UKEMONDE

Draft higher education law is retrogressive, obstructs integration

2012-01-30T02:53:00.000-08:00

Contemporary Ukraine is a testing ground, not just for educational reforms but also for a fierce struggle being waged against Soviet and Russian colonial heritage and for the right to be part of a united Europe and in particular to be part of the European higher education area.

The appointment of Dmitry Tabachnik as minister of education and science in March 2010 was an attempt to turn back all of Ukraine's efforts towards integration with Europe on higher education issues.

The education policy of Tabachnik is based on his political views, which are viewed as being pro-communist and pro-Russian. In my view Tabachnik is a Russian chauvinist in his attitude to the Ukrainian language, culture and historical memory.

Read complete article here.

Source: University World News

Also very interesting program in Ukrainian
Спільна Правда випуск №6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=myn25jzaVIY#!

Спільна Правда - телепроект, завданням якого є донесення правдивої інформації про найголовніші події сьогодення.
Тема шостої програми - антиурядові студентські протести. Гості: Єлизавета Щепетильникова, президент всеукраїнської асоціації студентського самоврядування та Сергій Пархоменко, координатор "АнтиТабачної кампанії".
Ведучий: Олександр Данилюк.

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Express newspaper says it faces censorship threat

2012-01-28T12:20:00.001-08:00

The alleged pressure on Express is the latest in a string of incidents that many media experts say mark a decline in press freedom in Ukraine since President Viktor Yanukovych took office in 2010. Journalists complain of pressure to toe the official government line in coverage.

“Given the fact that the judicial branch is being transformed into an effective instrument of censorship, the editorial staff of Express has grounds to believe that the court ruling will favor the authorities,” said Viktoria Siumar, head of media watchdog the Mass Information Institute.

Read complete article here.

Source: Kyiv Post

WikiLeaks: Regions Party partly composed of ‘criminals’

2012-01-26T11:16:00.000-08:00

Party of Regions true colors are being exposed. Read the following article here which was published in Kyiv Post last week.

Also enjoy the following clip which bring to light what type of President Ukraine chose.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=gN_aVis8O-8

Source: Kyiv Post

No deal

2011-12-22T12:19:00.000-08:00

President Viktor Yanukovych's administration has failed to deliver on his foreign policy priority of integrating with European Union and securing cheaper Russian natural gas this year.

Ukraine under President Viktor Yanukovych is in decline and becoming more dangerous, slinking into 2012 with diminished prospects on many fronts – including a new natural gas deal with Russia and closer ties with the European Union.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post

Darth Vader claims land plot in Ukraine

2011-11-18T11:57:00.000-08:00

Couldn't pass on not posting this one :-))

An Odessite dressed as the Star Wars villain visited the mayor's office this week to claim a free land plot citing Ukrainian legislation which grants every citizen the right to own 1,000 square metres of land.

Click here to read article and view video.

National Holodomor Awareness Week - November 21– 27, 2011

2011-11-18T09:49:00.000-08:00

McGill Ukrainian Students’ Association Screening: “Genocide Revealed”http://www.ucc.ca/2011/11/09/mcgill-ukrainian-students-association-screening-genocide-revealed/

Harper 'deeply concerned' over jail term for Ukrainian leader

2011-10-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, at an award reception in Toronto, reinforced Canada's opposition to the prison sentence given to a Ukrainian opposition leader.

Harper said he was "deeply concerned" by the case of Yulia Tymoshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhenko during a speech Friday to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress where he received the Shevchenko medal, the organization's highest award.

Tymoshenko, a former prime minister of Ukraine and a driving force behind the country's 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution, was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of abuse of power over a gas deal she signed with Russia in 2009.

Click here to read full article

Can the European Union afford to lose Ukraine?

2011-10-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

The European Union needs to give Ukraine a clear path to accession in order to take advantage of the country's economic potential and encourage democratic reform, argues Martin Nunn. Martin Nunn is the Communications Director of the Ukrainian Foundation for Democracy "People First".
"There is almost nothing worse than a noisy and unruly neighbour. In most cases we would try to ignore them, put up with the noise and hope that they don't lean over the garden fence to strike up a conversation.
True, Ukrainian politicians do behave like unruly children that have yet to learn some of the European social skills, the finer points of democracy, the sanctity of the rule of law and just how to do business in the real world. But ask yourself, can the EU really call itself a 'European Union' without a long term vision of just how to integrate the countries of the east into the wider European family.

Click here to read full article.

Source: Euractiv

Ukrainian student slaps Tabachnyk with flowers (VIDEO)

2011-09-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

Darya Stepanenko, a 17-year-old student of the prestigious Kyiv Mohyla Academy, slapped Ukrainian Minister of Education Dmytro Tabachnyk on the face with a bunch of flowers.

“It was a protest,” explained Stepanenko to journalists who circled around her after she was taken from the building by police officers. “Not only my protest, but also a protest of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, St.Luka’s brotherhood and of all those people who are not happy with him holding the position of Educational Minister.”

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post

PS. Brave young woman, but hopefuly this will be the worst that she faces?

Free Soon...?

2011-09-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

US, EU urge Yanukovych to end trial of Tymoshenko

The United States and Europe have urged President Viktor Yanukovych to end the trial of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, increasing Western pressure on the embattled leader.

Meanwhile, from the other side, Yanukovych is getting squeezed by Russia, whose leaders are refusing to lower natural gas prices from the 2009 deal that Tymoshenko now faces criminal charges for negotiating.

Click here to read complete article.

Also very interesting piece done up about Yulia Tymoshenko saga in Russian

За что судят Юлю?

Source: Kyiv Post

УПА проти нацистів. Бій під Загоровим 6

2011-09-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

Проти чоти з 44-х повстанців було кинуто роту німецької жандармерії, роту донських козаків і роту поліції - всього близько 400 осіб. Увечері до німців прибуло підкріплення - десять легких танків. Три німецькі літаки розпочали бомбардування монастиря.

Click here to read complete story in Ukrainian.

SOurce: Istorychna Pravda

Happy 20th Anniversary Ukraine!!!!

2011-08-24T11:09:00.001-07:00

‎3 Днем Незалежності! Нехай Господь береже усіх вас і ваші родини.
Happy 20th Anniversary Ukraine!!!!!!!!

'Be kind. Save Somalia' urges Ukrainian genocidal famine Holodomor survivor

2011-08-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

Stefan Horlatsch survived the Holodomor as a 12-year-old boy.

Horlatsch's family had their land in the Zaporizhia region of eastern Ukraine, livestock and grain forcibly seized by Soviet authorities during the famine-genocide. Eleven members of his family perished.

The retired teacher from High Park pleaded for the world to offer its compass on in the form of immediate aid to Somalia.

"Ten-million Ukrainians perished. Ten million," Horlatsch said. "That is the population of Canada at the time. As a survivor, I say to the world: 'Be kind. Save Somalia.'"

Click here read complete article.

Source: Inside Toronto

More about Stefan Horlatsch visit:

http://www.ukemonde.com/horlatsch/aboutsh.html

UKEMONDE: Ukrainians unite for Somali famine relief

2011-08-20T05:46:00.000-07:00

UKEMONDE: Ukrainians unite for Somali famine relief

Ukrainians unite for Somali famine relief

2011-08-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

Stethan Horlatsch, a survivor of the 1930s Ukrainian famine, poses with Nawal Isse, assistant co-coordinator for the Aran Somali Canadian Relief Organization. Stethan will speak at Friday's news conference on the Ukrainian Canadian Congress's efforts to provide relief in Somalia.

Click here to read full story.

More about Stefan Horlatsch visit:
http://www.ukemonde.com/horlatsch/aboutsh.html

Also http://www.ukemonde.com/holodomor/remembering2008.html

Source: The Star

Ukraine's ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko 'taken into custody'

2011-08-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

According to Ukraine's commercial 5 Kanal TV, prosecutors had asked for Ms Tymoshenko to be arrested for showing contempt towards Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, who testified against her, and Judge Rodion Kireyev.

She has refused, as required, to stand up while addressing the judge, repeatedly insulted him and questioned his objectivity, another report said. Her supporters have also repeatedly disrupted hearings.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: BBC On-line

Montreal’s Luba on being 1980s pop icon in Canada – and looking for her next big break

2011-07-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

Born in 1958 to Ukrainian immigrant parents, Luba – a.k.a Lubomyra Kowalchyk (Lubomyra which translates into ‘love and peace’) – studied piano, guitar, flute and voice, and during her teens travelled across Canada performing traditional Ukrainian folk songs at weddings and festivals.
“I have always been painfully shy, I blush when people pay me compliments, but I’ve always had my feet on the ground when it comes time to dealing with people [chasing me for fame or fortune],” Luba told me over lunch last week at Restaurant Bonaparte in Old Montreal. “It was weird for someone as shy as me to be a performer. But I never really had stage fright because I’d been performing onstage since I was 13. I’d been recording [in studios] since I was 15.”

Click here to read full story.

Source: Montreal Gazette

Yanukovych's son unsteady on his feet

2011-07-13T17:31:00.000-07:00

Viktor Yanukovych Jr., the youngest of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's two sons, was videotaped on July 12 having difficulty walking and cursing as he apparently was trying to find the door to his residence in downtown Kyiv.

Yanukovych Jr., a lawmaker in Ukraine's parliament, was gently guided by his concerned companions towards the right door on Kropyvnytska Street near the prestigious Besarabka Market.

