Month: August 23, 2019 5:08 am

Ukraine’s ambassador to Norway, Vyacheslav Yatsiuk, on June 12 visited the Svalbard archipelago, where he stated that his country “may become an Arctic player” (Vestifinance.ru, July 5), even though Kyiv is not currently directly involved in the region’s affairs. In 2017, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, on an official trip to Canada, articulated Kyiv’s determination to cooperate with Ottawa in the Arctic (Izvestia, July 5). And now, it appears, the Ukrainian government is trying to foster bilateral ties with Norway to make its presence in the Arctic more visible (Vestifinance.ru, July 5).

Sergei Kusyuk is wanted in both Kyiv and Moscow, but in two very different ways.
Ukraine has issued an international arrest warrant for the former Berkut riot-police commander in connection with the lethal suppression of the 2013-2014 Euro-Maidan protests. Yet in Moscow, Mr. Kusyuk is now a colonel in the Russian Internal Affairs Ministry’s OMON force and was seen on August 3 overseeing the arrests of demonstrators calling for fair municipal elections in the capital.

PARSIPPANY, N.J. – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at the Phanar in Istanbul on August 8 while the president was on a working visit to Turkey.
Mr. Zelenskyy and Patriarch Bartholo­mew held a private meeting for more than one hour.

A year ago, on July 25, 2018, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo issued the Crimea Declaration, which referred to the Welles Declaration in 1940 regarding the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states and reaffirmed “the bedrock international principle shared by democratic states that no country can change the borders of another by force” (state.gov/crimea-declaration/).

On Тuesday, August 23, 2011, employees of the Ukrainian National Association’s Home Office in Parsippany, N.J., took a little time out of their work day to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the re-establishment of Ukraine’s independence. Seen on the right are members of the UNA staff along with staffers of the UNA’s two newspapers, Svoboda and The Ukrainian Weekly, who gathered to honor their ancestral homeland with a toast. With the employees are two UNA executive officers, President Stefan Kaczaraj and National Secretary Christine Kozak. The celebration came a day early since Ukrainian Independence Day, August 24, is an official holiday (and a day off for employees) at the UNA.

The following statement was released by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress on August 20.
On August 23, Canadians commemorate Black Ribbon Day, the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Communism and Nazism in Europe.
Established through a unanimous resolution of Canada’s Parliament in 2009, Black Ribbon Day coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union.

This past week, President Donald Trump caused quite a stir when he suggested that Russia should be readmitted to the Group of Seven. “I think it’s much more appropriate to have Russia in,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I could certainly see it being the G-8 again.” He added, “If somebody would make that motion, I would certainly be disposed to think about it very favorably.”
Thankfully, the reaction to his August 20 comments was not supportive.

Twenty-eight years ago, in the days following Ukraine’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union on August 24, 1991, Ukraine’s Parliament reached a temporary economic and military agreement with a delegation of leaders of the Russian Parliament during their impromptu official visit to Kyiv on August 28-29.
A joint communiqué was signed by Ukrainian Supreme Soviet Chairman Leonid Kravchuk and Russian Federation Vice-President Alexander Rutskoy in response to a statement by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who questioned the current borders of republics that declared independence following the failed Communist coup.

Not many remember what happened today, 80 years ago. Worse, we live in a world populated by scores of propagandists doing their darnedest to pretend nothing much did. These shills are more than duplicitous. They are dangerous. For they are trying to rewrite the history of  World War II, to obfuscate not just the dates on which the war began, and ended, but to confound us about who the villains were.
Eighty years ago, on August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union allied itself with Nazi Germany under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The second world war began on September 1, 1939, as Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin dismembered Poland.

Before his sojourn into politics, Ukraine’s new president played a teacher on television who accidentally gets elected president. Once he became the real president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent his new deputies to a one-week crash course to “get educated” and learn about strategy, public policy, legislation and their responsibility as lawmakers.
This step and, ironically, his choice to play the role of a teacher in his past life as an actor, may be coincidental, but it also might signal that Mr. Zelenskyy recognizes the indispensable role education plays. (It doesn’t hurt that his father is a professor either.)

Dear Editor:

Thank you to Oryna Hrushetsky, member of the Ukrainian National Museum’s executive board, for a beautifully written article “Chicago revels in the genius of Ivan Marchuk” (August 11). Ms. Hrushetsky’s recounting of the art exhibit and meeting with Ukrainian artist Ivan Marchuk very aptly and with anticipation leads the reader through the various phases of the event. Reading the article truly afforded me a wonderful insight into this unique cultural exhibit. It made me wish that I had been there witnessing this historic visit.

WASHINGTON – The American foreign policy direction has remained the most important one to Ukraine in recent years amid Russian aggression and the conduct of the necessary reforms. During this time, the United States allocated more than $3 billion in aid to Ukraine, provided lethal weapons, imposed sanctions on Russia and treated heavily wounded Ukrainian soldiers. And this is far from a complete list. Bilateral relations have gained intensity that was not seen before.