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Attacks on Ukrainian activists go unpunished

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KYIV – Hundreds of protesters assembled in at least a dozen cities across the country to draw attention to a slew of unsolved attacks on civic activists since 2017. 

As far west as Uzhhorod in the Zakarpattia region and Severodonetsk in easternmost Luhansk Oblast, they protested under the slogan of “Silence Kills” since 55 attacks on journalists, civic activists and corruption whistleblowers have gone unsolved – 40 of them over the past 12 months. 

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Hungarian consulate in Ukraine caught granting citizenship to Ukrainians

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KYIV – A diplomatic confrontation is brewing with Hungary after hidden-video footage emerged that shows a group of Ukrainians taking an oath of loyalty during a citizenship swearing-in ceremony inside the Hungarian Consulate in the Zakarpattia Oblast border town of Berehove. 

After the induction, a Hungarian diplomat told the group to hide their new citizenship status from the Ukrainian authorities while toasting them with champagne, according to the video posted on YouTube on September 19. 

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Russia dominates talk on Ukraine’s future at annual Yalta European Strategy conference

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KYIV – Russia’s imperial foreign policy and the adverse effect it has on neighboring countries and the world order took center stage at a panel devoted to Ukraine’s future at the annual Yalta European Strategy conference that took place on September 13-15. 

Titled, “The Future of Ukraine and Eastern Europe – Beyond Spheres of Influence and Zones of Conflict,” the panel was moderated by Munich Security Conference chief Wolfgang Ischinger.

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Rock star Vakarchuk baits public on presidential bid at YES conference

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KYIV – When perhaps the country’s most popular singer Svyatoslav Vakarchuk was going to give a sold-out concert at Kyiv’s Olympic Stadium on Independence Day the previous month, pundits speculated he would announce his candidacy for the March 2019 presidential race. 

It has been such a popular topic ever since he completed a fellowship at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law during the autumn of 2017. So much so that Mr. Vakarchuk, 43, is often included in polls that gauge the public’s political preferences. 

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Poroshenko delivers keynote address at Yalta European Strategy meeting

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KYIV – President Petro Poroshenko gave the keynote speech at the 15th yearly Yalta European Strategy (YES) meeting on September 14 in Kyiv’s Mystetskyi Arsenal art and cultural museum. Known as the “Ukrainian Davos,” it is Eastern Europe’s biggest conference devoted to Ukraine’s place in Europe. Some 600 heads of state, politicians, economists, thinkers and business leaders were in attendance. This year’s theme of the YES meeting, organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, was “The Next Generation of Everything.” In his speech, President Poroshenko said that Ukraine is the eastern stronghold of NATO’s common security system. “Our European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations should be considered in a broader international and European context,” he said.

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Thousands evacuated due to chemical leak on Russia-occupied Crimean peninsula

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KYIV – In what is becoming reminiscent of how long the USSR stayed silent during the Chornobyl disaster of 1986, it took the Russian-occupying Crimean authorities about 10 days to acknowledge a toxic chemical leak in the peninsula’s northern town of Armiansk. 

More than 4,000 children and adults have been evacuated, and dozens have sought medical treatment in the border area between Ukraine-controlled Kherson Oblast and the Russia-occupied Ukrainian territory of Crimea since August 23 when sulfur trioxide was released into the air. 

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Meeting of Orthodox hierarchs in Istanbul gives Ukraine more hope for autocephaly

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KYIV – Ukraine received more encouraging signs that it could receive canonical permission to form a unified Ukrainian Orthodox Church following an assembly of more than 100 metropolitans and archbishops at the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul that took place on September 1-3. 

The move would further erode Moscow’s influence in Ukraine as the two predominantly Orthodox countries continue fighting a multi-front war on the battlefield, in cyberspace, diplomatically and on energy issues. 

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First bell rings in Ukraine’s schools

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KYIV – Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, a former world boxing champion, opened an upgraded primary school called “Intellect” in the Darnytsia district of Kyiv to mark the beginning of the academic year on September 3. The school, which has some 1,500 pupils, is located on the east bank of the Dnipro River. The learning center is equipped with interactive displays that allow video screening instead of chalkboards, and each teacher is equipped with a computer. Special foreign-language learning classrooms are in place, as well as studios for dance, music and song. The school is also energy efficient with its own autonomous heating system.

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Kyiv severs more ties with Russia amid IMF visit and new Rada session

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KYIV – When the country’s legislature, the Verkhovna Rada, reconvenes on September 4 after the summer break, it will have a presidential bill registered to have European Union and NATO membership enshrined in the Constitution. 

President Petro Poroshenko said that government lawyers have “found a formula for doing this optimally and quickly,” during a speech in Kyiv at the Ukrainian Independence Day parade on August 24. 

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Ukrainians’ national pride deepens as country marks 27th Independence Day

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KYIV – Kozak regiments of old aren’t triumphantly riding on horseback into a fortress at the former Hetman state capital of Baturyn in Chernihiv Oblast, 140 miles east of Kyiv, for the nation’s Flag Day celebration on August 23. 

In their place, where such nation-building leaders of the Hetmanate as Demian Mnohohrishny, Ivan Mazepa and the last hetman, Kyrylo Rozumovsky, made their base of operations, another assembly is gathering.