Ukraine

30th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster

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Ukraine this year marks the 30th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster – the world’s worst civilian nuclear accident. Sirens were sounded in the early morning hours on April 26 in Ukraine to mark 30 years since the moment that the first explosion blew the roof off the building housing a reactor at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, sending a cloud of radioactive material high into the air, drifting into Russia and Belarus and across northern Europe. President Petro Poroshenko attended a ceremony on April 26 at the Chornobyl plant, which today is located in the middle of an uninhabitable “exclusion zone.” Mr. Poroshenko said in his speech that “the consequences of the catastrophe” have not been resolved. He added that the disaster has been “a heavy burden on the shoulders of the Ukrainian people” and that the country was “still a long way” from overcoming the tragedy. The Embassy of Ukraine in the United States provided the following information on the Chornobyl disaster.

News

Failed vote in Rada on top prosecutor calls into question parliamentary coalition

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KYIV – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko confidently declared this week that Ukraine’s political crisis is over after the new Cabinet was elected on April 14. Yet the voting in the Verkhovna Rada at the April 21 session proved otherwise. Rada Chair Andriy Parubiy asked national deputies to vote to include on the daily agenda a bill that would relax requirements for the procurator general, aimed at enabling Yuriy Lutsenko, the current head of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction, to become the president’s nominee. Despite noting that the president considered the bill’s approval “urgent,” Mr. Parubiy could muster only 177 out of the needed 226 votes in favor. The failure not only threatened the president’s planned nomination of Mr. Lutsenko, but also called into question whether a parliamentary coalition exists at all, particularly after the questionable means that were used to form it.

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Verkhovna Rada approves new Cabinet to be led by Volodymyr Groysman

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KYIV – Ukraine’s Parliament voted on April 14 to approve a reshuffled Cabinet of Ministers, including its new prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, the parliamentary chairman who has long been a close political ally to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The votes put an end to a political crisis that began in mid-February, when the pro-Western Samopomich and Batkivshchyna factions announced they were abandoning the coalition government after an attempt to dismiss Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk failed. As a result, a new political configuration has emerged between the establishment parties resistant to reforms – consisting of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and People’s Front – and three pro-Western opposition forces, including Oleh Liashko’s Radical Party, that claim to want a faster pace for more serious, structural reforms.

“Of course, I am aggrieved and disappointed that after a year and several months, three political forces have placed themselves outside the European and democratic coalition,” said Mr. Poroshenko in his address near the start of the parliamentary session. “As political commentators bitingly put it, an even wider opposition has formed instead of a wide coalition. Yet the opposition is an inalienable attribute of democracy.

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Dutch referendum rejects Ukraine-EU association pact

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KYIV – Citizens of the Netherlands rejected their government’s ratification of the Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement in an advisory, non-binding referendum held on April 6, giving the Russian government a symbolic geopolitical victory in its war against the Ukrainian state. About 61.1 percent voted against their government ratifying the agreement, compared to 38.1 percent who were in favor. Only 22 out of 390 municipalities voted in support. Voter turnout was 32.2 percent, surpassing the 30 percent threshold for it to gain official recognition. The referendum was held after both the upper and lower chambers of the Dutch Parliament had already voted to approve the agreement.

Top News

Poroshenko exhorts the West to continue sanctions on Russia

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WASHINGTON – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called on the United States and other Western powers to continue their sanctions on Russia to help end its “direct armed aggression against my state.”

Addressing a large forum at the Congressional Auditorium in the U.S. Capitol on March 30 discussing Ukraine’s continuing battle for freedom, Mr. Poroshen-ko pointed out that, after Ukraine abandoned the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal in 1994, it received security assurances under the Budapest Memorandum guaranteeing its sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence. He asked: “But what has it turned [out] to be in reality?”

“Russia simply defied its assurances to Ukraine and committed a direct armed aggression against my state,” he said, referring to Moscow’s actions in Crimea and the Donbas region of Ukraine, where “Ukrainian patriots are losing their lives defending the same values that are dear to America and Europe.”

“We are of one blood, one mind and one values. Democratic values,” the Ukrainian president stressed. Mr. Poroshenko said that his country has “effectively stopped” the Russian offensive. But, he added, “The price we paid is striking”: almost 10,000 people have died and more than 2,700 Ukrainian soldiers were killed by combined Russian-militant forces – more than the number of American military losses in Afghanistan over the past 15 years.