The low-quality video made using a cell phone shows Yanukovych stumbling and rejecting the assistance of what appear to be bodyguards and companions. He is heard swearing along the way.

The younger Yanukovych is seen taking an elevator to his apartment. It was not immediately clear what he had been doing on the day of July 12.

Days earlier, on July 8, President Yanukovych boasted about his two sons http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifduringhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif a nationally televised press conference.

“I can ensure everybody that I am not ashamed of my children and grandchildren. And I sincerely wish you to have children no worse than mine,” he said.

The video was taken by Hanna Harbovska, a journalist from The New Citizen civic partnership.

The young woman said she was shocked with Yanukovych's behavior, but didn't hesitate filming him and posting the video on YouTube.

Source: Kyiv Post

Click here to see video of drunken Yanukovych.

Ukrainian Canadians celebrate their roots in Montreal

2011-06-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

MONTREAL — Saint Michaels Ukranian Catholic Church is a lot like the Ukrainian community is serves: venerable, sturdy and admirable.

The church services one of five Ukranian-Catholic parishes on the island. It's also the oldest, built in 1917.

Saint Michaels is considered a home-base of the 30,000 Ukranian Quebecers which is celebrating 120 years in the province.

Many, like Bohdanna Monzczak are grateful for their lives in Canada which offered refuge from war-torn Eastern Europe where warring Russians and Germans had brought destruction to their land and many were imprisoned or killed.

"Right after the war, this was really paradise and I still think this is paradise," she said. "The church was full of people with a beautiful choir. Everybody was welcoming. We could have freedom and we could have whatever we wanted here," said Monzczak.

Read complete article here.

Source: ctvmontreal.ca

Dynamic young leader takes helm of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

2011-06-11T05:45:00.000-07:00

The names of two esteemed religious figures resonate when Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the new head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, speaks.

One died well before the archbishop was born. The other when he was rooted in his religious career. The spirits of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky – the pious, savvy and bold leader of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church during World War II – and John Paul II promise to be guiding forces as Shevchuk embarks on his journey of leading a global church which numbers five million faithful.

At 41, Shevchuk is one of the youngest people to head the church, which adheres to Catholic tenets but practices Byzantine rites. He is only a few years older than Sheptytsky was when he took office in 1901.

Click here to read full article.

Source: Kyiv Post

Sheftel: Demjanjuk Verdict is a ‘Farce’

2011-05-16T16:48:00.000-07:00

Sheftel said that he is convinced that the Israeli Supreme Court’s ruling regarding Demjanjuk was the true verdict he deserved.

“Nothing has changed since then,” he said. “Even during the trial in http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifGermany,http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif there was not one person who testified that Demjanjuk was Ivan from Sobibor, by virtue that he was seen there, and as such the conviction is a farce.”

Click here for complete article

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144135

St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Parish in Montreal - 100th Anniversary Celebration

2011-03-03T11:23:00.000-08:00

Have been busy working on the 100th Anniversary Celebration Webpage for St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Parish in Montreal. We welcome you to come and visit us at:

http://www.ukemonde.com/stmichael/
Also check out the historic photo album and virtual tour of the parish at:

http://www.pbase.com/saintmichaels/stmichaels (Photo Album)

http://www.pbase.com/saintmichaels/tour&view=slideshow (Virtual Tour)

We are also on FaceBook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001116692360

If anyone has stories or pictures we welcome you to send them in to us so we can add them to our album.

Ukraine reporter's bunny costume sparks parliament scandal

2010-12-22T09:45:00.000-08:00

Now this is creative and hilarious!!! Merry Christmas to all the clowns in Ukraine's Verchovna Rada!!!!

KYIV — A journalist for national Ukrainian television sparked a scandal Tuesday by turning up at work in parliament dressed as a bunny in protest at the sometimes farcical behaviour of MPs.

Dressed head-to-toe as a white bunny with two huge ears comically sprouting from his head, Roman Vintoniv somehow managed to keep a straight face as he conducted lobby interviews with besuited lawmakers.

He said his action was a protest against the sometimes comic behaviour of lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada who last week exchanged blows in a bloody punch-up that wounded several lawmakers.

"If the Verkhovna Rada is turning into a circus, then this needs to be officially acknowledged and people need to dress appropriately," Vintoniv told the influential news website Ukrainska Pravda.

Ukrainska Pravda said the parliament press service tried to have him expelled on the grounds that his external appearance was not in line with the rules.

But his colleagues then pointed out that the parliament has no dress code and he was able to carry out his work, carrying out interviews with some MPs, video footage posted on the Internet showed.

However some of his normal contacts refused to talk to him, Ukrainska Pravda said.

Friday's brawl -- which saw punches thrown and chairs hurled -- was one of the worst for years in the Rada and started after opposition deputies blockaded themselves inside the chamber.

Kiev prosecutors Tuesday said they had opened a criminal inquiry into the fighting, which came amid a legal probe against former prime minister and opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.

Ukrainians regularly express exasperation over their notoriously fractious parliament, suspecting that many lawmakers act in the interests of local oligarchs rather than ordinary citizens.

Source: AFP

Bloody parliament brawl in Ukraine

2010-12-17T12:44:00.000-08:00

Ukraine's opposition on Friday called for a criminal probe after several of its deputies were badly injured in a bloody brawl in parliament that saw punches thrown and chairs hurled.

The fight late on Thursday was violent even by the fractious standards of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada and came amid tensions after a criminal probe was opened this week against opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.

Deputies from Tymoshenko's BYuT-Batkivschyna party and the Regions Party of President Viktor Yanukovych slugged it out for several minutes behind the speaker's chair leaving at least three opposition MPs injured.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: News 24 and RFE/RL

Holodomor was NO SECRET IN WINNIPEG

2010-11-27T06:21:00.000-08:00

Instead of building on everything that's already been done on this issue in Ukraine and encouraging Russia to come to terms with the genocide it claims happened there, too, he has trivialized the memories of millions of his fellow countrymen.

Yanukovych is either being cynically and purposefully deceitful or somebody else's "useful idiot" when it comes to this tragic page in Ukraine's history.

As was the case with the Winnipeg communists who denied the Holodomor in 1933, only time will tell.

Click here to read complete article by Stephen Bandera

Source: Winnipeg Free Press

Visit UKEMONDE site for more information about Ukrainian Holodomor. A schedule of events to be held in Montreal commemorating this tragic page of Ukrainian history HERE. You can also view events being held across Canada by visiting UCC website.

Will Ukraine survive?

2010-11-20T08:01:00.000-08:00

Moscow is on the march. Vladimir Putin's Russia is the most destabilizing - and reckless - great power on the world stage. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia could have become a stable democracy at peace with its neighbors.

Instead, Mr. Putin is erecting a Great Russian empire. He has imposed a brutal police state at home. Journalists routinely are killed. Critics and dissidents are jailed. Media freedoms and opposition parties are under assault. A gangster elite runs the Kremlin, plundering the country's vast wealth.

Mr. Yanukovych's base is in the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine - the Sovietized industrial east. His Party of Regions seeks to make Russian an official language; in fact, its website refuses to use Ukrainian. He has put joining NATO and the European Union on the back burner - bowing to Moscow's demands. Slowly, but surely, he is splitting Kiev from the West. In short, he is Mr. Putin's poodle.

Read complete article here.

Source: Washington Times

Ukraine's topless protesters gain fame

2010-11-19T16:42:00.000-08:00

They have shed their shirts to promote women's rights, to support an Iranian woman sentenced to death for adultery and murder, and, most brazenly, to protest a visit by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Femen's initial targets were prostitution and discrimination against women. It has branched out to tax policy, freedom of speech and, as seen with Putin's visit last month, foreign affairs. "We won't sleep with Kremlin midgets" read one of the placards.

Click here to read complete story.

Source: USA Today

Local elections in Ukraine did not meet standards of previous presidential elections

2010-11-17T11:39:00.000-08:00

Canada expects Ukraine to improve its electoral legislation, Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine Daniel Caron has said.

"We were a little disappointed that these local elections did not meet the standards of the previous presidential elections, although we are pleased that [Ukrainian] President [Viktor] Yanukovych is open to the adoption of new electoral legislation that would correspond to international standards," he said at events to mark the 15th anniversary of the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU) in Kyiv on Wednesday.

He also said that Canada was firmly committed to its commitments with respect to Ukraine, where the relations between the two countries are based on democracy, access to information, economic freedom, and the observance of human rights.

Source: Kyiv Post

Their own words

2010-11-12T12:05:00.000-08:00

No amount of PR support or spin doctoring can fully cover up what people really think, especially those who hold powerful or influential positions. From the top down, some of Ukraine’s elite routinely reveal their true thoughts in unguarded moments – and they aren’t pretty.

“I will pull off their heads if they don’t deal with the sewage system, water and gas supplies,” President Viktor Yanukovych said on Nov. 11 in Kalush of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, referring to recalcitrant opposition mayors. His choice of words is more befitting that of a twice-imprisoned offender, which he is, rather than the leader of a democratic nation. No wonder many people fear the return of a 1990s mafia-like nation that existed under authoritarian ex-President Leonid Kuchma.

Only last week, in response to allegations that police are conducting a racist and illegal crackdown on merchants at Troyeshchyna market, Kyiv police spokesman Volodymyr Dmytrenko said: “Even if they are citizens of Ukraine, what positive contribution are they making to this country? None. They stand on their market, and sell goods of bad quality.” Such statements basically confirm the accusations.

