Sports

Ukraine wins 98 medals, finishes fifth best in total medal count

By |

Seventy-four medals in 2008, 84 in 2012, and 117 in 2016 set the foundation that Ukraine is indeed a world Paralympics powerhouse. Expectations were high going into the 2020 Games in Tokyo despite the challenges and obstacles posed by the one-year delay on training and the COVID-19 pandemic. Taking a cue from the Ukrainian Olympic team’s performance earlier this summer when expectations were exceeded, the Paralympians continued their dominance with their own outstanding achievements. Team Ukraine won an astounding 98 total medals, including 24 gold, 47 silver, and 27 bronze, placing them fifth among all nations (Ukraine ranked sixth overall when ranked by gold medal victories.) They were second overall in silver medals. The four nations that finished ahead of Ukraine with more total medals were China, Great Britain, the Refugee Paralympics Team and the United States.

Sports

Paralympian swimmers’ golden day

By |

Maksym Krypak and Yevhen Bohodaiko spearheaded a Ukrainian gold-medal charge at the Tokyo Aquatics Center on August 28 as Ukraine witnessed five of its athletes atop the podium at the Paralympic Games. Bohodaiko secured his first gold medal of Tokyo 2020 in the men’s (SB6) 100-meter breaststroke event, adding to his two titles from London 2012 and his hat-trick at Rio 2016. Bohodaiko’s time of 1:20.13 seconds saw him narrowly win the event for the third consecutive Paralympic Games.

Sports

Masters wins two golds in two days

By |

Oksana Masters has been making an impression on the Para sports world for almost a decade, “mastering” whichever sport she tries. Owning eight Paralympic medals across three different sporting disciplines, Masters was not quite content. In Tokyo she managed to fill another hole in her athletic resume by winning the women’s time trial (H4-5), claiming her first medal in cycling. It was her first gold medal at a summer Paralympic Games.

Sports

Ukraine mired in controversy over Paralympics ruling

By |

PARSIPPANY, N.J. – The National Sports Committee of Disabled People of Ukraine has come under attack on social media by Malaysian citizens after a controversial ruling stripped Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli of Malaysia of his gold medal in the F20 shot put for a technical violation of Zolkefli being three minutes late to pre-competition first call room at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games. Zolkefli’s throw of 17.94 meters was disqualified after the conclusion of the investigation by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

Ukraine

‘Biggest’ recent collection of Soviet-era mass graves discovered in Black Sea city of Odesa
Site includes 29 mass graves dating to Stalin’s Great Terror

By |

KYIV – Four days before Ukraine celebrated its 30th anniversary of renewed independence, a local historian in the Black Sea port city of Odesa reported finding 29 mass graves where victims of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s Great Terror of 1937-1938 were buried.

Oleksandr Babich’s Facebook post on August 20 slowly gained traction as he joined a team of researchers to measure the metes and bounds of the discovery situated southwest of the city where metal garages were slated to be relocated amid an expansion of the airport on the outskirts of the city.

Ukraine

In a bold and dangerous military operation, Ukrainian troops evacuated Canada-bound Afghani translators from Kabul

By |

LVIV – Members of the Ukrainian military stationed at the airport in the Afghan capital of Kabul conducted a bold operation in the early morning hours of August 27 to evacuate Afghani translators working with the Canadian army and a Canadian newspaper.

The operation to rescue the translators took place a day after the last Canadian plane took off from Afghanistan and hours after a terrorist attack took place at the gates of Hamid Karzai International Airport. After the attack, the United States said it would allow only foreign nationals to enter the airport, but not Afghans with visas.

Editorials

Zelenskyy visits Washington

By |

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with U.S. President Joe Biden in the Oval Office on September 1. As soon as that meeting ended, Ukrainians around the world wanted to know whether Mr. Zelenskyy had done enough to convince Mr. Biden that the United States should do more to help Ukraine gain entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, fend off the looming threat of further Russian aggression by providing more concrete military aid and stop construction of the Nord Stream 2 by punishing the pipeline’s builders with strong sanctions.  Speaking the day before his meeting with Mr. Biden, Mr. Zelenskyy was clear in what he hoped to achieve during his visit.

Turning the pages back...

Sept. 11, 1996

By |

Twenty-five years ago, on September 11, 1996, two Ukrainian naval vessels – the Hetman Sahaidachny (a frigate) and the Kostiantyn Olshansky (a landing ship) – arrived at the U.S. Naval Base in Norfolk, Va., making it the first time that Ukrainian naval vessels (representing an independent Ukraine, flying Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow banner) visited a U.S. port. The weeklong visit included joint naval landing exercises, shore excursions for the sailors, a weekend open house for American visitors and an evening concert by the military band aboard the Sahaidachny.

Letters to the Editor

Do UAB members have “buyer’s remorse”?

By |

Dear Editor:

I read with interest the released statement issued to the White House by the Ukrainian Americans for Biden (UAB) that appeared in the August 8 issue of The Ukrainian Weekly. In it they describe the comprehensive set of policy recommendations they provided the Biden Administra­tion in December 2020 and reiterated the important need to re-emphasize these recommendations with the upcoming Biden-Zelenskyy summit.