16.04.2024

The 10th KOBZAR Book Award Presentation was a great success! 150 guests from across Canada gathered on March 21 at Winnipeg’s Canadian Museum for Human Rights to celebrate our Canadian storytellers. The Ukrainian story in Canada spans over 130 years from the first settlers in 1891 to today’s newly arrived Ukrainians displaced by the war in their homeland. The Shevchenko Foundation launched the KOBZAR Book Award (KBA) with a mission to encourage writers to interpret our Ukrainian Canadian stories boldly and creatively for the world to enjoy...

16.04.2024

Empowering Voices, Enriching Heritage: BCU Financial and BCU Foundation, as Shortlist Book Sponsors, lay the groundwork for stories that resonate with hearts and minds across borders. Their support paints a brighter future for literature. BCU Financial and BCU Foundation - Фундація Будучність had the honour to be one of the sponsors of the prestigious literary award - 2024 Kobzar Book Award, organized by the Shevchenko Foundation. The award presentation gala took place on March 21, 2024, at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. BCU Financial Group was represented by the senior management and the teams of BCU Financial, BCU Wealth Management of RJL and BCU Foundation...

16.04.2024

Over two years after Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainians are still fighting valiantly. Two years on, Russian President Vladimir Putin is still spewing baseless propaganda that my country, a country with a Jewish president and a thriving Jewish community, is a Nazi state. There is no more profound symbol to counteract this false portrayal than the recent completion of the Torah scroll of solidarity between Ukraine and Israel, with letters inscribed by their presidents Volodymyr Zelensky and Isaac Herzog. This scroll will be a motivating force for the Ukrainian and Jewish communities to unify, closer than ever, to counter the old Soviet playbook and ensure that freedom prevails. But more must be done...

02.04.2024

While the Kremlin is trying to link Ukraine to the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, the Islamic State (ISIS), specifically its Afghan branch known as ISIS-K, has claimed responsibility for the shooting at the concert hall in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region. The Islamic group calling itself the Khorasan State (ISIS-K), named after the old name of a region that included parts of Iran, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan, emerged in eastern Afghanistan in late 2014 and quickly gained a reputation for extreme brutality. Among the motives for this group to see Russia as its enemy, experts say Moscow’s involvement in the global fight against ISIS and its affiliates, especially through Russian military operations in Syria and its efforts to establish ties with the Afghan Taliban, ISIS-K’s rival on its territory...

02.04.2024

The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) is outraged with Russia’s recent attempts to blame Ukraine, the UK and the USA for the horrific attack in Moscow on March 22. The Russian leadership is promoting this lie despite all signs pointing to a militant group of religious fanatics. This is a cynical demonstration of the Putin regime’s own negligence towards Russian civilians, and one that marks a new stage in Russia’s hybrid aggression against Ukraine and the West. We call on the international community to reject this Russian propaganda and false narrative, and to take all of the steps that are necessary to bring the inhumane Putin regime to justice...

02.04.2024

At the invitation of Anthony Rota, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Yaroslav Hunka went to Ottawa on 22 September 2023 to witness the visit of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. When The Jewish Daily Forward subsequently reported that Hunka had served in the 14 Waffen- Grenadier-Division der SS (galizische Nr. 1) – more commonly referred to as the Galicia Division – a controversy erupted. It continues to fester. Criminal vandalism against cemetery monuments to veterans of the Division has jacked up, even as Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine and Ukrainians has escalated. That is not a coincidence. Deplorably, some Canadians have bought into Soviet-era propaganda about the Galicia Division, as regurgitated by operatives of the Russian Federation and their fellow travellers in the West. That has only furthered the goals of a KGB campaign, known as Operation Payback, orchestrated to provoke tensions between the Jewish, Baltic and Ukrainian diasporas over what happened in eastern Europe during the Second World War...

19.03.2024

On Sunday, March 10, 2024, the Toronto chapter of the League of Ukrainian Canadians and the League of Ukrainian Canadian Women held its annual general meeting. This year's meeting featured a discussion among members regarding the changing landscape of the Ukrainian community and LUC's role within the community. President of LUC-Toronto, Mykova Lytvyn, reported on the past activities of the chapter highlighting the fundraising efforts for the Armed Forces of Ukraine through the FUDF Fund, support of the Baturyn archaeological project as well as the financing of the athlete Anna-Viktoriia Shevchenko, who participated in an archery event at the...

19.03.2024

The suggestion from Pope Francis that Ukraine should have the “courage” to raise the “white flag” and negotiate a settlement with (in other words, surrender to) Russia was deeply shocking for Kyiv and its backers. The understandably outraged response from Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, was that the only flag Kyiv would raise was its own: the yellow and blue of Ukraine. Some may think that the pope’s words are inconsequential to how this war unfolds. It is not the first time Pope Francis has displayed overtly pro-Russian sympathies, nor has the Vatican’s mediation, for instance regarding the liberation of Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia, been successful so far. So what if the pope speaks out again about the war, given that his views are already known and his practical efforts to address the humanitarian dimensions of the war...

19.03.2024

Ukrainians in the United States and Canada announced an international awareness campaign today, to mark the second anniversary of the Russian airstrike on the Mariupol Drama Theatre on March 16. Inspired by a mournful song written in reaction to the war crime, an ad hoc group of activists is enlisting the support of Ukrainian organizations, churches and schools to organize an international awareness campaign for Saturday, March 16, 2024. During the siege of Mariupol at the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the drama theater doubled as a bomb shelter and humanitarian aid distribution center and provided refuge to more than a 1,000 civilians. In a bid to keep them safe, the...

19.03.2024

Almost immediately after the murder of her husband, Yulia Navalnaya announced that she would continue what he did. Now comes the hard part. What exactly will she do? Will she return to Russia and go to jail? Will she expose more corruption in the Russian army (and incidentally make the Russian army more efficient in killing more people in Ukraine)? Will she advocate lifting sanctions on Russia (including sanctions on Russian oligarchs)? Will she organize a national uprising? Will she focus on giving talks and speeches in London, Berlin and other capitals? Time will tell but, most likely, she will..