Month: March 26, 2021 12:37 am

KYIV – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on March 23 signed an order that puts into effect a decision that the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) made 12 days earlier to take over aero-engine maker Motor Sich.

KYIV – Targeting dozens of legal entities and individuals, including members of the country’s former political leadership, Ukraine over the past two weeks imposed a fourth round of sanctions designed to counter Russia’s influence in the country.

LVIV – While many Western countries have begun to see significant declines in COVID-19 infections and death rates, Ukraine instituted another pandemic lockdown to combat a record-setting spike of new cases that include the country’s chief state sanitary doctor.

The resonance in Russia from a short fragment of United States President Joseph Biden’s ABC News interview last Wednesday (March 17) has been extraordinarily loud – and the bilateral consequences could be far greater than just the Russian ambassador being recalled to Moscow for consultations (see EDM, March 18).

Ukraine’s efforts to politically and military integrate with the West greatly intensified after Russia’s 2014 absorption of Crimea, while the subsequent and ongoing war in Donbas against combined Russian-proxy army units emphasized the need for Ukraine’s armed forces to reduce their dependence on Soviet-era doctrine and weaponry as much as possible.

Following the latest round of consultations of political advisors within the so-called Normandy format (Ukraine, Russia, France, Germany), Andriy Yermak, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, stated in a letter that Kyiv will not accept any of the proposals regarding the resolution of the Donbas conflict that were made by his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Kozak (Ukrainska Pravda, March 21).

Ukrainian Americans for Biden (UAB) is a network of voters established in June 2020 under the Democratic National Committee’s National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Council. We are proud to have been a part of the effort that led to your and Vice President Kamala Harris’ victory during the 2020 presidential election.

On March 25-26, European Union leaders will meet virtually “to discuss the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Single Market, industrial policy, digital transformation and the economy, the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean and relations with Russia.”

PARSIPPANY, N.J. – The Ukrainian Association of Football (UAF) lost its appeal against the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and the Swiss Football Association (SFA) following the dismissal of the case by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in a decision announced on March 19.

WASHINGTON – The year 2020 showed us that not even a pandemic can stop scientific innovation. Many scientists in Ukraine have returned to their labs while adhering to hygiene and social distancing rules and meetings, and trainings have moved online.

Writing for Eurasia Daily Monitor on March 24, journalist Yuri Lapaiev noted a “creeping escalation” along the line of contact between Ukrainian and Russia-backed forces in Donbas. This creeping escalation comes despite a ceasefire that was brokered last year and started officially on July 27, 2020. Mr. Lapaiev wrote that the ceasefire, while technically still in place, “is functionally over.”

Sixty years ago, on April 8, 1961, The Ukrainian Weekly featured an essay, “Shevchenko, the bard of Ukraine” by Roman Olesnicki, that was read at the Shevchenko Centennial Concert in Newark, N.J., on March 12, 1961.