Month: February 21, 2020 2:35 am

EAST HANOVER, N.J. – The Ukrainian Athletic-Educational Association Chornomorska Sitch men’s volleyball team opened its 2020 season by winning the Garden Empire Volleyball Association’s (GEVA) B/BB Volleyball Tournament on January 26 at Diamond Gym in East Hanover, N.J. The team, which practices on Wednesdays at the Ukrainian American Cultural Center of New Jersey (UACCNJ) in Whippany, emerged from pool play with a 5-3 record, winning in the finals against AMF, 3 sets to 2. Pictured are (back row, from left): back row Michael Zawadiwsky (coach), Tom Montesian, Mark Kochan, Mykola Paslawsky, Dustin Cece, Christian Hyra; (front row), Alexander Hladky (coach), Andrew Podobinsky and Andres Aguirre.

KYIV – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine, Andriy Bohdan, and appointed presidential aide Andriy Yermak in his place on February 11.

Mr. Bohdan served as chief of staff and Mr. Yermak worked as an aide to President Zelenskyy beginning on May 21, 2019. On February 10, according to Presidential Office insiders quoted by the news media, the president and Mr. Bohdan had a tough conversation, which allegedly ended with Mr. Bohdan offering to write a letter of resignation, to which Mr. Zelenskyy replied, “Go ahead and write it.” By that evening, sources in the Presidential Office shared the information that Mr. Bohdan was resigning. The next morning, an official statement was released confirming this information.

KYIV – When President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired the controversial head of his Presidential Office, Andriy Bohdan, and replaced him with Andriy Yermak, a non-staff close adviser who has become increasingly influential in recent months, the move suggested a change in style and approach in the domestic sphere. But the appointment also reaffirmed Mr. Yermak’s position as the Ukrainian president’s chief negotiator with the Kremlin and his stewardship over Ukraine’s foreign policy in general.

On the same day as the personnel change in Kyiv, Moscow confirmed that Dmitry Kozak had replaced Vladyslav Surkov as President Vladimir Putin’s point man for Ukraine. Mr. Yermak has dealt with both Messrs. Surkov and Kozak and told Ukrainian TV on February 10 that, in his view, this was a change for the better.

IRVINGTON, N.J. – Among the sparsely stocked grocery shelves, the writing was on the wall – “You’ve had the rest, now try the best!” – as an end of an era was drawing nearer. On February 15 Olympic Community Market on 40th Street (on the corner of Leslie Place) closed its doors for good. An institution founded in 1952, known then as Bundziak and Lazirko Meat Market and located at 615 Springfield Ave. in Newark, Olympic Market, or simply “Lazirko’s,” the business has been run for two generations by the Lazirko family. Son Oleh Lazirko says it is a bittersweet moment leading to his retirement. 

This writer was standing in line on Friday afternoon, February 7, as many of the regular customers were ordering lunch sandwiches, while others placed their last orders of homemade meat products – the familiar Ukrainian classics, including kovbasa, kabanos, liverwurst (“pashte­tivka”) and kyshka, as well as modern spins on deli favorites such as chorizo, Ukrainian pepperoni and garlic salami.

President fires chief of staff

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed the chief of his administration, Andriy Bohdan, and replaced him with Andriy Yermak, an aide whose name has been linked to U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani. The presidential decrees on relieving Mr. Bohdan from his duties and appointing Mr. Yermak were signed on February 11 and placed on the presidential website. Evidence and testimony gathered during Mr. Trump’s recent impeachment hearing shows Mr. Giuliani met with Mr. Yermak to “strongly” urge an investigation Mr. Trump wanted of Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son’s ties to Ukrainian energy firm Burisma. Mr. Bohdan’s appointment to the post in May last year, after Mr. Zelenskyy won the presidential election, sparked controversy as Mr. Bohdan used to be a lawyer for powerful tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, who returned to Kyiv days ahead of Mr. Zelenskyy’s inauguration after two years of self-imposed exile in Geneva and Tel Aviv.

PART I

On January 1, the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine (GTSOU) LLC began transporting Russian natural gas to Europe under a new five-year transit agreement (Gordonua.com, January 1). This contract (consistent with European Union regulations) was signed by representatives of the Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz, GTSOU (established in line with Kyiv’s commitments to implement EU energy market “unbundling” legislation) and Gazprom on December 30, 2019, just one day before the previous 10-year gas supply and transit contract was set to expire. The issue of direct gas supplies to Ukraine was not included in the package agreements.

From Russia’s perspective, the conflicts it has itself instigated in the greater Black Sea region are strictly separate cases. Moscow regards the conflicts over Ukraine’s Crimea and Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia as settled and closed. By contrast, Russia seeks political settlements to the active conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas and the frozen one over Moldova’s Transnistria.

In this overall context, Dmitry Kozak will supervise Russia’s handling of the two remaining unresolved conflicts: those in the Donbas and Transnistria.

KYIV – Ukraine’s president and prime minister on February 6 presented the country’s mobile e-governance application Diia (Action), which aims to digitize all government services and play a central role in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “State in a Smartphone” concept.

More than 1 million Ukrainians downloaded this mobile app in the first four days after the grand presentation, which was attended by nearly a dozen ministers and senior officials of the Presidential Office. The event took place in Kyiv’s Parkovy International Convention Center and was a by-invitation-only event. Due to the fact that almost all of the county’s leadership was in the same place at the same time, security measures were at a high level.

Seen in the photo on the right, taken in 1990, is the three-person staff of the Ukrainian National Association’s Washington Office (from left): Assistant Director John Kun, Administrative Assistant Maria Lischak and Director Eugene Iwanciw.

The UNA Washington Office opened on July 1, 1988, with the aim of making Ukrainian Americans heard in Washington, and it served the community through September 1995. (Others who were on its staff during that period were Adrian Karmazyn and Xenia Ponomarenko.)

Seventy-five years ago this week, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met in Yalta to agree on the division of post-World War II Europe. Now, Vladimir Putin wants to assemble the presidents of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to do something even more sweeping: to agree on those for what might be called the post-post-Cold War world.

Mr. Putin’s call at a meeting in Jerusalem on January 23 for such a meeting has drawn support only from France, China and the United Nations. The United States and the United Kingdom have not yet signaled how they will respond. But speculation about what such a meeting might lead to is rife, especially in Moscow.

On January 31, as was reported on the front page of this newspaper, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Kyiv, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Foreign Affairs Minister Vadym Prystaiko, Defense Minister Andriy Zahorodnyuk and other leaders in what was meant, to use the State Department’s words, to “underscore the United States’ strong support for Ukraine and the country’s Euro-Atlantic integration.” Surely, the visit was meant also to allay fears that the Trump administration, with President Donald Trump in the midst of impeachment proceedings in the U.S. Senate, was not turning away from Ukraine. It would also serve to counter the negative impression created when Mr. Pompeo, apparently in a fit of anger, had said to an NPR anchor: “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?”

Twenty years ago, on February 22, 2000, the Verkhovna Rada voted 229 to 15 to abolish the death penalty, meeting a 1995 pledge to the Council of Europe.

Ukraine’s Parliament also ratified Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention), which provides for the abolition of the death penalty except in time of war or the imminent threat of war. The vote on that measure was 228 for and six against.

Communist Party and Progressive Socialist Party deputies did not participate in any of the voting.