For Canada, 2019 began with a change in leadership at the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, when Alexandra Chyczij began her first year as national president, succeeding Paul Grod, who served in that capacity from 2007 to 2018, and went on to lead the Ukrainian World Congress.
As the new UCC head, Ms. Chyczij wasted little time in calling on Canada and the international community to increase pressure on Russia to secure the release of 24 Ukrainian sailors captured during a Russian naval attack on Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea on November 25, 2018. The sailors held captive by Russia are prisoners of war and protected by the Geneva Convention, and their incarceration is a “grave violation of international law,” said Ms. Chyczij in a January 17 statement that also called for the release of “over 70 Ukrainian political prisoners taken hostage and imprisoned by the Kremlin.”