Year in review (by The Ukrainian Weekly) 2014

8/9/2019 Year in review (by The Ukrainian Weekly) 2014

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5THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015No. 3

2014: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

D

uring 2014, what started out as the Euro-Maidanwas transformed into the Revolution of Dignity. Byyear’s end, Ukraine had a new president, a new

Verkhovna Rada and a new government. And, at the end ofthe year, the Rada voted to abandon the country’s previ-ous “non-bloc” status and set a course for NATO member-ship. A civilizational choice had been made.

As the year began, there was concern about the regularpresidential election that was to be held in March 2015 asthe opposition – that is the pro-Western parties of Ukraine– appeared to have no unified election strategy other thanbeing against Viktor Yanukovych. Ukrainian DemocraticAlliance for Reform (UDAR) Chair Vitali Klitschko was call-ing on his rivals to ditch their campaigns and unite behindhis single candidacy. The expected Batkivshchyna candi-date, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and Svoboda party candidateOleh Tiahnybok said they would compete independentlyin the first round of the presidential election. Billionaireconfectionary magnate Petro Poroshenko also was plan-ning to throw his hat into the ring. The concern amongobservers was that so many candidates could cannibalizethe pro-Western vote or spread it too thinly, letting anoth-er victory slip through their fingers. On January 10 camenews of a rift between Euro-Maidan activists and leaderswhen the Euro-Maidan Citizens Council demanded thatopposition leaders settle on a single presidential candi-date by January 11 or else face protests.

Meanwhile, public demonstrations in support ofUkraine’s European orientation and against PresidentYanukovych’s decision to scrap closer ties with theEuropean Union continued. On January 5, about 10,000people gathered at Kyiv’s Independence Square – theMaidan – for the first major opposition rally of the new year.

The government’s violence against opposition activistsalso continued. As the Euro-Maidan entered its eighthweek, former Internal Affairs Minister Yurii Lutsenko, aleader of the movement, was beaten the night of January10 during scuffles with the Berkut after the police brutally

beat demonstrators that evening. Mr. Lutsenko suffered aconcussion, head trauma and wounds that landed him inintensive care.

Things got worse later in January when Kyiv erupted inviolent clashes between Euro-Maidan protesters andpolice after the Verkhovna Rada, in a controversial vote –conducted in a wholly illegal manner – on January 16passed a series of draconian laws curtailing freedoms ofspeech and assembly. What have been labeled the “dicta-torship laws,” signed by President Yanukovych on January17, created the legal pretext for the government to launcha widely anticipated mass police operation to forciblyclear the Euro-Maidan territory in central Kyiv occupiedby the opposition.

On January 19, young demonstrators led by the radicalPravyi Sektor group attempted to storm governmentbuildings, and Hrushevsky street became the site of bat-tles between protesters and Berkut forces. Berkut eventu-

ally began firing tear gas canisters and stun grenades toforce the demonstrators away from their barricade. Manyprotesters began digging out cobblestones and flingingthem at police, along with Molotov cocktails. The national-ists were soon joined by soccer hooligans, also targeted bythe January 17 laws, as well as Euro-Maidan activists. Bymidnight, at least half a dozen buses – placed by police toform a wider barricade against demonstrators – werethoroughly burnt. Berkut upped the ante against demon-strators by spraying water from water cannons in theirdirection (amidst freezing temperatures) and firing rub-ber bullets and live metal cartridges. The next night snip-ers fired metal bullets at the protesters.

The result was at least five deaths and over 1,300 injured

protesters, as well as more than 120 injured police.The Yanukovych government responded to the protests

with a campaign of state terror in which activists weresubjected to beatings, kidnappings, torture, shootings andmurder carried out by the Berkut special forces. Overnighton January 19-20, the first kidnappings by Berkut forceswere reported. The kidnappings and beatings escalatedsignificantly the next few days. Civic activists IhorLutsenko and Yurii Verbytskyi were kidnapped on January21. Mr. Lutsenko surfaced a day later and reported beingtortured, while Mr. Verbytskyi was found murdered. Auto-Maidan leader Dmytro Bulatov disappeared on January 22and suffered eight days of beatings and torture beforebeing left for dead in a forest. Two other activists, ethnicArmenian Serhii Nihoyan of the Dnipropetrovsk area andBelarusian citizen Mykhailo Zhyznevskyi of Bila Tserkva,were killed by sniper fire during battles on January 22,

which happened to mark the Unity Day holiday in Ukraine.Opposition leaders responded by declaring on January

22 that they would lead the formation of a People’sCouncil and People’s Election Commission as parallelstructures to the Verkhovna Rada and the Central ElectionCommission. They also set an ultimatum to the govern-ment to either hold pre-term elections or face an offensivestrike. There was palpable fear of a forceful dispersal ofthe Maidan that evening, but more than 50,000 support-ers responded – despite the frigid temperatures and fall-ing snow – to the opposition’s call to protect the Maidan.Thus, the Maidan remained intact.

January 26 was a day of funerals for 21-year-old Mr.Nihoyan and 25-year-old Mr. Zhyznevskyi. Over 1,000people took part in Mr. Nihoyan’s funeral in the village ofBereznuvativka, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Radio Svobodareported his father said, “Maidan must hold out. My sondied for Ukraine.” Mr. Nihoyan’s parents had sought refugein Ukraine from the violence over Nagorno-Karabakhshortly before their son was born. Mr. Nihoyan had servedas one of the voluntary defenders of the Maidan sinceDecember. In Kyiv, thousands of Euro-Maidan activists andother Kyiv residents came to bid farewell to Mr.Zhyznevskyi, who had come to Ukraine about 10 yearsearlier from his native Belarus seeking refuge from perse-cution. In Ukraine he was active in the nationalist UNA-UNSO movement.

By January 29, President Yanukovych’s authoritarian rulewas on the brink of collapse during that day’s parliamenta-ry session, as deputies were ready to form a new majorityand reinstate the 2004 constitutional amendments that

would have brought back a parliamentary-presidentialrepublic. Yet the Russian government – rattled by the priorday’s resignation of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov –renewed pressure on Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians tokeep Mr. Yanukovych in power. That day it announcedrenewed trade barriers and freezes on the financial aid andnatural gas discounts extended in mid-December 2013. Mr.Yanukovych rushed into Parliament, where he reportedlyblackmailed members of his Party of Regions parliamen-tary faction to approve his version of an amnesty bill thatmade possible a state of emergency in 15 days.

Our free-lance correspondent in Kyiv, Zenon Zawadareported that the political winds were slowly eroding Mr.Yanukovych’s support base, which was confirmed in aninterview on Polish state radio on January 30 by formerPolish President and EU diplomat AleksanderKwasniewski. “I think the president’s urgent visit to the

Rada occurred because he’s afraid that the majority is nolonger on his side,” said Mr. Kwasniewski, who has spentmore than a decade dealing with Mr. Yanukovych andUkraine’s politicians. “He lost several dozen votes in theParty of Regions. He went to discipline them, frightenthem, blackmail them, and that had an effect.”

Speaking on February 2 on Kyiv’s IndependenceSquare, Vitali Klitschko told a crowd of some 50,000 thatPresident Yanukovych’s resignation followed by electionswas the only way out of the crisis. “Our proposition is the

From Euro-Maidanto Revolution of Dignity

The scene on January 20 on Kyiv’s Hrushevsky Street, where violent clashes between the Berkut and protestersbroke out on January 19 and were continuing.

Mourners at the funeral of Euro-Maidan activist Serhii Nihoyan in Bereznuvativka, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, onJanuary 26.

Vladimir Gontar/UNIAN

Sergey Isaev/UNIAN


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No. 3THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 20156


return to the Constitution of 2004; division of powersamong the president, Parliament and government; forma-tion of a new Cabinet; and the most important thing forthe resolution of these issues are early presidential andparliamentary elections,” Mr. Klitschko said. The UDARparty leader also demanded the unconditional release ofall protesters arrested since late November 2013.

