News

Victory Day commemoration geared to presenting a new Ukraine

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KYIV – Never will be it more apparent that Russia and Ukraine are going their separate ways than this year’s commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. Not only will the main commemorations be held on different days, but the Ukrainian state events will be stripped of any symbolism of Soviet communism for the first time. The government also decided to do away with the May 9 military parade on Kyiv’s central boulevard, the Khreshchatyk, once and for all. “This era has disappeared forever, at least in our country,” said Yurii Krykunov, a Kyiv City Council deputy who is among those responsible for organizing this year’s commemorations in Kyiv. “I think these commemorations will be two absolute contrasts, revealing that we are moving towards civilization and they [in Russia] are moving towards a dead end.”

Victory Day has been among the biggest holidays on the Ukrainian calendar ever since 1965, when it was established.

Ukraine

Use of Ukrainian growing more than ever, Doniy says

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KYIV – Oles Doniy, 45, has been among the most active defenders of independent Ukraine politically and culturally. He served as a national deputy between 2007 and 2014, but his main achievements were beyond the walls of Ukraine’s Parliament. He was a leader of the student hunger strike of 1990 and the “Revolution on the Granite” that led to Ukraine’s independence. He launched the Ostannia Barykada (Last Barricade) artists’ association in 2006, organizing a series of festivals and publishing books and pop music albums.

Mr. Doniy also helped launch the All-Ukrainian Committee to Defend the Ukrainian Language in 2012 after the Verkhovna Rada approved the language bill – sponsored by then-deputies Serhii Kivalov, who was re-elected, and Vadim Kolesnichenko, who gave up his Ukrainian citizenship – that removed safeguards for the Ukrainian language. He currently chairs the Center for Political Values Research in Kyiv.

Ukrainian Summer

A note to travelers: Kyiv finally embraces Ukrainian

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KYIV – Many of us from the Third Wave diaspora community simply can’t enjoy Kyiv the same way our American counterparts do. Our parents and grandparents were from a Ukraine of a different era, when Russian was strictly the language of the enemy. It was entirely foreign to us. So when we visited the capital of Ukraine (or lived here for some time), it was an utter disappointment. Not only did many Kyiv residents continue to hold the centuries-old views of Ukrainian as a peasant language and decline to engage in conversation, but very often, they insisted on switching to English.

News

Rada approves historic bills to part with Soviet legacy

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KYIV – Ukraine’s Parliament approved several historic bills on April 9 that take unprecedentedly decisive steps to part with the country’s Soviet legacy, which is widely blamed for the inability to reform and strengthen Ukraine despite more than two decades of independence. One of the bills recognizes on the state level all those who fought for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century, most notably the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) that was launched in 1943 to fight both the Germans Nazis and the Soviet Red Army. Another bill requires the removal of all public Soviet symbols and monuments, and the renaming of all cities, towns and villages bearing Soviet names. The largest to be affected is Dnipropetrovsk, the city of 993,000 residents named after Grigory Petrovsky, a leader in the Red Terror of 1918-1923 and the Holodomor of 1932-1933. “From now on, children won’t ride on carousels in parks named after executioners, students won’t study in institutes named after terrorists, and lovers won’t arrange their dates on squares named after killers,” National Deputy Yuriy Lutsenko, head of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc parliamentary faction, wrote on his Facebook page.

News

Reforms are too few, too slow, experts say

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KYIV – It’s been four months since Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s second Cabinet of Ministers took over, and there’s no denying they’ve continued down a path of unprecedented reforms.

Never has Ukraine been independent of Russia for natural gas, shifting to cheaper European sources (for the same Russian gas, no less). Revenue from sin taxes have been shifted to starving local governments. State bodies in Kyiv have dismissed hundreds of career bureaucrats and hired dozens of business executives. All that’s nice but not good enough, said half a dozen political and economic experts contacted by this correspondent. They described the government efforts as fragmented, not reflecting consistent structural reforms with a long-term strategy, and certainly not enough to inspire confidence in Ukraine’s future.

