Politics

Reformers, anti-corruption activists, academics, a respected journalist and a successful IT executive topped the list of parliament candidates revealed by the Voice party (Holos in Ukrainian) on the evening of June 8. Voice, a new party led by rock star Svyatoslav Vakarchuk which positions itself as social-democratic and pro-European, unveiled candidates at their first ever convention, six weeks before the July 21 parliamentary elections. The list is yet to be approved by party delegates and most of the listed candidates have never been mem­­bers of parliament. But the party’s mission is not just bringing new faces to the Rada, Vakarchuk says. “The members of our team are patriots, professionals and just decent people for whom state interests are at the highest. And this is the main value of the Voice party – we go to parliament to make real changes,” Vakarchuk, number one on the party list, said at the convention...

The Batkivshschyna Party, led by ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, has announced the top five candidates for parliamentary elections, which will be held on July 21. “We do not want to allow revenge so that those who have been ruining the parliament for five years, wouldn’t come and would not become the driving force of lobbying and corruption,” Tymoshenko said of her opponents at her recent party congress, as she called on Ukrainians to vote for changing the entire political system in Ukraine...

Servant of the People, the political party associated with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, leads the polls with the support of 48.2 percent of decided voters. Servant of the People (Sluha Narodu in Ukrainian), President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s political party, revealed on June 9 its party list for the upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for July 21. The list features members of Zelenskiy’s presidential campaign, athletes, activists and the head of 1+1 television channel. Servant of the People is the name of a television series in which Zelenskiy, who was a comedic actor before becoming president, portrayed a schoolteacher elected president. Zelenskiy was elected president on April 21 after receiving 73 percent of the popular vote...

Former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has unveiled his list of the top-10 people who will lead his re-branded party, European Solidarity, into the July 21 parliamentary elections. They were revealed at the party convention on June 9. Half of of the candidate lawmakers are from the past while the other half are new faces to parliamentary politics. “We are going to the Verkhovna Rada to mobilize everyone to achieve Ukraine’s membership of the European Union and NATO: those who, based on election results, will become the authorities and will form the government, and those who will fill the niche of the parliamentary opposition. And certainly to mobilize the efforts of the new president,” Poroshenko, the leader of the party, said at the convention...

With reference to the excellent statement issued by Halya Coynash of Human Rights in Ukraine on the situation with the decision of the Council of Europe on sanctions against Russia (see attached), the League of Ukrainian Canadians calls on the government of Canada to use its influence in the Euro-Atlantic community for the Council of Europe to stand firm in sanctioning Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea, military occupation of Ukrainian sovereign territory in Donbas, and gross human rights violations against Ukrainian citizens, citizens and residents of other countries, and its own citizens...

Five years ago, Russia gravely challenged the idea of a peaceful and free Europe. With its aggression against Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea, Russia openly demonstrated its contempt for the principles of international law, and presented a serious threat to European security. Today, the people of Ukraine are more united than ever in their support for their country’s European orientation. Ukraine still has many demanding tasks and reforms to implement, but impressive progress has been made despite ongoing Russian aggression. Ukraine of today is profoundly different from Ukraine pre-2014, and has never before been so close to Europe and European values. By contrast, Crimea under Russian occupation is moving backwards. The people living there are ever more isolated, and the situation with respect to human rights and socio-economic conditions continues to deteriorate...

Ukraine's Ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands Vsevolod Chentsov signed the document on behalf of the Ukrainian government. Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and Malaysia have signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the financial support for the prosecution of MH17, a Malaysian Boeing shot down by Russian-led forces in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, in summer 2014. "The signatories arrange to jointly finance the proceedings connected with the prosecution in the Netherlands of those suspected of downing flight MH17 in light of the international nature of the tragedy and the goal of capturing the harm done to all victims and making the legal proceedings as accessible as possible to all next of kin of the victims," the memorandum reads...

With the upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine, the country again has an opportunity to choose a candidate for a new direction. There has been much discussion recently about the degree of change accomplished over the years since the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution which forced the Viktor Yanukovych regime to flee to Russia. The central issues of concern to the electorate are the continuing war in the Donbas initiated by Russia, the state of the country’s economic welfare and the level of corruption. Each candidate for office must address these issues and be assessed on credibility while the incumbent must also be judged by his actions on these matters during the past term...

Descendants of Ukrainian immigrants in Canada “are now in power and dictate Canada’s foreign policy.” This explains why Canada has imposed sanctions on Russia and why the country’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, who has Ukrainian roots, is “a constant critic of Russia.” This analysis of Canadian foreign policy was presented to Russian audiences on the state TV channel Rossiya 1 on Sunday, January 13, 2019. The report inscribes itself in Russian state media’s long-term campaign to misrepresent and denigrate Ukraine and its allies. At the same time, the story is an example of the tendency in pro-Kremlin media to portray international criticism of Russia as irrational and the result of conspiracies...

Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov, two Ukrainian oligarchs who had paid Paul Manafort for years for his political work in their country, were the intended recipients of the American polling data that Manafort shared with Konstantin Kilimnik during the 2016 presidential campaign, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, January 9, 2019. Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has been circling Lyovochkin and Akhmetov's dealings with Manafort for a while, as they were both key, generous backers of Manafort's Ukrainian lobbying work, prosecutors said at Manafort's financial fraud trial last summer...