Commentary

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz used a private jet linked to fugitive oligarch Dmytro Firtash to travel from a high-profile meeting in Tel-Aviv. The young Austrian chancellor isn’t the first Austrian politician caught in bed with the Kremlin-linked oligarch, who is fighting off a U.S. extradition warrant. The U. S. has charged Firtash with bribery and racketeering. According to Austrian news website ZackZack, Firtash lives in a Vienna villa owned by Alexander Schutz, a major donor to Kurz’s governing Austrian People’s Party. The website also writes that the party’s former leader, Michael Spindelegger, who is also Austria’s ex-vice chancellor, is employed by the oligarch’s Agency for the Modernization of Ukraine, which exists only on paper. Firtash’s connections to the top echelons of Austrian politics aren’t surprising. The oligarch made his fortune on mingling with political heavyweights. Firtash, who was described by the U. S. Department of Justice as an “upper-echelon (associate) of Russian organized crime,” made a fortune on reselling Russian gas to Ukraine at inflated prices...

When Volodymyr Zelensky won the Ukrainian presidency two years ago, his election owed much to promises of ending the country’s undeclared war with Russia. Many of Zelensky’s supporters hoped the charismatic comic and political outsider would be able to move beyond the hostility that had poisoned bilateral ties since 2014 and reach a negotiated settlement with Vladimir Putin. He certainly seemed to be cut out for such a role. In contrast to the vocal patriotism of his predecessor Petro Poroshenko, Zelensky had made a name for himself as a Russian-speaking Ukrainian celebrity with a following throughout the former USSR. He boasted a Kremlin-friendly record of repeatedly poking fun at the symbols of Ukrainian national identity throughout his comedy career...

In a pandemic, cultural institutions were forced to reconsider their approaches to work, learn and engage visitors without actually opening their doors. The lockdown did not prevent the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide from implementing two international and eight national projects. Olesya Stasiuk, Head of the museum, shared her experience amid a pandemic, the museum’s digital efforts and countering Russian disinformation. Who are the core visitors of the museum? What age groups do you focus on? Before the pandemic, 60% of our visitors were foreign tourists, while 40% were Ukrainians. During a pandemic, the ratio remains the same; however I would like to see the opposite. We do not focus specifically on a particular age category, but do try to engage the young, the old and the survivors. Through interviews, we help survivors talk about their pain, let them understand that their memories are important. Their suffering and this crime will be remembered. Last year, a single online resource, Svidchennia [Testimonies], was launched. Our volunteers digitized and published eyewitness accounts of the Holodomor and the mass artificial famines of 1921-1923 and 1946-1947...

Larysa Petrivna Kosach, known to the world under the literary pseudonym Lesia Ukrainka, spent much of his life traveling the three continents of Europe, Asia, Africa in search of sleep. From a young age, the inquisitive girl was attracted by the “distant world”, the mysterious infinity of the sea and the meandering roads. She even admitted that she dreamed of traveling around the world. However, due to her illness the writer visited numerous cities and resorts not as a “tourist” but as a “patient.” Lesia Ukrainka justified her love for travel as part of her nature inherited from her distant ancestors, according to the legends of her relatives, she referred to the ancestors as “the backwaters of the Greek family.” It is not without reason that from the height of a century the writer began to be called a “distant princess”, mysterious and unattainable. In search of a healing climate, most often her roads led to the Crimea, which became the second home of her talent. In Crimea she worked on many literary works, which brought her recognition as a talented masters of the word. Her poetic cycles “Crimean Memories” (1890-1891) and “Crimean Reviews” (1897) are full of travels to the peninsula...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a decree on February 2 sanctioning and effectively blocking three Kremlin-linked Ukrainian television channels. NewsOne, 112 and Zik are all officially owned by Ukrainian MP Taras Kozak but are believed to be controlled by Viktor Medvedchuk, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine. Kozak and Medvedchuk are both members of Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin Opposition Platform-For Life party. The decision to block the channels is being widely touted as Zelenskyy’s boldest move to date in the battle against Russian aggression. Russia’s ongoing hybrid war relies heavily on disinformation, leading many to argue that the three targeted TV channels constitute a national security risk. Nevertheless, there are also concerns that this drastic measure undermines Ukraine’s commitment to freedom of speech at a time when the future of the country’s fledgling democracy remains far from assured...