Both Mr. Klitschko and another opposition leader,Arseniy Yatsenyuk, had attended the annual MunichSecurity Conference on February 1 and met with Westernofficials. Mr. Klitschko told protesters in Kyiv that he hadrequested “international mediation in our negotiationswith Yanukovych.” Speaking at the Munich Security

Conference, Mr. Klitschko said that the Ukrainian peoplehad shown their will for political change despite violenceagainst them, and he called on friends of Ukraine in theWest to help Ukraine’s democratic movement succeed. Atthe conference Messrs. Klitschko and Yatsenyuk met withU.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and European CouncilPresident Herman von Rompuy reiterated to conferenceparticipants that the EU association deal was still availableto Ukraine. “We know time is on our side. The future ofUkraine belongs with the European Union,” he said.

On February 4, the Verkhovna Rada concluded a ses-sion without approving changes to the Constitution ofUkraine that would have curtailed the powers of the presi-dent. Opposition lawmakers failed to get the necessarysupport to push through a motion to revert to an earlierversion of the Constitution that limited presidential pow-ers. The opposition would have needed support from atleast 237 of the 447 national deputies in Parliament topush through the motion.

Prior to the vote in the Rada, Oleksander Yefremov, theparliamentary leader of the ruling Party of Regions,sounded conciliatory. “This is a dead end, and I thereforesuggest that we all forget the grievances, victories anddefeats, our careers, and instead join efforts to work outthe strategy of getting out of the current situation,” hesaid. But Mr. Yefremov also said Mr. Yanukovych hadalready made concessions by accepting the government’sresignation, as well as agreeing to rescind controversialanti-protest legislation and to a conditional amnesty fordetained protesters. The opposition dismissed the movesas insufficient.

Mr. Klitschko met earlier that day with Mr. Yanukovych.Mr. Klitschko said he told the president “tempers are heat-ing up” and urged him “to immediately make a decision.”Mr. Klitschko had told Parliament reform was needed to

end the ongoing. “I’m convinced that if we don’t do that,then the society will explode, and we will see their angeron the street,” Mr. Klitschko said. “That’s why I’m callingon everybody – we should follow the civilized path, stopthe dictatorship, return to the Constitution that makesParliament deputies the decision-makers and not justthose who press buttons.”

February 9 was a day of yet another huge demonstra-tion on the Maidan as over 50,000 people gathered tomake their voices heard when President Yanukovych

returned to Kyiv after private talks with Russian PresidentVladimir Putin held on the sidelines on the Sochi WinterOlympics’ opening ceremony. Mr. Klitschko called forurgent constitutional reform to reduce presidential pow-ers. “Maidan is not just in the capital of Ukraine, Maidanhas to be in every small city,” Mr. Klitschko added. “And ifpeople say, ‘We don’t want to live by these rules,’ then this

is one way to change the power

and to put pressure on thepresident.”

The European Union Councildecided on February 10 that it

would not satisfy the Euro-Maidan’s pleasfor sanctions against Ukraine’s officials. “Applying

sanctions against Ukraine would be incorrect now,” EUCommissioner Jose Manuel Barroso told the Reuters newsagency in an interview published on February 12. “Thepriority should become creating the conditions for apeaceful resolution to the conflict. Now we are in such aphase that the priority is stability in the country andavoiding violence to begin a serious dialogue between thegovernment and opposition. At the current phase, othermeasures could have a negative effect.”

A violent dispersal of the Euro-Maidan grew increas-ingly likely after the Procurator General’s Office of Ukraine

announced on February 12 that it had closed its investiga-tions into the November 30, 2013, violent dispersal ofprotesters that had ignited the nationwide revolts, dis-missing the criminal charges. The dropped charges wereintended as a signal from the Yanukovych administrationto all state employees, particularly the police forces, thatthey’re protected from criminal charges when obeyingunlawful government orders, said a statement released bythe Batkivshchyna party.

The Procurator General’s Office based its decision onthe amnesty law approved by Parliament on January 16that was supposed to free from criminal responsibility allthose on both sides of the civil unrest between November21 and December 26, 2013. A second amnesty law passedby Parliament on January 29 was dubbed by the opposi-tion and EU politicians as “the hostage bill” since it pro-posed releasing imprisoned activists and dropping crimi-nal charges in exchange for the Euro-Maidan protest ceas-ing its activity.

In preparation for a new wave of repressions, Euro-Maidan Commander Andrii Parubii launched the MaidanSelf-Defense (Samo-Oborona) organization, consisting ofbrigades (sotni) of 75 to 150 activists. About 12,000 wereamong its ranks already, he estimated. Brigades wereformed of Afghan war veterans, nationalist organizationsmembers of political parties and women. “The [Maidan]Self-Defense defends the rights and freedoms of citizensand the organized resistance to the current regime,” Mr.Parubii said on February 11 as he presented its foundingmission statement. “We are going beyond the bounds ofthe barricades because the Maidan is all of Ukraine.”Among the Maidan Self-Defense’s tasks, he said, is to pre-serve the sovereignty and unity of Ukraine, defendUkraine’s European choice and resist the “acting criminalregime until its complete removal.”

Then, on February 18, Kyiv’s central district became awar zone after protest marches to the Parliament turneddeadly, igniting at least three days of street battlesbetween activists and law enforcement authorities, whoattempted to liquidate the Maidan with gunfire and fire-bombing.

Freedom House, in a statement released on February 18,condemned the violence and called on PresidentYanukovych to step down. “Legitimate democratic leadersdo not order riot police to attack protesters asking for amore open government,” said Freedom House PresidentDavid Kramer. “Yanukovych has forfeited his legitimacy andneeds to step down. In the meantime, the United States andthe European Union should immediately urge him to endthe use of force. It is also vital for the United States and theEU to impose visa and financial sanctions, to speed mean-ingful political change. Such a step is long overdue.”

At least 105 civilians died in the Kyiv conflict betweenFebruary 18 and 20, many of them by gunfire. The deadli-est day was February 20, with more than 70 reportedlykilled. More than 1,000 were injured. The Internal AffairsMinistry reported 10 dead law enforcement officers, killedby gunfire, and more than 445 injured. “This is no longersimply a revolution. It’s a war against brutes, fascists withtheir punitive detachments,” thundered Maidan master ofceremonies Yevhen Nyshchuk from the stage on the eve-ning of February 19.

The violence – unprecedented in independentUkraine’s history – erased any progress towards a politicalcompromise made during the weekend when protestersreluctantly freed several state buildings, including the KyivCity Council. Instead, they retook those buildings and tookcontrol of new ones, setting up new headquarters in thePost Office and State Television and Radio Committeeoffices. Reacting to the violence in the capital, activists

turned many of the nation’s oblast centers into battlezones on February 19 as they captured state buildings,including seven in Lviv.

The violence drew the first serious actions fromWestern leaders. The U.S. State Department declared visabans on February 19 against nearly 20 leaders whom itidentified as responsible for the violence. The next day,European Council President von Rompuy declared the EUwas imposing both visa and financial sanctions againstthose Ukrainian leaders determined to be responsible forthe excessive use of violence against Ukrainian citizens. Healso called for immediate elections for a new Parliamentand president.

His announcement came after exasperated EU diplo-mats – including Polish Foreign Affairs Minister RadoslawSikorski, German Foreign Affairs Minister Frank-WalterSteinmeier and French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent

Fabius – spent more than four hours negotiating withPresident Yanukovych on the afternoon of February 20 asshooting and fighting continued throughout central Kyiv,only to leave with gloomy expressions and no commentsfor reporters.

The next day, things came to a head. Mr. Yanukovychand the opposition leaders, Mr. Klitschko, Oleh Tiahnybokand Mr. Yatsenyuk, signed an Agreement on theSettlement of Crisis in Ukraine. Negotiations on the agree-ment were held with the participation of the aforemen-tioned EU representatives and Vladimir Lukin, specialenvoy of the president of the Russian Federation.According to the agreement, within 48 hours after thesigning of the agreement a special law that would restorethe Ukrainian Constitution of 2004 had to be adopted bythe Verkhovna Rada, signed by the president and madepublic. The parties also agreed on early presidential elec-tions to be held immediately after the adoption of the newConstitution of Ukraine, but no later than December 2014.