Also last week, 12 journalism students at Taras Shevchenko National University were betrayed by their own instructor for having the bravery to create a calendar posing tough questions to Yanukovych. For instance, one asked: “When will authorities be held accountable for taking bribes?” “These kids are only 18 to 19 years old; they are too young and too inexperienced to ask such questions,” scoffed Volodymyr Shevchenko, deputy rector of the Journalism Institute.

It’s clear that, from the president to police to the universities, the nation's leaders are failing Ukrainians, young and old.

Source: Kyiv Post

Westerners, local observers rip Oct. 31 elections as undemocratic

2010-11-05T05:09:00.000-07:00

If the fix wasn’t in during Ukraine’s Oct. 31 local government elections, the contests sure didn’t pass the smell test to a host of reputable domestic and international observers.

As much as Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych tried to put the elections behind him and say all was fine, an international consensus is taking shape that he failed his first big democratic test since taking power on Feb. 25.

The judgment could derail Yanukovych’s stated goal of integrating Ukraine into the European family of democratic nations.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post

Harper accused of exaggerating Ukrainian genocide's death toll

2010-10-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

KYIV, Ukraine — Prime Minister Stephen Harper is being accused of exaggerating this week the extent of the 1932-33 famine that was declared a genocide by Canada's Parliament two years ago.

Harper indicated on both days of his first-ever journey to Ukraine that "almost" 10 million people died in what is known as the Holodomor — or "death by starvation."
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Critics, while stressing that the death toll of the famine caused by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's policies is massive and remains one of history's great crimes against humanity, said the true figure is roughly a third of Harper's.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Montreal Gazette

Mystery surrounds Vladimir Putin's black

2010-10-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has kept his countrymen guessing after he arrived for talks with Ukrainian leaders sporting what appeared to be a black eye covered up with heavy make up.

Being a black-belt in judo, some reports say it may have been due to the hazards of the combative sport.

I personally think in was his buddy Plushenko giving him a little skate massage... :-))

Source: hellomagazine

Harper in Lviv, Ukraine: Remember that in Canada, you have friends

2010-10-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Here is the a lightly-edited speech Prime Minister Stephen Harper that was given at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine on the last day of his five-day trip to Europe:

“There are strong people-people links between our two countries.
Ukrainians have been emigrating to Canada for more than 100 years and one and a quarter million Canadians have Ukrainian roots. That's about 4 per cent of the total population. And that percentage is much higher on the Canadian prairies where I reside. As a part of Canada that looks like parts of Ukraine and where you would recognize many of the surnames, as you would for members of the distinguished Ukrainian delegation that is travelling with me here.

Click here to read complete speach

Source: Toronto Sun

Also visit Friends of UCU Montreal

T.M.R. Mayor Vera Danyluk laid to rest

2010-10-24T13:19:00.000-07:00

Vera Danyluk was laid to rest in a service attended by the city’s top political brass, uniformed police and army officers. But most of the roughly 600 in attendance were T.M.R. residents.

“She was a woman with a vision and she had a great heart,” said Frosini Costy, 79, a longtime T.M.R. resident. “I only met her a few times, but you could tell there was something special about her person. It was almost as if she had an aura around her.”

“She was a person of such integrity and passion,” said Heather Macleod, a T.M.R. resident in her 60s. “Her passing was such a sad loss.”

Danyluk died Oct. 14 at age 66 after a two-year battle with a rare disease.

Click here to read full article.

Also click here to view news video clip of Vera Danyluk's funeral.

Source: Montreal Gazette / CTV Montreal

Also visit UKEMONDE site to read more about Vera Danylul

Breaking News The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION Harper begins trip to Ukraine with message on rights, democracy

2010-10-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

KYIV, Ukraine - Prime Minister Stephen Harper will tug on the deep familial ties that bind Canada and Ukraine, in an attempt to pull that struggling republic's attention back toward the friendly West and away from a less-democratically minded Russia.

Harper's first visit to the former Soviet republic, which kicked off Sunday, will touch bluntly on some of the darkest points of Ukrainian history and the most sensitive subjects of its contemporary political landscape — a charged itinerary likely to resonate with the more than one million Canadians of Ukrainian descent.

Click here to read full article.

Source: Winnipeg Free Press

Politician set the bar high - Vera Danyluk

2010-10-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

Vera Mystic grew up in Rosemont and took the Danyluk name upon marriage to Victor Danyluk of T.M.R. Like Victor, she was of Ukrainian origin. She declined an offer to run for the Quebec Liberal Party as a candidate in the 1998 general election because Victor didn't want her to be away in Quebec City so much.

We will miss you Vera, your smile and charming personality. You were too young to leave us. Vichnaya Pamyat

Click here to read more and see video clip of Vera Danyluk

Source: Montreal Gazette

Yanukovych in Wonderland

2010-09-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

Very intersting article by Alexander J. Motyl.

Claim: “for the first time in the modern history of Ukraine – the President, the Government and the Parliament (to be exact the coalition majority that has been formed) are moving in the same strategic direction, not in the three different ones as was the case earlier.”

Reality: Yanukovych fails to mention that this unprecedented unanimity is the product of crude constitutional shenanigans that enabled his Party of Regions to form a majority in the Parliament and thus a government.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Atlantic Council

Thugs attack pro-Ukrainian rock festival

2010-09-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

Eyewitnesses said about two dozen men carrying baseball bats attacked a rock festival at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 26 in Irpen, a town outside Kyiv.

Several security guards at the festival received injuries during the melee. Several well-known Ukrainian rock groups, such as Sun Shadow, TNMK, Dead Rooster and Tartak, from performing at the venue, named "Gaidamaka.ua." Police made no arrests.

The 2-day festival was sponsored by Last Barricade, a non-profit organization co-founded by Oles Doniy, an opposition parliament deputy from the Our Ukraine - Self Defense faction.

"No one was drinking alcoholic beverages at the concert and none of the bands performed controversial ultra-nationalist songs," Doniy said, adding that several security gaurds received injuries requiring hospitalization. "We have filed compaints with the police and are waiting for their response," he told the Kyiv Post on Sept. 27.

Pro-presidential deputy Vadym Kolesnychenko had asked the State Security Service to check whether organizers of the venue obtained necessary permits for staging the concerts, noting that several of the songs of the bands promoted fascism and xenophobia, a charge Doniy denied.

Source: Kyiv Post

The First And Second Murders Of Heorhiy Gongadze

2010-09-18T06:14:00.000-07:00

Gongadze stood out from the journalistic crowd by daring to ask the unpleasant questions. I remember a television program during which Kuchma was taking questions from journalists. All but one posed polite questions that would not upset the president. The one who did not was Georgiy Gongadze. It is highly unlikely that Kuchma could forget this episode. When he later claimed that he didn’t even know who Gongadze was, the Ukrainian president was patently not telling the truth.

Gongadze created the first popular and influential Internet site in Ukraine, “Ukrainska Pravda.” There are many rumors as to who financed the initial project, but those rumors are meaningless. What is important is that these were not criminal funds. Had this been the case, it would have become eminently clear during the first days following Gongadze’s disappearance.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: RFE/RL

Press Freedom Under Threat In Ukraine

2010-09-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

Last month, the International Press Institute wrote Yanukovych to "express its concern at the significant deterioration” in press freedom. Reporters Without Borders warns of disturbing recent trends in censorship, political pressure, and physical attacks on journalists, and criticizes "the government's desire to control journalists" in its latest fact-finding report.

Press freedoms are under attack in many ways. In May, journalists from Channel 1+1 television released an open letter complaining of censorship. In July, after a Ukrainian blogger criticized Yanukovych, the State Security Service interrogated him for allegedly threatening the president’s life and insulting him.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: RFE/RL

Mountain hideouts sheltered Ukrainian freedom fighters

2010-09-03T19:33:00.000-07:00

Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast was the site of heated battles in 1944-5, as Ukrainian freedom fighters descended from the mountainous terrain to launch attacks on Soviet-occupied towns. Fighting continued well into the 1950s, pitching fighters from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, against the Soviet NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB.

Located in the Black Forest, 63 kilometers southwest of Ivano-Frankivsk on the edge of the village of Maksymets is a typical example of a bunker where partisans hid out.

Colonel Mykola Tverdokhlib, a regional UPA commander whose nom de guerre was Hrim, or Thunder, spent the winter of 1953-4 here with five other fighters before they were discovered by the NKVD.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post

Education Minister Tabachnyk out to censor Ukrainian history

2010-09-02T11:21:00.000-07:00

There is no Ukrainian history program on education ministry’s site. Instead, we can see only a blank space where the program should be. And there are no ministry’s regulations obliging authors to rewrite history textbooks, says historian Volodymyr Vyatrovych in his article “Back to USSR, or the art of editing out history textbooks.”

Click here to read complete article.

Source: ZIK

Protesters arrested outside Russian embassy in Kyiv

2010-08-31T12:38:00.000-07:00

Here is what one would call freedom of speach and expression, isn't it a sad case? Yanuk and his cronies are trying to copy their BIG BROTHER PUTIN in freedom loving traditions just like it is in RUSSIA!!! RG

Police in Kyiv on Aug. 31 arrested several demonstrators protesting freedom of assembly restrictions outside the Russian embassy.

