The Ukrainian Weekly (https://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/author/admin/page/11/)
A story on page 4 of this week’s issue of The Weekly highlighted the contributions made over the years by Peter Jarosewycz, a retired attorney who lives in Kansas City, Mo., to the Ukrainian National Foundation, a 501 (c) (3) organization that performs charitable activities on behalf of the Ukrainian National Association, which is the parent company of this newspaper.
Seven years ago, on July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), a Boeing 777 commercial airliner flying out of Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew members was downed over eastern Ukraine by what was suspected to be a surface-to-air missile.
Last month Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reminded Canadians that, “As a Catholic, I am deeply disappointed by the position…the Catholic Church has taken now and over the past many years [of not] showing the leadership that quite frankly is supposed to be at the core of our faith, of forgiveness, of responsibility, of acknowledging truth.” Evocative words, especially delivered in the well-practiced, rather unctuous tone he deploys whenever apologizing for some historical injustice.
Shevchenko coy on future
Ukraine national soccer team coach Andriy Shevchenko says it’s too early to say whether he will stay in his job after his team’s quarterfinal loss to England at the European Championship. Shevchenko said the team would return to Kyiv and assess its achievement of reaching the quarterfinals at the quadrennial tournament for the first time.
KYIV – The National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine on June 18 announced sanctions against Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch who has been indicted by the United States for corruption. Mr. Firtash is currently living in Vienna and fighting extradition to the U.S.
European Union leaders gathered in Brussels on June 24 for a two-day summit during which they were scheduled to discuss a new strategy to manage relations with Russia amid signs of a split with some members pushing for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, and others opposed given their deep-seated distrust of Russia’s head of state.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has insisted the U.K. Navy was “entirely right” to defend freedom of navigation following an incident with Russia in the Black Sea, while Moscow warned it was prepared to fire on warships entering territorial waters it claims around Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
United States President Joseph Biden and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, met in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 16 for their first summit since Mr. Biden took office. Both countries have been stuck in a vicious spiral of diplomatic, military, political and economic confrontation. Most predictions ahead of the Geneva summit were, thus, restrained, downbeat or dismal, with both the Kremlin and the White House warning the public not to expect too much. Initial low expectations allowed both presidents and their teams to spin the summit results post factum as a significant success, with Mr. Putin talking of “glimmers of hope” and Mr. Biden projecting optimism.
Congressional lawmakers are ratcheting up the pressure on the White House, demanding more be done to force the extradition of a powerful Ukrainian tycoon from Austria to the United States.
The idea that we have held back security assistance to Ukraine is nonsense. Just last week – in the run-up to the U.S.-Russia Summit – we provided a $150 million package of security assistance, including lethal assistance. We have now provided the entire amount appropriated by Congress through the Ukraine security assistance initiative.