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Activists call for united front against Ukraine’s corrupt oligarchs

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KYIV – If there’s anything that Ukrainians can agree on, it’s that the country’s headed for an enormous crisis next year that promises to alter the current state of affairs, particularly the ongoing domination of the nation’s corrupt oligarchy. Not only have Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk failed to pursue structural reforms or rein in the oligarchs, but they’ve been exposed in corrupt schemes, and so have the entourages they brought with them. Increasingly, prominent figures such as Donbas oligarch Serhiy Taruta are warning of political-economic collapse within months. “We’ve already passed the bifurcation point of where we can’t doubt it any longer – there’s no possibility of survival in this existing model,” said Yuriy Romanenko, the director of the Strategema Center of Political Analysis in Kyiv. The big question now is what the new model will look like.

Holodomor

Hundreds gather at St. Patrick’s to pray for Holodomor victims

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NEW YORK – Hundreds of Ukrainians, friends and supporters gathered on Saturday, November 21, at Manhattan’s iconic St. Patrick Cathedral for an ecumenical requiem service and commemorative program dedicated to the memory of Ukraine’s Holodomor, Stalin’s genocide of millions of Ukrainians in 1932-1933. As co-organized by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), the largest representation of Ukrainians in America, this annual commemoration regularly attracts hundreds of attendees from across the tri-state metropolitan area, and this year was no exception. Even following the massive gathering in Washington, on November 7, when the national Genocide Memorial was dedicated in the presence of over 5,000 people, this year’s annual program at St. Patrick’s drew buses from communities in Hartford, Conn., and Whippany, N.J., as well as hundreds of other solemn faithful.

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Religious leaders of Ukraine appeal to President Obama

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WASHINGTON – Representatives of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations met with Obama administration officials on November 9, delivering a letter to the president calling for the U.S. government to play a greater role in delivering aid to the millions in Ukraine in dire need of humanitarian assistance as the season’s freezing temperatures set in. The All Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations members represent 85 percent of the citizens of Ukraine. Representing the council were Ukraine’s Chief Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, Ukrainian Orthodox Patriarch Filaret and Ukrainian Catholic Patriarch Sviatoslav. They met with the following representatives of President Obama’s administration: Dr. Charles Kupchan (special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs), Melissa Rogers (special assistant to the president and executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships), Elizabeth Zentos (National Security Council director for Eastern Europe), Eric Ciaramella (NSC director for Ukraine), Christine Gottschalk (NSC director for humanitarian and crisis response), Laura Shultz (NSC director for global engagement), Jennifer Wistrand (policy advisor for Europe and Eurasia in the Secretary of State’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs) and M. Patrick Ellsworth (senior Ukraine policy advisor, U.S. State Department). They discussed the current humanitarian crisis and their appeal to President Obama to allow the National Guard Program and the Partnership for Peace program to airlift crucial humanitarian supplies to Ukraine for this winter season.

Holodomor

Over 5,000 witness dedication of Holodomor Memorial in Washington

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WASHINGTON – Thousands of Ukrainians from across the United States traveled to Washington for the dedication and blessing of the long-awaited Holodomor Memorial on Saturday, November 7. They came on charter buses, in private cars and via all modes of public transportation from Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and beyond, including Canada, to bear witness to a genocide long concealed from the world: the Holodomor that killed millions of Ukrainians in 1932-1933 on the orders of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. “Famine-Genocide in Ukraine. In memory of the millions of innocent victims of a man-made famine in Ukraine engineered and implemented by Stalin’s totalitarian regime.” That is the simple inscription on Washington’s newest memorial, a stunning work of art by architect/designer Larysa Kurylas called “Field of Wheat.”

The memorial was blessed by Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate, Patriarch Sviatoslav of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church and Metropolitan Antony of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. The blessing was viewed by the masses gathered at Columbus Circle near the capital’s historic Union Station, where a huge screen transmitted images of the religious rite. Before and after the memorial’s blessing, there were speeches at Columbus Circle, where dignitaries were seated on a raised platform and a jumbotron was erected to allow all to see the proceedings at the podium, as well as at the site of the Holodomor Memorial, which could not accommodate the huge number of attendees.

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New round of Western criticism targets Procurator-General Shokin

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KYIV – Ukrainians eagerly anticipating a visa-free regime with the European Union were dealt two major setbacks on November 5 as the result of their government’s actions. The Verkhovna Rada failed to muster enough votes to support legislation, required by the EU for a visa-free regime, which would forbid workplace discrimination based on race, political position, religion, gender identity and sexual orientation. That same afternoon, the EU Delegation to Ukraine informed one of its Ukrainian partners that it is refraining from financing Ukraine’s attempt to create the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, another requirement for the visa-free regime. “The trust in the final outcome of the procedure depends on the integrity and credibility of all steps leading to it,” stated a letter written on November 4 by an EU delegation official that was published on the pravda.com.ua news site. “In this context, we very much hope that concerns raised with regard to some people who participate in the selection will be soon duly addressed, thus allowing the completion of the technical part of the selection with assistance from the EU.”

