News

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.

Community Chronicle

XXII Congress of Ukrainians in America held in Hartford

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HARTFORD, Conn. – The XXII Congress of Ukrainians in America, held at the Ukrainian National Home in Hartford, Conn., over the weekend of September 23-25, elected Andriy Futey as president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), ratified over two dozen changes to the organization’s by-laws, received greetings from two presidential candidates, and charted a course forward over the next four years and beyond for the organized Ukrainian diaspora in the United States. Over 80 registered delegates followed in the footsteps of their predecessors who had gathered on 21 previous occasions over the past 76 years. Ukrainian community leaders traveled from across New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Massachusetts and Illinois. In addition to the leaders of individual local chapters of the UCCA, the body of delegates was also made up of representatives of notable organizations such as the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee (UUARC), the Ukrainian National Association, the Providence Association of Ukrainian Catholics in America, the Ukrainian American Youth Association, New Ukrainian Wave, the Organization for Defense of Lemkivshchyna, the Society of Veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the Federation of Ukrainian Student Organizations of America, the Ukrainian Free University Foundation, the Ukrainian Freedom Foundation, the Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine, as well as the Women’s Association for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine.

Homepage Featured

Message of YES conference: Ukraine cannot rely solely on Western support

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Kyiv must act on improving how the country is run
KYIV – Last year, foreign technocrats and Western-educated Ukrainians represented the government at the annual Yalta European Strategy, the pre-eminent event that gathers high-profile officials and business leaders to discuss the country’s place in a constantly changing world. This year, they were replaced by political stalwarts like Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko, former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and technocrats who’ve left government like Natalie Jaresko, who was serving as finance minister in 2015, but now chairs the Aspen Institute in Kyiv. Taking place for the third time in Kyiv instead of Yalta because of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, the yearly meeting sent a clear message to the Ukrainian panelists and speakers: Kyiv cannot count on Western support if it doesn’t improve how the country is run, especially in rule of law and how government institutions function. Speaking  on a panel titled, “Changing Elites in Ukraine,” Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia and current governor of the Odesa Oblast, likened Ukraine to a joint-stock company in which the nation’s oligarchs are the shareholders, the ministers are the management executives, and the Verkhovna Rada is simply the supervisory board. He accused ex-President Leonid Kuchma, the father-in-law to the event’s organizer, oligarch Victor Pinchuk, of setting up the allegedly oligarch-run system during his rule in 1994-2005.

News

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.

News

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.

News

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.

News

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.

Sports

Summer Olympics 2016: Ukraine picks up three medals to start

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Serhiy Kulish won Ukraine’s first medal at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, securing the silver in the 10-meter men’s air rifle finals on Monday, August 8. He scored 204.6 points, second to Italy’s Niccolo Campriani (206.1 points), the silver medal winner in London (2012). Russia’s Vladimir Maslennikov won bronze with 184.2 points. Gymnast Oleh Vernyayev won silver on August 10 in the men’s artistic all-around with a total of 92.266 points. He scored 15.033 in floor, 15.533 in pommel horse, 15.300 in rings, 15.500 in vault, 16.100 in parallel bars, and 14.800 in horizontal bar.

News

High-ranking Yanukovych associate is arrested

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Among charges: sponsoring terrorist organization and stoking separatism
KYIV – Ukraine’s authorities on July 30 detained Oleksandr Yefremov, an associate of Viktor Yanukovych. He is the highest ranking associate of the disgraced ex-president to have been arrested to date. Two days later, Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court ruled that the former leader of the Party of Regions parliamentary faction be held for 60 days He faces charges of sponsoring a terrorist organization in the Luhansk Oblast and stoking separatism. The 61-year-old former Luhansk Oblast governor also is accused of abuse of office in seizing the large state-owned Luhansk-vuhillia coal mine. Mr. Yefremov’s defense will appeal the court ruling about his pre-trial detention, one of his lawyers, Oleksandr Lysak, told the online news outlet Ukrayinska Pravda.