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DAVOS, Switzerland – On January 21-24, this small Swiss town in the mountains hosted the 50th annual World Economic Forum. The world’s most influential people, politicians, businesspeople and philanthropists flew into Switzer­land to join this elite gathering.
Alongside the official invitation-only program, Davos’s main promenade hosts dozens of alternative events set up by corporations, global organizations and countries. Ukraine House Davos was one of these for the third consecutive year; its aim was to promote Ukraine as a young and vibrant democracy in the heart of Europe that is undergoing a massive transformation and is led by a resilient, highly educated and innovative new generation.

KYIV – The downing of a Ukrainian International Airlines airliner in Iran on January 8 with the loss of 176 lives has continued to dominate domestic and international headlines.
On January 16, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne chaired a gathering in London of a newly formed international coordination and response group that includes four other countries that lost citizens in the downing of UIA Flight 752: Ukraine, Sweden, Afghanistan and Britain. The group of grieving nations has drafted a framework for working with Iran on the disaster.
Apart from Iranian nationals, the largest group of foreigners on the doomed plane were Canadian citizens. Also killed were 11 Ukrainians, including nine crew members. Kyiv and Ottawa have been working very closely in the aftermath to develop the appropriate responses.

KYIV – The leaders of the Normandy Four countries – Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France – have finally agreed to hold a summit on December 9 in Paris in an attempt to resume the long-stalled negotiations over the future of eastern Ukraine. Moscow had delayed agreeing to a date, and even now continues its attempts to set the summit’s terms.
Meanwhile, complex discussions are under way between Kyiv and Moscow on the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine after the present contract expires at the end of the year. With Gazprom making proposals that Naftogaz finds unacceptable, the current negotiations are stalled.

KYIV – U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker resigned on September 27 against the backdrop of the controversy in the United States around the July 25 telephone conversation between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the U.S. leader’s initial decision to withhold military aid to Kyiv.
U.S. media say Ambassador Volker might have been involved in discussing the Biden case with Ukrainian authorities. He is on the list of U.S. State Department personnel whose data was requested by the House of Representatives investigating the “Ukraine case.”

A London-based digital forensics agency says it has gathered an enormous body of evidence that Russia’s military was deployed in the August-September 2014 fighting around Ilovaisk, in eastern Ukraine, in which Ukrainian forces were defeated by combined Russian and separatist troops.
Forensic Architecture used “machine learning and computer vision” to amass “the most comprehensive collection of evidence for the presence of Russian military personnel and hardware throughout the battlefield,” its project website states.

KYIV – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has simplified naturalization procedures for foreigners and stateless people who have “defended Ukraine” and for Russians facing “political persecution” at home.
In a decree published on the presidential website on August 13, Mr. Zelenskyy ordered the Cabinet of Ministers to “urgently” develop and draft a law “aimed at simplifying the procedure for acquiring citizenship.”

KYIV – The killing of four Ukrainian soldiers on August 6 by shelling from Russian-backed forces in the Donbas during the latest proclaimed ceasefire has precipitated a flurry of diplomatic activity from official Kyiv.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called his Russian counterpart the following day to express his disgust and reached out to Ukraine’s German and French partners in the Normandy group of leaders to request an urgent meeting at the highest level. He also called the new British prime minister, Boris Johnson.

KYIV – A senior U.S. official says Ukraine has requested to purchase more Javelin anti-tank missiles from the United States, a move that is likely to anger Moscow amid a four-year conflict that pits Russia-backed separatists against Ukraine’s forces.
William Taylor, chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, told RFE/RL in an interview that Ukraine would acquire the Javelins from the U.S. Defense Department’s Foreign Military Sales program for defensive purposes as the violence continues in a war that has killed more than 13,000 people.

KYIV – Ukraine’s eighth Parliament since independence convened its final plenary session on July 11 with a long-awaited political breakthrough – the adoption of a new Election Code designed to improve and democratize the country’s election system.
It followed weeks of recriminations after the calling of snap parliamentary elections by newly elected President Volodymyr Zelenskyy between his team and the outgoing administration of President Petro Poroshenko and his allies in the Verkhovna Rada. It took a ruling by the Constitutional Court on June 20 to remove doubts about the legality of Mr. Zelenskyy’s action.

OTTAWA – Hundreds of delegates from dozens of countries gathered in Toronto in early July for the third annual Ukraine Reform Conference, and to hear from Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during his first official overseas visit. Among the attendees were not only Canadian government officials, but also Ukrainian Canadian community leaders who had specific concerns about the neophyte politician’s policies.

WASHINGTON – Speakers from Washington, Kyiv and Brussels discussed Ukrainian foreign policy priorities for newly elected President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a June 20 telecast organized by the German Marshall Fund (GMF), and supported by the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation as well as the Reanimation Package of Reforms.
Opening remarks were provided by Jonathan Katz, senior fellow at the GMF, and Orest Deychakiwsky, vice-chairman of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation (USUF). Messrs. Katz and Deychakiwsky are co-chairs of USUF’s Friends of Ukraine Network Democracy and Civil Society Task Force.

OTTAWA – A global summit organized to support Ukraine’s reform process was the logical venue for Ukraine’s new president to make his first overseas trip and North American debut with Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska.
Attending the third annual Ukraine Reform Conference in Toronto – a gathering of more than 800 representatives of 37 countries and 10 international organizations – along with receiving a red-carpet welcome, signing bilateral agreements and obtaining further funding from the Canadian government made Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s decision to interrupt his campaigning for Ukraine’s July 21 parliamentary election an astute move to demonstrate his statecraft skills back home.