Month: January 24, 2020 3:37 pm

MELBOURNE, Australia – In reaction to the bushfires that have ravaged Australia, the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organizations (AFUO) put out a call during the Julian calendar Christmas for the Kolyada for Australia Bushfire campaign, whose target was $50,000.
The Ukrainian Australian community demonstrated its unity of purpose and focus, and succeeded in raising $67,000 during the relatively brief Christmas period.
On Saturday, January 18, in Hobart, where the smallest Ukrainian Australian community was celebrating its 70th anniversary of settlement in Tasmania, the AFUO held a national meeting with the community and presented a check for the funds raised (at that point, the amount was over $63,000) to the Australian Red Cross.

KYIV – Lviv-born Oksana Litynska accomplished one of the most advanced climbers’ feats – she climbed the highest peaks on each of the seven continents. The last one on her list was Mount Vinson (4,892 meters) in Antarctica, which she successfully ascended on December 28, 2019.
In May, she reached the world’s highest point, Mount Everest (8,848 meters), and became the third Ukrainian woman to do so. Now she is a part of an exclusive club of around 70 women in history who achieved the Seven Summits program.

KYIV – On January 22, Ukraine celebrated the 102nd anniversary of the Ukrainian National Republic’s declaration of independence and the 101st of the proclamation of the unification of all Ukrainian lands. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used the occasion to reiterate what in recent weeks has become a leitmotif for him: the need for national consolidation and unity.
He had emphasized this theme – the urgency of constructing a modern Ukrainian political nation based on shared democratic values rather that ethnocentric ones – in his unconventional televised New Year’s address.

Kyiv celebrates Day of Unity

Hundreds of Ukrainians have joined together to form a human chain across the Dnipro River in Kyiv to mark the 1919 Unification Act of the Ukrainian National Republic and the short-lived Western Ukrainian National Republic. In a statement to mark the Day of Unity on January 22, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that in the modern world the feeling of a nation as a whole arises not only through common traditions, culture and religion, but also because of the values that are “acceptable to every corner of Ukraine.” The statement said: “To be strong, one must become one. To become one, one must be strong. We need to keep that in mind.” Mr. Zelenskyy’s statement comes amid efforts to reinvigorate the moribund peace process with Russia, which has created uncertainty and division within Ukraine.

A ticking clock and a shutting trap seem appropriate metaphors for the predicament of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his team hoping against hope for “peace” with Russia.
The Normandy Four leaders’ (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine) summit in Paris, on December 9, 2019, started the clock ticking toward the April 2020 summit in Berlin. There, Mr. Zelenskyy is expected to report to the same conclave about Ukraine’s fulfillment of commitments he has confirmed in the French capital.
The shutting trap consists of Kyiv’s unilateral concessions to Moscow (to legalize the Steinmeier formula, to accept a permanent “special status” for the Donetsk-Luhansk territory under Russian control). Moscow extracted this price for agreeing to hold the December summit, which Mr. Zelenskyy’s team was avidly seeking even if it had to pay this heavy cost.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has added Zakhar Prylepin, Russian writer and Donbas fighter to the so-called working group for the constitutional amendments he announced on January 15. Mr. Prylepin’s inclusion is a grave affront to all Ukrainians, however, the changes Mr. Putin is planning are likely to have even more serious ramifications for Ukraine.
While well-known Ukrainian journalist Vitaly Portnikov is doubtless correct in saying that Mr. Putin’s plans are akin to a declaration of war against Ukraine, they are also an assault on international law and, therefore, a challenge to the European structures and leaders who are increasingly seeking “dialogue” with Russia.

Following is the text of a statement on “Ongoing Violations of International Law and Defiance of OSCE Principles and Commitments by the Russian Federation in Ukraine,” as delivered by Ambassador James S. Gilmore III on January 16 in Vienna to the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

We welcomed the news of the December 29 prisoner exchange, which included the return of captives from Russia-controlled Donbas, as agreed at the December 9 Normandy format summit. In particular, we were relieved to see the release of Stanislav Aseyev and Oleh Halaziuk, two contributors to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty whose names we have mentioned frequently here at the Permanent Council. They were imprisoned for years in retaliation for their reporting about everyday life in the territories controlled by Russia-led forces. However, there remain several hundred Ukrainians detained by Russia and its proxies in eastern Ukraine, and many more Ukrainian political prisoners held in Crimea and Russia. We call for their immediate release.

Seen in the photo above, taken in October 1997, are the employees of the Ukrainian National Association and its two newspapers, Svoboda and The Ukrainian Weekly, in their first group photo taken in Parsippany, N.J., after the UNA and its subsidiaries had moved from Jersey City, N.J., about 30 miles to the east of the new venue. The old UNA headquarters, a 15-story office building located at 30 Montgomery Street was sold on August 14. The closing on the two-story Parsippany building took place on August 28, and the move to the site of the new Home Office took place over the Columbus Day weekend October 10-13. The new headquarters of the UNA was blessed on Sunday, November 9. A new sign identifying the building as the Ukrainian National Association Corporate Headquarters was erected on December 9.

In an important new article, Moscow analyst Andrey Illarionov documents the ways in which Vladimir Putin has distorted the historical record and manipulated sources to present a false and tendentious picture of the role of Poland at the beginning of World War II, even suggesting that Poland shares responsibility for that conflict with Hitler.
No one who reads Mr. Illarionov’s study will ever accept Mr. Putin’s argument. It is a tissue of false and self-serving lies. But, given the Kremlin leader’s loose connection with the truth, that may not surprise anyone.  However, the economist ends his article with a question that he doesn’t answer but that deserves attention.

While “Iran must take full responsibility,” for downing the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) flight (PS752) that was brought down by two Russian-made missiles fired as it took off from Tehran airport on January 8, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the escalation of tensions brought about by U.S. actions is also partly to blame.
“I think if there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their families,” Mr. Trudeau said in an interview with Canada’s Global television, on January 13. He added that the international community has been “very, very clear about needing to have a non-nuclear Iran” but also in “managing the tensions in the region that are brought about by U.S. actions as well.”

Dear Editor:

Dr. Myron Kuropas wrote in his recent column (January 19) that my daughter Alexandra Chalupa allegedly worked with the Ukrainian Embassy to obtain “dirt” on Donald Trump. That is the line that Fox, especially Sean Hannity, had been feeding its viewers. In fact, Alexandra did not work with the Embassy of Ukraine to get dirt on Mr. Trump. (Ask yourself: What dirt could the Embassy possibly have on Mr. Trump?) This is a false narrative that has been propagated by Kremlin trolls and amplified by the far right wing.

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