However, President Yanukovych and his entourage fledUkraine, and Mr. Yanukovych renounced the agreement.The collapse of the Yanukovych administration ignitedconflicts nationally as pro-Russian forces took over theCrimean Parliament and shot at Euro-Maidan activists ineastern cities.

The Verkhovna Rada, which remained as the only legiti-mate authority in Ukraine, then removed Mr. Yanukovychas president, announced the date of pre-term presidentialelections as May 25, and assumed political responsibilityfor the situation in Ukraine. Oleksander Turchynov, whowas elected Rada chair on February 22, also became theacting president of Ukraine.

A prime concern was the catastrophic condition of theeconomy left behind by Mr. Yanukovych and his cronies,who reportedly embezzled $70 billion offshore in their

three years in power while bleeding the nation’s financialreserves dry. Interim officials warned of economic col-lapse if the West didn’t offer aid. “The state treasury hasbeen plundered and the country has been brought tobankruptcy,” Mr. Yatsenyuk told a February 24 meeting ofstate officials, three days before he was elected prime min-ister to lead the the interim government that would serveuntil the next government was formed after the presiden-tial elections.

Upon his election as prime minister, Mr. Yatsenyukdeclared it “the government of political kamikazes,” not-ing, “We stand before inconceivable economic challengesand in order to conquer them I declare from this high tri-bune: we don’t have any other way out besides makingextremely unpopular decisions.”

On February 25 the Verkhovna Rada overwhelminglybacked a resolution saying Mr. Yanukovych, former

Internal Affairs Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko, formerProcurator General Viktor Pshonka and others should betried at the ICC for “crimes against humanity” committedduring the brutal crackdown on anti-government protest-ers. That same day marked the beginning of the presiden-tial election campaign.

Speaking at a news conference in the southern Russiancity of Rostov-on-Don on February 28, the ousted Mr.Yanukovych stated: “The time has come for me to say thatI intend to continue the fight for the future of Ukraine

Verkhovna Rada Chair Oleksander Turchynov, also theacting president of Ukraine, addresses the Maidan onFebruary 26. That night the nominations of members of

the interim government were announced.

Aleksey Ivanov/UNIAN


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against those who are trying, through terror and fear, totake charge over it.” He denied that he had been removedfrom power, maintaining that he had been forced to leavebecause of direct threats to his safety. “I was forced toleave Ukraine because of an immediate threat to my lifeand the life of my loved ones,” he claimed, vowing toreturn once he received guarantees of his safety.

Shortly after that, Russian Ambassador to the United

Nations Vitaly Churkin said Ukraine’s ousted presidenthad sent a letter to President Putin requesting that he usethe Russian military to restore law and order in his coun-try. Speaking at the U.N. Security Council’s March 3 emer-gency meeting on the situation in Ukraine, he quoted fromthe letter dated March 1: “I would call on the president ofRussia, Mr. Putin, asking him to use the armed forces ofthe Russian Federation to establish legitimacy, peace, lawand order, stability and defending the people of Ukraine.”At that same emergency session, Ukraine’s U.N.Ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev said Russia had deployedsome 16,000 additional troops to the region since the pre-vious week. Russia had poured troops into Crimea, takingover practically all of Ukraine’s military facilities.

Ukraine continued to press its case at the UnitedNations, as meeting after meeting of the Security Councilwas called. Ambassador Sergeyev said Russia was telling

“bold-faced lies” as it continued toward its goal of takingover Crimea. Such lies included references to the Russian-speaking population being threatened and its rights vio-lated; the presence of anti-Semites and Nazis in the inter-im government of Ukraine; and statements that referredto Russian self-defense forces, and not Russian military, asbeing on the ground in Ukraine. Russia, he explained, wasemploying “the combined scenarios of Ossetia andAbkhazia” in Ukraine. He said Russia has distributedRussian passports and citizenship to residents of Crimeaand was claiming the right to come in to protect its citi-zens. He also noted that, because Crimean Tatars andUkrainians had said they would boycott the March 16 ref-erendum on Crimea’s status, Russians and pro-Russianseparatists would deliver a majority vote for Crimea tojoin the Russian Federation.

Soon thereafter, on March 6, European CouncilPresident von Rompuy announced the EU would sign thepolitical portion of its Association Agreement withUkraine before the presidential election, saving the freetrade pact for afterwards. The Group of Seven told Russiaon March 12 that it risked facing international actionunless it stopped its moves toward the annexation ofCrimea. And Ukraine, led by acting President Turchynov,was preparing for a Russian invasion of its mainland as itsarmed forces were activated into full combat readiness.

The day after the staged referendum on the Crimeaseceding from Ukraine and joining the Russian Federation,on March 17, President Putin recognized Crimea as anindependent state in defiance of the international commu-nity’s insistence that it remain part of Ukraine. On March18 Mr. Putin and Crimean leaders signed treaties makingUkraine’s Crimea and the city of Sevastopol part of theRussian Federation. Mr. Putin said to a standing ovationthat “in the hearts and minds of people, Crimea has always

been and remains an inseparable part of Russia.”In Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a statement on

the guarantees of the rights of the Crimean Tatar peoplewithin Ukraine. The document also recognized CrimeanTatars as an indigenous people within Ukraine and recog-nized the Mejlis and the Kurultai as governing bodies of theCrimean Tatar people. Crimean Tatars and others werereported to be leaving Crimea, and the Ukrainian mainlandwas making preparations to host the refugees.

Prime Minister Yatsenyuk joined the European Unionleadership on March 21 in Brussels in signing the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, a historic event that markedKyiv’s return to Western civilization. The agreementclosed the door to Kyiv’s membership in the EurasianEconomic Union being launched by the Russian govern-ment. Yet the signing was an anticlimactic event that drewlittle celebration in Ukraine given that it had required a

violent overthrow of a dictatorial president and the deathof more than 100 Euro-Maidan activists. The EU andUkrainian leadership also deliberately played down thesigning ceremony in light of the Russian invasion ofCrimea that could lead to further unrest in the southeast-ern oblasts of Ukraine. The Association Agreement wasformally ratified by Ukraine and the European Parliamenton September 16. The legislation gained 79 percent sup-port among the national deputies in Kyiv and 77 percentin Strasbourg, France. “The readiness to give one’s life and

die for your fatherland is considered to be very natural,but the Heavenly Brigade and 872 courageous Ukrainiansoldiers died not only for Ukraine. They risked their headsso that we could take our dignified place in the family ofEuropean peoples,” said President Poroshenko, who hadbeen elected on May 25. “Since World War II, no nationever paid such a high price for the right to be Europeans.”One negative note was that the actual implementation of

the Deep and Free Trade Area was postponed untilJanuary 1, 2016, as a result of Russia’s threat to launch atrade war against Ukraine.

On March 24, leaders from the G-7 suspended theirparticipation in the G-8 with Russia – “until Russia chang-es course” – and expressed support for the Ukrainian gov-ernment. A strongly worded statement demanded thatRussia “respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sover-eignty, begin discussions with the government of Ukraine,and avail itself of offers of international mediation andmonitoring to address any legitimate concerns.”