At the center of those whose integrity and credibility have been called into question is Ukraine’s Procurator General Viktor Shokin – an increasing target of criticism by high-ranking Western officials – after he resisted EU recommendations that he replace the four prosecutors he had appointed to a commission to establish a Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.

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Local elections held with lower-than-expected turnout

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Euro-Maidan opponents re-elected

KYIV – Exhausted by war, economic depression and ongoing government corruption, Ukrainians turned out less-than-expected to elect their local councils and heads on October 25. Tallies conducted locally were still being registered by the Central Election Commission on October 29 but observers were already drawing conclusions. As expected, the Solidarity Petro Poroshenko Bloc performed well, finishing in the top two parties on most councils in western and central Ukraine. The youth-oriented Self-Reliance (Samopomich) party performed surprisingly well, earning seats in the nation’s six largest city councils. On the other hand, Euro-Maidan persecutors were re-elected mayors of numerous cities in southeastern Ukraine, including Kharkiv and Odesa.

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Complicated local election rules draw wide criticism in Ukraine

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KYIV – Just as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko failed to ensure open party list voting in the 2014 parliamentary elections, now the local elections to take place on October 25 will also occur without genuine open party lists, which is widely considered the optimal voting system for Ukraine. Instead, Ukraine’s Parliament in July approved an election system that is a complex mutation of single-mandate voting and closed party lists, which most voters will not understand when casting their ballots, political observers said. “The system is the most complicated of all that existed in Ukraine,” said Serhii Vasylchenko, the board chairman of the Ukrainian Center for Social Data. “The citizens don’t understand it. State officials don’t understand it.

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Dutch report: MH17 downed by Russian-built Buk missile

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Dutch investigators say that a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane that crashed in a conflict zone in eastern Ukraine in July 2014 was brought down by a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile. The report presented by the Dutch Safety Board on October 13 does not specify the exact location from which the missile that downed MH17 was fired, but identifies a 320-square-kilometer area that was mostly under the control of Russian-backed separatists at the time. The missile detonated less than a meter to the left of the aircraft’s cockpit, according to the report, killing the pilots instantly and causing the aircraft to break apart. Board head Tjibbe Joustra stressed that investigators sought to answer the question of why Malaysia Airlines was flying over a conflict zone. He said the airline should have recognized the risks, but noted that the carrier was not alone.

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Ukraine, Russia agree to remove arms, cancel Donbas elections

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KYIV – Meeting at a summit in Paris on October 2, Russia and Ukraine reached verbal agreements towards resolving the war in the Donbas, including withdrawing armaments from the conflict line beginning on October 4 and canceling illegal elections planned in the next few weeks, with plans to hold elections in the occupied territories next year. The meeting also succeeded in extending the ceasefire that has been in effect since September 1 with few injuries and casualties. It set a basic framework for fulfilling the Minsk accords – though without any revealed dates – that is based on granting immunity and amnesty to the Russian-backed terrorists and allowing them to run in elections under a special law to be drafted. Ongoing disagreements were apparent after the talks. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his advisors vowed not to allow the elections to occur until Russian soldiers leave Ukraine and Ukrainian control of the border is restored.

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At U.N., Putin shifts world attention from Ukraine with Syrian campaign

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KYIV – Russian President Vladimir Putin emerged from the United Nations on September 28-29, having successfully shifted the world’s attention away from the Russian-backed military occupation of the Donbas and Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, Kyiv experts said. That’s despite the fact that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told the U.N. of the thousands dead due to “the treacherous Russian annexation of Ukrainian Crimea and aggression in Donbas” and called for “the need to counteract ongoing Russian aggression.”

Russian Ambassador to the U.N. Vitaly Churkin left the General Assembly hall in protest. The entire Ukrainian delegation, led by Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.N. Yuriy Sergeyev, responded in kind when Mr. Putin took to the podium. Mr. Poroshenko underscored that the Donbas war had created 1.5 million displaced persons domestically and has cost his government $5 million per day. (Extensive excerpts of Mr. Poroshenko’s address can be read on page 7.)

In his address to the U.N. General Assembly on September 28, U.S. President Barack Obama referred to “Russia’s annexation of Crimea and further aggression in eastern Ukraine” and emphasized, “we cannot stand by when the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a nation is flagrantly violated.” Mr. Obama also noted, “we continue to press for this crisis to be resolved in a way that allows a sovereign and democratic Ukraine to determine its future and control its territory.”

While in New York for the opening of the 70th session of the U.N. General Assembly, Mr. Poroshenko met with British Prime Minister David Cameron, who said the illegal elections planned by the Russian-backed forces for October 18 and November 1 will undermine the Minsk accords.