News

Colleagues in Ukraine bid farewell to acclaimed journalist Pavel Sheremet

By |

KYIV – The method that assassins used to kill acclaimed journalist Pavel Sheremet on July 20 was at once unsettling and meant to intimidate journalists in Ukraine, his friends and colleagues said. A car bomb that remotely detonated underneath the driver’s seat in which the 44-year-old Minsk-born journalist and radio host was sitting became the nation’s most high-profile murder of a reporter since Heorhii Gongadze was slain in 2000. “Pavel Sheremet wasn’t simply an ordered hit. He was a sacred sacrifice,” said National Deputy Mustafa Nayyem who knew the deceased and had reported for Ukrayinska Pravda where the award-winning murdered journalist worked. “One can kill many ways – quietly, insidiously without… drawing attention to the process.”

The Subaru XV that Mr. Sheremet was driving – belonging to his partner and Ukrayinska Pravda manager Olena Prytula – exploded at a central Kyiv intersection, Mr. Nayyem said, “with such theatricality, …without a shot being fired… so that no one would doubt that it’s not just a murder, but a political assassination.”

Katya Gorchinskaya, CEO of independent Hromadske.tv and friend of the deceased, said Mr. Sheremet’s murder was part of a bigger “pattern that over the past year or more has unfolded against journalists.” In particular, she was referring to her colleague, Mykhailo Trach, who was attacked by officers of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in October 2015 – an act that has gone unpunished.

News

Ukrainian American radiologist tapped as Ukraine’s deputy minister of health

By |

KYIV – Dr. Ulana Suprun, a trained radiologist of Ukrainian descent from Michigan, is slated to be confirmed as Ukraine’s deputy health minister on July 22. According to the Detroit native, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman offered her the job earlier this month, after which she held a publicized meeting with President Petro Poroshenko on July 12 who also supported the high-level appointment. After meeting with the physician, Mr. Poroshenko equated the “health care situation” with “national security” in a statement published on the presidential website. One reason is that Ukraine’s population declines by 82,000 to 110,000 each year, according to statistics cited by Dr. Suprun. If the trend continues, Ukraine’s population will shrink to 35 million by 2050 reverting to levels not seen since 1950.

News

Trudeau reaffirms close partnership between Canada and Ukraine

By |

PM announces his first official visit to Ukraine
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will make his first official visit to Ukraine next month, and will likely bring the same message he delivered to the Canada-Ukraine Business Forum in Toronto on June 20 that Canada remains “a staunch ally” of Ukraine. Mr. Trudeau told the audience that Canada would continue to defend Ukrainian sovereignty “in response to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, as well as its support to insurgents in eastern Ukraine,” and that Canada stands “firmly” beside Ukraine in its efforts to “strengthen democracy, respect the rule of law, and encourage economic growth.”

“We will continue to contribute assistance and expertise whenever possible,” said the prime minister, “because we understand that a strong democracy is at the heart of economic prosperity.”

“Ultimately, we want to help create stability in Ukraine so that the middle class can grow and thrive,” he added. Mr. Trudeau will visit Ukraine on July 11-12 and will meet with both President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, after attending the NATO Summit of Heads of State and Government in Warsaw. The Canadian PM met with Mr. Poroshenko at last year’s Paris Climate Conference, and his ministers of foreign affairs (Stéphane Dion) and defense (Harjit Sajjan) have met several times with their Ukrainian counterparts since Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals formed the government last November. One of Prime Minister Trudeau’s top priorities while he’s in Ukraine will be to sign the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA), which International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, a Ukrainian Canadian, who also spoke at the forum, has been finalizing.

US

Visiting Washington, Groysman thanks the U.S. for its support

By |

WASHINGTON – On his first visit to the United States as Ukraine’s new prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman expressed his gratitude for the American support his country is receiving for its political and economic reform programs and in stopping Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine and Crimea. “In this very import time in Ukraine’s history we now have the strong backing of our American partners,” was how he described that bilateral cooperation to members of the press on June 15, at the conclusion of his meeting at the White House with Vice-President Joe Biden. “And we appreciate this highly,” he stressed. “Our American partners support us in this effort – institutionally, politically and financially – so that we can implement these reforms as quickly as possible,” he said, as he thanked the United States for its leadership in stopping Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. As Vice-President Biden greeted the Ukrainian prime minister at the White House, he praised him for his efforts.

News

Rada rejects radio quotas for Ukrainian-language music

By |

A bill to boost Ukrainian-language music content on prime-time radio was supported by 260 musicians, including Ukrainian rock legend Oleh Skrypka. KYIV – Despite an abundance of popular, high-quality music in the Ukrainian language, much of it doesn’t get primetime airplay on Ukrainian radio stations. It’s most often played after midnight – a practice that has long been criticized and has become particularly relevant during a time of Russian war against Ukraine statehood. Civic activists and pop musicians have conducted a campaign since the winter to get legislation approved that would boost prime-time Ukrainian-language radio quotas to 35 percent from the current 5 percent average airtime, culminating in a vote in the Verkhovna Rada at its June 2 session. Yet the nation’s legislators rejected four attempts that day to approve either of two bills that would have introduced quotas for the Ukrainian language.