As Russian forces invaded Ukraine, RFE/RL reported onwar on another front – in the sphere of information.Russian media and leading political figures were shrill intheir denunciations of “fascists” in Kyiv and their claims ofanti-Semitic incidents, of attacks on ethnic Russians in theeastern reaches of Ukraine and of floods of beleaguered

refugees streaming across the border into Russia. RFE/RL’sRobert Coalson wrote on March 5: “But much of this infor-mation is demonstrably false, emerging from unsourcedmedia reports, then making its way into the statements ofRussian politicians, and even into Western media reports.Events are echoing the 1997 U.S. film ‘Wag the Dog,’ inwhich spin-doctors use the media to whip up support for anonexistent war. ‘This is how wars get started. As they say,“truth is the first casualty of war” and we are really seeingthat with the way Russia is handling this,’ says CatherineFitzpatrick, a writer and translator who has been live-blog-ging events in Ukraine for Interpretermag.com. ‘I thinkthey are really irresponsible. They are inciting a lot ofhatred and whipping up a lot of panic. People in places likeKharkiv are watching Russian TV. They may be watchingalso local TV, but they are dependent on Russian TV and alot of it is not checking out.’ ”

On April 10, Freedom House President Kramer

weighed in: “Kremlin propaganda is trying to paint every-thing that is happening in Ukraine as being caused by fas-cists and extremists. I have not seen evidence of that. I dorecognize that there are some parts of the opposition thatare viewed as far-right, but I don’t see them playing adominant role in the current political situation.” Speakingat a press conference in Kyiv, he also praised the actions ofRight Sector and Svoboda leaders who, in his opinion, hadmade efforts to reach out to certain communities and dis-pel the notion that they are anti-Semitic or anti-Russian.The expert said it was necessary to keep an eye on theactions of Right Sector and Svoboda activists, but it wasmore important to fight the Russian propaganda.

Meanwhile, NATO members on April 1 released a state-ment in which they declared: “We, the foreign ministers ofNATO, are united in our condemnation of Russia’s illegalmilitary intervention in Ukraine and Russia’s violation of

Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We do notrecognize Russia’s illegal and illegitimate attempt to annexCrimea. We urge Russia to take immediate steps, as set outin the statement by the NATO-Ukraine Commission, toreturn to compliance with international law and its inter-national obligations and responsibilities, and to engageimmediately in a genuine dialogue towards a political anddiplomatic solution that respects international law and

Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders. …” The dec-laration also said NATO and Ukraine would intensify theircooperation in the framework of the DistinctivePartnership and would implement immediate and longer-term measures in order to strengthen Ukraine’s ability toprovide for its own security.” At the same time, NATO saidit was suspending “all practical civilian and military coop-eration between NATO and Russia” but would continuepolitical dialogue in the NATO-Russia Council.

As the pre-term presidential election approached, itbecame evident that Mr. Petro Poroshenko was favored towin. According to a poll released in late March by four ofUkraine’s leading polling firms, the chocolate king enjoyeda commanding lead over his top rival, former PrimeMinister Yulia Tymoshenko. Almost 25 percent of eligiblevoters said they’d cast their ballots for Mr. Poroshenkocompared to more than 8 percent for Ms. Tymoshenko. In

a second-round runoff, he would earn 46 percent com-pared to her 12 percent. Another contender, boxing leg-end Vitali Klitschko, earned 9 percent in the poll. But heannounced on March 29 that he was withdrawing hispresidential candidacy to support Mr. Poroshenko, who inturn would support Mr. Klitschko’s candidacy in the Kyivmayoral election, to be held the same day. “We are pledg-ing to fulfill the politics of European reforms, which willensure the guaranteed protection of human rights andfreedom, rule of law, economic development, free enter-prise, uprooting corruption and conducting a policy ofsocial justice,” said a declaration of unity signed by Messrs.Poroshenko and Klitschko published on March 29 on Mr.Poroshenko’s Facebook page.

On April 4, the Central Election Commission completedthe registration of candidates for president of Ukraine.There were 23 of them, including seven nominated by polit-ical parties and 16 independents. The candidates nominat-

ed by their parties were: People’s Movement of Ukraineleader Vasyl Kuibida, Communist Party leader PetroSymonenko, Batkivshchyna leader Ms. Tymoshenko, CivilPosition Party leader Anatoliy Grytsenko, Svoboda leaderMr. Tiahnybok, Ukrainian People’s Party leader OleksandrKlymenko and Radical Party leader Oleh Liashko.

The violence continued in Ukraine’s east as pro-Rus-sian activists took control of state buildings in several cit-ies in early April. In Donetsk they declared an indepen-dent republic on April 7 and invited Russian soldiers toensure a referendum on joining the Russian Federation,just as in Crimea three weeks earlier. Buildings were takenover also in such cities as Kharkiv, Luhansk and Mykolayiv.The Ukrainian government said the Russian governmentwas responsible for inciting the violence. The Ukrainiangovernment and media offered ample evidence that Mr.Putin had dispatched armed saboteurs to the Ukrainian

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of Ukraine and European Council President Herman von Rompuy at the sign-ing of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union on March 21 in Brussels.

Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine


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mainland starting on April 12. As of April 17, 20 govern-ment buildings in the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkivoblasts were under rebel control.

Mr. Putin denied the presence of his forces in Ukraine,just as he had with Crimea a month earlier. Yet that didn’tstop him from revealing his plans for Ukraine during anApril 17 live TV broadcast. He indicated that, at a mini-mum, he intended to separate the eight oblasts of south-eastern Ukraine, a region that he dubbed “Novorossiya.”But he also hinted at the annexation of all of Ukraine,when he said that Ukraine and Russia were “part of a sin-gle space” and “a single people.”

Also on April 17, a joint statement was released inGeneva to address the crisis in Ukraine. Signed by Ukraine,Russia, the United States and the European Union, it was avaguely worded agreement to end the violence, de-escalatetensions and restore security. “All illegal armed groupsmust be disarmed; all illegally seized buildings must bereturned to legitimate owners; all illegally occupied streets,squares and other public places in Ukrainian cities andtowns must be vacated,” the statement said. It containednot a word about the removal of Russian forces fromUkraine’s territory or the preservation of Ukraine’s territo-rial integrity, nor did it address the annexation of Crimea.

And the violence continued. Peaceful protesters whoadvocated the unity of Ukraine were savagely attacked inDonetsk on April 28. The pro-Ukraine mayor of Kharkiv,Hennadii Kernes, survived an assassination attempt thatsame day. In Odesa, street fights broke out on May 2between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian fighters and a

blaze in the local trade unions building killed 31 of the pro-Russian camp who had taken refuge there, attacking thepro-Ukrainians with firearms and Molotov cocktails. TheOdesa street fights were provoked by about 200 pro-Rus-sian provocateurs, who attacked more than 1,000 peacefulpro-Ukrainian protesters – many of them ChornomoretsOdesa soccer fans – with bats, chains and guns, pravda.com.ua reported. The pro-Russian forces swelled through-out the day, unrestrained by local police as they engaged inviolence. Meanwhile, in Sloviansk, which had been takenover by pro-Russian fighters, the Ukrainian governmentlaunched an anti-terrorist operation (ATO).

On May 11, a “referendum” on sovereignty was held inthe Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Verkhovna Rada Chairand acting President Turchynov said on May 12 that only24 percent of residents of the Luhansk Oblast and 32 per-cent in the Donetsk Oblast who had the right to vote had

done so. Mr. Turchynov underlined that voting in manytowns of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts was not held atall. Mr. Turchynov stressed that the “referendum” was afarce that violated law. “This farce can have only one conse-quence: criminal responsibility for its organizers,” headded. RFE/RL cited ample evidence of ballot tamperingand noted that voters were not even sure what they werevoting for as the paper ballots asked if they support the“act of self-rule.” The “separatists” announced that the votein the Donetsk Oblast was 89.07 for the Donetsk People’s

Republic, while in the neighboring Luhansk region it was96 percent for that local republic. They claimed voter turn-out was around 75 percent in each oblast.

Pro-Russian forces in Ukraine’s east attempted to derailthe May 25 presidential vote, but they were successfulonly in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Armed fighterstook over half of the 12 district election commissions(DEC) in the Luhansk Oblast, preventing their functioning,reported the Central Election Commission. In the DonetskOblast , they took over six of 22 DECs, with five underthreat of being captured. Kidnappings occurred of DECchairs in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, where resi-dents had been terrorized for weeks by armed pro-Rus-sian separatists.