The Holodomor was the man-made famine that devastated the Ukrainian people killing millions from 1932 to 1933. The Holodomor is also known as the “Terror-Famine” and sometimes referred to as the “Great Famine”. The word Holodomor means "death by hunger". Many scholars and people debate as to the exact reason why Stalin had decided to do this, but I believe that his motives were financial and power. It is no secret that out of all of the countries that were part of the Soviet Union Ukrainians resisted the new government the most and were the least cooperative. They refused to follow the new Soviet rules and give up who they were to become minions to the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union formed, they began the Sovietization of Ukraine. They wanted to destroy all Ukrainian culture and Ukrainians didn’t like this idea and many rebelled. So, they had to be punished for it. Stalin had to show the other Soviet countries that such behaviour would not be tolerated. Stalin wanted money and power. By creating this famine, the Soviet Union could sell their people's food to the rest of the world and sit on a growing pile of money while also getting rid of the people that questioned their government the most. Even though some people would write letters back then to friends and family in other countries nobody believed them...

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) welcomes the addition of the Russian Imperial Movement (Russkoe Imperskoe Dvizhenie - RID) to the list of terrorist entities designated in Canada’s Criminal Code. “Extremist, terrorist organizations such as the RID and the government that harbours them are a clear threat to global security. Today’s listing of the RID is an important step in keeping Canadians safe,” stated Alexandra Chyczij, National President of the UCC. “We applaud today’s announcement and call on the Government of Canada to investigate the RID’s possible links to the Russian authorities.” In April 2020, the UCC wrote to the Honourable Bill Blair, Canada’s Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness urging the Government of Canada to list the RID as a terrorist entity and to take stronger action in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine...

During World War II, 130,000 female prisoners from 30 different nationalities passed through the gates of Ravensbrück — up to 90,000 of them never walked back out. It is suggested, by some estimates, that up to 8000 of these women came from Ukrainian territories. The purpose of the Ravensbrück Project, at the UCRDC, was to search and document Ukrainian women who were incarcerated at Ravensbrück. UCRDC is fortunate to have, on file, oral histories of several women who were imprisoned for their involvement in anti-Nazi activities during the war. These women, in turn, provided the names of other Ukrainians they met at Ravensbrück - and the project took off from there. With the help of the internet as well as librarians (Natalia Barykina at the Petro Jacyk Resource Centre at the Robarts Library, University of Toronto, and Anna Skorupsky at the Ekstein Holocaust Resource Library in Toronto) books, articles, monographs and databases were searched for women who were either specifically identified as Ukrainian or who were documented as born within the 'accepted' boundaries of Ukraine...

To obtain strategically important aerospace technologies, China is making a new attempt to acquire shares from one of the world’s largest manufacturers of missile, helicopter, and jet engines: Ukraine’s JSC Motor Sich. China’s company Beijing Skyrizon Aviation – a subsidiary of Beijing Xinwei Technology Group – is bidding with support from a local partner, DCH Group, which belongs to Ukrainian businessman Oleksandr Yaroslavsky. Following previously failed solo attempts from Skyrizon, on September 23, the two submitted a joint application to the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) to purchase a stake in Ukraine's aerospace giant. In the past, the United States convinced Ukraine to deny such a deal as part of its broader efforts to curb China’s growing clout and presence in Ukraine and across Europe. This time, however, Motor Sich is seriously considering China’s offer and the enticing economic benefits it would bring. This would be a strategic mistake for Ukraine. The potential deal, which may also benefit Russia, would come with serious consequences to Ukraine’s national security. The incoming Biden administration ought to take note...

Ukrainians marked the Day of Dignity and Freedom on November 21, continuing a seven-year tradition that seeks to place the country’s 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution in a broader historical context. This might also be something for the international community to consider. While Ukraine’s two people power uprisings are recognized as important milestones in the country’s post-Soviet journey, their impact on the wider region has yet to be fully appreciated. This lack of clarity is perhaps understandable. Indeed, few events in modern European history have been subject to quite so much deliberate distortion. Ever since the Euromaidan protest movement first emerged in Kyiv in late November 2013, it has been a favored target of Russian information warfare. For the past seven years, Moscow has promoted false narratives about the uprising in order to undermine its pro-democracy credentials and justify the subsequent Russian invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine...