Author: Ihor Stelmach

Russia’s failure to take Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv has been labeled by the news media as “a defeat for the ages.” The seat of Ukraine’s national power was, without a doubt, the main prize for Russian President Vladimir Putin. When he launched his full-scale war on Ukraine on February 24, following several months of...

Newtown, Conn., has a modern version of the Hanson Brothers in the Samoskevich siblings. Except today’s hockey family has more finesse and talent, and the long hair belongs to the women. Back in 1977, when the movie “Slap Shot” came out, featuring three long-haired Hanson brothers who were goon hockey players, women’s hockey was in...

Born in Lviv, Ukraine, 18-year-old Olena Sadovska was determined to raise some badly needed money for those desperate for food and shelter in her homeland. She managed to raise $12,500 in a most original manner: walking a stair climber for 24 hours at her local gym in Cleveland, Ohio. As a nine-month-old, Sadovska moved with...

Svitolina steps away from tennis A back injury in combination with some severe mental anguish has forced Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina to temporarily walk away from her sport. She admitted to living through an “extremely difficult couple of months” since Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine on February 24. Svitolina won two matches...

The Vasyl Lomachenko-George Kambosos fight scheduled for June 5 in Melbourne, Australia, is off. The two-time Ukrainian Olympic gold medalist has chosen to remain in Ukraine with his family rather than leave the country for training camp. The 34-year-old Lomachenko joined a territorial defense battalion in Ukraine in February when he flew from Greece to...

No matter the results of Russia’s war against Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will forever be recognized as the face of his country’s battle against Russia’s unprovoked, full-scale war that was launched on February 24. The manner in which Mr. Zelenskyy has answered the call of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been lauded worldwide. A speech...

On his Facebook page in late February, Mike McSorley of the Conn-Grebb Boxing Club described the situation in Ukraine as “heart wrenching” for his team of Ukrainian boxers. Staying active was one way of fighting challenging circumstances in life, and boxer Oleh Dovhun has experienced a few of those in his time. “It’s dangerous, horrible,...

It turned out to be a really good day for Mykhailo Golod, simply because he lived to see another. It was well into the darkness of March 3 and Kyiv was suffering more fierce bombardment from the unprovoked assault by Russian forces. It is still hard to believe, this invasion of the country, the siege...

According to CBS Sports.com, there are seven native Ukrainian college basketball players hooping it up in the United States in the soon-to-be-concluding 2021-2022 season: Nikita Konstantynovskyi (University of Tulsa) from Kyiv Pavlo Dziuba (University of Maryland) from Kyiv Max Shulga (Utah State University) from Kyiv Rostyslav Novitskyi (Fordham Univer­sity) from Kyiv George Maslennikov (Canisius College)...

For 10 days, Ukrainians were battling it out on two separate continents – at home against Russian forces and in Beijing at the 2022 Winter Paralympic Games. The results have been surprisingly successful, on the one hand, in the battle against Russia’s unprovoked and premeditated war against Ukraine, and dominant as usual in the case...

SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn. – The man who played a president on television is today facing threats to his life and his presidency as he leads Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s unprovoked, premeditated war against his country. Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s life and career have been anything but typical, and he has faced a seemingly unending series of crises...

SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn. – Russia is disconnected from the rest of the world. In the two weeks since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been banished economically (international sanctions have destroyed the ruble’s value), diplomatically (even by some of Russia’s allies) and culturally. Russia’s national and club soccer teams have been...