones in the country’s post-Soviet journey, their impact on the wider region has yet to be fully appreciated. This lack of clarity is perhaps understandable. Indeed, few events in modern European history have been subject to quite so much deliberate distortion. Ever since the Euromaidan protest movement first emerged in Kyiv in late November 2013, it has been a favored target of Russian information warfare. For the past seven years, Moscow has promoted false narratives about the uprising in order to undermine its pro-democracy credentials and justify the subsequent Russian invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine...

Erin O'Toole, 47, was elected the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada in late August this year. Given his party's position as the second-largest in the federal parliament, he also became the leader of the Official Opposition and one of the main contenders for the role of prime minister. Ukrinform talked to Mr O'Toole about Ukraine, Russia, sanctions, visas and other aspects of Canada-Ukraine relations...

The only Ukrainian-language bookstore in Bakhmut – Eney – is about to close its doors unless a good soul comes to the rescue. The owner, Volodymyr Deryvedmid announced that all the books will be put on sale. There is a great variety of books, and all of them are in Ukrainian. The Eney bookstore appeared in Bakhmut about six years ago. It was opened by a former soldier, a volunteer soldier serving in the Donbas Battalion – Volodymyr Deryvedmid. He named the bookstore in honour of his fallen comrade-in-arms, Anton Tsedik. “This was my front line. When I arrived in Bakhmut, I had great ambitions. I wanted Ukrainian-language books to be available to the people here, novels, poetry and books about Ukraine, including today’s history. I decided that I’d sell the books at a minimal price, just slightly more than the retail price.” says Volodymyr. Volodymyr says that for many visitors, Eney has become more than a bookstore. It serves as a gathering place for Ukrainians, a cultural venue where visitors can exchange ideas and news, recite Ukrainian poems, and read novels, magazines and booklets...

In the winter of 1932, Mendel Osherowitch went on assignment to the USSR for Forverts, a New York City-based Yiddish newspaper boasting a daily circulation of 275,000. Osherowitch had been born in Trostianets, in Ukraine, before the Great War, and spoke Yiddish, Ukrainian and Russian like the native he was. Over several months, he astutely recorded life under Communist rule and found it markedly dysfunctional – sometimes criminal. Hordes of peasants could be seen clambering onto trains, escaping into the cities in an anguished search for bread. Stories circulated about rural uprisings, brutally suppressed. Parents were haunted by worries that their children would betray them to the GPU, the dreaded secret police. Tensions were growing between the beneficiaries of Bolshevik rule and those for whom it was an enervating nightmare. Meanwhile, Western journalists, self-sequestered in Moscow, weren’t reporting on any of it...

Seven years ago, the Euromaidan revolution started in Kyiv. Initially springing up against then-President Yanukovych’s foreign policy U-turn in the refusal to sign the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, it grew into a protest against police violence and the corrupt regime itself. Since then, Ukraine has been on a rollercoaster of dreams and crushed hopes. What did Euromaidan achieve? Did it change Ukraine? We asked activists and public intellectuals, and here is what they answered. What was the place of Euromaidan in Ukrainian history? What has it achieved, and what was not reached?..

A Kyiv court ruled in favor of pro-Russian politician and lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk in his lawsuit to halt the further sales of a book on Soviet dissident Vasyl Stus, a Vinnytsia Oblast native who grew up in Donetsk, without his permission. Judge Maryna Zastavenko of the Darnytsky District Court on Oct. 19 presided over the libel case in which the author, Vakhtang Kipiani, publisher Vivat, and printing house Unisoft were the defendants. During the court hearing, about 20 citizens gathered near the court building to protest with posters with portraits of Medvedchuk and Stus, who died at age 47 on Sept. 4, 1985, in a Soviet labor camp in Perm, Russia, after 13 years of imprisonment. The ruling stated that Kipiani, a history journalist, must pay Hr 768 ($27) in court fees and that certain passages must be removed from the book. “My lawyer and I are not satisfied with the court’s decision. This trial should not take place because historical issues cannot be the subject of civil proceedings. Medvedchuk is not forbidden to write his own book and state everything he thinks about Stus and this court himself,” Kipiani told the Kyiv Post...