Top News

Savchenko sentenced to 22 years’ imprisonment

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KYIV – Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian military pilot who has become the nation’s globally recognized symbol of resistance to Russian aggression, was found guilty on March 22 by a Russian court of participating in the murder of two Russian journalists and illegally crossing the Russian border. She was sentenced to 22 years imprisonment in a penal colony – a year short of the maximum sentence. Striking an especially cynical tone, the court fined Ms. Savchenko 30,000 rubles ($443) for violating the border. The United States and the European Union condemned the verdict and called for Ms. Savchenko’s immediate release, reiterating the widely accepted view that the criminal charges were fabricated by the Russian government as part of its information war against Ukraine. The conviction and sentencing “show a blatant disregard for the principles of justice and contravene Russia’s commitments under the Minsk agreements,” said U.S. State Department Spokesman John Kirby.

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President’s choices shrink as political crises deepen

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KYIV – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko saw his options narrow this week as he seeks to resolve Ukraine’s deepening political crises, namely the war in the Donbas and the formation of a new coalition government. His position has gotten so limited that he is considering appointing political players once considered to be off limits for key posts. Donbas oligarchs Rinat Akhmetov and Yurii Boiko are now candidates for governing positions in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk. Also this week, Radical Party chief Oleh Liashko emerged as the president’s most viable partner in forming a new coalition after the Samopomich party announced strict demands for supporting a new prime minister. A populist known for his publicity stunts and provocations, Mr. Liashko reportedly wants to become the chair of Parliament.

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Savchenko on hunger strike, drawing worldwide support

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KYIV – Imprisoned Ukrainian military pilot Nadiya Savchenko again drew international attention and support after declaring a hunger strike on March 3 when the judge in her trial denied her the opportunity to read her final statement. She reportedly refused food and water for six days, starting on March 4, before announcing on March 10 that she would begin drinking water again, relieving worldwide concern that she would die in a Russian jail. Yet she continued to refuse food, marking the seventh such hunger strike since her imprisonment in July 2014. Upon announcing her decision to accept water, Ms. Savchenko claimed victory in that her dry hunger strike had prompted the judge to move the verdict closer to March 21, as was announced at a March 9 hearing during which Ms. Savchenko declared her contempt for the court. “With my example, I want to demonstrate that the totalitarian regime in Russia can be destroyed!

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Jaresko emerges as top candidate for prime minister

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KYIV – Chicago-native Natalie Jaresko, the current finance minister of Ukraine, is among the top candidates to succeed the embattled Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister, according to Kyiv insiders and recent news reports. She has already begun forming a Cabinet of Ministers consisting of technocrats, reported the rbc.ua news site on February 26, citing an anonymous source identified only as being “in the coalition.” President Petro Poroshenko has offered her the post already, the hromadske.tv news site reported on February 26, citing someone “familiar with the talks.”

The latest turn of the rumor mill ended without Ms. Jaresko being nominated as prime minister, and without Mr. Yatsenyuk’s resignation, which also was rumored. Yet she’s at the top of the president’s list, said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kyiv political pundit who has intimate ties with the Presidential Administration

“The rumors reflect the truth, to a large extent. She is among the potential contenders,” said Mr. Fesenko, the head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Research. Speaking with The Ukrainian Weekly’s correspondent on March 1, he didn’t discount the rumor that the president had already offered her the post behind closed doors.

Culture/Arts

Crimean Tatar Jamala to represent Ukraine at Eurovision

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KYIV – Once again, Ukraine will make political waves at the annual Eurovision Song Contest. Yet this time around, a Crimean Tatar will represent Ukraine, as announced on February 21. Accomplished pop singer Jamala will get a unique chance to raise Europe’s awareness to the plight of her people in performing “1944,” a song that ties the current persecution by the Russian occupation to the genocide in which Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin deported most of the Crimean Tatar population to Uzbekistan. The Verkhovna Rada declared the 1944 forced deportation of Crimean Tatars a genocide on November 12, 2015, and designated May 18 as the Day of Remembrance of Crimean Tatar Genocide Victims. More than 180,000 Tatars, or about 84 percent of the population, was forcibly reported, according to Soviet records. The vast majority, or more than 82 percent, were resettled to Uzbekistan, while the remainder were mostly sent to Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and central Russia.