Putin condemns Nazi-Soviet pact

"It is possible to condemn - and with good reason - the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact concluded in August 1939," wrote Mr Putin, referring to the two foreign ministers who signed the pact at the Kremlin.

It was clear today, he said, that any form of agreement with the Nazi regime was "unacceptable from the moral point of view and had no chance of being realised".

Click here to view complete story.

Source: BBC

The war? Nothing to do with Stalin, says Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev

Historians are unimpressed. "This is a very stupid argument," Vladimir Ryzhkov, a historian and former Russian opposition MP said. "You are saying that Poland was bad for allowing the division of Czechoslovakia, but that Stalin was good when he agreed to divide eastern Europe with Hitler."

He added: "The Kremlin wants to create a new identity for the Russian nation. It advocates the Stalin regime, and promotes the idea that Stalin's actions were right and necessary at all times, including when Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact."

According to Ryzhkov, Russia's contemporary leadership is seeking to rehabilitate Stalin in order to justify its own "authoritarian" model.

Click here for complete article.

Source: The Gaurdian

Democratic Ukraine, autocratic Russia: Why?

Developments in the former Soviet Union in recent years were fascinating for the specialist and might have puzzled the layman: Why have Europe’s two largest countries developed in such different ways? Russia has returned to authoritarianism while Ukraine seems to be maturing towards a real democracy. How did this happen – in spite of these nations’ similar Eastern Slavic Orthodox cultures and intertwined histories?
Click here to read full article by Andreas Umland and Ingmar Bredies, in special to Kyiv Post.

Source: Kyiv Post

Medvedev says better ties with Kyiv unlikely in future

SO looks like they (Medvedev / Putin and all those mixed up wanna be leaders) are not even willing to give it a try. Like they say, you will never know until you try it. Too bad for those sick dogs............ See what Russian propaganda is telling their people below.

"I cannot see any prospects for restoring normal relations with [Ukraine's] incumbent authorities... I will be happy [if the situation changes]," Medvedev said commenting on his decision to delay sending a new Russian ambassador to Kiev.

Presidential polls in Ukraine are slated for January 17. The popularity of Ukraine's incumbent leader, Viktor Yushchenko, is currently in single digits.

"I hope that a new Ukrainian leadership will have significantly more opportunities to improve relations. Russia wants this, and it is a top priority for our foreign policy," Medvedev said.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko earlier on Friday said, commenting on relations with Moscow, "I have always built and will build relations with Russia as an equal, taking into account national interests, mutual advantage, and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity."

However, she warned that "Ukraine will choose its foreign and domestic policy itself."

Source: Ria Novosti

Yushchenko says Russia's charges "unfriendly"

KYIV, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on Thursday rejected accusations of anti-Russian policies made by Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev in an open letter on Tuesday.

Medvedev's comments, in which he also said he wanted to see a leader in Ukraine who was easier to deal with, marked a new downturn in relations between the countries and was seen as an attempt to influence Ukraine's presidential election.

"I will be frank, I am very disappointed with its unfriendly character," Yushchenko said of Medvedev's letter.

"I cannot disagree that there are serious problems in relations between our countries, but it is surprising that the Russian president completely shrugs off Russia's responsibility for this," Yushchenko said in a statement.

Yushchenko, propelled to power by the 2004 pro-Western "Orange Revolution" has irritated Moscow with his bid for Ukraine's NATO membership and insistence that Russia vacates the Black Sea Fleet based in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.

His aide said on Wednesday Russia was stuck in its imperial past and seemed to relish bullying and insulting its neighbours.

Source: Reuteurs

Dima, please. If you want to get our attention, you at least have to take your shirt off.

Here is a little slapstick humor, something the people in charge back in the old USSR lack. Check this out ....... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2EbIX_Gemo

Also check out the topless hunk putinflabo
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/05/vladimir_putins_muscly_vacation

These comment issued by gutless Medvedev is exactly why when it gets cold outside in Ukraine in Januaury, Russia decides to close that taps on gaz going to them as well as to the neigbouring EU countries, this really shows Russia's warmth and respect.

