Month: January 26, 2018 11:16 am

KYIV – Ukraine’s ages-long pursuit of stable statehood came into focus on January 22, when the country commemorated the Act of Unity proclaimed 99 years ago between Ukrainian lands that were part of the Austro-Hungarian and tsarist Russian empires.

Although short-lived, in 1919 the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) based in Kyiv, which stretched as far as the Kuban region to the southeast, united with the Western Ukrainian National Republic (WUNR) that comprised most of eastern Galicia, parts of Bukovyna and the Carpathian Mountain region.

BRUSSELS – The U.S. special envoy for Ukraine says the Minsk accords – the Western-backed blueprint for ending the war between Kyiv and Russia-backed separatists – have not been implemented because Moscow has not shown “willingness to implement them.”

Speaking in Brussels ahead of a trip to Ukraine and a meeting with his Kremlin counterpart in Dubai on January 26, U.S. envoy Kurt Volker also said that Moscow’s military actions in Ukraine have “produced the opposite” of what he called Russian President Vladimir Putin’s objective of maintaining a “Russia-friendly Ukraine” that is “part of Russia’s orbit.”

Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric about Ukraine has changed in order to curry favor with Russians in advance of the presidential poll,…...

The Russian Foreign Ministry yesterday [January 18] accused Ukraine of preparing for a new war in the Donbas. It’s a…...

In the four years that have passed since Russia annexed Crimea, the number of Russian submarines active in the Black…...

BRUSSELS – U.S. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, has warned that the alliance will not be…...

…The act declaring the independence of Ukraine would have been impossible without the Fourth Universal. If our glorious ancestors hadn’t sown the seeds of the idea of independence in 1918, they wouldn’t have grown to almost unanimous support in the referendum of 1991. ...The Fourth Universal and the Act of Union are among the most important documents of national liberation. ...

Our independence will become 100 percent irreversible when we prove to the whole world and, first of all, to ourselves that we have become a successful country of successful people. ...

Having survived the most painful shock caused by the war and economic aggression of Russia, we are returning to the path of recovery and development. We have to overcome external aggression, build a European Ukraine, pass it on to the hands of our children and grandchildren. This is our mission. …

– President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, speaking on January 22, the Day of Unity of Ukraine, which this year was celebrated on the 100th anniversary of the Ukrainian National Republic’s proclamation of independence in the Fourth Universal. (Excerpt cited in the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Daily Briefing.)

The statement below was released by the Ukrainian World Congress on January 22. In 2018 Ukrainians throughout the world are…...

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress released the statement below on January 21. On January 22, Ukrainians all over the world mark…...

…The use of mercenaries is illegal under Russian law. But since at least the 1990s, Moscow has used them as deniable proxies for its military interventions abroad. … Over the past four years, however, President Vladimir Putin has dramatically ramped up the use of private military contractors as a crucial part of his foreign policy, using them to extend Russian power in eastern Ukraine and Syria.

Adapted from the presentation given on  November 10, 2017, at 50th anniversary conference of the Ukrainian World Congress held in…...

KYIV – Almost every week last year, Andriy Futey found himself on the road, whether in California, Georgia, North Carolina…...