The demostrators, organized by Coalition of Participants of the Orange Revolution (COPOR), a non-governmental organization, surrounded the Russian embasy to show support for Russian civil activists, who traditionally gather on Victory Square in Moscow on the 31st day of every month to defend their right to freedom of assembly.

Source: Kyiv Post

Germany's Merkel voices concerns over media freedom in Ukraine at president Yanukovych's visit

2010-08-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

Germany's chancellor urged Ukraine's president Monday to strengthen media freedoms in his country, while stressing the potential for further co-operation between the two nations on energy issues.

Germany sees unanswered questions regarding some democratic processes in Ukraine, "in particular in the area of press freedom and the freedom of expression," Chancellor Angela Merkel told visiting President Viktor Yanukovych.

Merkel said both sides agreed to openly and frankly discuss those issues in the future, if critical questions arise.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: CP

Ukrainian Journalists, Artists In Censorship Protest

2010-08-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

More than 100 Ukrainian journalists and artists have taken to the streets of Kyiv in a protest over perceived censorship on the country's television networks.

Protesters rallied outside a courthouse as judges discussed the attribution of frequencies to two Ukrainian television channels, TVi and Channel 5, which are seen as independent of state control.

"Freedom of speech and justice should exist everywhere on Earth, without exception, and if every person starts with freedom of speech on a personal level with himself and those around him, then everything else will be fine," writer Dmitry Kapranovy said at the rally.

Private channels TVi and Channel 5 are at loggerheads with one of the main national networks, Inter TV Channel, whose owner, Valery Khoroshkovsky, is one of the country's richest businessmen and also head of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU).

The court today delayed its decision on the case.

Source: RFE/RL

Going Down

2010-08-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

Yanukovych’s popularity suffered a double-digit plunge, according to an August opinion poll, as voters balked at tough austerity measures adopted by his ruling coalition in return for badly needed loans from the International Monetary Fund.

The nationwide poll, conducted by the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center Aug. 10-14, found that 22.5 percent of Ukrainians completely supported Yanukovych in August, down from 39.7 percent in May and 40.9 percent in April. According to the poll, 38.7 percent of those surveyed support some of his actions, while 33.3 percent don’t support him.

Regarding the upcoming elections, the president can be expected to use so-called administrative resources to help candidates whom he supports while hampering his opponents' chances, Fesenko said. Similar tactics were initially used by Russia’s Vladimir Putin in his building a managed democracy, Fesenko recalled.

Click here to read more

Source: Kyiv Post

Independence Day of Ukraine

2010-08-24T06:51:00.000-07:00

Traditionally on August 24, the Independence Day of Ukraine started a day earlier three years ago. A new holiday, Day of National Flag, was introduced by a presidential decree in 2006.

After facing two World Wars and several political upheavals, Ukraine achieved independence from the Soviet Unions on August 24, 1991. The constitution was adopted nearly five years later.

Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe after Russia. It is bordered on the west by Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary; on the southwest by Romania and Moldova; on the south by the Black Sea and Sea of Azov; on the east and northeast by Russia; and on the north by Belarus. The capital and largest city of Ukraine is Kyiv.
Picture courtesy Kiyv Post. You can view other pictures by clicking here.

Click here to read full article.

Source: Manila Bulletin

Ukrainian police search for missing newspaper editor

2010-08-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

Ukrainian police are searching for a missing editor whose newspaper was known for its criticism of law enforcement agencies, Interior Minister Anatoly Mogylyov was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Ukrainian media freedom groups have complained about growing censorship and attacks, including physical ones, on the media, since President Viktor Yanukovich replaced liberal pro-Western politician Viktor Yushchenko in February.

Vasyl Klymentyev, the editor-in-chief of the "Noviy Stil" newspaper, which focuses on corruption issues in the eastern Kharkiv region, went missing on Aug. 11 after leaving home with an unidentified man, according to police reports.

Click here to read complete article.

Source Montreal Gazette

Disappearance Raises Fresh Questions About Media Climate In Ukraine

2010-08-19T04:59:00.000-07:00

Vasyl Klymentyev was last seen last week, when he met a colleague to discuss an article he was writing about a local prosecutor and a tax official.

The editor of "Novyy Styl," a weekly newspaper in the eastern city of Kharkiv, Klymentyev is a well-known critic of the authorities. Police say they suspect he may have been killed.

Klymentyev's deputy, Petro Matviyenko, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that he and Klymentyev had met on August 11 to discuss photographs they'd taken of mansions belonging to regional tax chief Stanislav Denisyuk and other officials.

The authorities say Klymentyev was last seen later that day getting into a BMW with an unknown man. A manhunt is under way and officials are investigating on charges of "possible premeditated murder."

Klymentyev's case is raising new questions about the state of press freedom in Ukraine after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych came to power earlier this year in an election that repudiated the Orange Revolution and its pro-Western leaders.

CLick here to read complete story.

Source: RFE/RL

Ukraine journalists threaten strike over press freedom

2010-08-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

Ukraine journalists warned Sunday of strike action over work conditions, complaining of a deterioration in press freedom in the past six months under President Viktor Yanukovych. Click here to read the story here.

SOurce: China Post

Ukrainian Nationalist Groups Protest Russian Patriarch's Visit

2010-08-03T07:57:00.000-07:00

Nationalist groups gathered near the "Ukrainian House" in Kyiv to protest Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill's visit to Ukraine, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.

The some 80 protesters gathered representing the nationalist Svoboda (Liberty) party, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Self Defense, and the Ukrainian People's Party.

They staged a performance called "Glamorous Tour of a Moscow KGB Agent" that was officially banned by the Kyiv authorities on July 26.

The protesters also displayed Ukrainian flags, their party banners, and placards saying "Reverend Kirill muddies the waters for the Ukrainian nation" and "No to the Moscow priest-colonizer!"

About 30 policemen watched the protest but did not intervene. No violence was reported.

Other protests during Kirill's eight-day trip had been disrupted or otherwise disallowed.

Kirill, who started his visit to Ukraine on July 20, attended a religious service on Kyiv's Volodymyr Hill on July 27 to celebrate the day of Russia's conversion to Christianity.

Source RFE/RL

Communist Ukrainian Institute Head Denies Famine Was Deliberate

2010-07-29T06:31:00.000-07:00

KYIV -- The new director of Ukraine's National Memory Institute says that while the 1932-1933 famine in Ukraine was "the result of difficult circumstances," it was not artificially provoked, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.

Millions of Ukrainians died in the famine, which was at least partly the result of restrictions imposed by Soviet leader Josef Stalin on farmers across the Soviet Union.

Click here for complete article.

Source: RFE/RL

Patriarch Kiril must be declared persona non grata, Ukrainian party demands

2010-07-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

While on a visit to Ukraine, Moscow Patriarch Kiril continues to fan interconfessional feud and violate the laws of Ukraine, first deputy head of the Ukrainian Party Oleh Olijnyk says. This time, however, Kiril has embarked on a different tactics regarding his provocative declarations as they are publicized not by Kiril himself but by his aides, the UP July 23 website release runs.

To illustrate, UP refers to one of the declarations made by Moscow patriarchate spokesperson to the effect that the cancellation of registration of Kyiv patriarchate property will heal the rift in Ukraine Orthodoxy [and the unraveling of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church independent from Moscow – Ed.].
“The UP persistently advises Moscow patriarchate leaders to curb their appetite and not to infringe on the property and assets not belonging to them. Similarly, Patriarch Kiril must stop driving a wedge among Orthodox believers in Ukraine and provoke conflict,” the UP statement continues.
“Otherwise, we will be forced to appeal to Pres Yanukovych and prosecution to interfere to stop the religious feud from getting into the open. We will also demand that Patriarch Kiril be banned to visit Ukraine,” the statement concludes.

Source: ZIK

Reporters Without Borders gives gloomy assessment of prospects for media freedom in Ukraine

2010-07-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

KYIV, Ukraine — The head of the global media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders is giving a gloomy assessment of the prospects for improved media freedom in Ukraine.

Jean-Francois Julliard said after meeting Ukrainian parliament members Tuesday that the "opposition lawmakers will make strong statements, while the pro-governmental party will say there is no problem with freedom of expression in Ukraine."

Julliard is in Kyiv for three days of talks with journalists and officials. He said the trip was prompted by alarming signs on censorship, political pressure and physical attacks against reporters since Viktor Yanukovych became president this year.

Source: The Associated Press (CP)

My national dish: the mighty pierogi

2010-06-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

I know what you’re thinking: The pierogi is not Canadian. Tell that to my great grandmother, who brought her family recipe from the Ukraine to Alberta at the invitation of Clifford Sifton, Wilfrid Laurier’s Minister of the Interior. On the Canadian prairie, she modified her recipe – being Ukrainian, she called them perohi – to suit Canadian terroir. She substituted cheddar for cottage cheese, and tweaked the dough to make it far suppler than anything in the old country. (The secret is more yolks and less egg whites, but that’s all I’m saying).

Click here for complete article.

Source: Globe and Mail

Legendary albums

2010-06-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

I decided to lighten up the topic a little and wanted to publish an excellent article on the many great albums and artists that are making their way in popularizing Ukrainian music and its language and culture.
Some go back to pre-independence, while many mentioned are contempoary artists in a very tough cut throat industry. While the 'popsa' scene is still flourishing in Ukraine, run by the mafia element, it is nice to see other "normal" type of music evolving in Ukraine.