"The way our Russian president, our country are treating the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian state, has been exceptionally respectful, warm and fraternal," he said.

I wouldn't call this being very fraternal, but outright intimidation and return to their old aims of being a totalitarian state. Booohooohooo!!!!
And the war of words continue… What will the Kremlim come up with next?

Ukrainian official accuses Russia of 'imperialist complex'

What can you expect from a government (Russian) that wants to go back in time? Instead of building strong relations with its neighbors, they go on rampages of accusing Ukraine of rewriting its true history, creating problems for the Black Sea Fleet, and concerns of delivery of our Russian gas.
A top Ukrainian official on Wednesday accused Russia of continuing to push imperialist ambitions, in a furious response to an attack the previous day by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, AFP reported.
"Sadly, the young Russian leadership is hostage to an old imperialist complex," Vira Ulyanchenko, chief of the presidential administration who also holds a top post in President Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine Party, said.
"That makes it cherish the notion of a foreign enemy and replace a dialogue of equals with the language of insults and threats," Ulyanchenko said in a statement posted on the party's website.

Ukrainians 'nasty anti-Semites,' Ignatieff quoted in flyer

WINNIPEG — Michael Ignatieff once viewed Ukrainians as "nasty anti-Semites," according to a flyer distributed by a Conservative cabinet minister.

Vic Toews has resurrected allegations the Liberal leader is anti-Ukrainian in a flyer sent to communities in his Manitoba riding with large Ukrainian populations.

The flyer includes a photo of Ignatieff and two excerpts from his 1995 book Blood and Belonging, which includes the quotes, "Ukrainian independence conjures up images of embroidered peasant shirts, the nasal whine of ethnic instruments, phoney cossacks in cloaks and boots, nasty anti-Semites." It also refers to Ignatieff as a "Great Russian" with a "taste of old Russian disdain for these 'little Russians.' "

The same remarks were raised against Ignatieff in 2005 when he ran for the Liberals in the Toronto riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, and have haunted him repeatedly since, despite his attempts to explain they were meant as irony to rebut long-standing stereotypes of Ukrainians held by Russians.

On the flip side of the flyer, Toews outlines things the Conservatives have done for Ukraine and Ukrainian Canadians, and includes a photo of Toews with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

Source: Montreal Gazette
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Putin 'turns into art instructor'

Renowned art aficionado Vlad the terrorist Putin has come out expressing his great knowledge of art by telling one of the country's most famous artists how to paint better. Click here to read BBC on-line article.

"The sword is too short," he is reputed to have said. "It's only good enough for cutting sausage."

Now this follows Putin’s other knowledgeable talents on subjects such as history and how to re-write history textbooks to fit his vision. This truly shows his mad mad obsession on wanting to become a dictator, but he has a lot to learn yet from like of his idol, Stalin.

Just recently Putin urged journalists to read Denikin's diary, Denikin was a talented writer, and even before World War I had written several pieces in which he analytically criticized the shortcomings of his beloved Russian Army. His voluminous writings after the Russian Civil War (written while living in exile) are remarkable for their analytical tone and candor and are a "must read" to anyone interested in the Russian Civil War. (Source: Absolute Astronomy) His writings can be interpreted in many ways, but Putin finds only one interpretation which fits his bill.

“One of the main ideas in Denikin’s works and political activity was not to allow the divorce of Russia and its little Russian lands – Ukraine,” the head of the monastery said.

“It is a crime if someone starts to talk about the division of Russia and Ukraine, even if this is being said by activists of the white movement or by foreigners,” Putin said citing Denikin’s memoires.

