Month: January 15, 2021 8:28 am

KYIV – Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka allegedly ordered the country’s security agency to plot the assassination of journalist Pavlo Sheremet with an explosive device in 2012, according to audio recordings that a former Belarusian spy chief released to a European news outlet.

Per those recordings, which were given to the EU Observer, Vadzim Zaytsau, who headed the Belarusian State Security Committee in 2008-2012, discussed a plan with his subordinates to assassinate Mr. Sheremet.

KYIV – Ukraine’s Ministry of Health recently approved a plan to immunize the country’s population against COVID-19. The program, developed by experts from the Public Health Center of Ukraine together with experts from WHO and UNICEF, will provide Ukrainians with a vaccination funded by the state. The goal of the plan is to ensure that at least half of Ukraine’s population of about 42 million people receive a COVID-19 vaccine in 2021-2022.

“This plan will be flexible. It will be updated depending on the situation with COVID-19, updated data on vaccines, the availability of the vaccine itself,” said Ihor Kuzin, the director general of the Public Health Center.

On December 7, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA) adopted the resolution “Problem of the militarization of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, as well as parts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov,” initiated by Ukraine (Mfa.gov.ua, December 16, 2020). The declaration indicates that the transformation of the peninsula into a huge Russian military base “represents a threat to peace and security well beyond the Black Sea region” (Un.org, December 7, 2020). This was the third year in a row that the UNGA raised such concerns, but this time, new key elements were included in the document. Solomiya Bobrovskaya, the secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Policy and Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation, mentioned that for the first time, the U.N. resolution includes information regarding the militarization of Crimean youth.

Court will hear case on rights violations in Crimea

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will hear part of a case brought by Ukraine alleging Russian human rights violations in the Crimea peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, the court said on January 14.  Abuses alleged by Ukraine – including enforced disappearances, unlawful detention and suppression of non-Russian media – had been deemed admissible and would be followed by a judgment at a later date, an ECHR statement said. The court said there was not enough evidence for Ukrainian allegations of a pattern of killings and shootings and detentions of foreign journalists or the alleged confiscation of Ukrainian soldiers’ property. Relations between Ukraine and Russia collapsed after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in the Donbass conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed 14,000 people since 2014.

As in many other countries, COVID-19 dominated the agenda in Ukraine in 2020. Kyiv locked down domestic trade, services, education, and passenger transportation as well as closed its state borders earlier than did most neighboring countries in March. That swift reaction may explain why, during the first half of 2020, the scale of the pandemic in Ukraine was relatively low. But even after the lockdown was lifted in the summer, the country faced the consequences of a GDP plunge of more than 11 percent in annual terms in the second quarter. As a result, the team of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shied away from reintroducing tough restrictions when the pandemic peaked in Ukraine in late fall.

NORTH PORT, Fla. – Branch 56 of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America held an annual Christmas celebration for members throughout the state on January 10. It did so, however, in a not-so-traditional way, via Zoom.

Members of Branch 56 and the remaining Florida branches of the UNWLA were invited to attend the celebration virtually.  More than 60 guests took part in the celebration, which included various musical performances and poetry readings.

The following article is the second part of a two-part series.  Part 1, which was published in the previous issue of The Ukrainian Weekly, addressed the timing, place of birth and mother tongue of Ukrainian immigrants to the United States, as well as their distribution within the U.S. Part 2 addresses Ukrainian immigrants’ characteristics, such as age and sex, education (literacy), knowledge of English, family structure, employment status, class of worker, occupation and homeownership.

Part 2

The first part of this article presented new results about the First Wave of immigrants from Ukraine to the United States.  These results were based on recently released census data for 1910, 1920 and 1930.  Immigrants from Ukraine were defined using two different criteria: “place of birth” and “mother tongue.” 

Below is a statement issued by the Ukrainian Catholic Hierarchy of the U.S.A. on the events of January 6.

As Christians, on the Feast of the Theophany, we continue to celebrate and welcome the Emmanuel – “God is with us,” the Prince of Peace, “the Beloved Son of the Father,” who calls us all to be His sisters and brothers in the Father’s house. But as a nation, today, we witness an appalling assault on the central seat and process of American democracy which must stop.

Dear Editor:

With the U.S. presidential campaign behind us, it’s important for history’s sake that partisan mythologizing not gut sobering details of how American figures influenced tragic developments in Ukraine’s recent history. Already several times The Ukrainian Weekly’s columnists have penned paeans skirting inconvenient items related to then Vice-President Joseph Biden’s part in events affecting Ukraine. Sadly, Mr. Biden played a role in getting Ukraine to forgo armed resistance while Crimea was being invaded. The loss of Crimea – likely long-term – has been independent Ukraine’s great geopolitical tragedy (chances for eastern Donbas’s return are better).

Dear Editor:

In the aftermath of the events of January 6, I greatly applaud and appreciate the editorial “A citadel for liberty,” and Orest Deychakiwsky’s op-ed “Hope for the new year,” which was written well before January 6. 

America and, likewise, the Ukrainian American community were as divided as ever in this past, very close presidential election.  We have experienced more divisiveness, vitriol, “hate,” mutual accusations of spreading fake news, lunacy, being a “fascist, racist, or socialist-communist,” etc.

As in most of the world, the COVID-19 pandemic did not spare Ukraine in 2020 and even reached a Chilean research center in Antarctica in December. In March, the same month that Ukraine recorded its first case of the coronavirus that originated in China in 2019, authorities in Kyiv imposed strict restrictive measures to stave off the spread of the highly transmissible disease.

Only essential stores were allowed to stay open, and even the Kyiv subway was closed; public transportation was limited for a while in the early spring. Medical workers were trained to treat COVID-19 patients, and special hospital wards were established as the country’s dilapidated health-care system braced for hospitalizations.

The year 2020 was, what can we say, a follow-up to the unusual year that preceded it as regards U.S.-Ukraine relations. There were plenty of ups and downs, and oftentimes it seemed the Trump administration and Congress were on opposite sides when it came to Ukraine. Sometimes, different positions were articulated by members of the administration and the president himself.

A case in point: While members of Congress and the administration kept up the pressure on Russia for its invasion and occupation of Ukraine, President Donald Trump was willing to ignore Russia’s violations of international law when he suggested on May 30 that he wanted to invite Russia to rejoin the Group of Seven. “I don’t feel that as a G-7 it properly represents what’s going on in the world,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “It’s a very outdated group of countries.”