If anybody is interested in purchasing any of these albums, I recommend this site very highly.

Click here to read full article.

Source: The Day

Ukrainians Ponder Performance of New Government

2010-06-09T07:49:00.000-07:00

While reading the Kyiv Post yesterday I came accross the following article: CLICK HERE
It mentions that almost two thirds of Ukrainians support Yanukovych’s foreign policy the poll reveals.

62.9% of respondents, polled recently by the Kyiv-based Gorshenin Institute of Management Issues, said the Yanukovych foreign policy reflects their interests in varying degrees, 27.5% oppose it and 9.6% were undecided.

Not really sure if this poll would be trustworthy, I would go more along beleiving this poll more, Angus Reid Global Monitor says that one-in-four Ukrainians believe the country’s situation has improved under the new government, according to a poll by Research & Branding Group. 26 per cent of respondents think the socio-economic situation in Ukraine has become better, while 56 per cent say it has not changed substantially.

It's like the following blog and picture above: "Now you see him, now you don't."

CLICK HERE to see the results.

Source: Angus Reid Global Monitor

Two Ukrainian Opposition TV Channels Stripped Of Frequencies

2010-06-08T10:04:00.000-07:00

Now here is real proof of freedom of speach working in Ukraine.

A court has stripped two Ukrainian TV channels -- Channel 5 and TVi -- of their new broadcast frequencies, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.

The Kyiv district court today annulled the January results of a tender held by Ukraine's National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting that allocated those frequencies.

According to Ukrainian media experts, Channel 5 and TVi are among the few Ukrainian TV channels that provide independent news coverage.

CLICK HERE for complete story.

Source: RFE/RL

Quebec passes bill recognizing Holodomor as a genocide

2010-06-02T16:01:00.000-07:00

QUEBEC, June 2 /CNW/ - Members of the Quebec's National Assembly today unanimously passed Bill 390 - An Act to proclaim Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day.

The Bill, which was introduced in November by MNA Louise Beaudoin and received unanimous approval at first reading, commemorates victims of the Holodomor (the engineered famine in Ukraine which murdered millions of Ukrainians in 1932-33).

The legislation recognizes the Holodomor as "the famine and genocide that occurred in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 where millions of Ukrainians perished as victims of a famine deliberately induced by the Soviet regime under Joseph Stalin to quash the aspirations of the Ukrainian people for a free and independent Ukraine."

The Bill further builds on the 1998 Ukrainian Presidential decree, the law adopted by the Parliament of Ukraine in 2006, legislation unanimously passed by the Parliament of Canada in 2008 as well as statutes adopted by the provincial legislatures of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario which recognize the Holodomor as a genocide against the Ukrainian people and establishes the fourth Saturday in November as a Day of Remembrance for the victims of this mass atrocity.

"Today, the Government of Quebec paid tribute to the millions of innocent victims of the Holodomor, condemned the heinous crimes of the Soviet Communist regime of Joseph Stalin, and has helped to restore historical justice, stated Marika Putko, UCC Quebec Provincial Council President. "We applaud the resolve and courage of Quebec's legislators in ensuring the passage of Bill 390 which proclaims the fourth Saturday of every November as a day of remembrance - Holodomor Memorial Day and that recognizes the Holodomor of 1932-1933 as an act of genocide."

"We commend the members of the Quebec National Assembly for their work to ensure that the tragedy of the Holodomor is recognized and will no longer be whitewashed by apologists for the Soviet system." stated Paul Grod, Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) National President. "Quebec becomes the sixth jurisdiction in Canada to recognize Holodomor as famine genocide. May the lesson that the World has acknowledged not be forgotten in Ukraine."

More information and link to video of video of the Quebec's National Assembly June 2, 2010 which unanimously passed Bill 390 - An Act to proclaim Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day. CLICK HERE

Source: CNW

In memory of Ilko Kucheriv

2010-05-31T11:40:00.000-07:00

On May 29, 2010, Ukraine and all those who cared about making the world a better and democratic place lost a good friend, when the life of Ilko Kucheriv, the Director of Kyiv-based Democratic Initiatives Foundations, came to an end. It was an end that so many saw coming, while at the same time they all tried, in every way humanly possible, to extend the life of a man, father and friend who had so many plans, for a man who was 55 years young.

The average Ukrainian probably never heard of Ilko Kucheriv but anyone who had ever met him, talked with him, asked him for his opinion or advice knew that he was passionate about what he did, and he was passionate for one single reason. He wanted to make Ukraine and the world a better place, not just for himself, but also for everyone.

I, together with everyone else who knew Ilko Kucheiv, will miss him immensely. May the earth of your dear country Ukraine cradle you gently and may your soul and spirit always be nearby to guide those who want the world to be a better place.

Source: Ukraine Business On-line

By:Vasyl Pawlowsky

In Lviv, Jewish prayers over Nazi graves

2010-05-28T19:46:00.000-07:00

Discussions are also heating up over many other divisive issues. Those include whether elevating the status of nationalist leader Stepan Bandera (1909-1959) helps or hurts the cause of unifying Ukraine’s diverse regions. Debate is also flaring over the extent to which western Ukrainians were responsible for the demise of the region’s Jewish community during World War II, and why Ukrainians from the east do not appear ready to support the version of Ukrainian nationalism their western counterparts frequently offer.

The advent of a new pro-Russian government in Kyiv that looks ready to revise Ukrainian history in a way that is more acceptable to Moscow and often maligns western Ukraine has added urgency to this reassessment. There is a feeling that if western Ukrainians don’t soon come to terms with their own regional history, it will be too late to counter the theses forwarded by a less-friendly Kyiv.

One of the most widely debated topics these days is how western Ukrainians see Bandera, the man who led the more radical wing of the Organization for Ukrainian Nationalists. The movement was founded in 1929 with the goal of uniting territorially divided Ukraine and establishing it as an independent nation.

“Yushchenko, of course, acted very badly in that he accented historical memory (during his presidency) [concerning Bandera]. It is necessary to take a more serious stance toward history. ”

- Yaroslav Hrytsak, a leading historian who heads the humanities department at Lviv’s Ukrainian Catholic University.

While many western Ukrainians admire Bandera for leading a movement that was able to withstand Soviet repression for more than two decades, not everyone agrees with the decision former President Viktor Yushchenko made earlier this year to bestow Bandera with the nation’s highest honor, the Hero of Ukraine award. They are concerned that the recognition was bestowed on the eve of the Jan. 17 presidential election – a vote that Yushchenko lost by a landslide, as predicted. The award has since divided Ukraine and allowed the region’s history and its historical figures to become objects of political manipulation.

“If you want to have a discussion in Ukraine, throw in Bandera and you will have soon it,” Yaroslav Hrytsak, a leading historian who heads the humanities department at Lviv’s Ukrainian Catholic University told an audience on May 11 during a discussion about World War II.

Click here for full article.

Інтерв’ю з о.-д-ром Борисом ҐУДЗЯКОМ з приводу тиску Служби безпеки‏

2010-05-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

Інтерв’ю з о.-д-ром Борисом ҐУДЗЯКОМ з приводу тиску Служби безпеки України на Український католицький університет у Львові
Interview in Ukrainian with Dr. Gudziak in regards to the SBU / KGB push last week.

http://www.risu.org.ua/ua/index/expert_thought/interview/35857/

Source: RISU

SBU pressure on the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv‏

2010-05-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

Fr. Borys Gudziak received a visit from an SBU agent(former KGB)on May 18 in a polite manner the agent related that certain political parties are planning protests and demonstrations regarding the controversial (and in some cases inflammatory) policies of the new Ukrainian authorities. Students are to be engaged in these protests. There is a danger that some of these manifestations may be marred by provocations. He stated that, of course, students are allowed to protest but that they should be warned by the university administration that those involved in any illegal activities will be prosecuted. Illegal activities include not only violent acts but also, for example, pickets blocking access to the work place of government officials (or any protests that are not sanctioned by authorities).

Click here to read complete article.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church became public and legal again. In 1992 the seminary resumed operations, though in a different location, because the Soviets had seized and reallocated all church property. The newly independent Ukrainian government offered the eparchy a former Pioneer (Scout) summer camp in Rudno, an adjoining suburb of Lviv. Since that time, the number of vocations to the priesthood has been high.

The seminary was re-opened but the former students of the late Cardinal Slipyi also longed to fulfill his dream a full-fledged Ukrainian Catholic University. Toward that end, they opened the re-named Lviv Theological Academy in 1994 which now provides the academic program for the seminarians. In November 1998, the revived Academy received accreditation from Rome to grant the ecclesiastical Bachelor's of Theology. In June 2000, ground was broken for a new Theological Center in the city of Lviv, which will combine the seminary residence and the University's theological faculty.

Source: UCU

Now you see him, now you don't!!!

2010-05-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

The two presidents took part in the ceremony to lay wreaths to the Eternal Flame on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Kiyv’s Park of Glory. Afterwards, Medvedev and Yanukovych did the same near the monument to the victims of mass famine in 1932-1933.
The ceremony was held under extremely unfavorable weather conditions: there was a very strong wind and it was pouring rain. Must have had all those dead souls howling at these two clowns trying to show their fake gestures, meanwhile not even acknowledging the Holodomor as a Genocide. The press service of the Ukrainian president asked the media not to post any videos or footage of the incident. Now that is what you call freedon of speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz9yhWXDIDE

Click here for full story.

