Author: Zenon Zawada

KYIV – High-ranking U.S. officials have targeted the Procurator General’s Office of Ukraine for criticism in recent weeks for actively obstructing government reform efforts. Most recently, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland called for an overhaul of the body, more than a year after Petro Poroshenko assumed the presidency...

KYIV – Meeting at a summit in Paris on October 2, Russia and Ukraine reached verbal agreements towards resolving the war in the Donbas, including withdrawing armaments from the conflict line beginning on October 4 and canceling illegal elections planned in the next few weeks, with plans to hold elections in the occupied territories next...

KYIV – Russian President Vladimir Putin emerged from the United Nations on September 28-29, having successfully shifted the world’s attention away from the Russian-backed military occupation of the Donbas and Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, Kyiv experts said. That’s despite the fact that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told the U.N. of the thousands dead due...

KYIV – It’s no coincidence that the warring in Donbas has calmed this month, with relatively few casualties and injuries, Kyiv experts said. The Russian government was satisfied with the decision of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s Parliament, to approve on August 31 the first reading of constitutional amendments establishing a specific order in the Donetsk...

KYIV – When it comes to reforms, Ukrainians are more concerned about corruption than any other issue, according to a poll conducted in late July by Kyiv’s Razumkov Center and the Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Fund. When asked to choose five spheres of reform as most important, about 65 percent of the 2,011 respondents cited anti-corruption...

KYIV – It’s been two weeks since the Ukrainian government confirmed that it succeeded in convincing private lenders to restructure $15 billion of debt owed them. As often is the case, the politicians resolved their immediate problems. Yet the debate continues on whether the deal benefits the Ukrainian economy in the long run. The main...

KYIV – Ukraine endured on August 31 its most serious domestic political conflict since the Euro-Maidan when violent protests erupted on August 31 over the decision of the Verkhovna Rada to approve the first reading of constitutional amendments to shift certain state authority to local governments. The vote prompted simple bombs and explosives to fly...

KYIV – The Ukrainian government commemorated the start of its 25th year of independence from Moscow on August 24 by hosting a march of the nation’s top soldiers along Kyiv’s main boulevard, Khreshchatyk, and awarding Anti-Terrorist Operation commanders honorary battle flags. Though it dropped the display of armaments and hardware as was the case in...

KYIV – Among the key Russian tactics in the infowars on Ukraine has been the government’s army of Internet trolls, or those recruited to monitor websites and post comments or articles in favor of the Putin regime and discrediting its enemies, often with aggressive rhetoric. More evidence has been surfacing of late confirming the Russian...

KYIV – The war being waged by the Russian Federation against the Ukrainian state reached a new phase on August 10 when Russian-backed terrorists intensified their attacks on towns in the Donetsk region where Ukrainian military forces are based. That same day, the latest round of expanded economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. government against...

KYIV – The Verkhovna Rada voted on July 16 to approve constitutional amendments submitted by the president, including an amendment creating what is now called “specific procedures” for local self-governance on the territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts occupied by Russian-backed terrorists. Although legislation creating specific procedures had been twice earlier approved by Parliament...

KYIV – Normally, the Pravyi Sektor (Right Sector), among the nation’s biggest paramilitary groups, is doing battle with Russian-backed terrorists in Ukraine’s easternmost Donbas region. Last weekend, however, its soldiers engaged in a gunfight with local police outside the town of Mukacheve, just 18.5 miles from the border with Hungary in the Zakarpattia Oblast. When...