New Haven Easter egg hunt attracts children

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Children 13 and younger participated in the 16th annual Easter Egg Hunt on April 21 on the rectory lawn of St. Michael Ukrainian Catholic Church. The annual event, sponsored by UNA Branch 414, invited children to create Easter cards for parish shut-ins, craftwork, games and the hunt for Easter eggs and candy hidden on the lawn. The top winners in three categories received a large chocolate bunny.

Release Ukraine’s servicemen

On May 25, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), which is based in Hamburg, Germany, issued its ruling on the case filed by Ukraine against Russia in the matter of the Ukrainian servicemen and ships seized near the Kerch Strait on November 25, 2018. By a vote of 19 to 1, the court ruled: 1) “The Russian Federation shall immediately release the Ukrainian naval vessels Berdyansk, Nikopol and Yani Kapu, and return them to the custody of Ukraine” and 2) “The Russian Federation shall immediately release the 24 detained Ukrainian servicemen and allow them to return to Ukraine.” The lone judge voting against the ruling was Russian. The bad news is that, though the maritime court’s decisions are legally binding, there is no enforcement mechanism.

June 2, 2018

Last year, on June 1-3, 2018, a worldwide campaign to call for the release of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov from a Russian penal colony located above the Arctic Circle was held across at least three continents in over three-dozen cities. The rallies were timed to precede the beginning of the quadrennial World Cup soccer tournament, hosted that year by Russia. (The month-long tournament began on June 14.)

Kyiv will seek to have Kerch Strait declared an international waterway

Following its victory at the United Nations arbitration court that ruled Russia must release the 24 Ukrainian servicemen it illegally seized and still holds, the Ukrainian government has announced that it will seek to gain worldwide recognition of the fact that the Kerch Strait is in an international waterway and not the internal waters of Russia as Moscow insists.

Joint statement by civil society representatives on the first political steps of President Zelensky

The following joint statement was released on May 23 by the Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

Over the past five years, we, the undersigned, members of civil society organizations, have been actively defending Ukraine’s sovereignty and national interests in global information space and counteracting the Russian information war. Each of our organizations works in a specific field to strengthen civil society and help build high-quality state institutions open to ongoing communication and dialogue with our citizens, responsible for reforming our country and rendering it more stable and secure in the face of strong threats and challenges.

No “Ukraine fatigue”!

“As we did in the Welles Declaration in 1940, the United States reaffirms as policy its refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over territory seized by force in contravention of international law. In concert with allies, partners and the international community, the United States rejects Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored.” With these words, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo declared on July 25, 2018, that, much like the forced incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union in 1944, the illegal annexation of Crimea into the Russian Federation would never be recognized by the United States.

Law thesis supports international recognition of Holodomor as genocide

Raphael Lemkin, the distinguished lawyer who coined the term “genocide” and is considered the father of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the United Nations on December 9, 1948 (the U.N. Convention on Genocide), regarded the Holodomor as a part of the Soviet genocide against the Ukrainian people. (Rafael Lemkin, “Soviet Genocide in Ukraine,” New York, 1953, https://web.archive.org/web/20120302234607/, http://www.uccla.ca/SOVIET_GENOCIDE_IN_THE_UKRAINE.pdf). Yet recognition of the Holodomor as genocide on the international level still is not universal.

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Saakashvili hails ‘courageous’ Zelensky

Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president who served as governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region in 2015-2016, has welcomed the restoration of his Ukrainian citizenship by President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “courageous step by a courageous and worthy president.” Mr. Saakashvili made the remark in an interview with RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service on May 28 after Mr. Zelensky signed a decree that annulled a decree by his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, which deprived Mr. Saakashvili of his citizenship. Speaking via Skype from Poland, Mr. Saakashvili told RFE/RL that Mr. Poroshenko’s decision to strip him of Ukrainian citizenship was a “cowardly step by an unworthy president.”