Source: Pravda

PS. We must not forget the great acting by Yanuk with the egg incident in Ivano-Frankivsk.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fP0vWkqOQT8

Lviv museum recounts Soviet, Nazi atrocities

2010-05-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

As Ukraine, Russia and Belarus elaborately commemorated the 65-year anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany on May 9, Lviv’s museum Prison on Lonckoho stands as a stark reminder of the other side of history – the terrors Soviet authorities unleashed on their own people, both during and after World War II.

Near the end of June 1941, as the German army began its offensive on Lviv and the ruling Soviets were in retreat, Ivan Kindrat and three other medical students scurried toward the city’s prison. It was commonly known as Number One.

An acquaintance who lived across the street from the penitentiary told them that on the night of June 28, 1941, he had heard gunshots and blood-curdling screams coming from there.

What Kindrat saw at the prison, which was run by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, horrified him.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post

Victory Day I would not call it!!!

2010-05-08T05:44:00.000-07:00

As the Red Army advanced toward Berlin in 1945 it had become a city virtually without men. Out of a civilian population of 2,700,000, 2,000,000 were women. It is small wonder that the fear of sexual attack raced through the city like a plague. Doctors were besieged by patients seeking information on the quickest way to commit suicide, and poison was in great demand.

On March 24, 1945, these "noble Soviet allies" entered Danzig. A 50-year-old Danzig teacher reported that her niece, 15, was raped seven times, and her other niece, 22, was raped fifteen times. A Soviet officer told a group of women to seek safety in the Cathedral. Once they were securely locked inside, the beasts of Bolshevism entered, and ringing the bells and playing the organ, "celebrated" a foul orgy through the night, raping all the women, some more than thirty times. A Catholic pastor in Danzig declared, "They violated even eight-year-old girls and shot boys who tried to shield their mothers."

The greatest crimes against women in history, was the mass rape of the conquered women of Europe after the Communist victory in 1945. The rapists were mainly Red Army soldiers, some of them non-White troops from the Far East and Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union.

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin authorised his army to look on women as spoils of war. Hitler's war had cost 22 million Soviet civilians their lives, often in barbarous circumstances. But few could have foreseen the extent of the revenge.

At least 2 million German women are thought to have been raped. One doctor deduced that of about 100,000 women raped in Berlin, 10,000 died as a result, mostly from suicide. An estimated 10 per cent gave birth. The death rate was thought to have been much higher among the 1.4 million victims in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia.

Former Soviet war correspondent Natalya Gesse recalled: "The Russian soldiers were raping every German female from eight to 80... It was an army of rapists."

Below you have links to sources that show this sad part of history. While these robbers / rapists celebrate victory day with all their medals in Red Square, I would like to honor the true heroes, the women who survived this barbaric onslaught by the army of rapists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/may/01/news.features11

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1254521/German-victim-break-silence-Red-Army-rapists-65-years.html?ITO=1490

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106687768&ft=1&f=1004

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3293251/Red-Army-troops-raped-even-Russian-women-as-they-freed-them-from-camps.html

http://www.rense.com/general19/redarmy.htm

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/6-23-2002-20908.asp

Vladimir Putin, Raving Psychopath

2010-05-06T10:16:00.000-07:00

Let’s be perfectly clear: The people of Ukraine do not want union with Russia. The only reason new President Victor Yanukovich even has power is that the opposition camp was divided between two rival, fractious candidates. The violent reaction in the Ukrainian parliament to Yanukovich’s announcement of the Sevastopol deal shows clearly that Ukrainians want no part of Russian domination. But such sentiments did not stop Adolf Hitler, and they won’t stop Vladimir Putin either.

It is up to the NATO allies to stop him. As Yulia Latynina’s most recent Moscow Times column, which we republish today, makes clear, the NATO allies are sending disturbing signals that they will repeat the mistakes of Munich. It is up to people of courage and good will in the NATO countries to make sure they do no such thing.

Click here for complete article.

Source: La Russophobe

Rare Russian opposition rally says Putin is Stalin

2010-05-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

"Putin is Stalin! Putin is Brezhnev! Russia without Putin," chanted the crowd, including former chess master Garry Kasparov, one of the Kremlin's harshest critics who co-heads the democratic, pro-western Solidarity movement.

The opposition says Putin has stifled media freedom and democratic rights when he was president between 2000 and 2008.

They accuse Putin of blind economic policies -- similar to the years of stagnation under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev -- as he continues to dominate Russian politics after handpicking successor Dmitry Medvedev and becoming prime minister under him.

Click here for complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post

New lows on the high road to democracy

2010-04-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

And the Ukrainian clowns are back at it, adding more shame to an already shameful history. When will they learn to behave like human beings and not goons. Roman

Ukraine’s democracy proved as fragile on April 27 as the raw eggs that pelted Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn.

The crowd was nasty, clownish and thuggish inside parliament, among the nation’s 450 top lawmakers. But there were tense moments outside as well, among the estimated crowd of at least several thousand demonstrators. Most were from the opposition and tried to fight their way into parliament. But were easily repelled by platoons of police and helmeted Berkut riot-control officers.

Click here to read article as well as see the clowns at work.

Source: Kyiv Post

Also Montreal Gazette piece on this.

Protests as Ukraine backs Russian base extension - Kyiv Post
PROTESTERS hurled eggs in the Ukrainian parliament today in protest at a government deal to let Russia keep a naval base.

Ukrainian parli egging - video clip
Courtsey: The Sun

Scars linger as Ukraine marks 24 years since Chernobyl

2010-04-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

Ukraine marks the 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on Monday, but after nearly a quarter of a century the scars left by the catastrophic explosion are still plain to see. Read the story here.

Source: Deutsche Welle

You can also visit UKEMONDE Site for more on the Chornobyl tragedy.

Media watchdog: Ukraine's press freedom declines

2010-04-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

Ukraine's press freedom has declined since the election of the new Russia-friendly president earlier this year, a global media rights watchdog said

The group expressed concern about Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's decision earlier this month to disband the national commission on freedom of speech. It urged Yanukovych to explain his move and spell out his media policy.

The UNIAN news agency quoted Yanukovych's deputy chief of staff, Anna German, as saying Friday that the commission's functions were given to a newly created body that she heads.

Click here for complete article.

Source: AP

No civilized nation would erect monument to mass murderer

2010-04-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

If the Communist Party wing in Zaporizhya gets its way, a monument will be erected to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin before Victory Day on May 9. Just as alarming, some government officials have no plans to stop them. Even stranger, some human rights activists agree. “It’s not the state’s business to interfere,” wrote a colleague from the Kharkiv Group for Human Rights. “What can the government do if it does not go against the law?”

Attitude to history is a good indicator of the capabilities and aspirations of the ruling elite. It rings especially true in Ukraine, which has none of the usual ideological reference points that allow the voters to make a distinction between the left, the right and the centrists.

We have to judge our politicians by their attitude to language, history and European values. If the rhetoric of the current government is of any significance, the near future holds nothing that would move us closer to a true Ukrainian state.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post

NO Табачник (Another Brick in The Wall - Pink Floyd)

2010-04-06T18:11:00.000-07:00

NO Табачник (Another Brick in The Wall - Pink Floyd)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlo8aCO6yII

Dmytro [Krippinovych] Tabachnyk

2010-04-06T16:39:00.000-07:00

Tabachnyk wrote in Duck Soup Ukrainian Style that the millions who protested in the Orange Revolution did so because of ‘neuro-linguistic programming’, a form of ‘psychological training’ that was developed by the Americans. This is not a case of seeing ‘pigs that can fly’ but of being a hardcore believer in UFO’s and little green men that fly around in space ships!
First Lady Yanukovych, who presumably is too busy in the ‘kitchen’ to perform her presidential duties, also claimed in her famous December 2004 speech that Orange Revolution protestors were drugged up from oranges injected with LSD (see the video clip of her fantastic performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oicOHnK9ihM). Maybe the First Lady heads up the Donetsk branch of the Ukraine’s X-files fan club and Tabachnyk the all-Ukrainian organization.
Picture above is of the infamous wife-poisoner Dr Crippen a very close resemblance to our Education Minister Tabachnyk. More on the doctor and his colourful associates here

Source: Taras Kuzio Blog
also Foreign Notes Blog

Nadvirna city council awards honorary citizen titles to Bandera, Shukhevych, Lenkavsky

2010-03-25T11:39:00.000-07:00

March 25, 2010 | Interfax-Ukraine Ivano-Frankivsk, March 25 (Interfax-Ukraine) - The city council of Nadvirna in Ivano-Frankivsk region has awarded honorary citizen titles to Stepan Bandera and Stepan Lenkavsky, the leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and Roman Shukhevych, the commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

Interfax-Ukraine learned this at the city council, referring to a relevant decision taken on Thursday.

All 29 deputies who attended the session voted for the decision.

The council also supported Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Council's request to dismiss Dmytro Tabachnyk as Ukraine's education and science minister.

Nadvirna City Council includes 38 deputies who represent the factions of Our Ukraine Party, the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, the Ukrainian People's Party, and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists.

Over 22,000 people live in Nadvirna.

Source: Kyiv Post

10,000 Ukrainians protest 'pro-Russian' minister

2010-03-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

LVIV, Ukraine - About 10,000 protesters formed a human chain in the Ukrainian city of Lviv on Tuesday to demonstrate against a new education minister accused of being pro-Russian.

