Commentary

The collapse of Kyiv’s position at home and abroad over the last six months reflects the fact that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s three closest advisors are working for the Kremlin and have given Vladimir Putin a victory he very much needed but doesn’t deserve, Andrey Piontkovsky says. During his presidential campaign at the urging of people like oligarchs Viktor Medvedchuk and Ihor Kolomoisky and his close friend Andrey Yermak, the Russian analyst says, Zelensky offered himself as the candidate of “the peace party” which Ukrainians had to support against “the war party” of his predecessor “This Goebbels-style Kremlin lie,” Piontkovsky adds, “continues to be injected into Ukrainian consciousness by...

Ukraine has taken seriously one of the most complex and long-lasting reforms - land reform. The government's proposed model of the land market reform is flawed and is not supported by the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian society, causing criticism and protests. Land Reform History In the 1990s, land belonging to collective and state farms was dissolved in Ukraine. The shares were transferred to the property of farm workers and pensioners who had previously worked on these collectives. In 2001, a moratorium on the sale of agricultural land was established providing government the time to prepare a legislative framework for regulating land circulation. All successive Ukrainian presidents tried to end the moratorium but were not successful. The current...

Through three rounds of elections in Ukraine last spring and summer, the people of Ukraine used the power of the ballot box to overwhelmingly support the candidacy of Volodymyr Zelensky, a TV personality who coincidentally rose to fame playing the role of a fictional president. What was clear from the results in what was generally a fair election is that a broad cross-section of Ukrainians were hoping that Mr. Zelensky would begin reform of an oligarchic, corrupt system of governance and end Russia’s occupation of the Crimea and Donbas region...

By October 2019, it has, however, become apparent that these worries are unjustified. If one believes recent public announcements by Ukraine’s new president, government and dominant parliamentary faction, the local governance reform started in 2014 will continue with adequate speed and depth. At the same time, the currently escalating conflict around the future modus of local self-government in Kyiv raises concerns. Conflicts such as these gain additional importance in view of the nation-wide regional and local elections that are due in October 2020...

HREC Education, of the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC), a project of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, is pleased to announce that its national panel of three education adjudicators has selected the 2019 winner of the HREC Educator Prize for Holodomor Lesson Plan Development. This year, the judges have awarded one prize of $1,000 CAD to Dr. Thomas R. Mueller of the California University of Pennsylvania in California, PA. Dr. Tom Mueller has been a geography professor at California University of Pennsylvania since 1999. He is also an educational associate for Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute’s MAPA (Digital Atlas of Ukraine) program...

When President Trump froze hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance to Ukraine in July of 2019, Oleksandr Markiv was in a trench defending his country’s eastern front line against Russia-backed separatist militias. Two months later, Markiv, 38, was dead, killed by shrapnel during a mortar attack on his battalion’s position in a notoriously dangerous defense point known as the Svitlodarsk Bulge. Markiv was one of 25 Ukrainian fatalities on the front line since July 18, the day Trump quietly put on hold a $391-million military aid package appropriated by Congress for Ukraine last year. Democrats accuse Trump of holding Ukraine’s allotted military aid hostage in exchange for promises from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the dealings of Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden...

The fight over President Donald Trump’s potential impeachment has divided the United States along party lines, Democrats versus Republicans, with Ukraine being talked about as the scene of a crime. Many Ukrainians, however, feel their country is the victim in all this – not just because of the way Mr. Trump spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the now-infamous July 25 phone call, but also because of the way their country’s name and reputation has been dragged through the middle of the United States’ political conflict. Government officials worry about the effect that the scandal, and the incessant headlines connecting "Ukraine” and “corruption,” will have on their attempts to promote the country as a safe place to invest...

Believe it or not, the ongoing impeachment drama in the United States wasn’t the biggest news story this week in Ukraine. Rather, Ukrainians are focused on news much closer to home—the prospect of rejuvenated peace talks with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine’s embattled eastern Donbas region that has lasted five and a half years. The news broke on Tuesday when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced his decision to accept the so-called Steinmeier Formula—a controversial measure to hold elections in the two so-called separatist territories in eastern Ukraine...

Volodymyr Viatrovych’s work the last five years as head of the Institute has included an updated map of Ukraine, the poppy remembrance symbol, the complete openness of the KGB archives, the recognition of fighters for independence, the beginning of the rehabilitation of victims of repression, the Maidan Museum and refuting many myths on Ukrainian history. On September 18, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dismissed Volodymyr Viatrovych from the position of Head of the Institute of National Remembrance, a position he held since March 2014. Viatrovych conducted various reforms of the Institute, which became a leading authority in Ukraine working according to European practices...

A picture is worth a thousand elections. On September 10, the photograph of a meeting held between President Volodymyr Zelensky and notorious oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi was posted online and cast a chill across Ukraine. To many, it confirmed the fear that another one of their presidents was in the pocket of an oligarch. Then on September 21, an article was published which included a photograph showing Kolomoyskyi watching a basketball game with unsavory businessmen...