The presidential election was hailed by Western lead-ers as successful, free and fair. Mr. Poroshenko was electedas Ukraine’s fifth president, earning nearly 55 percent ofthe vote – enough to avoid a run-off with Ms. Tymoshenko,who got 13 percent of the vote. She was trailed by Mr.Liashko (Radical Party), 8.32 percent; Mr. Grytsenko (CivilPosition Party), 5.48 percent; Sergey Tigipko (self-nomi-nated), 5.23 percent; Mykhailo Dobkin (Party of Regions),3.03 percent. Fifteen other candidates were on the ballot,barely registering support. Voter turnout was 60 percent,even with people in the Donbas being prevented fromgoing to the polls. “This was the most important electionin independent Ukraine’s history,” said a statement fromthe election-observing mission of the National DemocraticInstitute that was read at a May 26 press conference inKyiv by its chair, Madeleine K. Albright. “By turning out to

vote yesterday across the vast majority of the country,Ukrainians did more than elect a new president. Theyshowed the world their commitment to sovereignty, unityand democracy.”

The Kyiv mayoralty was handily won by Mr. Klitschkowith 56 percent of the vote, compared to 8 percent for therunner-up, 32-year-old Lesia Orobets, a national deputy.

His UDAR party won 39 percent of the seats for the KyivCity Council, compared to 7 percent for runner-upSamopomich, a party founded and led by Lviv MayorAndrii Sadovyi.

Mr. Poroshenko was inaugurated as Ukraine’s fifthpresident on June 7 amidst unprecedented challenges forindependent Ukraine that threatened its very existence.Inauguration day ceremonies drew 56 foreign delegations

to Kyiv, including U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, CanadianPrime Minister Stephen Harper and European CouncilPresident von Rompuy, as well as representatives ofUkraine’s political and business elite, including billion-aires Rinat Akhmetov of Donetsk and Igor Kolomoisky ofDnipropetrovsk.

Drawing the most public acclaim was Mr. Poroshenko’sinauguration speech in the Verkhovna Rada in which headdressed Ukraine’s crisis with Russia and set the priori-ties for the first year of his presidency, including concretesteps to resolve the war in Donbas. He outlined major pol-icies: Ukraine won’t relinquish its claim to Russian-occupied Crimea, Ukrainian will remain the single statelanguage, he is ready to sign the free trade portion of theEuropean Union Association Agreement. Mr. Poroshenkoalso spoke of his commitment to a parliamentary-presi-dential republic and early parliamentary elections,

amending the Constitution to accommodate governmentdecentralization, but rejecting any federalization of thecountry, and rebuilding the army with the support ofdomestic industry, which he identified as his top priority.

Mr. Poroshenko directly addressed the residents of theDonbas in the Russian language, assuring them that theUkrainian government wouldn’t abandon them in thesedifficult times. “With what will I, as president, come to youin the nearest future?” the president asked rhetorically.“With peace. With a draft of decentralizing power. Withthe guarantee of free use of the Russian language in yourregion. With the firm intention not to divide Ukrainiansbetween those who are right and wrong.”

Just over a week after the inauguration, Ukraineobserved a day of mourning for the 49 soldiers killedwhen pro-Russian separatists shot down a military trans-port plane. President Poroshenko declared the day ofmourning on June 15 and vowed a firm response againstthose who shot down the aircraft early on June 14 as itapproached the airport in Luhansk. “Ukraine is in sorrow,but we strongly continue the struggle for peace.”

The new president on June 19 completed the formationof his new team when Parliament approved his nomina-tions for three key posts: Pavlo Klimkin as foreign affairsminister, Vitalii Yarema as procurator general and ValeriaGontareva as National Bank of Ukraine chair. He alsonamed new staff at the Presidential Administration.

In a June 21 address to the people of Ukraine, Mr.Poroshenko explained his peace plan, which included animmediate unilateral ceasefire to last one week. “Theseare decisive days that present a good chance for a peacefulsettlement,” he said. The plan also included an “amnestyfor those members of illegal armed formations who didn’tkill civilians or Ukrainian soldiers, who will lay down theirweapons”; the release of all hostages; the opening of “a

corridor for the escape of Russian mercenaries to theirmotherland,” but on one condition: “that they leavemachine guns, tanks and armored vehicles here”; libera-tion of administrative buildings in the Donetsk andLuhansk regions, and restoration of order and functioningof local authorities; and the beginning of political dialogue.He underscored that “the issue of the territorial integrityof Ukraine is not open to discussion,” although he prom-ised decentralization of power, with Ukrainian regionsgaining more rights and authority. The Donbas, he saidwould not be left to deal with its problems alone. “Notonly Ukraine, but also the EU will come to help. We willhelp to restore the infrastructure destroyed by militants.At the cost of the state, we will restore housing destroyedduring combat actions, we will restore workspaces.Donbas residents will have a place to return, to live and towork.”

President Poroshenko’s ATO had some success in earlyJuly when Ukraine’s armed forces liberated from pro-Rus-sian terrorists their war-torn strongholds of Kramatorskand Sloviansk in the Donetsk Oblast. The cities’ liberationinvolved the army and National Guard volunteers, the pres-ident said in a July 5 televised address to the nation. Thatday, 10 soldiers were injured and none killed, largelybecause the terrorists willfully abandoned these cities anddispersed throughout the region, including the city ofDonetsk. “This is the beginning of a breakthrough in the

Petro Poroshenko and his wife, Maryna, cast their ballots on election day, May 25.

1st Lt. Nadiya Savchenko in a photo posted on July 10by RFE/RL.

Facebook/Petro Poroshenko

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struggle with fighters for the territorial integrity of Ukraineand for a return to the normal life of Donbas, which is aninseparable part of our large, strong, European country,” hesaid. The success in retaking control of Kramatorsk andSloviansk boosted the popularity of Mr. Poroshenko, whowas under mounting criticism for acting slowly in theDonbas, prompting thousands to crowd Kyiv’s Maidan toprotest his actions just a week before the victories.

By mid-year, the war’s toll was keenly felt by refugeesfrom the war zone. There were now more than 46,000internally displaced persons – about 11,000 of them fromCrimea. President Poroshenko ordered the creation ofhumanitarian corridors so civilians could flee areas worsthit by the conflict, and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyukinstructed his government to create a nationwide data-base of refugees to facilitate relief efforts.

Among those most affected were the Crimean Tatars.Many had fled the Russian-occupied peninsula, whilethose who remained were subjected to a campaign ofharassment and intimidation that included abductions,torture and killings. Crimean Tatar leader MustafaDzhemilev was barred from entering Crimean, and his sonwas arrested and taken to Russia, where he was accusedof murder and weapons possession. The elder Mr.Dzhemilev was quoted on October 1 as saying “the

Crimean Tatar nation is now in a most complicated anddangerous position since it has always spoken out againstthe illegal occupation [of Crimea by Russia].”

At the same time, the terrorists in Ukraine’s east weretaking prisoners. 1st Lt. Nadiya Savchenko, 33, was cap-tured on June 18 by Russian-backed forces in Ukraine’sLuhansk region and then illegally transferred in July toRussia. The Ukrainian pilot was charged with complicityin the deaths of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine– spurious charges that are nothing less than a bold-facedlie. After she was abducted – the Ukrainian officer says shewas captured by pro-Russian forces, hooded and hand-cuffed, and then smuggled across the border to Russia –Lt. Savchenko was jailed and subjected to a psychologicalexamination at Moscow’s Serbsky Institute, notoriousduring the Soviet era for its treatment of dissidents, whereshe was held for a month. She remains in pre-trial deten-

tion. In the meantime, she was elected on October 26 tothe Verkhovna Rada, running as No. 1 on the list of theBatkivshchyna Party, and she was chosen as one of the 12deputies representing Ukraine in the ParliamentaryAssembly of the Council of Europe. Lt. Savchenko began ahunger strike on December 13 to protest her imprison-ment and as the new year began, there was news that herhealth had begun to suffer. Her lawyers, who said theyhave ample evidence to prove her innocence, were work-ing to secure her release as well as recognition that she isa prisoner of war being held illegally by Russia.

