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Ukrainian American businessman optimistic about the future of Ukraine

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KAPITANIVKA, Ukraine – As the son of a Green Beret serviceman, Petro Rondiak grew up moving around a lot. He spent two years in Stuttgart, Germany, and has resided in Boston, Washington and Philadelphia. In 1995, the 50-year-old father of three children finally cemented his feet in his ancestral homeland of Ukraine to help a sprawling Ford car dealership network founded by John Hynansky – a Ukrainian American who was already an established successful car dealer in America in several eastern states. Mr. Rondiak had no automotive experience, but had technical training as an engineer with Raytheon, a major U.S. defense contractor, and knowledge of the Ukrainian language. Those qualities were enough for his former roommate and fellow Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization member in Philadelphia, Bohdan Kulchycky, to recruit him in 1995 at Winner Automotive in Kyiv at the behest of Mr. Hynansky, who started the company three years ealier.

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Newly elected president of UCCA speaks about the tasks ahead

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KYIV – Politicians like U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) call him Andriy in Ukrainian, not by his given name of Andrew. Officials at every level, whether national or local, have known Andriy Futey – the newly elected president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA) – for 17 years as the leader of a government relations firm and for his advocacy efforts in various Ukrainian organizations. Now, for the next four years of his term, Mr. Futey, 50, hopes to harness the familiarity he has on Capitol Hill and in his home state of Ohio to promote the interests of the 1.5 million Ukrainians living in the United States. “Every organization as you go through it needs a jumpstart,” Mr. Futey told The Ukrainian Weekly in a Skype call on October 6, less than three weeks after succeeding two-term UCCA President Tamara Olexy and just a week after the former and current UCCA chiefs traveled to Kyiv on a working visit. Current efforts are devoted to the upcoming November 8 U.S. presidential election.

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Ukraine remembers Babyn Yar

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KYIV – Once dubbed the “Kyivan Switzerland” for its picturesque landscape in northwestern Kyiv, Babyn Yar (which translates as old woman’s ravine) today is a public park surrounded by a concrete jungle of Soviet-era urban planning. Two memorials stand here to mark the horrific killing of more than 100,000 people – two-thirds of them Jews – 75 years ago by occupying Nazi German forces in 1941-1943. History professor Paul Robert Magocsi visited the site for the first time 25 months ago to draw inspiration for conceptualizing this year’s commemoration of the Babyn Yar massacres in Ukraine’s capital for the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, a Canada-based non-profit that works to foster understanding of Ukrainian-Jewish relations. “It’s essentially a cemetery, a huge killing field. It’s a necropolis, a place for reflection,” Prof. Magocsi told The Ukrainian Weekly before the start of the seven-day commemoration of the tragedy that took place on September 23-29.

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Rising national pride noted in Ukraine in the face of Russian military aggression

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KYIV – Last week Ukraine’s Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, voted not to recognize elections to Russia’s State Duma because Crimea was an election district. Urging the international community to follow suit, a strong majority of 264 lawmakers called the vote on the illegally annexed territory “illegitimate,” concluding that the entire election was thus invalid. It underscored rising feelings of national pride in the face of military aggression, an economic embargo and persistent informational warfare waged by Russia. Across the city, car owners have attached adhesive decals of Ukrainian embroidery on their vehicles, T-shirts adorned with Ukraine’s national symbol, the trident, are frequently worn, and the Ukrainian language is heard more often on Kyiv’s streets. Patriotism also transcends linguistic and ethnic lines.

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Ukraine files multiple lawsuits against Russia

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Ukraine is claiming about $67 billion in lost assets. KYIV – From Paris to Strasbourg, and Stockholm to London, Ukraine is amassing lawsuits and other legal claims against Russia while stepping up diplomatic efforts to further ostracize its belligerent neighbor. Earlier this month, Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko said Kyiv is preparing cases against about 20 Russian officials and generals at The Hague’s International Criminal Court for annexing Crimea and waging war in eastern Ukraine that has entered its third year and killed nearly 10,000 people. Speaking to the Financial Times in a story published on September 12, Mr. Lutsenko said the “fate of Slobodan Milosevic” awaits the Russians – a reference to the former Yugoslav president who stood trial on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes at The Hague before dying in his prison cell in 2006. This week Foreign Affairs Minister Pavlo Klimkin said Ukraine will seek justice at an international court after a Russian guard boat violated Ukrainian territorial waters in the Black Sea.