The mostly student protesters formed a human chain around four kilometres long in central Lviv, a city in western Ukraine considered a stronghold of Ukrainian nationalism, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Vancouver Sun

Yushchenko says Yanukovych has no legal muscle to cancel my Hero of Ukraine award to Bandera

2010-03-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

Speaking March 23 to the 5-th Kanal TV, former Pres Yushchenko said Pres Yanukovych has no legal power to cancel the awards given by past presidents.

It is beyond Yanukovych’s legal powers to cancel my awards, like it was beyond my powers to cancel the awards given by all former presidents,” Yushchenko declared, saying the past awards are within the responsibility of the past presidents.“If Yanukovych cancels the awards] he will set a very dangerous precedent. What if a Communist president is elected after Yanukovych? He may cancel all decrees passed after the act on Ukraine’s independence in 1991,” Yushchenko argued. Click here to read more.

Source: Zik

Russian skater earns gold?????

2010-03-24T05:17:00.000-07:00

Get over it you poor losers. There are more important issues your upside down country (Russia) needs, like feeding your poor!!!!

MOSCOW - Olympic figure skating silver medallist Evgeny Plushenko will get a "belated gold medal" from Siberian jewellers, Russian media reported on Wednesday.

Jewellers from Yakutsk said they planned to award a special medal weighing more than half a kilo of pure gold to Plushenko, who was controversially beaten into second place by American Evan Lysacek at last month’s Vancouver Olympics.

Most Russians, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, felt Plushenko should have won the gold in Vancouver. Putin sent Plushenko a telegram, saying: "Your silver is worth gold".

The 2006 Olympic champion himself said he was a victim of biased judging in Vancouver and felt he, not Lysacek, was the "true" champion.

Plushenko was forced to pull out of this week’s world championships in Turin with a knee injury.

Source: The Montreal Gazette

Yanukovych could lead Ukraine to West

2010-03-22T17:41:00.000-07:00

Like Nixon and China. Analyst thinks hard-line leader is well-suited to create detente

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, whose February election was greeted with deep skepticism by western observers and Canada's 1.2 million-strong diaspora, could end up bringing his country much closer to the West, according to a European political analyst and historian.

Yanukovych, known as ideologically rigid, socially awkward and politically corrupt, could end up emulating the policy breakthroughs of a politician who shared the same three characteristics - the late U.S. president Richard Nixon.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Montreal Gazette

Take Zat!

2010-03-20T06:23:00.000-07:00

The French have a head start with their conception of obnoxious Russians

Take Zat!

Russians are slightly up in arms about this French commercial. Wonder why?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_4NRvYnbco

Signatures being collected in Lviv in support of dismissal of education minister Tabachnyk

2010-03-12T11:20:00.000-08:00

Ukraine The Lviv branch of the For Ukraine! Party has started to collect signatures in support of the dismissal of Education and Science Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk, the regional organization's press service has reported.

"Tabachnyk's appointment as education and science minister is destroying reforms in the education sector launched by [former Minister] Ivan Vakarchuk, and, first and foremost, the external independent assessment [of knowledge]. He will also try to review the assessment of history in textbooks. I think that the Ukrainian language will also be ousted from the sphere of education," branch leader Yaroslav Pitko said.

"He [the new minister] will harm our children through [his] absolutely different interpretation of historical events, and, consequently, their value. So we're demanding Tabachnyk's dismissal right now," he said.

The party's branch in Lviv called on Lviv city and regional councils to hold extraordinary sessions on this issue.

Source Kyiv Post

Bandera’s supporters ready for new battle

2010-03-11T16:27:00.000-08:00

While there is no archival evidence to date that Bandera himself took part in pogroms against Jews, a brief alliance with the Nazis against the Red Army fueled Soviet propaganda which tainted him as a Nazi collaborator, and sparked widespread criticism of his movement by Jews. Supporters of Bandera see him as a hero, and are criticizing the European Parliament for siding with what they describe as a deliberate and anti-Ukrainian smear campaign.

Andriy Levus, who heads the service, said when the petition reaches 5,000 signatories, it will be presented to representatives of the European Parliament in Kyiv. The appeal has gained roughly 1,000 signatures a day since it was posted over the weekend and can be found on www.petition.org.ua/?action=view&id=251148.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post

Taras Shevchenko

2010-03-08T15:34:00.000-08:00

I wonder what Taras Shevchenko would think of seeing the yanachar Yanukovych standing in front of his monument laying a reaf? Rumors have it that the newly elected President will take part in cermony honoring Ukraine's greatest poet?

My thoughts, my melancholy thoughts,
My children, tender shoots!
I nursed you, brought you up -- and now
What shall I do with you? ...
Go to Ukraine, my homeless waifs!
Your way make to Ukraine
Along back roads like vagabonds,
But I'm doomed here to stay.

There you will find a heart that's true
And words of welcome kind,
There honesty, unvarnished truth
And, maybe, fame you'll find ...
So welcome them, my Motherland,
Ukraine, into your home!
Accept my guileless, simple brood
And take them for your own!

Yanuk called the distinguished Russian writer, Anton Chekhov, a Ukrainian poet. I cetainly hope he doesn't confuse Shevchenko being a great Russian poet.....
Never know what will pop out of his mouth. Let's hope he does not go about reciting any poems either.

You can read more about Ukraine's poet, painter, bard, hero, Taras Shevchenko here. Just as Stepan Bandera and the many freedom fighters of Ukraine.

Ukrainians have right to honor their own heroes

2010-03-06T06:41:00.000-08:00

Here’s the actual text of point 13 of this resolution approved on Feb. 25 “[The European Parliament] deeply deplores the decision by the outgoing President of Ukraine, Victor Yushchenko, posthumously to award Stepan Bandera, a leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists which collaborated with Nazi Germany, the title of National Hero of Ukraine; hope, in this regard, that the new Ukrainian leadership will reconsider such decisions and will maintain its commitment to European values.”

But, at the same time, the deputies of the European Parliament – having no great knowledge of Ukrainian history – want to forbid us from having our own vision of our national past. The Russians are developing their own vision by creating a special federal committee. But at the same time, Ukrainians aren’t granted the right to have our own point of view. And if we do have it, it’s called fascism or Nazi collaboration.

E-mail the European Parliament and leave them your thoughts.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post

Also check out Bandera Bashing Déjà vu

Bandera Bashing Déjà vu

2010-03-05T05:55:00.000-08:00

We were down this road 25 years ago. Then it was the Canada’s Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals presided over by Justice Jules Deshcenes. Then it was the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Canada-based Nazi hunter Sol Littman who decided that “Ukrainians, by reason of their large numbers and historic hatred of Poles and Jews, proved themselves particularly pernicious [Nazi] collaborationists.” It was in this context that he proceeded to drag the Bandera family name through the mud.

Visit Stephan Bandera's blog to read more...

Thank you Stephane for your on going fight for truth and freedom from the communist propagandists, who's days are running out. Roman Golash

Source: Kyiv Scoop

Lviv City Council to approve address to European Parliament over hero title award for Bandera

2010-03-02T09:13:00.000-08:00

Lviv City Council will hold an extraordinary meeting on March 3 to approve an address to the European Parliament concerning a resolution it passed deploring former Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko's decision to posthumously award Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the title of Hero of Ukraine.

The council's presidium took the decision on Mar. 2.

Lviv City Council's deputies think that this clause of the resolution has no legal and historical substantiation and will demand that it be cancelled.

They said that while passing such a resolution, MEPs had been "misinformed by anti-Ukrainian forces" and had not known who Bandera was.

In this connection, the address will contain a detailed biographical reference about Bandera, which will be drafted by historians. Lviv City Council is planning to pass the copies of this reference to all MEPs.

As reported, the European Parliament, in its resolution passed on February 25, said that it "deeply deplores the decision by the outgoing President of Ukraine, Viktor Yuschenko, to posthumously award Stepan Bandera, a leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which collaborated with Nazi Germany, the title of 'National Hero of Ukraine.'" In this regard, the European Parliament expressed hope that "the new Ukrainian leadership will reconsider such decisions and will maintain its commitment to European values."

Source: Kyiv Post

Russia picks a Fight with Canada

2010-03-01T15:51:00.000-08:00

As the second week of the Vancouver Olympiad wound down, the Canadian press was consumed with a February 19 op-ed in Pravda which offered nuggets of Russian wisdom such as “Vancouver is not fit to hold the Winter Olympics” and referring to ”the abject cruelty shown by Canadian soldiers in international conflicts” and calling the Canadians “retentive” and “cowardly.” Then this: “Canada lives in the shadow of its larger neighbour to the south.” Then he accused Canada of having an “inferiority complex, born of a trauma being the skinny and weakling bro to a beefy United States and a colonial outpost to the United Kingdom, whose Queen smiles happily from Canadian postage stamps.”

To speak about any Olympic host this way, much less a docile, self-effacing place like Canada, is the act of a true barbarian, and Russia has humiliated itself before the world by doing so. It richly deserves to have this outrageous abuse hurled back upon it if the Sochi games actually go forward, and we know that if it happens Russia will play the innocent victim in a way that will even more vulgar and appalling than its crude insults to Canada.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: La Russophobe

Ukraine takes losing in stride, unlike Russia at the Olympics

2010-03-01T09:14:00.001-08:00

International sport during the Soviet period served as a way of proving the superiority of the Soviet system. The victories of individual athletes were the collective achievements of the Soviet ideology and the Soviet people. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought an end to the powerful system built over decades that helped to nurture top athletes, and the poor performances in Vancouver are in part a result of that decline.

