Down on the Black Sea, the newly appointed governor of Odessa (and ex-president of Georgia) Mikheil Saakasvhili is making waves. Is the balance of the Ukrainian state beginning to shift? (opendemocracy.net – Victoria Narizhna – July 9, 2015) Victoria Narizhna is a Ukrainian columnist, essayist, translator, cultural manager, and civil activist from Dnipropetrovsk. During EuroMaidan, Yaroslav Hrytsak, one of Ukraine’s […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – July 8, 2015) As Ukraine moves to clean up its corrupt law enforcement structures, brash new US-style police car patrols on the streets of Kyiv are delighting some locals with the feeling of change. But they also present a neat target for oligarch-owned TV networks looking for government own-goals. President Petro […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Mikhail Minakov – June 17, 2015) 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 journal Ideology and Politics. The success of post-Maidan Ukraine depends on the effectiveness of the ruling coalition. Does Yulia Tymoshenko want to join […]
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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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Arming Ukraine would only fan the flames of tension between the West and Russia, leading the United States into a conflict it doesn’t, and shouldn’t, want.
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – KYIV BLOG: Ben Aris in Moscow – June 8, 2015) It’s not exactly blue-sky news, but after a little over a year in office, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had a few things to boast about in his recent annual speech before the Rada lower chamber of Parliament. Reforms have started and the first green […]
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… Petro Poroshenko put Crimea front and center at his third news conference as president today on June 5.
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Henry Kirby in London – May 27, 2015) A recent survey by international polling firm TNS has shown that less than a quarter of Ukrainians are currently satisfied with the government in Kyiv, while only slightly more than a third are satisfied with President Petro Poroshenko. 51% of those surveyed said they were either […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – May 19, 2015) It’s goodbye Lenin, hello Nazi collaborators in Ukraine these days. Laws signed into effect by President Petro Poroshenko require the renaming of dozens of towns and hundreds of streets throughout the country to eliminate Soviet-era names. At the same time, Ukraine will begin to honor groups that helped Hitler exterminate […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Maksym Savchuk, Daisy Sindelar – May 13, 2015) KYIV — An investigation by RFE/RL shows that Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko may have used his presidential influence to shut down investigations into a land deal aimed at building a private mansion on a historic site in the Ukrainian capital. Two reports broadcast on RFE/RL’s Ukrainian-language television program, […]
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Ukraine’s leaders are eager to be seen as reinventing the nation. And erasing all visible reminders of the communist past, they say, is an important step toward that goal.
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Post-Maidan Ukraine is at war. Not only against Russian invaders, but more generally against sovietism. This war has a military front in the East, but as important is the political, economic, social frontline in the rest of the country. Resisting the invaders and reforming the nation are two fronts of a same fight: the struggle for the emergence of a […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Sergei Kuznetsov in Kyiv – April 30, 2015) While Western nations refuse to provide Ukraine with arms, preferring instead to financially drip-feed the country and maintain pressure on Russia with sanctions, Kyiv is facing several new challenges – in particular keeping the ruling coalition together at the same time as managing the thorny process […]
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Ukraine’s reformers are figuring out how to move the levers of power from Kiev and the oligarchs to the individual regions – but without fracturing the country.
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – April 24, 2015) President Petro Poroshenko said he’s ready to place Ukraine under martial law if his army is attacked in the embattled eastern part of the country. “If Ukrainian troops are attacked, we can do everything to introduce martial law,” Poroshenko said in an interview with the Ukraina television channel on Friday. “I will submit […]
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Writing for Chatham House in the aftermath of Igor Kolomoisky’s dismissal as regional governor, Orysia Lutsevych considers the impact of Ukrainian oligarchs and efforts to address their role. The grip the oligarchs have on Ukraine’s economy could further undermine the country’s integrity. Attacking their vested interests is dangerous but preserving the current state of affairs is even riskier. According to […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 13, 2015) As long as Russian aggression against Ukraine continues, patriotism is likely to trump concerns about domestic difficulties, according to Ella Libanova, a reflection of the fact that “the Maidan and Russian aggression has pushed Ukrainians toward more responsible attitudes toward both their country and their own fate.” In a commentary […]
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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 – April 6, 2015) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s statements on maintaining the unitary system of state governance and the Ukrainian language remaining the only state language in the country are unacceptable and contradict the Minsk Agreements, Andriy Purhin (Andrey Purgin), the speaker of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) people’s council, has said, as reported by privately-owned Russian news […]
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(Interfax – April 6, 2015) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he is ready to hold a referendum regarding Ukraine’s state system. “I am ready to launch a referendum on the issue of the state system, if you see a need for that,” Poroshenko said at a meeting of the constitutional commission in Kiev on Monday. Poroshenko earlier said he is ready […]
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Former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst has called on the west to extend sanctions against Russia because the ceasefire agreed to by Ukraine and Russia is not holding. Herbst believes that the status quo is contributing to Putin’s ultimate goal, which is to destabilise Ukraine. Ukraine Today: Former US Ambassador says Putin’s ultimate goal is to destabilise Ukraine. (John […]
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Ukraine’s judicial authorities launched actions on Tuesday challenging tenders that gave big businessmen control over key power companies under ousted president Viktor Yanukovich in a new move by the government to curb the influence of the so-called oligarchs. Reuters: Ukraine challenges oligarchs’ grip on energy companies
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President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine on Monday denounced calls for “federalization” of the country, which Russia has endorsed as a way of granting political autonomy to the areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Establishing greater local autonomy and governmental authority is widely viewed as crucial to settling the nearly yearlong war in the eastern regions of Donetsk […]
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A group of lawmakers blocked the parliament’s rostrum in the morning of April 7 to demand a probe into the work of the Cabinet and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Serhiy Kaplin, a member of Ukrainian parliament representing Petro Poroshenko Bloc, also initiated a rally in front of the parliament, where people could sign a petition to create a temporary investigative […]
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KYIV. March 31 (Interfax) – Boris Kolesnikov, a former MP (Party of Regions faction), has headed up Ukraine’s opposition government, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported, citing a statement made by Yuriy Boiko, the head of the parliamentary faction Opposition Bloc, at a presentation of the opposition government in Kyiv on Tuesday. He said he is confident that this government will […]
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(Interfax – February 25, 2015) Moscow hopes that Ukraine will take a responsible approach to the implementation of the obligations undertaken in Minsk and carry out the constitutional reform, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. He was speaking at a meeting with President of the Senate of France Gerard Larcher in Moscow on 25 February, as reported by privately-owned […]
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