“In contemporary Ukraine, political parties rarely survive more than one electoral cycle. The super-electoral year 2019 changed the party structure once again …. A year later, there is already palpable interest on the part of the citizenry in new parties, as people have started losing trust in the current ones […]
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“Over the past six months, we have witnessed a sharp increase in anti-American rhetoric not only by the Viktor Medvedchuk’s pro-Kremlin TV channels but also by representatives of certain political groups. And this rhetoric is happening not just from the 44-member Opposition Platform For Life faction in Parliament, which officially advocates a pro-Russia policy. It’s happening among billionaire oligarch Ihor […]
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“We might not be here if the mainstream media, which loved the Steele Dossier when it seemed to incriminate … Trump, had later shown an equal interest in investigating its origins as a partisan fabrication. In his now-famous transcript … Trump mainly presses Ukraine’s new president for dirt not on the Bidens but on the known unknowns of 2016. ‘I […]
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“… Zelenskiy’s party has the most support in opinion polls ahead of Sunday’s snap parliamentary elections, but … a solid majority in the Verkhovna Rada is far from certain. Zelenskiy … took office in May, [yet] has been stymied by a parliament dominated by his opponents. He ordered the elections to be held three months earlier than scheduled in order […]
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“… ahead of a [July 21] snap parliamentary election …. [a] survey conducted by research group Reiting … showed Zelenskiy’s party, Servant of the People, … support[ed by] 37.3% of people who said they would vote. … The outgoing parliament … is dominated by loyalists of … Poroshenko. Servant of the People, campaigning on a pro-European, anti-corruption ticket, has no […]
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KYIV. May 27 (Interfax) – The Servant of the People party has set itself the task of obtaining a one-party majority in the future Verkhovna Rada on the basis of an early parliamentary election. “We would not like to turn to other parties to form a coalition. Our ultimate goal is to form a coalition from one political force,” the […]
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“The ruling coalition in the Ukrainian parliament … Verkhovna Rada[] collapsed … May 17 … [with] the withdrawal of the People’s Front faction, headed by former prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. According to Ukrainian legislation, the Verkhovna Rada should now keep working until the next parliamentary election … October 27, meaning president-elect … Zelenskiy will not be able to call a […]
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(Article text ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – KYIV – April 23, 2019 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/back-in-parliament-after-abrupt-release-from-jail-savchenko-praises-zelenskiy/29898734.html) Ukrainian lawmaker Nadia Savchenko has returned to parliament a week after she was unexpectedly released from jail, where she had been held for more than a year over allegations that she plotted a terrorist attack on […]
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“… Poroshenko rivals in the upcoming presidential election are accusing him of ‘profiting from blood’ after an investigation revealed that the son of the president’s close business partner has been selling arms to separatist rebels in the breakaway eastern region of Donbas … [according to] a report broadcast on Ukrainian TV …. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who leads the […]
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KYIV. Nov 26 (Interfax) – Several factions in Ukrainian parliament blocked its plenary session on Monday, preventing President Petro Poroshenko from explaining his proposal to impose nationwide martial law, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction said. “A number of factions decided to block the rostrum without even allowing the president to reveal what exactly is happening in the Sea of Azov […]
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“Disoriented since the downfall of former president Viktor Yanukovych, the parts of Ukraine’s opposition more sympathetic to Russia have not disappeared. They are regrouping, with an eye mainly to next year’s parliamentary elections, seeing the presidential election as all but lost. But they have yet to find a common leader or unifying idea. …”
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“Tetiana Protorchenko, the press secretary of Ukrainian Member of Parliament Nadiia Savchenko, who has been arrested on charges of plotting a coup, has said the lawmaker is kept in a single confinement cell of a detention center. ‘Nadiia is in an individual cell, she takes a shower once a week. She ceased her hunger strike two weeks ago for taking […]
