Month: October 23, 2020 3:17 am

KYIV – On October 25, millions of Ukrainians will vote in local elections, choosing leaders and deputies of their communities, raions, cities and oblasts. As they leave their polling stations, the voters will also be asked to voluntarily answer five more questions posed by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. However, the poll will not have any direct legal consequences.

The president has no legislative right to develop a nationwide survey, especially when it comes to state funding. To observers, the poll looks like an illegitimate referendum that might bring about real change since the president’s party, Servant of the People, controls the legislative branch, the Verkhovna Rada.

KYIV – When Soviet-era Ukrainian dissident Vasyl Stus died under mysterious circumstances in a high-security Russian labor camp near the Ural Mountains on September 4, 1985, it had been 20 years since his poems were last published in the USSR.

Now, a book about the last five years of his life is at risk of being pulled off store shelves and from online shopping carts after pro-Russian lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk won a libel case against the author on October 19 in a Kyiv civil court.

Judge Maryna Zastavenko ruled to halt the further sale and distribution of “The Case of Vasyl Stus” until six of nine passages in the book that the plaintiff asked to be stricken had been removed.

KYIV – While attention in Ukraine has been largely focused in recent weeks on the approaching local elections on October 25, this month has seen important developments in the area of foreign relations. But the trends in the respective spheres of domestic and external politics are potentially mutually contradictory and suggest an inevitable source of tension.

At home, there has been growing concern that the plummeting ratings of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People “mono-majority” party, if confirmed in the voting, will encourage oligarchic, populist and pro-Russian forces to regroup and mount a counteroffensive. The aim would be to make it impossible for the Ukrainian Parliament to function without the Servant of People faction, deprived in reality of its majority, making major concessions or agreeing to early parliamentary elections.

The sharp rise of COVID-19 infections in Russia in the last couple of weeks was predictable given the relatively high “plateau” of new cases over the summer after the sharp peak in early May. Yet the escalation of the pandemic has apparently caught the authorities by surprise as the government focused on Moscow. Cases of the novel coronavirus in the Russian capital grew to a maximum of about 6,000 infections per day in May, before dropping to the low level of about 650 through the last week of September; but those numbers have now jumped again – to 3,300 daily cases (Kommersant, October 4).

The data on lethality is fragmented, and the average figure for August was about 100 a day; however, the recently revised vital statistics give the total number of coronavirus-related deaths in that month as about 7,500 (RBC, October 2).

Russia halts talks on MH17

Russia says it has decided to halt consultations with Australia and the Netherlands on the downing of a Malaysia Airlines passenger flight over eastern Ukraine more than six years ago, after the Dutch government took Russia to court in July for its alleged role in the tragedy. “Such unfriendly moves by the Netherlands make further trilateral consultations and our participation in them senseless,” Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement on October 15. Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said in a tweet that the Netherlands “greatly regrets this decision. It is extremely painful for the survivors.” MH17 was shot down on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur by a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile fired from territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in the east of Ukraine.

The Russian state TV propaganda machine continues to ridicule Democratic Party presidential contender Joseph Biden and promote the incumbent, Donald Trump, portrayed as strong and full of energy after overcoming his bout with the COVID-19 coronavirus (Vesti, October 13). The message to the Russian public is clear: Mr. Trump still has a chance to hold onto the White House despite unfavorable opinion polls. Russian hackers and intelligence assets are allegedly continuing to work clandestinely to help Mr. Trump succeed and additionally to sow discontent and destabilization from inside Russia’s main global opponent, no matter who wins in November. But the apparently high likelihood of a Biden victory is visibly changing the Kremlin calculus.

The United States has charged six Russian military officers with a “destructive,” global criminal cyber-campaign that included the worldwide distribution of destructive malware and attempts to undermine the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine.

The indictment, announced by the Justice Department on October 19, also accuses the men of hacking French elections, the Seoul Olympics and an international organization investigating Russia’s use of a deadly nerve agent.

The charges are the latest in a series of cybercriminal indictments leveled by the United States against Russian state and nonstate actors.

As this issue of The Ukrainian Weekly was being completed, we received an e-mail from the Ukrainian National Information Service, the Washington bureau of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, with the responses of the two major party candidates’ campaigns to questions on key topics – military assistance to Ukraine, Russian sanctions, combatting Russian disinformation, NATO enlargement and Ukraine reform efforts. Given the tight timeframe (and, unfortunately, the poor postal delivery of our newspaper), as well as the fact that voting is already taking place, it was important for us to get this information to our readers. So, here goes.

In keeping with their tradition during presidential election years, the UCCA and UNIS sent a questionnaire to both the Republican and the Democratic candidates for president. The five questions were these: Would you propose increasing U.S. military assistance and training for Ukraine’s armed forces? What level of sanction measures would you support against the Russian Federation? What additional measures should the United States implement to combat Russian disinformation?

Thirty years ago, on October 28, 1990, thousands of people were involved in a clash at the site of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv between adherents of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (later identified as the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate or UOC-MP, as it became known) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

Just a week prior, on October 21, Patriarch Mstyslav of the UAOC had celebrated a moleben at the cathedral.

Faithful of the UAOC linked arms in a chain at entrances to the complex as well as at streets leading to St. Sophia Square. Members of the UOC-MP came to the cathedral to participate in a religious service.

“The world is ceasing to be America-centric,” Liliya Shevtsova says, “but Russia remains” precisely that because as long as America is the most important and its leaders view their relationship with Russia as central, Moscow has confirmation that it is still a world power.

The Russian commentator says, “Dialogue with America or confrontation with America remains a systemic factor in the existence of the Russian state and for which it works.” For its rulers, “Russia must remain for America the most important geopolitical challenge” and not be dismissed or ignored (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/197888).

Dear Editor:

In a letter to the editor (October 11), the writer expressed shock that Ukrainian Americans could support Joe Biden and elaborated: “Historically, Ukrainians have voted for the Republican Party” because of its “pro-Ukrainian stance on most issues.”

This, however, is not the Republican Party of our parents’ generation.

The current president has repeatedly insulted Ukraine and Ukrainians. Anyone who has followed the news – on any network – has observed him disrespecting our longtime NATO allies, ignoring the advice of U.S. intelligence agencies and military brass, denigrating veterans.

Dear Editor:

Bohdan Shandor’s column (September 27) includes quite a number of misrepresentations. If one were to search online for Sanders-Biden “manifesto” and nothing came up, that is because the title of the text is “Recommendations.” Mr. Shandor’s use of the word manifesto – an allusion to the mid-19th century Marx/Engels document – is purposefully provocative and misleading.

Mr. Shandor claims: “The unity manifesto envisions an all-encompassing welfare state with every need guaranteed by taxpayer funding. Thus, no one should pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing.” The actual text from the Sanders-Biden recommendations reads: “Housing in America should be stable, accessible, safe, healthy, energy efficient and, above all, affordable. No one should have to spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.”