Another prisoner being held by Russia was Ukrainianfilm director Oleh Sentsov, who was detained in Crimeaand accused of plotting terrorist attacks. The LefortovoDistrict Court’s spokeswoman said on July 7 that Mr.Sentsov’s pretrial detention had been prolonged. Mr.Sentsov and three other Ukrainian citizens were arrestedin May on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks in

Crimea’s major cities – Symferopol, Yalta and Sevastopol.In June the European Film Academy, the chairman of theUkrainian Association of Cinematographers, SerhiyTrymbach, and prominent Russian film director NikitaMikhalkov urged Russian President Vladimir Putin toassist in Mr. Sentsov’s release. At year’s end Mr. Sentsovwas awaiting trial in Russia.

Among those who gave their lives while defendingUkraine was a native New Yorker, Mark (Markian)Paslawsky, 55, who grew up in New Jersey and graduatedfrom West Point. He took Ukrainian citizenship in 2014and joined the Donbas battalion to fight the Russian-backed forces in the Donetsk region. Known as Franko, hewas killed in action on August 19. His funeral was held onAugust 26 at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church atAskold’s Grave in Kyiv. Mr. Paslawsky was buried Askold’sGrave, becoming only the second Ukrainian to be accorded

that honor. He was honored with a National Guard funeral,attended by members of his Donbas battalion, as well asfamily members who arrived from the United States, sev-eral hundred friends and other mourners who simplywanted to pay their respects to a man they’d never metbut admired from what they’d heard.

The eulogy was delivered by Patriarch Sviatoslav of theUkrainian Greek-Catholic Church. “Mark was born in theU.S., which seems as the quietest and calm land on the earthtoday, where many of those who desire to save their skins

flee and save their lives,” said the patriarch. “But that wasnot the striving of the heart of our brother Mark. He trav-eled to Ukraine, became one of us here on our native landand had become our brother-in-arms in the struggle for afree and independent country. He became one of us even bycitizenship, sacrificing the convenient U.S. citizenship inorder to stand beside us in our present struggle.” Mr.Paslawsky attended St. John the Baptist Ukrainian CatholicSchool in Newark, N.J., and was a member of Plast UkrainianScouting Organization. Patriarch Sviatoslav said Plast mem-bers all over the world were at the funeral in prayer and inspirit; some attended the services in their Plast uniforms.

As if the fighting in Ukraine’s east was not enough, inmid-July came reports that a Malaysia Airlines flight with298 passengers and crew aboard was downed in Ukraine,some 35 miles from the border with Russia. The Boeing777 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. AUkrainian Internal Affairs Ministry adviser, AntonHerashchenko, claimed the plane had been shot down by aground-to-air missile. Both Ukrainian and Russian authori-ties denied shooting down the Malaysian passenger air-craft. President Poroshenko called the July 17 incident aterrorist act, and a statement on the presidential websitenoted: “…In recent days, this has become the third tragicaccident following AN-26 and SU-25 aircrafts of theUkrainian armed forces downed from the Russian territory.We do not exclude that this aircraft was also attacked andemphasize that the armed forces of Ukraine have not takenany actions to strike targets in the air. …All possible search-and-rescue operations are being carried out. President

Poroshenko addressed the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraineto set up an Emergency State Commission for the thoroughinvestigation of this tragedy. The president has invited theICAO [International Civil Aviation Organization] and otherinternational experts including Dutch and Malaysian repre-sentatives to join the investigation efforts. …”

U.S. intelligence officials said on July 22 that theybelieve pro-Russian rebels probably shot down the

Malaysia airliner over eastern Ukraine “by mistake.”According to RFE/RL, they said the passenger jet was like-ly downed by an SA-11 surface-to-air missile fire by therebels. While saying there was no direct link so far to theKremlin, the officials said Russia had “created the condi-tions” for the downing of the plane. Search and retrievaloperations at the crash site were hampered by the ongo-ing war in Ukraine’s east. In November, Dutch authoritiessaid recovery workers in the rebel-controlled region hadbegun to collect debris from the crash. The operation wasbeing carried out under the supervision of Dutch investi-gators and officials from the Organization for Security andCooperation in Europe (OSCE). Debris was first collectedat a location near the crash site before being taken toKharkiv and then to the Netherlands, as most of thosekilled were Dutch.

Back in Kyiv, the Cabinet of Ministers resigned and themajority coalition in the Verkhovna Rada collapsed on July24. Prime Minister Yatsenyuk blamed the government’s col-lapse on the failure of Parliament’s pro-EU factions to sup-port emergency measures to finance the state budget andconduct serious natural gas reforms. Earlier that day, theUDAR and the Svoboda parties declared they were aban-doning the parliamentary coalition. Mr. Yatsenyuk said, “It’sunacceptable that the coalition has collapsed, that billshaven’t been voted on and there’s nothing to pay soldiers,police, doctors, fill up APCs, the decision hasn’t been madeto fill Ukrainian natural gas tanks survive the winter and tofree ourselves from dependence on Russian gas.” He added:“When one coalition falls apart, the prime minister begins

the procedure of forming a new coalition, which means thathe is supposed to take the Communists and Party ofRegions. I won’t do that any under any circumstances. Thesecond, if there isn’t a new coalition and the current one col-lapsed, requires the government and prime minister toresign. I declare my resignation in relation to the collapse ofthe coalition and blocking of government initiatives.”

Also that week, the parliamentary faction of theCommunist Party of Ukraine (CPU) was liquidated as partof a broader campaign to outlaw the party after ample evi-dence surfaced that it had cooperated with the Russiangovernment in its annexation of Crimea and the war in theDonbas. A parliamentary majority of 232 national depu-ties voted on July 22 to approve legislation that created amembership quota for factions and provided for their liq-uidation if the quota was not met. The new rule directlyapplied to the Communist faction, which had been hemor-

rhaging national deputies since the Russian invasionbegan in March. “Its deputies have run away from it, peo-ple in the country have turned their backs on them,”National Deputy Viacheslav Kyrylenko, the bill’s sponsor,told the Rada. “That’s why we’re now simply required tofulfill this formality and give the parliamentary head theability to simply introduce regulatory order.” PresidentPoroshenko signed the bill the same day, and it becamelaw on July 24, when it was published in the Parliament’snewspaper, enabling Verkhovna Rada Chair Turchynov to

Mark Paslawsky, “Franko,” who was killed in action ineastern Ukraine on August 19.

RFE/RL via Facebook/Anton Gerashchenko

Petro Poroshenko takes the oath of office as Ukraine’s president on June 7.

Vladimir Gontar/UNIAN


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declare the CPU faction’s liquidation from the seventh con-vocation that morning. “It is a historic event,” he said. “Ihope that there won’t be any Communist factions in theUkrainian Parliament anymore.”

Then, a week later, the Verkhovna Rada voted toapprove amendments to the budget and tax code that ithad rejected earier, and it refused to accept the resigna-tion of Prime Minister Yatsenyuk. Mr. Yatsenyuk pushed to

get Ukrainian citizens to foot a larger bill for the armedforces and the reconstruction of ruined infrastructure inthe Donbas region. In particular, he targeted the biggestbusinessmen. As a result of the July 31 legislation, Mr.Yatsenyuk would be able to secure the next loan packageof $1 billion from the International Monetary Fund and$500 million from the World Bank, expected to be issuedin late August. Mr. Yatsenyuk and his Cabinet were toremain in their posts until after pre-term parliamentaryelections were held.