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“… Lutsenko made his sensational claim the same day Savchenko returned to Ukraine from Strasbourg to give testimony to the Security Service of Ukraine as a witness in a case against Volodymyr Ruban, a Donbas war mediator accused of attempting to assassinate Ukrainian leaders and smuggling weapons. …”
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“Ukraine’s parliament … passed a bill to reintegrate the country’s eastern territories … currently controlled by Russia-backed separatists … supporting taking them back by military force if necessary. The bill describes the areas in Ukraine’s … Donetsk and Luhansk regions as ‘temporarily occupied’ by ‘aggressor country’ Russia. … Poroshenko welcomed the new bill, saying it would help restore control of […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 18 (Interfax) – The Ukrainian bill on the reintegration of Donbas puts an end to the Minsk Agreements, and Germany and France should evaluate the act accordingly, Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee head Konstantin Kosachyov said on Thursday. “By adopting the odious bill on Donbas reintegration, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada essentially put an end to the Minsk Agreements [the […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, March 21, 2016) To solidify its break from a Russia-dominated space, Ukraine should shift from the Russian-based Cyrillic alphabet Moscow imposed on it to a script based on the Latin alphabet used by European countries, according to Aleksandr Donyi, the head of the Last Barricade social organization and a former deputy of […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Daryna Krasnolutska – February 29, 2016) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko ruled out an early national election and urged a majority coalition in parliament to decide on a new cabinet to end the worst political crisis since deadly street protests ousted Kremlin-backed leader Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. “We don’t have the time because it will mean half […]
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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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KYIV. Feb 3 (Interfax) – The Ukrainian Cabinet of ministers will continue working, and if some parliamentarians disagree with this, they are free to initiate a vote of no confidence in the government, says Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. “We, as a government, will keep doing our job, we will be fulfilling the government action program, we will pursue reform, and […]
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Reuters covers concerns over health care in Ukraine. A reform drive launched by the Western-leaning government installed after a pro-Moscow president, Viktor Yanukovich, was overthrown in a popular uprising last year has become mired in bureaucratic inertia, arguments and allegations of corruption. * * * [A] stalled health bill is one of many examples of the slow progress Ukraine is […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Natasha Doff, Daryna Krasnolutska – September 16, 2015) Ukraine’s government has stepped up last-minute lobbying because of growing concern that lawmakers won’t back an accord to restructure $18 billion of foreign debt. Government officials have met with ruling and opposition parties before a vote Thursday that’s supposed to give final approval to the debt deal, according […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Vitaly Dudin – September 16, 2015) Vitaly Dudin is a legal analyst at Ukraine’s Center for Social and Labor Research, which was created in 2013 as an independent not-for-profit institution dedicated to the analysis of socio-economic problems, collective protests, labour relations and conflicts. 265 votes ‘for’. Three people dead. This is how most of us will remember Ukraine’s […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – KYIV BLOG: Sergei Kuznetsov in Kyiv – July 8, 2015) Ukraine’s parliament has sent a series of worrying signals to the country’s Western backers: it has approved a populist law that could cost Ukraine’s banks up to $4.65bn; at the same time, parliament has failed to adopt a package of bills that are meant […]
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Ukraine’s Parliament on June 18 approved President Petro Poroshenko’s request to sack Valentyn Nalyvaichenko as head of the Security Service of Ukraine, amid growing recriminations over who is to blame for the government’s faltering drive against crime and corruption. https://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/sbu-chief-fired-after-flap-with-poroshenko-391460.html
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The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is deeply concerned about a series of legislative initiatives that the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, adopted on April 9, 2015.