Source Kyiv Post

Give him the boot Ex-KGB agent has no right to be here - so get rid of him

There are some Canadians who don't like this rule. Fair enough. They can work to change it. But Lennikov has no such privilege. He is not a citizen. Whether he has lived here for a decade or been a nice neighbour or grows gardenias in his garden and gives them to the poor is irrelevant. He should never have been allowed into Canada and he has no right to stay here.

I agree with Professor Lucuik, time to boot Lennikov and his kind out of Canada....

To read full article click here

Source: Montreal Gazette

Ukraine Security Service opens criminal investigation into 1932-1933 genocide

May 22, The Security service of Ukraine, SBU, opened a criminal investigation into the induced famine in 1932-1933 aimed at murdering millions of Ukrainians, the SBU May 25 press center release runs.
The probe was opened following the appeal by Academician Yukhnovsky, the head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, VR lawmakers O. Chornovolenko and H. Omelchenko, L. Lukyanenko, the head of the Association of Holodomor Researchers, R. Krutsyk, the head of the Memorial Society as well as other prominent Ukrainians. In the appeal, they demanded to investigate the murder by famine of millions of Ukrainians in 1932-1933.

After analyzing the appeal and reports about the genocide, SBU in cooperation with the Prosecutor General’s Office and UINM carried out an investigation indicating that, following the defeat of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in 1921, the Bolsheviks launched large-scale unlawful campaign to forestall the emergence of an independent Ukrainian state and to turn Ukraine into a denationalized territory of the FSU.

Click here for complete story.

Source: ZIK

Putin warns outsiders over Ukraine

Another time the wanna be tyrannical dictator goes on a rampage showing his true KGB face.

"He has a discussion there about Big Russia and Little Russia — Ukraine," they quoted Putin as saying. "He says that nobody should be permitted to interfere in relations between us, they have always been the business of Russia itself."

Putin should brush up on the real history of Ukraine and not the crap that he was force fed to learn by his masters.
To read full article, click here.

Source: Associated Press

Russia and Ukraine Battle Over Their Shared History

The battle is heating up, but very nice to see reputable media write about the true facts that can be easily researched today, by simply digging a little deeper. Not being fed by chauvinist Russian propagandists, who got used to selling off their lies. Today, the ball game has changed somewhat.
Click here to read great article in TIME magazine, who one time name the butcher Putin as man of the year. Hmmmmmmmmmm!!!

On May 17, Ukraine's Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression, Yushchenko gave a speech at the Bykivnya forest, a mass grave near Kiev where the bodies of an estimated 100,000 victims of the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, were dumped between 1937 and 1941. In the speech, he equated the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany: "They are comparable in their hatred towards human beings. They are identical in the unprecedented scale of their mass killings."

Source; TIME

‘There will be no forgiveness’

“Ukraine must finally purge itself of the symbols of a regime that destroyed millions of innocent people,” he said, adding that 400 such monuments had been taken down in the past year.

Not everyone agrees with the president’s steps. The Head of the State Archives, Olha Ginzburg, a member of the Communist Party, has criticized the president’s decision to publish archival documents. The president has often riled Russian leaders with his portrayal of their country as the perpetrator of horrific crimes against Ukraine during the Soviet period.

Political analysts suggest that his willingness to touch the prickly subject of Ukraine’s Soviet past has opened a can of worms which is negatively affecting his popularity, which now runs in single digits.

“Many people who benefited from the Soviet Union are still alive,” said Roman Krutsyk, president of the non-governmental organization Memorial, which documents Soviet political repressions. “But lots of people who suffered are also still alive, and relatives of those who were killed. It is essential for Ukraine as an independent state that it remembers its past.”

Click here to read full article.

Source: Kyiv Post

A Jew Who Beat Jews in a Nazi Camp Is Stripped of His Citizenship

Here is a great article published in Durantyville press....

The case of Mr. Tannenbaum had provoked what many war-crimes experts and Jewish leaders called deep complexities and passions, raising such questions as why a Jew would have collaborated with the Nazis, whether the persecuted can also be the persecutor and how such questions can be answered more than 40 years after the fact.