It’s telling that while Russian politicians this month were still yearning for the sporting glories of the Soviet Union, their Ukrainian counterparts barely gave as much as a nod to the winter Olympics, busy playing a completely different game.

Click here to read full story.

Source: Kyiv Post

PS Could not resist adding the photo again, especially on a Monday.....

Olympian food: Pass the perogies, please

2010-02-25T06:05:00.001-08:00

Ukrainian House at 3150 Ash at the Ukrainian Catholic Centre. I don’t know if it’s even orbiting at this distance but you can get there on Canada Line. Hop off at Broadway/City Hall and it’s a 10-minute walk.

At the Olympic Ukrainian House, it’s a different ball game. The food is a narrow stereotype of Ukrainian cuisine (similar to the first-Friday-of-the-month Ukrainian supper deal at the Ukrainian Holy Trinity Orthodox Church at 154 East 10th Ave.), but it’s a bargain. An overflow plate of perogies, slices of kielbasa, one cabbage roll (the weakest part of the dish) and a big whack of coleslaw costs $11.

Read complete article here.

Source: The Vancouver Sun

Plushenko a contender for worst Olympics loser

2010-02-23T16:06:00.000-08:00

It’s like any other village – full of honest burghers, a few catty fishwives and the odd idiot.

If anyone has earned the dunce’s cap inside Vancouver’s Olympic village, it’s Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko. His antics since failing to win a gold medal have launched Plushenko into the pantheon of poor Olympic sports, where he sadly has a fair bit of competition.

Plushenko’s crimes against dignity? First up, his hair. But that’s his stylist’s fault.
The Russian takes the blame for everything else. After falling to American Evan Lysacek on Friday, Plushenko wrapped himself in a blistering air of ill will.

Click here for complete story

Source: Toronto Star

Whining Russians

2010-02-23T11:31:00.000-08:00

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin was not to be outdone in the whining competition. He sent Plushenko a telegram — A telegram? No wonder they lost the Cold War — in which Putin, in his new, self-appointed role as Supreme Olympian, informed his soured countryman that his silver medal was “as good as gold” because Plushenko had “performed the most accomplished program on the Vancouver ice.” Russian state media joined the parade, in tones that during the Andropov period had been reserved for denunciations of the warmongering arch-fiend Ronald Reagan.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this boorish behavior — to put it gently — has a lot to do with the fact that, as a political culture, Russia has never begun to come to grips with the legacy of 74 years of Communism. Lenin’s mummy — the ghastly relic of one of the 20th century’s greatest mass murderers — remains on display for the veneration of the obtuse and the confused in Red Square. Parades celebrating the birthday of Stalin, whose homicidal record topped Lenin’s, are not uncommon. The NKVD/KGB archives, briefly opened under Boris Yeltsin, are closed to researchers. Opposition journalists are murdered with impunity, while the state dominates the mass media. History is rewritten in order to mask, even deny, the horrors of the Gulag system (which, as Anne Applebaum demonstrated in her Pulitzer Prize–winning book, was not an accidental feature of Stalinism but an essential component of Stalinist “economics”).

Click here for complete article.

Source: National Review

Ukraine PM abandons poll challenge

2010-02-20T11:34:00.000-08:00

A Ukrainian court has stopped considering a legal challenge to the result of February 7 presidential election after the prime minister decided to abandon her complaint.

Yulia Tymoshenko said on Saturday that she had decided to withdraw her attempt to overturn Victor Yanukovych's victory after losing confidence in the supreme administrative court.

"We do not see sense in further proceedings in the case," Tymoshenko told the court.

She later told reporters: "I faced a machine that works beyond justice."

"They want to sanctify the fraud and make it look legal."

After several hours of deliberations, Judge Olexander Nechitailo announced the court's decision to "leave the lawsuit by presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko without consideration".

Click here to read full article.

Source: Al Jazeera

Ukrainian court suspends presidential election results

2010-02-17T05:11:00.000-08:00

A Ukrainian court said today it had suspended the results of this month's presidential election, pending a review of an appeal filed by the declared loser.

Ukraine's administrative court said in a statement that it has suspended the Central Election Commission's ruling announcing that Viktor Yanukovych won the election held on 7 February.

The results showed Yanukovych winning by 3.5 percentage points.

The court is to rule on the appeal from Yanukovych's rival, the prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, by next Thursday, which parliament has set as inauguration day for the new president.

Tymoshenko has refused to concede and is pressing to prove her claims of election fraud in court.

Source: Gaurdian

Ukrainians make Democracy look Bad

2010-02-13T07:32:00.000-08:00

Poor people are capable of feats of bravery and revolution. They can storm the Bastille, overthrow the tsar or stage an Orange Revolution. But impoverished people are incapable of making sober decisions and voting responsibly in a popular election.

Click here to read full article.

Source: Moscow Times

Ukrainian president signs decree on recognition of UPA

2010-01-29T18:34:00.000-08:00

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has signed a decree on the recognition of the ‘Ukrainian Rebel Army’ as a fighter for Ukraine’s independence, his press service reported on Friday.

The ‘Ukrainian Rebel Army’ (UPA) was created late in 1942 by a faction of the ‘Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists’ (OUN), headed by Stepan Bandera. UPA fought mostly against the Armia Krajowa of Poland, the Red Army and Soviet guerrilla fighters in Western Ukraine. The OUN-UPA men, whom people began to call the Bandera men, by the name of their leader, are guilty of numerous crimes. For example, they physically destroyed some 100,000 Poles, Czechs and Jews in the Western Volyn Region. Thousands of Ukrainians, who refused to cooperate with OUN, were also brutally murdered. For all those crimes, as well as for terrorist activities on the Polish territory before the war, Bandera is now regarded as a criminal and terrorist in Poland.

During the years of his presidency Yushchenko rehabilitated UPA veterans and conferred posthumously the title of Hero of Ukraine to UPA commander Roman Shukhevich and to OUN leader Stepan Bandera.

Source: ITAR-TASS

Yushchenko's move on nationalist embarrasses rivals

2010-01-24T18:39:00.000-08:00

Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko, in a move likely to embarrass the two rivals fighting to succeed him, onJan. 22elevated a controversial wartime nationalist leader to the status of hero of Ukraine.

Yushchenko issued a decree conferring the honour on Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Ukrainian nationalist forces (OUN) which fought against both Nazi invaders and Soviet forces in World War Two and after.

Bandera continued to resist Soviet rule in Ukraine well into the 1950s. In the Soviet period he was the embodiment of anti-Sovietism and "bourgeois nationalism" and the very mention of his name was a post-war criminal offence in the Soviet Union.

He was assassinated in 1959 by a KGB agent in Munich.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post

Stepan Bandera becomes Ukrainian hero

2010-01-22T06:01:00.000-08:00

Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko has conferred the rank of a Ukrainian hero to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

The head of state said this during ceremonies marking Ukrainian Unity Day in Kyiv on Friday, Jan. 22.

"I decree to confer the rank of a Hero of Ukraine to Stepan Bandera and present a state order to him," Yushchenko said.

He said that the high rank had been conferred to Bandera for his "defending national ideas and battling for an independent Ukrainian state."

Bandera's grandson, also named Stepan, received the award from the president, an Interfax-Ukraine reporter said.

Source: Kyiv Post

Hat tip to Ukrainiana

Some oligarchs take sides, while others on sidelines

2010-01-21T13:36:00.000-08:00

“Corruption, red tape, administrative obstacles of every kind – these are only things that serve the interests of those who today control the economy because they do not want competition. They are allergic to competition,” Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira of Portugal told journalists on Nov. 30. “The vast majority of Ukrainians cannot have employment, cannot have decent salaries, do not have a decent social system, because the country today is in many aspects like 20 years ago.”
Teixeira’s comments came against a backdrop of the nation’s slow European integration and incomplete attempts to shed its Soviet past.
And it is hard to identify the “reformer” in this race.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post

Yushchenko's place in history: A leader who failed his people?

2010-01-20T19:30:00.000-08:00

Despite these initiatives Yushchenko lost virtually all credibility not only among Ukrainians but among Ukraine's loyal Russian citizens. Instead of arresting the rich and powerful guilty of rampant corruption, he gave them medals. Although this may have been motivated by a plan to co-opt former enemies and transform them into a "new national elite" nothing in the behavior of men like Kivalov ("seriozha pidrahui"), or Kyiv's mayor Chernovetsky suggests they have been thus transformed. Neither still can't even speak Ukrainian and historians will one day undoubtedly debate whether he, Batu Khan or Bogoliubsky did more to destroy Kyiv. Kyiv is turning into a vast filthy Calcutta-like slum.The initiative did, however, make a mockery of the awards system and the man who gave them.

Click here to read full article.

Source: Kyiv Post

International Center for Policy Studies: How to desovietize public administration in Ukraine

2010-01-20T18:41:00.000-08:00

Ukraine’s political crisis is universally viewed as the only obstacle to the country’s integration into the European Union. Typically, only two main causes for the crisis are recognized: the “Ukrainian mentality” and a bad political leadership.
Click here for complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post