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OSCE mandate further marred by alleged Russian spy scandal

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KYIV – The mandate of the 57-state international body charged with monitoring a truce in the Donbas war may have been further compromised after allegations emerged that sensitive information about the Ukraine mission was passed to Russian intelligence. 

Hundreds of internal documents of the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) dating to autumn 2016 were handed over to Russia’s Federal Security Service, according to a July 16 report aired by German channel ARD. 

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UCCA, UWC react to Trump’s statements in Helsinki

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PARSIPPANY, N.J. – In the aftermath of the July 16 meeting in Helsinki between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and the Ukrainian World Congress expressed concern that the U.S. leader did not publicly condemn Russia for its multiple transgressions and violations of international law, including its war on Ukraine and downing of a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet. 

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Ukrainians largely jeer World Cup in Russia, citing host country’s human rights violations

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KYIV – As World Cup host Russia was losing to Uruguay 0-3 in the quadrennial soccer tournament on June 25, Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov was in the 43rd day of his hunger strike at a Siberian prison and 44 pounds lighter from when he first started refusing solid food. 

Another political prisoner, Volodymyr Balukh, was in the 99th day of his, at first partial and subsequently full, hunger strike in a Crimean prison. The farmer had hung a Ukrainian flag atop his house in the Russia-annexed Ukrainian peninsula, according to human rights groups, and was charged with “insulting an official” for calling Russian police officers “occupiers.”

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Ukrainian Parliament moves closer to completing anti-corruption architecture

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KYIV – The Verkhovna Rada passed another bill to complete the architecture of establishing a separate court to prosecute corrupt public officials on June 21, but failed to revise clauses that make it possible for graft cases to skirt the judiciary body. 

Choosing to vote for creating the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) in its entirety, instead of the optional two readings, 256 lawmakers voted in favor of President Petro Poroshenko’s bill. 

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Global rallies for release of Sentsov held ahead of World Cup in Russia

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KYIV-OTTAWA-CHICAGO – A worldwide campaign to call for the release of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov from a Russian penal colony spanned at least three continents with over three dozen cities taking part on June 1-3. 

Led by a coalition of advocacy groups like Let My People Go and Save Oleg Sentsov, thousands took the streets to draw attention to the plight of the 41-year-old Crimea native who opposed Russia’s annexation of Crimea and is currently on a hunger strike while serving a 20-year prison sentence on what human right groups say are trumped-up charges of terrorism. 

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Kyiv hosts global following of soccer in Champions League final

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KYIV – Some 50,000 fans from every corner of the world made Ukraine’s capital their destination to watch Liverpool FC and Real Madrid play for top honors in Europe’s most prestigious soccer club tournament on May 26. 

Four city blocks of the host city’s main thoroughfare, the Khreshchatyk, was transformed into a fan zone on May 24-27, complete with on-stage entertainment, exhibition five-on-five soccer matches, food and beverage venues, autograph sessions and chances to take pictures with the Champions League trophy. 

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Kyiv moves on Russian media outlets suspected of treason against Ukraine

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KYIV – Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officers and prosecutors raided at least two Russian government-controlled media outlets on May 15 and detained one bureau chief in Kyiv on suspicion of high treason. 

Local RIA Novosti head Kyrylo Vyshinsky was taken a day later to a pre-trial detention center in Kherson, 340 miles south of Kyiv, where he will face a hearing on whether he will be jailed, placed under house arrest or released on bail. Since most of his alleged anti-Ukrainian activities were based in Crimea, jurisdiction falls under the Crimean Prosecutor’s Office, which moved to Kherson after Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in March 2014.