Month: June 29, 2018 10:43 am

KYIV – As World Cup host Russia was losing to Uruguay 0-3 in the quadrennial soccer tournament on June 25, Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov was in the 43rd day of his hunger strike at a Siberian prison and 44 pounds lighter from when he first started refusing solid food. 

Another political prisoner, Volodymyr Balukh, was in the 99th day of his, at first partial and subsequently full, hunger strike in a Crimean prison. The farmer had hung a Ukrainian flag atop his house in the Russia-annexed Ukrainian peninsula, according to human rights groups, and was charged with “insulting an official” for calling Russian police officers “occupiers.”

WASHINGTON – Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), co-chair of the Senate Ukraine Caucus, and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), member of the Senate Ukraine Caucus, on June 26 sent a letter to Secretary of Defense James Mattis urging the Department of Defense (DoD) to provide funding for education and training for Ukrainian health-care specialists so that they can provide continuing care and rehabilitation services for wounded Ukrainian soldiers. 

KERHONKSON, N.Y. – Ukrainian Journalists of North America gathered at their fourth conference here at Soyuzivka Heritage Center on June 15-17 to focus on a theme driven by today’s news: “How to Fight Fake News.”

Topics discussed included Russian disinformation, political assassinations and Moscow’s behind-the-scenes machinations, as well as the status of Ukraine’s news media and the state of the Ukrainian language.

Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast is currently hosting several of the games of the World Cup soccer championship, but this Baltic exclave has recently attracted widespread attention for an entirely different reason. On June 18, Western media reported on Russia apparently undertaking ambitious renovation work on a military bunker located in the oblast, which is to be used to store nuclear weapons. This was corroborated by satellite images. 

In May, the Russian Federation lost an important lawsuit lodged against it by “Everest Estate LLC and Others,” 18 Ukrainian…...

KYIV – The court’s verdict was unanimous and harsh: Ukraine’s top leaders, including President Petro Poroshenko, were guilty of war crimes. Their punishment: life imprisonment and the confiscation of their personal property.

But the sentence is highly unlikely to be seen – much less recognized – by most people and even less likely to be carried out, since this so-called court is a product of a Russia-backed separatist group in war-torn eastern Ukraine that calls itself the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR). It’s known also by its Russian acronym, LNR, and is viewed as illegitimate by the vast majority of the world.

The following press statement was delivered by Heather Nauert State Department spokesperson, on June 18. The United States is deeply…...

PARSIPPANY, N.J. – The Ukrainian National Association’s Home Office staff on June 11 enjoyed a presentation by Petrusia G. Kotlar,…

The morning of Thursday, June 28 (deadline day for this week’s issue) brought breaking news that Presidents Donald Trump and…...

Sixty-five years ago, on July 4-5, 1953, more than 2,000 people attended the formal dedication of Soyuzivka in Kerhonkson, N.Y.,…...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has achieved a major goal with plans for a summit between him and U.S. President Donald…...

Even though Russian officials and commentators have felt free to call Ukraine and Ukrainians other names, the suggestion by Ukrainian…...