Designer Anna Karenina to show during 2016 New York Fashion Week

PARSIPPANY, N.J. – Fashion designer Anna Karenina (not her given name), a model-turned-designer from Kyiv, is a rising talent in the fashion industry and will be included at this year’s Fashion Week in New York. Born in Kremenchuk in 1995, she graduated from Kyiv State University of Technology and Design. Her modeling career began at age 14 and her fashion career at 16 with her own line of clothing, as described in a February 15 article on Fashionista.com. Her fashions have been shown for several seasons at the Mercedes-Benz Kyiv Fashion Days. In 2014 she was invited to show at Pitti Imagine in Florence, Italy.

Despite snow emergency, Arizona teen debuts in D.C.

PARSIPPANY, N.J. – The Komarnyckyj family traveled from Phoenix, Arizona, to Washington for the Ukrainian Debutante Ball that was to take place on Saturday, January 23. They made sure to arrive early because, as Oksana Komarnyckyj recalled, “Two years ago, my older daughter, Ksenia, debbed in D.C. We flew in the Thursday before in the midst of a huge snowstorm. This time we opted to come into D.C. earlier.”

Sure enough, the forecast for the 2016 deb day in Washington called for snow. And lots of it. In fact, the snow emergency closed down the Washington area for several days.

Zenon Matkiwsky-Greg Olesnycky win grandfather/grandson tennis championship

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. – The grandfather-grandson duo of Zenon Matkiwsky and Greg (Hrits) Olesnycky won the 2015 USTA National Grandfather/Grandson Grass Court Championship in July 2015. Dr. Matkiwsky, 83, and Mr. Olesnycky, 21, won the 94th annual championship held at one of the country’s oldest and most prestigious tennis clubs, Longwood Cricket Club in Chestnut Hill, Mass., with an undefeated record, winning some very close matches. They were each awarded the USTA Gold Ball, as well as a trophy. The championship was a non-elimination tournament of the U.S. Tennis Association, with each duo playing all others on a challenging grass surface on July 13-15. Zenia Olesnycky, one of Dr. Matkiwsky’s daughters and the mother of Greg, commented: “It was extremely rewarding to see how history has repeated itself 37 years later.

UNWLA branch ‘adopts’ a wounded warrior’s family

WHIPPANY, N.J. – The Christmas season ended on a joyous note for members of Ukrainian National Women’s League of America Branch 75 with a life-affirming video chat with their newly “adopted” family – that of a wounded warrior from Kyiv. At the monthly meeting this past October, Ksenia Rakowsky, Branch 75 social welfare chair, and Ivanka Olesnycky, UNWLA New Jersey Regional Council social welfare chair, told branch members about several severely wounded soldiers. These heroes had been flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in the Washington area, from the battlefields of the Donbas, where they were valiantly fighting the Russian invasion. One of those soldiers had been traveling in a truck with nine others when it crossed over a mine that detonated. He was the sole survivor.

Coalition near collapse after failed no-confidence vote

KYIV – Ukraine’s coalition government approached the brink of collapse after the Verkhovna Rada failed on February 16 to muster enough votes to dismiss the highly unpopular prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and his Cabinet of Ministers. The Samopomich and Batkivshchyna parties announced in the following days that they were exiting the coalition government, accusing national deputies of the biggest parties of abandoning the principles of the Euro-Maidan that reached its bloody conclusion nearly two years earlier to the date. “A union of power has become obvious between the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, the People’s Front (led by Mr. Yatsenyuk), and the fragments of the Party of Regions that are controlled by a series of oligarchs,” said a February 18 statement by the Samopomich party leadership. “Such actions delegitimize the government of Ukraine. They are an encroachment on the country’s order and they put a final end to the ‘European Ukraine’ parliamentary coalition.

Foreign ministers discuss eastern Ukraine conflict, implementation of Minsk II

MUNICH – Senior diplomats from Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France met in Munich on February 13 to discuss the situation in eastern Ukraine and implementation of the Minsk II agreement on steps to end the conflict there. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. The foreign affairs ministers of Ukraine, Germany and Russia took part, along with a senior French diplomat. German Foreign Affairs Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier noted some progress in negotiations, including on the thorny question of how to conduct elections in areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed separatists. But he said that all sides were still “a long way off from resolving the conflict.”

He also delivered a rebuke to Russia, saying that “the question of war and peace has returned to the European continent” following Moscow’s seizure of Crimea and backing for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

“Two parallel worlds”: An interview with Patriarch Sviatoslav

REACTION TO THE MEETING OF POPE AND RUSSIAN PATRIARCH

On February 12, Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, the leaders of two Churches, met at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana. The meeting took place in a closed setting. It lasted more than two hours. The meeting of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church concluded with the signing of a Joint Declaration, which elicited mixed reactions on the part of the citizenry and Church representatives of Ukraine. Patriarch Sviatoslav, the head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, shared his impressions of the meeting in general and of the document in particular in an interview conducted in Ukrainian by Father Ihor Yatsiv.

Wristwatch given to wounded soldier points to Russian role in Ukraine war

MOSCOW – A cybersleuthing group says it has uncovered new evidence pointing to deep, direct Russian involvement in the battle of Debaltseve in early 2015, a turning point in the conflict in eastern Ukraine that weakened Kyiv’s hand at peace talks. Using posts and photographs gleaned from the Russian social networking site VKontakte, the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) concluded that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu last year personally awarded a commemorative wristwatch to a Russian soldier hospitalized in Moscow after being wounded in the battle. A report published on February 8 by the CIT, led by Russian blogger Ruslan Leviev, focused on the battle that raged around the strategic Ukrainian railway hub of Debaltseve as peace talks loomed. Fighting continued for days after a ceasefire was signed on February 12, 2015, with critics accusing Russia-backed separatists of violating the deal in order to seize control of more territory. The CIT asserted that its findings involving Yevgeny Usov, a soldier in the 6th Separate Tank Brigade from Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, “prove that the decision to escalate the conflict in Ukraine and attack Debaltseve was taken in the highest ranks of the Russian authorities.”

“It is hard to believe this decision could have been taken by anyone [other] than Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin,” it said.

Cardin expresses concerns on implementation of Minsk II

WASHINGTON – Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed his concerns for the status of the implementation of the Minsk II agreement, which was meant to calm tensions in eastern Ukraine. Agreed to one year ago, Minsk II is a package of security and political measures negotiated by Ukraine, Germany, France and Russia to address the conflict in eastern Ukraine. “Thursday marks the first anniversary of the Minsk II agreement. While all parties have expressed a commitment to pursue a peaceful resolution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine, I remain concerned that the implementation of Minsk II has been held back by continued Russian support for separatist violence,” Sen. Cardin stated. “If Russia is serious about Minsk II implementation it would immediately withdraw all military equipment from Ukrainian territory and allow access for OSCE monitors to the occupied territories.”

He added: “I understand that our Ukrainian friends must also implement the political elements of Minsk – constitutional reforms and elections – but we must see real progress from the Russians on the security front first.

Newsbriefs

Poroshenko denounces Russian aggression

MUNICH – Speaking on February 13 at the 2016 Munich Security Conference, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stressed that his country needs unflagging support from the West, saying that the security of Europe and the world are at stake in Ukraine. At a presidential panel at the Munich conference, he addressed angry remarks to an absent Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Mr. Putin, this is not a civil war in Ukraine, this is your aggression… this is your soldiers who have entered my country,” Mr. Poroshenko said in English. Fighting in eastern Ukraine has decreased dramatically since September 2015, but central aspects of the Minsk II deal have gone unfulfilled amid mutual recriminations.