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On April 9 Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada adopted four laws pertaining to Ukraine’s recent history, two of which at least are highly contentious, with the manner in which they were presented to parliament and voted on also grounds for concern. At a time when Russia is waging undeclared war against Ukraine, the need for unity is paramount. Instead, a majority in […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, March 18, 2015) Donetsk and Luhansk say that henceforth they will not be able to find any compromise with Kiev until “yesterday’s shameful decisions by [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko and Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament]” are cancelled, according to the joint statement by the leaders of the two self-proclaimed republics, Oleksandr Zakharchenko [Russian: Aleksandr Zakharchenko] and Ihor Plotnytskyy [Russian: […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – December 5, 2014) [Video here http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/brawl-erupts-in-ukraine-parliament-video/512625.html] A dispute at a session of Ukraine’s newly elected parliament has prompted lawmakers to resort to a more direct method of resolving political disagreements – a shoving match. The run-in among two dozen or so deputies over the distribution of legislative committee chairs between fractions seemed […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – December 1, 2014) It should have been a great day in Ukraine’s effort to transform itself into a modern liberal democracy in the EU mould. The freshly elected Ukrainian parliament held its first session on November 27, completing the process of political transition from the kleptocratic autocracy of Viktor […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – October 30, 2014) The People’s Front party, founded and led by Ukraine’s prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, and President Petro Poroshenko’s eponymous Petro Poroshenko Bloc are disputing which of them won Ukraine’s landmark parliamentary elections held on October 26. At stake is the right to draw up a crucial programme of sweeping reforms on which […]
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KYIV. Oct 29 (Interfax) – The Ukrainian Cabinet of ministers to be formed after the establishment of a parliamentary coalition in the 8th Verkhovna Rada will have to draw up and adopt a plan for the restoration of the country by December 15, 2014, says a draft coalition agreement published on the Petro Poroshenko Bloc’s website on Wednesday morning. “The […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Glenn Kates – October 27, 2014) Ukrainians have voted in a new parliament for the first time since the Euromaidan protests ousted President Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russian government earlier this year. Here are some takeaways from the October 26 vote: The West-Russia divide is no longer relevant in parliament Since the collapse of the Soviet […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Daryna Krasnolutska – October 27, 2014) Vladimir Putin may have more ammunition to extend his influence over the Ukraine’s war-torn east after the country’s parliamentary election. A surge in support for pro-European parties leaves the area, the bedrock of ousted leader Viktor Yanukovych’s popularity, with less of a say in the nation’s future. Parties backing President […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – October 28, 2014) With 80% of votes counted, People’s Front party headed by Ukraine’s prime minster, Arseny Yatsenyuk, has held its hair-breadth lead over President Petro Poroshenko’s eponymous party. People’s Front is on 21.94% of the vote, while Petro Poroshenko Bloc is on 21.6%, according to the Ukrainian Central Election Commission. But with half […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – October 24, 2014) This weekend’s crucial parliamentary elections in Ukraine could mark the end of two decades of failure and the launch of the country’s attempt to catch-up with the rest of the region. The trouble is that Ukraine is already off to a really bad start. There has […]
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MOSCOW, October 27 (RIA Novosti) – Moscow considers the parliamentary elections in Ukraine as complete and is ready to recognize their results, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday. “It seems that these elections are complete, though not throughout the entire territory of Ukraine. I believe we will recognize these elections because it’s important for us that a power in […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Volodymyr Verbyany – October 23, 2014) Andriy Teteruk had just returned from fighting as a volunteer battalion leader in eastern Ukraine when he received an invitation from Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to run for parliament on his People’s Front ballot. “I also got proposals from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party,” Teteruk, 41, […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Graham Stack in Kyiv – October 24, 2014) Ukraine is to go to the polls on October 26 in early elections likely to give forces supporting President Petro Poroshenko a strong majority in the parliament, paving the way for sweeping constitutional reform. “This should be a constitutional majority,” said Poroshenko, out campaigning in the […]
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MOSCOW, October 14 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchynov has inked a law on special status of parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and sent it to President Petro Poroshenko for signing, the Verkhovna Rada said on its website on Tuesday. The parliament approved the law introducing self-administration in parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Nikolai Holmov, OdessaTalk – October 6, 2014) Tuesday 7th October is Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s 62nd birthday. It is now, also to be the date where in all probability, the currently sitting Verkhovna Rada will formally put an end to the legally held non-aligned status of the nation. (At the same session that […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Graham Stack in Kyiv – August 26, 2014) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has dissolved parliament and called snap elections for October 26, in a move he says aims to “reload” Ukraine’s political elite. The move was widely anticipated and could help Poroshenko and his allies in the Rada clear the political decks and move […]
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KYIV. Aug 21 (Interfax) – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko could make a decision to disolve the Verkhovna Rada on the Independence Day, his press secretary Svyatoslav Tseholko said. “Poroshenko on the disbandment of the Verkhovna Rada: the decision will be made when constitutional reasons arise. And their time falls on Independence Day,” Tseholko wrote on Twitter. Ukraine marks its Independence […]
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(Voice of America – April 14, 2014) The escalating situation in Ukraine appears to be on the verge of armed conflict as Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov asked the United Nations Monday to send peacekeeping troops to the east of the country, where pro-Russia militias have seized government buildings and blocked major highways with impunity. Geoffrey Pyatt has served as United […]
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