Homepage Featured

Savchenko sworn in as lawmaker, urges fight for ‘Kremlin prisoners’

By |

KYIV – Ukrainian military aviator Nadiya Savchenko, who spent two years in Russian custody before her release in a prisoner swap last week, has been sworn in as a lawmaker and used her first appearance in Parliament to urge the return of “prisoners of the Kremlin.”

The 35-year-old former battalion member has been greeted as a war hero and appears intent on keeping the country focused on the fight against Russia-backed separatists as she tries to parlay her popularity into political muscle. “I am back, and I won’t let you forget,” she told fellow national deputies in Ukraine’s unicameral legislature on May 31, before adding references to Euro-Maidan unrest that ousted a pro-Russian president two years ago and the ongoing conflict in the Donbas. “I won’t let you, who sit in these chairs in the Verkhovna Rada, forget those guys who died at the Maidan and who currently are dying in the Donbas,” she underscored. Ms. Savchenko vowed to make it her priority to fight for the release of other Ukrainians held in Russia, whom Ukraine describes as political prisoners. She then removed a poster with her image on it from the Rada’s rostrum, where it had been hanging for months as Kyiv sought to secure her release.

Homepage Featured

Nadiya Savchenko freed after 709 days in captivity

By |

KYIV – Nadiya Savchenko, the former Ukrainian military pilot who was kidnapped by pro-Russian forces on Ukrainian territory in June 2014, was released to Ukraine on May 25 after nearly two years in captivity during which she endured what is globally recognized as a show trial that convicted her on false charges of complicity in murder. The 35-year-old native of Kyiv became Ukraine’s internationally recognized symbol in the war against Russia as the public learned of the nefarious nature of her capture by Donbas terrorists who surrendered her to Russian officials, the torture she endured in prison, her repeated hunger strikes that brought her to the brink of death and the rigged criminal trial that exposed the extreme corruption of Russian courts. Upon arriving at Boryspil International Airport near the capital, she was greeted by her mother, Maria, and sister, Vira, offered a few remarks before journalists, before heading to the Presidential Administration, where she was presented with the highest state honor, the Golden Star of the Hero of Ukraine award, for her unbreakable will, civic bravery and sacrificial service to the Ukrainian people. “For 709 long days, we worried, prayed, actively worked and organized protests to gain what happened on this present day. A day when hope returned to Ukraine – Nadiya Savchenko and hope – and the firm faith in our victory,” said Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, playing on words that referred to the meaning of the names of both Nadiya (hope) and her sister, Vira (faith).

Culture/Arts

Jamala triumphs at Eurovision

By |

 

A victory for Ukraine and Crimean Tatars

KYIV – Crimean Tatar R&B/soul-style singer Jamala succeeded in drawing the world’s attention to the Russian government’s persecution of her people by winning the annual Eurovision Song Contest with her song “1944” about Stalin’s mass deportations and genocide. Jamala finished second among public voting and in second place among juries during the contest’s final round on May 14, placing her ahead of the flashy yet standard fare of pop music presented by runner up Dami Im of Australia and third-place finisher Sergey Lazarev of Russia. Given the contest’s prohibition against political songs and gestures, Jamala consistently said she was singing only about history leading up to the event, enabling her to participate. Yet on the contest’s eve, she confirmed what was widely suspected that “1944” was just as much about the present. “Of course, it’s about 2014 as well,” she said in an interview published on May 13 on the guardian.com news site.

Homepage Featured

Verkhovna Rada approves Lutsenko as Ukraine’s procurator general

By |

KYIV – Ukraine’s Parliament voted on May 12 to approve the president’s nomination of Yuriy Lutsenko as procurator general. He will be expected to accomplish what his three post-Euro-Maidan predecessors failed to do: prosecute and convict corrupt key state officials, both past and present. Mr. Lutsenko’s election came after the Verkhovna Rada voted earlier that day to amend the law setting the qualifications for the country’s top prosecutor, namely, removing the requirements for a law degree and 10 years’ experience working as a prosecutor. An electronics engineer by trade who built his career in politics, Mr. Lutsenko lacks both requirements, which are widely viewed as essential for any top prosecutorial post. Critics accused the president of leading the effort to change the law in order to place a political ally into a key post that’s supposed to be independent.

News

Groysman acts to renew slipping Western support

By |

KYIV – The new Cabinet of Ministers that emerged in Ukraine in mid-April drew swift skepticism from Western authorities as it was cleared of foreign-born reformers, among them Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who was being considered to lead a technocratic government. Instead, insiders – many with shady pasts – took the reins. “If the elites make the assumption that they could engage in political games as opposed to actually governing, that they can go slow on reform, that they don’t have to be serious about Minsk, they may find that in fact the West has turned away,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer told the ninth annual Kyiv Security Forum the day after the Cabinet was announced. That turning away has already begun to occur in places like the Netherlands, where a referendum rejected integration with Ukraine; France, where the National Assembly voted to end sanctions against Russia; and even in the U.S., where the likely Republican nominee has called for a new Russia reset and even scaling down NATO. To reverse these trends, newly appointed Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman swung into damage control after two months of crisis that stalled reforms, taking immediate steps aimed at restoring the Western confidence needed to maintain Ukraine’s financial stability.