Some Jewish leaders, while disavowing sympathy for any collaboration with the Nazis, drew distinctions between those who volunteered to help the Nazis and those who thought they were saving their own lives by cooperating, often with the intention of easing the brutal life of fellow prisoners.

Kapos - from the German word Lagerkapo, or camp captain - were appointed by the SS, which supervised the camps, and enjoyed special privileges such as better food, clothing and housing. In return, they supervised the work of other inmates.

Source: NY Times

Divide and Conquer: The KGB disinformation campaign against Ukrainians and Jews

When will this circus ever end?

The KGB wanted to use this legitimate concern of Americans as a weapon to divide their Ukrainian and Jewish enemies, to discredit the large émigré communities in the United States and Canada, and to discredit any emergence of Ukrainian nationalism.

One of the names Hanusiak brought to the United States was that of John Demianiuk (Demjanjuk). His name was given to the United States Justice Department, which began an investigation of the retired Ohio auto worker. Soon, Demianiuk was accused of being "Ivan the Terrible," a brutal guard at the Nazi Treblinka death camp.

Source: The Institute of World Politics

The real May Day Victory celebration

While Russia still lives in a days gone by era, other former Soviet countries (Belarus)are realising that it is time to move forward. Along with Ukraine and other free thinking countries, time to from dependency on Russia.

Yushchenko warns against restoration of totalitarianism in any country

Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko has called on all nations that were involved in WWII not to allow the restoration of totalitarianism in any country.

"As the head of the Ukrainian state, I am addressing all nations that took part in the Second World War. You went through the hell of the war against fascism. We cannot tolerate indifference and sacrilege toward that common fight and the dead heroes. In the new times, it is unthinkable to tolerate even the smallest hint of restoration of some totalitarian or authoritarian system and violate the holy right of peoples to their independent national existence," Yuschenko said at a rally in Kyiv marking the Soviet Union's victory in the 1941-1945 war against Nazi Germany.

Yuschenko also said he was sure that all the truth about that war will be known.

Source: Interfax / Kyiv Post

Ukrainian Programming on RCI

Thank you for response Mme Francine Létourneau,

Your response,"great deal of careful consideration, and in response to the very difficult financial situation at CBC/Radio-Canada." certainly does not reflect what is truly happening at the CBC and RCI, as for the following information below. How do you explain the misuse of Canadian taxpayers money, while top executives seem to be more concerned of having a jolly good time, while cutting RCI Ukrainian section.The cutting of the Ukrainian section certainly brings many doubts to mind. I invite you read the following article. What excuse will you come up with now?
Hat tip to Paulette for publishing excerpt from the Ottawa Sun article on her fabulousblog

Ukrainian Programming on RCI

Hello,

On behalf of Hubert T. Lacroix, President and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, I am writing to thank you for your e-mail message in which you voice your support for the Ukrainian section of Radio Canada International (RCI). We deeply regret the disappointment that you must feel at this decision. As I am sure you understand, it was made after extensive consultation and a great deal of careful consideration, and in response to the very difficult financial situation at CBC/Radio-Canada. Although it is bound to Foreign Affairs objectives, Radio Canada International remains fully accountable for its programming. We recognize that the Ukrainian section that opened in 1952 is one of the service's oldest. We also realize how important it is to the Ukrainian community, in both Canada and the Ukraine. That said, RCI must pull out all the stops to fulfill its mission with a considerably reduced workforce now. Despite the closing of the Ukrainian section and the cancellation of programming in Cantonese, RCI will continue to faithfully carry out its mandate, which is to produce and distribute programming that targets international audiences, with a view to raising awareness of Canada, its values, and its social, economic and cultural life. Thank you for your interest in RCI's programming.

Sincerely,

Francine LétourneauChief of StaffOffice of the President and CEO