Month: July 26, 2019 10:40 am

KYIV – The results of Ukraine’s July 21 snap parliamentary election have continued the biggest political shake-up in independent Ukraine’s history. Political newcomer Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent landslide victory in the presidential election has been replicated by a win on a historic scale by his party, Servant of the People. 

WASHINGTON – The chairs of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Andy Harris (R-Md.), Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), on July 18 introduced the SAILORS Act, or the “Stopping Aggressive Incursions on Liberty by Ordering Russian Sanctions Act,” legislation that would apply sanctions to 24 senior members of the Russian Security Service and their close associates until Russia releases 24 Ukrainian seaman and three vessels the country illegally captured near the Kerch Strait in the Sea of Azov.

KERHONKSON, N.Y. – The 13th annual Ukrainian Cultural Festival at the Ukrainian National Foundation’s (UNF) Soyuzivka Heritage Center took place over three days from July 12 to 14. 
From Ukraine, singers Taras Petrynenko, Tetiana Horobets and Tonya Matvienko delighted audiences several times throughout the festival. Ukrainian American Max Lozynskyj also belted out his own songs while playing guitar. Fleet-fingered violinist Vasyl Popadiuk showed why he is one of the most sought after jazz and folk violinists of today.

The Union State Treaty between Russia and Belarus (signed in April 1997) declares, in Chapter II, Section II, Articles 17-18, that border security falls into a group of key bilateral issues that must be solved jointly. In practice, this gives Russia control over Belarus’s external borders, also with Ukraine (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, December 8, 1999). 

WASHINGTON – Two years since Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine confirmed they were holding Ukrainian blogger and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) contributor Stanislav Aseyev prisoner, RFE/RL is redoubling efforts to secure his release.

The statement below was released in Kyiv by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America on July 22. The UCCA’s Election Observer Mission was headed by UCCA President Andriy Futey. UCCA Vice-President Michael Sawkiw Jr. served as deputy chair of the mission, and Tamara Olexy, former UCCA president and National Office director, served as mission coordinator. Long-time UCCA international election observer Reno Domenico was the UCCA’s chief observer. 

The following press statement is attributed to Morgan Ortagus, spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State. It was released on…...

“…We commend the sides for the disengagement of forces at Stanytsia Luhanska that began on June 26, as forces pull out of the zone and undertake demining activities. And we encourage the sides to use this success to make progress on full disengagement at the two other sites that were designated.

Already in its very first issue, dated September 15, 1893, Svoboda atop its front page quoted as its credo the immortal words of Taras Shevchenko: “Study my brothers, think and read, learn what others have to offer, but do not forget your own.” Therefore, it was no surprise that the fraternal benefit society to which Svoboda gave birth on February 22, 1894, the Ukrainian National Association, chose the great bard of Ukraine as its patron.

The people of Ukraine have once again made their free choice. This time in the parliamentary elections of July 21, which were the result of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s announcement, in his inaugural address on May 20, that he was dissolving the Verkhovna Rada. Just as they astounded the world by electing a political newcomer – an actor-comedian – as their president with 73 percent of the vote on April 21, Ukraine’s voters have astonished observers by giving the new president’s new party, Servant of the People, not simply a plurality, but a commanding majority in the Verkhovna Rada. 

Thirty years ago, on August 4, 1989, some 185 police and KGB agents brutally attacked a Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization camp that was set up on the Palanyky farmstead in the Horodok raion of the Lviv region in western Ukraine. 

Just over a year ago on July 7, 2018, a Ukrainian moral icon was laid to rest. Levko Lukianenko was a Ukrainian nationalist by his own appellation, a freedom fighter, dissident and one of Ukraine’s longest termed political prisoner. After independence Lukianenko became a politician, diplomat, but frankly he was never suited for that line of work. Politicians and diplomats are rarely moral icons.  

I knew Levko Lukianenko personally, having had  many opportunities to meet and converse with him. I attended his funeral in Kyiv and bade him farewell on behalf of Ukrainians abroad.