Also in late July, the European Union and the UnitedStates unveiled their toughest measures yet against Russiaover its support for separatists fighting government forcesin eastern Ukraine. European Council President vonRompuy said the measures will restrict access to EU capi-tal markets for Russian state-owned banks, impose anembargo on trade in arms, and restrict exports of dual-use

goods and sensitive technologies, particularly in the fieldof the oil sector. The U.S. Treasury Department addedthree banks to a list of sectoral sanctions and sanctionedone shipbuilding company in response to Russia’s actionsin Ukraine. The EU on July 29, and again on September 8,November 27 and December 18, added the names of moreindividuals and entities to a growing list of those subjectto sanctions over the Ukraine crisis. By year’s end, theEuropean Union’s lists of sanctions had expanded to over120 individuals and some 30 entities.

The sanctions were upped due to Russia’s role in theconflict in Ukraine and the holding of illegitimate elections

in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts on November 2.President Poroshenko, it should be noted, depicted thoseelections as “a farce at gunpoint” organized by “terroristorganizations” and underscored that they were not anexpression of the people’s will. Nonetheless, the newly“elected” leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’srepublics” (DNR and LNR) were sworn into office.

Before those “elections” were held, PresidentPoroshenko had travelled to Minsk on August 26 for thetrilateral summit that included leaders of Ukraine, theEuropean Union and the Eurasian troika (Russia, Belarusand Kazakhstan). The meeting participants discussed howto end the war, a new natural gas agreement and theremaining issues surrounding the Ukraine-EU AssociationAgreement. The players reached only minor arrange-

ments, which consisted of consultations between theUkrainian and Russian joint chiefs of staff and borderagencies to address the war, activating the work of a trilat-eral contact group to produce a road map for peace andrenewing gas talks.

Mr. Poroshenko also met one-on-one with Mr. Putin. Thetwo failed to agree to de-escalate the Donbas war or evenseriously discuss a ceasefire. Mr. Poroshenko reminded Mr.Putin of the need to release all hostages, as well as to closethe border to transfers of arms and military hardware fromRussia. These demands fell on deaf ears. While he shookhands with Mr. Poroshenko with one hand, Mr. Putin wasescalating the armed fighting with the other as the Russianforces accelerated the delivery of military hardware, armsand fighters, according to the press service of the Ukrainiangovernment’s ATO. Those reports were confirmed by theU.S. government. “The new columns of Russian tanks andheavy armaments that are crossing Ukraine’s border areevidence that a direct counteroffensive has already begun,”tweeted U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt onAugust 26, during the Minsk summit.

On September 5, agreement on a second ceasefire forUkraine’s east was reached in Minsk between formerPresident Leonid Kuchma, representing the Ukrainian gov-ernment, and the self-proclaimed leaders of the Donetskand Luhansk “people’s republics.” Among its 12 pointswere ceasing warfare, exchanging hostages and withdraw-ing Russian soldiers and hardware. The Russians nonethe-less continued their offensive, reportedly shelling the out-skirts of Mariupol with mortar fire, shooting up theDonetsk airport under Ukrainian control and evacuating avillage outside of Debaltseve in the Donetsk region in prep-aration for an attack on the town, our Kyiv correspondentreported in The Weekly’s September 14 issue. In that sameissue, a report from the Eurasia Daily Monitor headlined

“Mariupol says no to Novorossiya” noted the failure of Mr.Putin’s Novorossiya project to attract popular support insoutheastern Ukraine. Another RFE/RL report, datedOctober 8, noted that there is not even the pretense of hon-oring the truce that was supposed to pave the way for end-ing the conflict, as night after night, “separatists near theairport shell army positions inside the airport perimeter,and the soldiers respond with fire of their own.”

There was some good news in the realm of education,as President Poroshenko on July 31 signed into law the bill

“On Higher Education” passed by the Verkhovna Rada onJuly 1. The legislation was described by political observersas the first comprehensive, structural reform to beachieved since the Euro-Maidan movement. Among thelegislation’s biggest changes were provisions to involveuniversities in autonomously recognizing foreign diplomasand degrees (without ministry involvement); remove bar-riers for foreign professors, university faculty and studentselecting their rectors; and enhance university autonomy inmanaging finances. The reforms draw Ukrainian highereducation closer to European principles and standards,said Marta Farion, the president of the Kyiv-MohylaFoundation of America. She particularly credited the “per-severance and drive” of current Education and ScienceMinister Serhiy Kvit (previously president of the National

University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy), National TechnicalUniversity of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute Rector MykhailoZhurovskyi and Parliamentary Committee on Educationand Science Chair Lilia Hrynevych, who is also the deputychair of the Batkivshchyna party. “These are changes thatwill affect generations to come. The law makes it possibleto separate politics from education and to integrate highereducation with the world’s academic and research com-munity, making it possible for Ukrainian universities tocomply with ranking standards on an international level,”said Ms. Farion.

Other notable developments of 2014 in the VerkhovnaRada included the passage of the bill on lustration onSeptember 16 and the first anti-corruption bills onOctober 7.

And, the president, in his first major press conference,on September 25 assured the public that he genuinelywants reform. “I am certain we need to not simply walk,but run on the path to complicated, tectonic changes. TheUkrainian government and I, the Ukrainian president, cer-tainly have the political will,” he stated, while noting thatthese changes would not be pursued until after the pre-term parliamentary elections.

On August 27, President Poroshenko had signed adecree dismissing the Verkhovna Rada and setting earlyparliamentary elections for October 26. The election cam-paign began immediately. Mr. Poroshenko wasted no timein organizing a congress on August 27 for his Solidarnistparty, which had been an empty shell since it was regis-tered in 2000. The congress voted to rename the party thePetro Poroshenko Bloc, enabling voters to better recog-nize the pro-presidential party on their voting ballots.Yurii Lutsenko, the former internal affairs minister whobecame a political prisoner under the Yanukovych admin-istration, was elected the head of the Poroshenko Bloc.

The parliamentary elections would mark a turningpoint in Ukraine’s history: for the first time ever, pro-West-ern parties collectively gained more votes in the south-eastern oblasts, with the exception of Kharkiv and partial-ly occupied Donetsk and Luhansk. And for the first time inindependent Ukraine, the Communist Party would not berepresented in the Verkhovna Rada. “Colossal changeshave occurred in the consciousness of Ukrainians,” com-mented Olexiy Haran, a political science professor at theNational University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

OSCE monitors accompany experts to the site where the cockpit of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was found after theplane was downed on July 17.

OSCE/Evgeniy Maloletka

The semantics of invasionExcerpts from The Ukrainian Weekly’s editorial of

September 7, 2014.

…world leaders refuse to call the invasion ofUkraine by Russian forces an invasion. It’s been called“aggression,” a “deployment,” an “attack,” an “incur-sion.” …

Thankfully, there are those who do see the reality.Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and LindseyGraham of South Carolina said in a joint statement:“Russia’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine can only becalled one thing: a cross-border military invasion. Toclaim it is anything other than that is to inhabitPresident Putin’s Orwellian universe.” Democratic Sen.Robert Menendez of New Jersey likewise did not mincewords. Appearing on CNN from Kyiv on August 31, hesaid what we are seeing is “clearly an invasion”; he wasquoted by various news sources as saying the U.S.should supply arms to Ukraine’s military to defend thecountry and toughen sanctions against Russia. …

Thus, it was most distressing to hear PresidentBarack Obama’s August 28 description of the violencein Ukraine’s east. Though he was right in saying “Russiais responsible for the violence in eastern Ukraine. Theviolence is encouraged by Russia. The separatists aretrained by Russia. They are armed by Russia. They arefunded by Russia,” when pressed by a reporter onwhether the most recent escalation was an invasion, heducked: “I think in part because of the progress that youhad seen by the Ukrainians around Donetsk andLuhansk [a reference to the Ukrainian forces’ recentsuccess in the anti-terrorist operation], Russia deter-mined that it had to be a little more overt in what it hadalready been doing. But it’s not really a shift.”

