Author: Mark Raczkiewycz

CHICAGO – The U.S.’s biggest Ukrainian advocacy group, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), staged a protest to call a boycott of staple goods maker Mondelez for its ongoing presence in the Russian market in a war that is entering its ninth year. Downtown Chicago’s iconic Water Tower was the setting where dozens of...

More aid pledged as Russia resumes attacks on critical civilian infrastructure CHICAGO – Russia continues trying to shift the war to its favor by committing additional forces to take the Donetsk regional industrial town of Avdiyivka just north of the occupied oblast capital. At least three Russian brigades were sent to their slaughter on October...

As Moscow launches ground offensive toward Avdiviyka and Kupiansk CHICAGO – To Russia’s alarm, Ukraine struck two airfields in occupied Luhansk and in Zaporizhia Oblast this week with high-precision, long-range rockets that were clandestinely provided by Washing­ton. The strikes destroyed at least nine Russian helicopters, including five Ka-52 alligator helicopters that have menaced Ukraine’s advances...

CHICAGO – The Winnipeg-based Canadian Friends of Hockey in Ukraine (CFHU) is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year as its mission to promote hockey in Ukraine gains importance for the outreach it’s doing to offer children respite and alleviate the psychological trauma of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Former National Hockey League (NHL) players Wayne and David...

CHICAGO – Russia this week went back on a combined arms offensive in a failed attempt so far to encircle the Donetsk regional town of Avdiyivka, known as the gateway to the occupied regional capital. Additional forces thrusted toward Kremmina and Lyman further to the northeast in what the Washington-based Institute for the Study of...

CHICAGO – Weeks before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year in February, Taras Topolya, the frontman of the Kyiv-based rock group Anytila (antibodies), and two other band members joined their city’s 130th territorial defense unit. When the war escalated, Mr. Topolya, keyboardist Serhii Vusyk and guitarist Dmytro Zholud defended Kyiv as Russian...

Ukraine faces challenges of continued support as political upheaval rises in US, Europe CHICAGO – Russia is scattering its prized Black Sea fleet (BSF) from the western coast of occupied Crimea to avoid ongoing incremental Ukrainian projectile and surface drone strikes, according to multiple satellite images The Ukrainian Weekly has seen over the past week....

CHICAGO – An open chess tournament with a prize fund of $2,000 will take place on October 28 in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood of the U.S.’s third most populous city. Its sponsor is the Selfreliance Federal Credit Union (SFCU), a financial institution that has provided services and assistance to Ukrainian immigrants since its establishment in...

U.N. finds more evidence of Russian war crimes, rape CHICAGO – Ukraine has liberated 54 percent of the territory Russia seized since it launched an all-out invasion in February 2022, outgoing U.S. Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said over the past week, as deep strikes into Russia and the occupied...

CHICAGO – Ukraine will for the first time commemorate a holiday that honors all who have fought for Ukraine on a new date, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on September 27. Observed since 2015, the Defenders Day holiday will see the traditional minute of silence for all those who have given their lives for Ukraine’s statehood...

CHICAGO – When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv had only about 1,500 soldiers defending the south against 20,000 invading troops, said Maj. Gen. Andrii Sokolov, who led the defense of that sector last year. “The southern grouping of troops was founded on a rotational basis,” he told Ukrainska Pravda....

Draws parallel between Russia’s war on Ukraine and Holodomor CHICAGO – Ukraine’s third post-Soviet president, Viktor Yushchenko, and former First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko (nee Chumachenko) paid a nearly week-long visit to her hometown to draw attention to the upcoming 90th anniversary of the human-engineered famine of the early 1930s perpetrated upon Ukraine by Soviet dictator...