The Ukrainian Weekly (https://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/author/mark/page/5/)
KYIV – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s loyal and chief point man in Ukraine, lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk, and his spouse – Oksana Marchenko – were hit with three-year sanctions on February 19 by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC).
KYIV – Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers this week registered a bill in parliament that would prematurely dismiss the head of a Western-funded graft-fighting agency to align it with a Constitutional Court ruling from August that nullified his appointment less than six years ago.
Zelenskyy signs memoranda with UAE for $3 billion investment
KYIV – The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s legislative body, on February 17 passed a resolution saying that the pro-democracy Euro-Maidan uprising that culminated this month seven years ago was a significant nation-building moment in the country’s history.
KYIV – Less than a week after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy muted three nationwide television channels for broadcasting Russian disinformation, Moscow reiterated its stance that Ukraine is part of “the Russian world.”
KYIV – As the clock struck midnight on February 3, three television channels known for their pro-Russian bias and spreading disinformation, ceased broadcasting. What appeared on TV screens were the rainbow-colored stripes of the tuning signal.
It was the outcome of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidential order from the previous day that approved a National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) decision to close the TV stations as part of a larger package of sanctions.
KYIV – Following the winter break, the Verkhovna Rada reconvened on January 26 and over the past two weeks passed legislation or edged bills closer to adoption to combat the coronavirus pandemic, allow for national referendums, upgrade its counterintelligence agency, and create another crime-fighting agency.
KYIV – On January 27, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it had secured an arrest warrant for Dmytro Neskoromnyi, a former first deputy head of the agency, on suspicion of conspiring to murder a serving SBU general.
Mr. Neskoromnyi, a former SBU colonel, allegedly plotted the assassination with currently serving Col. Yuriy Rasiuk of the SBU’s Alpha anti-terrorist unit.
KYIV – Ukraine last year gained three points and ranked 117th out of 180 countries in the Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International’s (TI) yearly Corruption Perceptions Index released on January 28.
KYIV – Constitutional Court hearings started this week on whether President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s decree to call pre-term parliamentary elections for July 21 are in compliance with the supreme law of the land.
Addressing the panel of 18 judges on June 11, Mr. Zelenskyy eschewed legal arguments for his May 21 decree and instead cited public sentiment.
KYIV – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized Ukraine’s unswerving course towards further integration with the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) during his debut foreign trip as the country’s leader to the Belgian capital of Brussels on June 4-5.
He met with European Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, Polish President Andrzej Duda and Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission’s vice-president for the euro and social dialogue.