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Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus marks centennial with concert in Kyiv

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KYIV – Perhaps the highlight of the Detroit-based Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus’s (UBC) centennial tour of Ukraine was the joint concert with the local National Bandurist Capella on October 22. 

About 120 artists took to the stage that evening, showcasing Ukraine’s national musical instrument, which combines characteristics of the lute and harp, producing “a sound similar to a harpsichord but with a wider range and tone,” according to the UBC website. 

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“Uke” documentary to tell story of NHL players with Ukrainian roots

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KYIV – Volodymyr Mula’s third documentary film is as much about telling the story of professional NHL hockey players of Ukrainian descent as it is to show them how much their historical roots mean to the world. 

“Uke” – a common term that North American Ukrainians use to refer to themselves – is scheduled to premiere next autumn. It’s the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast native’s most ambitious project to date. 

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Ukraine set to sail with financial stability through 2019 with new IMF loan

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KYIV – Ukraine has tapped new funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that could shore up its finances through 2019 while avoiding a liquidity crunch amid simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections taking place next year. 

A new lending program was brokered on October 22 with the Washington-based lender worth $3.9 billion. It replaces a previously existing agreement (that would’ve expired in March 2019) worth more than four times as much that stalled in April 2017 because Kyiv wasn’t meeting reform benchmarks. 

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Ukrainian political prisoner Sentsov awarded Sakharov prize

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KYIV – Oleg Sentsov, a Crimean filmmaker and political prisoner in Russia, became the laureate of the yearly Sakharov Prize on October 25 that the European Parliament bestowed for his human rights stance against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

“Through his courage and determination, by putting his life in danger, the filmmaker…has become a symbol of the struggle for the release of political prisoners held in Russia and around the world,” said European Union Parliament President Antonio Tajani in a news release.

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European Union court denies Firtash escape from justice

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KYIV – A European Union court in Luxembourg denied Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash the right to escape legal jurisdiction in Austria where he faces extradition to the U.S. on corruption charges.

The EU Court of Justice ruled on October 24 that his legal dispute, based on human rights and freedoms charters, doesn’t have cause. Mr. Firtash, 53, had attached his name to an existing case whereby three businessman were challenging whether they could be tried in the EU if the charges against them had originated in Switzerland, a non-EU state.

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Moscow severs ties with Constantinople over Ukraine Church’s independence

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KYIV – The Russian Orthodox Church is severing its relationship with the spiritual authority of the Orthodox Christian world following a Synod, or assembly of church hierarchy, that was held in Minsk on October 15. 

The decision could signal the widest rift in the religious world since the 1054 schism that divided western and eastern Christianity or the Reformation of 1517 when Roman Catholicism split into new Protestant divisions. 

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19-year-old woman among four soldiers killed in bloodiest day of Donbas war since August

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KYIV – Luhansk Oblast-native Olesya Baklanova, 19, was one of the four Ukrainian soldiers killed overnight on October 10-11 in what was the bloodiest day of the Russia-instigated war since mid-August. Three more servicemen were wounded. 

The deputy commander of her unit, which is part of the 92nd Mechanized Brigade, told the newspaper Kharkiv Today that a sniper fatally shot her 300 meters from the frontline near the Butivka coal mine in Donetsk Oblast when she started to survey the area with binoculars at around 8 p.m. on October 10. 

She was a contract soldier who signed up at the age of 18. Comrades in arms called her “Leska,” according to Kharkiv Today, which quoted Vyacheslav, a soldier who served with her without providing his last name. 

More than 10,400 people have died in the Kremlin-orchestrated Donbas war since it erupted in April 2014. As of October 12, a total of 115 armed forces personnel have been killed this year, according to monthly and daily counts by censor.net, a Ukrainian news site that devotes coverage to the war. The last woman to have been killed in the war was a medic, Sgt.

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Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Holy Synod approves quest for autocephaly in Ukraine

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KYIV – The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople decreed on October 11 that processes continue toward creating a fully self-governed Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The move, following a three-day Holy Synod in Istanbul, further solidifies support for an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church that Moscow has for centuries opposed.

In a communiqué issued on October 11, the Chief Secretariat of the Holy and Sacred Synod stated that it renewed the “decision already made that the Ecumenical Patriarchate proceed to the granting of autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine.”