(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, May 7, 2016) Kyiv must reject calls by Berlin and Paris to change the Ukrainian constitution and allow elections in the occupied Donbas because these calls, which reflect Moscow’s exploitation of the desire of the two European leaders to be seen as peace makers, would result in the destruction of the Ukrainian […]
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… The irony is that Russia and Ukraine find themselves in exactly the same place: both countries are suffering from an economic miasma and both need deep and far-reaching reforms if they are to prosper. The difference between them is that Russia is half way through the process and will very like actually make some more reforms, whereas Ukraine is at the […]
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With no end in sight to the slow-motion hybrid war in Donbas, the impetus to reform the Ukrainian state has moved in fits and starts. Attempts to carry out a series of fundamental reforms have fallen far short of expectations. These efforts have produced what some observers have described as a hybrid Ukrainian state. The country boasts new institutions and […]
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Ukraine has faced many challenges in the two years since violent protests drove the country’s president from office. The Russian occupation of the Crimean Peninsula in particular sparked a military conflict between pro-Russian secessionists and Ukraine’s government. Correspondent Kira Kay and Producer Jason Maloney from the Bureau for International Reporting take us inside Ukraine to asses the country’s struggle for […]
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(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Brian Milakovsky, Humanitarian Activist, Ukraine – April 22, 2016) [Photos and figures here wilsoncenter.org/publication/kennan-cable-no16-understanding-the-under-control-donbas] After nearly two years of war, the contested Donbas region in eastern Ukraine is split in two between the Russian-backed “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk and the so-called podkontrolny (under control) Donbas. There is much analysis of how Ukraine might […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – April 15, 2016) The new Ukrainian cabinet, confirmed by the parliament on Thursday, is more interesting for the people it doesn’t include than for those it does. Ukraine’s experiment with bringing foreign reformers and private sector professionals into the government is now officially over, and it has failed. President Petro Poroshenko tapped his […]
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MOSCOW. April 14 (Interfax) – The appointment of Volodymyr Groysman to the post of Ukraine’s prime minister gives hope that actual steps will be taken to implement the Minsk agreements, and that the level of tension in Russian-Ukrainian relations will decline, Russian State Duma Deputy Speaker Alexander Romanovich has said. “Groysman has a record of work at the regional level, […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Ron Synovitz – April 11, 2016) The man identified by Ukraine’s outgoing prime minister as his successor, Volodymyr Hroysman, is a 38-year-old loyalist of President Petro Poroshenko who was thrust onto the national scene after the Euromaidan unrest that toppled a government. Hroysman’s meteoric rise from mayoral upstart to speaker of a notoriously obstreperous parliament was […]
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A court in Vinnytsia, a city 270 kilometers southwest from Kyiv, sentenced local activist Yuriy Pavlenko to 4.5 years in prison for hooliganism with a use of a weapon. Pavlenko denies the charges, saying that he is being punished for publicly tearing up the portrait of Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko during a protest action. … activists protested to stop the […]
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… actions by his financial advisers and Poroshenko himself … worth an estimated US$ 858 million, make it appear that the candy magnate was more concerned about his own welfare than his country’s – going so far as to arguably violate the law twice, misrepresent information and deprive his country of badly needed tax dollars during a time of war. […]
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(U.S. Department of State – March 15, 2016) Testimony of Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Statement Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington, DC As prepared Thank you Chairman Corker, Ranking Member Cardin, members of this committee for the opportunity to join you today and for the personal investment so many of you have made […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – WASHINGTON, March 15, 2016) A top U.S. administration official has taken pointed aim at the wealthiest Ukrainian tycoons, known as oligarchs, accusing them of undermining the country’s anticorruption reform efforts. Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European аnd Eurasian Affairs, warned on March 15 that, if efforts to liberalize the economy and fight endemic graft […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com March 1, 2016) Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovych – who fled to Russia in February 2014 following months of anti-government protests – intends to return to his former position as leader of Ukraine, Yanukovych’s lawyer Vitaly Serdyuk said, the TASS news agency reported Tuesday. “He intends to return to Ukraine. Yanukovych has never resigned from his […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, February 29, 2016) The maintenance of Western sanctions is contingent upon Ukraine’s willingness to reform itself, according to former Ukrainian foreign minister Vladimir Ogryzko. If Ukraine does not act, the West will ultimately lift the sanctions; and Ukraine will have only itself to blame for its resulting isolation. In a commentary today, […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Kateryna Choursina, Daryna Krasnolutska – February 23, 2016) Yulia Tymoshenko is no stranger to political uprisings falling apart. Now she sees early elections as the only way Ukraine’s latest can survive. The peasant-braided icon of the Orange Revolution a decade ago, she became prime minister before infighting sank the pro-democracy government and allowed its Russian-backed adversary […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – The Daily Vertical: By Brian Whitmore – February 22, 2016) Two years ago today, a revolution climaxed. Two years ago today, a corrupt and incompetent tyrant was deposed. Two years ago today, a nation’s civil society came of age. On February 22, 2014, everything seemed possible in Ukraine. Today, of course, things look quite different. Much […]
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(US Department of State – February 20, 2016) US Department of State Press Statement Mark C. Toner Deputy Department Spokesperson Washington, DC February 20, 2016 Today, we join the people of Ukraine in honoring the memory of their Revolution of Dignity and those who gave their lives to build a more just, democratic, and European Ukraine. They braved sniper fire […]
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(US Embassy Kyiv Blog – U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt – usembassykyiv.wordpress.com – February 19, 2016) Two years after the Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine’s leaders – spurred on by an active, engaged, and committed civil society – have pressed forward on difficult political and economic reforms to bring Ukraine closer to its chosen European future. They have done so in the […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Ragozin – February 18, 2016) Two years have passed since a popular uprising in Kiev toppled a Russia-backed regime in Ukraine. The glory of that people power moment has faded, and Western supporters are losing patience with the government as corruption hampers efforts to jump-start the economy. The gross domestic product of the war-plagued country […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Aliaksandr Kudrytski, Volodymyr Verbyany – February 17, 2016) Two years after Ukrainians shed blood on the streets of Kiev to crush a Kremlin-backed kleptocracy, the country of more than 40 million people is back on the brink of failed-state status. The government’s long descent into chaos reached a new nadir this week, when amid reform delays […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Denys Gorbach, Oles Petik – February 15, 2016) Denys Gorbach is a leftist activist and researcher working on the Ukrainian labour movement. Oles Petik is an anarchist volunteering as an editor and translator at a Kyiv-based grassroots publishing cooperative. Strange it may seem, but Ukraine’s far right and Russia’s propaganda machine share a common fantasy: a radical right-wing […]
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Constitutional reform was supposed to put post-Maidan Ukraine on a firmly democratic footing. This process, however, has gone seriously off track. (opendemocracy.net – Mikhail Minakov, Maryna Stavniichuk – February 16, 2016) Mikhail Minakov is Associate Professor at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and President of the Foundation for Good Politics, Kyiv. He is also director of the Krytyka Institute, and editor-in-chief of the […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Natasha Doff – February 8, 2016) Ukrainian bonds slid, sending the yield on the nation’s shortest-dated restructured debt above 11 percent for the first time, as a political shakeup raised the likelihood for further delays to an international bailout that’s keeping the country afloat. The $1.15 billion of bonds maturing in September 2019 dropped 2.22 cents […]
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