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Ex-U.S. federal prosecutor Vitvitsky aims to help reform and raise public trust in PGO

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KYIV – Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Bohdan Vitvitsky’s office is one door down from the one that Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko occupies. It’s located on the premises where authorities say Viktor Pshonka, the former prosecutor general under ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, had taken part in embezzling 69 million hrv ($2.7 million) of taxpayers’ money while renovating the building three years ago. Now Dr. Vitvitsky, whose parents hail from Kolomyia in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, is working on an encore career to help raise public trust in one of Ukraine’s consistently least trusted institutions – the very same Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO). It’s a Soviet-era institution of some 15,000 employees, known for scuttling high-profile graft and homicide investigations rather than prosecuting them, and one that his colleague, human rights lawyer Valentyna Telychenko, has described as a “mafia” in previous interviews. Both sit on the newly created seven-member commission that will eventually choose over 80 inspector generals who Mr. Lutsenko said “will supervise the legality of actions of prosecutors and investigators throughout the prosecution system,” according to an August 8 televised meeting with the former U.S. federal prosecutor.

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American Chamber of Commerce president sees its role as moving Ukraine forward

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KYIV – Andy Hunder is so busy these days that he has to cancel his attendance at ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new factories or offices that foreign companies are opening in Ukraine. On July 1, Mr. Hunder, the president of the country’s American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), couldn’t attend a door-opening event for the network marketing company Amway in Lviv. His schedule was booked. The previous day he witnessed the launch of Uber taxi service in Kyiv. The following day, British-Dutch Unilever created 100 jobs by opening a tea-making factory in Hostomel, 30 kilometers northwest of Kyiv.

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Philadelphia’s UUARC assists war-affected children

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KYIV – Some 200 war-affected children living in the frontline cities of the Donbas were treated to a two-week trauma-relief trip to the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in July-August by the Philadelphia-based United Ukrainian American Relief Committee, one of America’s oldest charitable institutions that assists Ukrainians worldwide. This is the second consecutive year that the UUARC has organized the camping trip for war-traumatized children from Ukraine’s east, marking the organization’s response to the country’s latest needs. One hundred children each came from the easternmost oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk to get a respite from the everyday dangers of war. Children in those cities are exposed daily to artillery and mortar shelling, sporadic gunfire and deadly mines that litter the surrounding landscape. At a cost of $25,000, the UAARC sent them on tours to Kyiv and Lviv as well as the Ivano-Frankivsk region, where they stayed at the Opillia campsite not far from the district capital of Rohatyn.

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Military parade in Kyiv marks 25th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence

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KYIV – Perhaps the first Ukrainian city to hear the national anthem on Independence Day was Russia-occupied Donetsk. At about 6 a.m. hidden loud speakers started blaring the first words of the anthem, “Ukraine hasn’t perished yet.” The daring audio performance lasted about 30 minutes as startled passersby gazed in bewilderment at the central intersection of Artem and Tamansky boulevards, according to a closed-captioned video posted by Novosti Donbass, an independent news outlet based in the Donetsk Oblast city of Sloviansk. That defiance toward ceaseless Russian aggression was on full display along Kyiv’s main thoroughfare of Khreshchatyk Street on August 24 during the country’s 25th year of renewed independence. President Petro Poroshenko had ordered a military parade for a third consecutive year intended to underscore the nation’s military capability. But it was the first year that highlighted hardware rolled fresh off factory floors and newly designed uniforms, marking Ukraine’s efforts to shed its outdated Soviet past.

Ukraine

Ukraine at 25: Leaders in Ukraine share their thoughts

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KYIV – On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Ukraine’s re-establishment of independence, The Ukrainian Weekly asked some of the country’s decision makers and opinion leaders, politicians and civil society leaders, to share their thoughts about where the country is headed. Ukraine’s economy is still on shaky ground as the International Monetary Fund has withheld funds because the country’s leadership has failed to implement certain corruption-fighting measures. Ukraine’s sovereignty is also fragile as Russia continues to wage war in Ukraine’s east for a third consecutive year. As a result, Ukraine’s territorial area has shrunk by about 7 percent, nearly 10,000 people have lost their lives and some 2.2 million have been displaced, of whom 1.8 million are internally displaced persons (IDPs). 

Following are their edited comments on the status of Ukraine at 25. Ulana Suprun, Ukraine’s acting minister of health:

Independence Day is a time for self-reflection and self-determination.