News from Ukraine

The appointment of a person associated with notorious pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk as Deputy Prosecutor General and reports that is to be in charge of Maidan cases seem another slap in the face to the families of slain Maidan victims, one of many over the last year. The assurances given by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Prosecutor General that the trial of five ex-Berkut officers, accused of gunning down peaceful Maidan protesters, would continue despite the suspects having been released in exchange for Donbas hostages, have proven as empty as feared. It became clear in December 2019 that the five men suspected of mass murder of 48 Maidan activists were to be handed over to the Russian-controlled Donbas militants in the prisoner exchange of 29 December. Although Zelensky defended the...

On July 27, over a thousand people gathered near the Presidential Office on Bankova Street in Kyiv to show support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and protest against demilitarization amid a so-called “comprehensive” ceasefire. The rally was organized by the Capitulation Resistance Movement and the Democratic Sokyra party. Serhiy Zhuravel, father of Ukrainian Marine Yaroslav Zhuravel, travelled from his native village in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to take part in the protest meeting. Sergeant Yaroslav Zhuravel was the commander of a reconnaissance unit of the 137th Marine Infantry Battalion, who probably died of his wounds near Zaitseve, Donetsk Oblast after being left behind in the blazing heat following a failed evacuation mission...

President Volodymyr Zelensky enjoys strong support, according to the latest polling. Almost 40% of Ukrainians would vote for him again and 68% are satisfied with his performance during his first year in office. But not everyone is happy with the Ukrainian president. On May 24, a few thousand protesters gathered on Maidan Nezelezhnosti in downtown Kyiv to express their dissatisfaction with the current authorities. The protesters argued that the president isn’t doing a good job representing Ukraine’s interests in bilateral talks with Russia, which has waged war against Ukraine for six years. Since 2014, Russia has occupied the Crimean peninsula and parts of the eastern Donbas region. Its aggression has led to more than 13,000 deaths. The protests on Maidan were organized by the “Capitulation Resistance Movement,” which was created in October 2019 after another protest against Zelensky...

The United Kingdom Supreme Court has decided that a $3 billion claim by Ukraine's largest lender PrivatBank against its former owners can be heard in a court in London. PrivatBank won an appeal in London last year that allowed it to pursue claims against its former owners Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov. Kolomoisky, Bogolyubov and six English and BVI companies had asked the Supreme Court, which is the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom for civil cases, for permission to appeal against the October judgment. The court ordered that permission to appeal be refused in respect of each application because the applications do not raise an arguable point of law which ought to be considered at this time,' the Supreme Court said in a...

A team of 20 Ukrainian medical doctors arrived in Italy on April 4 to help Italian specialists fight COVID-19 after a decree signed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on April 3. The Ukrainians will spend 14 days in hospitals of eastern Italian region Marche, helping and sharing the experience with local specialists. Italy is the second-largest European country by the number of reported COVID-19 cases.

Daryna Antoniuk

Zelensky has approved this humanitarian aid in a bid to assist Italian doctors and equip Ukrainian specialists with skills and knowledge needed to combat COVID-19 when it peaks in Ukraine, which reportedly will happen in mid-April. Italy will provide the Ukrainian medical workers with...

Ukrainian Parliament voted for the resignation of current Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk. His position now belongs to Denys Shmygal, former Vice Prime Minister and the Minister for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine. Together with the new Prime Minister, several new ministers came to the Cabinet of Ministers. We’ll talk about them separately, but now we’ll dwell on the new head of government in more detail. Denys Shmygal was born on October 15, 1975 in Lviv, he is 44 years old. In 1997, he graduated from the Lviv Polytechnic University, production management (engineering), engineer-economist. In 2003, he became a candidate of economic science...

Ukraine's President Volo­dymyr Zelensky has replaced the country's Prime Minister on Wednesday, March 4, 2020 saying he hoped the new PM would "do the impossible." Ukraine's Parliament approved Denis Shmygal as the new PM Wednesday, after accepting the resignation of Oleksiy Honcharuk at an extraordinary session of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament. "The previous government did everything possible but today Ukrainians need a government that will do the impossible. I hope that the next Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine will be able to do that," Zelensky said, according to a statement on his website. Shmygal is Ukraine's third Prime Minister in just...

The Ukrainian authorities have threatened to arrest Petro O. Poroshenko, the former president and current leader of the political opposition. On Friday, February 28 the Ukrainian police questioned Ukraine’s former president, Petro O. Poroshenko, after threatening to arrest him if he failed to appear, in what a growing chorus of critics including the European Union say is a politically motivated vendetta. They say the failure of the United States to discourage the new Ukrainian government’s legal assault on Poroshenko illustrates how the once-dominant American role and moral authority in Ukraine’s internal politics have been undermined by President Trump’s efforts to...

A Ukrainian opposition lawmaker on February 12 was given a notice of suspicion for allegedly threatening the life of President Volodymyr Zelensky, an offense that is punishable with a maximum five-year prison sentence. Prosecutors made the announcement at the State Bureau of Investigations (DBR) office concerning Sofia Fedyna, a member of parliament in the European Solidarity party headed by former President Petro Poroshenko. Investigators say she and blogger Olena Sambul, while livestreaming on YouTube and Facebook, publicly threatened the president’s life on October 26 when commenting on his visit to the war zone in eastern Ukraine...

tanislav Aseyev, 30, is a journalist, blogger, and member of the Ukrainian PEN Club. After his native city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, fell under the control of Russia-backed separatist militants in May 2014, he continued reporting from there for various Ukrainian media, including RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service. On June 2, 2017, he was abducted by the self-proclaimed Donetsk authorities. His case prompted an international outcry among human rights and journalists' organizations. In October 2019, a de facto court in Donetsk convicted Aseyev of "organizing an extremist organization" and espionage, sentencing him to 15 years in prison. He was included in a prisoner exchange between the...