News

Kolomoisky resigns after challenging the president

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KYIV – A struggle involving armed fighters erupted in Kyiv on March 19 for control of Ukraine’s biggest oil producer, Ukrnafta, between its majority stakeholder, the Ukrainian government, and Igor Kolomoisky, the billionaire who controls the largest minority stake through the Privat Group empire in which he’s a partner. The standoff lasted until March 24, when Mr. Kolomoisky submitted his resignation as Dnipropetrovsk State Oblast Administration chair (a position commonly referred to as “governor”) during a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has led the government’s drive to control Ukrnafta. Both sides said the conflict had been settled, though neither side has yet to reveal just how. It threatened to open a frontline for the Kyiv government with Mr. Kolomoisky’s brigades based in his native Dnipropetrovsk, as well as undermine the partnership between the nation’s two most powerful figures that helped thwart the military advance of Russian-backed forces. “This battle can be a risk for the government in the sense that it can lead to a second front within the country and become a gift for Putin,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, the head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Research in Kyiv.

News

New arrests no cause for optimism, experts say

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KYIV – The Ukrainian government unleashed a new round of criminal investigations and arrests in recent weeks against Yanukovych administration functionaries, among them “the three odious judges” – as they’ve been widely labeled – who were involved in illegal rulings that drew global attention. They join two other Yanukovych functionaries of a higher profile – the former chair of the Party of Regions parliamentary faction, Oleksandr Yefremov, and his deputy, the late Mykhailo Chechetov – in being arrested by Ukrainian authorities in recent weeks. Another high-profile official, former Finance Minister Yurii Kolobov, was arrested by Spanish police on March 3. At first glance, the efforts of the new procurator general, Viktor Shokin, would inspire optimism that President Petro Poroshenko is finally punishing the crimes committed under his predecessor after a year of inaction. But political experts contacted by this correspondent insist the latest moves are largely for show and to cool boiling public discontent, and may not even lead to punishment.

News

Key Yanukovych ally, facing criminal charges, commits suicide

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KYIV – Mykhailo Chechetov, a key functionary in the Party of Regions most famous for leading the January 2014 vote in the Verkhovna Rada for what was dubbed the dictatorship laws, was found dead on February 28 outside a Kyiv high-rise building. He fell from his 17-floor apartment in what was determined by police to be suicide. Just a week earlier, a Kyiv court had ordered that Mr. Chechetov, 61, be placed under house arrest following criminal charges filed on February 20 by prosecutors for leading the illegal vote in the Verkhovna Rada to impose laws severely restricting the basic freedoms of Ukrainian citizens amid the Euro-Maidan protest. Prosecutors determined there weren’t enough votes to approve the laws and the vote by show of hands was fraudulent. Mr. Chechetov took part in counting those votes.

Issue 9 (2015)

Samopomich causing a stir in Ukraine’s Parliament

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KYIV – Fistfights aren’t anything unique for Ukraine’s Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, but National Deputy Yegor Sobolyev of the Samopomich party and Vadym Ivchenko of the Batkivshchyna party put on a special show in its halls on February 12. Their bloody exchange of fists – dramatic enough to make them possible candidates for the professional ranks – lifted Mr. Sobolyev to celebrity status as a leader in the fight against corruption, rendering moot his party’s apology for his violent conduct afterwards. It’s such passion and willingness to fight, literally in Mr. Sobolyev’s case, that 1.7 million voters were hoping for when casting their ballots for Samopomich in the October 2014 elections – 11 percent of the total – giving it the third-largest result (and fourth-largest parliamentary faction when including single-mandate districts). “Sobolyev became a hero for me that day. He was fighting for me and all of us who have been fighting for years, pro bono, for the interests of citizens,” said Iryna Fedoriv, a Kyiv Oblast activist against illegal construction and a member of the Kotsiubynske Village Council.

News

Ukrainian forces surrender Debaltseve

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KYIV – Ukraine’s armed forces suffered their latest military defeat on February 18 when Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced their retreat from the key railroad hub of Debaltseve, about 47 miles northeast of Donetsk after the fiercest battle of the Donbas war so far that raged since mid-January. Rather than adhering to the February 12 ceasefire, the Russian-backed forces threw all their resources at the battle and slaughtered Ukrainian soldiers as they retreated, news reports said, citing eyewitnesses. The battles between Russian-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces that have consumed Debaltseve resulted in much of the town (pre-war population of 25,600) being destroyed, including its police station, City Council building, train station building and the railroad junction itself, rendering it useless, said Andriy Lysenko, the spokesman for the government’s Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO). As of February 19, the Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated 13 dead, 157 wounded, 90 captured and 82 missing, with 90 percent of the soldiers evacuated. Yet soldiers estimated the counts to be much higher.