… the U.S. and the West, including NATO (which isholding its summit in Wales as these words are beingwritten), must take a stronger stand against Russia’sinvasion of Ukraine and its absolute disregard for

international agreements and norms of behavior. AsThe Washington Post noted in yet another excellenteditorial on Ukraine: “Intentionally or not, the WhiteHouse and NATO are sending Mr. Putin the messagethat Ukraine can be sacrificed. …Russia’s aggression inUkraine poses a critical test to the Western alliance,and the war there is at a tipping point. The responsecannot be to cede Ukraine while trying to dissuade Mr.Putin from further conquests.”


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of political parties, the media, civil society and the interna-tional community. According to the UWC report, althoughthere were minor infractions and shortcomings, they didnot impact the election results. The government ofUkraine made an effort to ensure that the May 25 elec-tions would be transparent and conducted on the highestlevel, the UWC stated.

A few months later, the director of humanitarian mis-

sions at the UWC, Ulana Suprun, spent a week coordinatingcombat medical training at a Ukrainian fighter base in theDnipropetrovsk Oblast as part of the Patriot DefenceProgram launched in early May. This initiative providesUkrainian soldiers and fighters with improved First Aid Kitsand Combat Lifesaver Training that the Ukrainian militarydidn’t provide. With the Ukrainian government practicallybankrupt after the corruption of the administration of for-mer President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s armed forceswere in catastrophic shape and found themselves unpre-pared for a Russian military invasion in March. Soldierslacked the basic necessities for fighting a war, such as night-vision scopes, bulletproof vests, helmets, tents, sleepingbags, shovels, flashlights, boots and even camouflage cloth-ing. Other organizations, including the Organization for theDefense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine (ODFFU), the UnitedUkrainian American Relief Committee (UUARC) and manysmaller groups, as well as individual donors also raised

money for medical supplies for Ukraine.In July, the Weekly featured a story about the inspiring

Niepubliczna Szkola Podstawowa in Mokre, Poland, wherestudents attending kindergarten through sixth gradereceive curricular instruction in both Polish and Ukrainian.The heart and soul of this multicultural school is the Rev.Julian Felenczak, who hails from the village of Bortne inGorlice County of the Lemko region. The school populationconsists of 30 Polish, 30 Ukrainian and 30 mixed Polish-Ukrainian students. Although the study of Ukrainian isoptional, at least 50 percent of the students from Polishfamilies elect to study it. The school is working to raisefunds to maintain the school facilities and continue to culti-vate multicultural education in southeast Poland.

Also noteworthy this summer was the WFUWO’s sup-port of the United Nations campaign against human traf-ficking. In an effort to increase awareness of this issue, theUnited Nations designated July 30 as the first World Day

against Trafficking in Persons, promoting the message ofthe Blue Heart Campaign International. The goal of thismulti-year awareness campaign is to stop the traffickingof millions of women, men and children victims – a formof modern slavery – by encouraging people to take actionto prevent this crime.

The WFUWO has been a partner of the Blue HeartCampaign since its inception in 2008. In promoting theBlue Heart Campaign, the WFUWO joined forces withCanadian Member of Parliament Joy Smith, the award-winning journalist Victor Malarek and Rachel Durschlag,the executive director of Chicago Alliance Against SexualExploitation. Human trafficking is a global problem, and inUkraine it remains particularly acute. Despite significantefforts on the part of the Ukrainian government to elimi-nate human trafficking, according to a 2013 report pro-

duced by the research institute CARIM-East and financedby the European Union, Ukraine does not yet fully corre-spond to even minimum world standards in this field.

On July 10-12, the WFUWO’s annual meeting, held thistime in Paris, was attended by 35 delegates and guestsrepresenting eight countries. WFUWO President OrysiaSushko presented a detailed report of the past year’sactivities, which was accepted and received with enthusi-asm. During the formal portion of the meeting, two neworganizations submitted their intention to become mem-bers of the WFUWO and were approved: Ukrainians of theNetherlands and Ukraine Plus from Italy. As a result, theWFUWO now consists of 29 organizations from 18 coun-tries. Established in 1948 in Philadelphia, the WFUWOrepresents a spectrum of women’s organizations pursuingcivic, religious, cultural, educational, immigration and

humanitarian goals.Also in July, Dr. Sofia Fedyna, president of the World

Federation of Ukrainian Lemko Unions (SFULO), held alecture in Passaic, N.J., on “Ukraine after the Maidan” and“The Lemko Region in the Global Context.” Dr. Fedyna, anassistant professor of international relations and diplo-matic service at Lviv’s Ivan Franko University, took anactive part in the protests in Lviv. Her lecture, attended byapproximately 100 people, was held within the frame-work of the new “Lemko Coffee Talk” series organized bythe Organization for the Defense of Lemkivshchyna. Dr.Fedyna called on all Lemkos to come together during thiscritical time in Ukraine’s history. She told her audience,“Right now, the most important place from where ourroots cannot be torn, is in our hearts. And around our-selves we can build up our culture and our traditions,while at the same time enriching each country where welive. In Canada and the United States, you know what is

meant by the statement ‘we are rich in our diversity.’ ”On August 24, Ukrainians worldwide celebrated and

commemorated Ukrainian Independence Day – even inHong Kong. A short new item submitted to The Weeklyreported that about 30 people living or working in HongKong (many of whom are from Ukraine) celebrated theevent with a Ukrainian shashlyk-inspired Hong Kong-stylebarbecue. The evening included singing and entertain-ment and a local fund-raising effort for supplies for theUkrainian armed forces.

This fall, Russia’s role in the ongoing crisis in Ukraine tookcenter stage in Brisbane Australia, at the summit of theGroup of 20 (G-20), even though it was not a topic on theofficial agenda. On November 15-16, during the meeting ofthe world’s largest economies – 19 countries plus theEuropean Union – Canada’s Prime Minister Harper wasquoted by Canadian media as saying to Russian PresidentVladimir Putin, “Well, I guess I’ll shake your hand, but I only

have one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine.”Ukrainian Australians and their supporters, who held a

“Protest Against Putin” at King George Square outsideBrisbane City Hall on November 15, underlined this mes-sage. The president of the Australian Federation ofUkrainian Organizations, Stefan Romaniw, said, “We say toPutin: we democratic Australians are disgusted by yourpresence in Australia. We condemn your tyrant terrorism –be it your invasions of smaller countries, your responsibili-ty for those who destroyed MH17 and took Australian lives,

your provocative naval activity and your disregard forhuman rights.” In the aftermath of the summit in Brisbane,Mr. Romaniw called on G-20 leaders to match their stronganti-Putin rhetoric with strong anti-Putin action by provid-ing military assistance for Ukraine’s self-defense.“Ukraine’s fight is the world’s fight – and the world needsto invest in defending itself from Putin’s neo-imperialambitions and aggression,” Mr. Romaniw stated.

Also in November, the United Nations NGO Committeeon the Status of Women (CSW) in Geneva hosted an NGOForum that immediately preceded the United Nation’sEconomic Commission of Europe (ECE) conference. Closeto 700 representatives of 350 non-governmental organiza-tions from 56 countries of the ECE region convened for theNGO Forum to assess the progress made in implementingthe promises made to the women of the world in the

Beijing Platform for Action 1995, as it nears its 20-yearmark. Ukraine and many countries that are home to theUkrainian diaspora are included in the region embraced bythe ECE. The WFUWO was among the forum’s participants.

At the forum, 16 thematic roundtables were arrangedto correspond to the Beijing Platform’s 12 critical areas ofconcern for women (Poverty; Education and Training;Health; Violence against Women; Women and ArmedConflict; Economy; Power and Decision-Making;Advancement of Women; Human Rights of Women;Women and the Media; Women and the Environment; TheGirl Child). Participants in the roundtables from Ukraineand the Ukrainian diaspora included Natalia Karbowska ofthe Ukrainians Women’s Fund in Kyiv and KaterynaLevchenko of La Strada-Ukraine, who spoke about womenin power and decision-making, and women in armed con-flict. Oleksandra Kunovska Mondoux, the WFUWO’s mainrepresentative to the U.N. in Geneva, addressed the topic

of women and the media. At the conclusion of the meeting,the Geneva NGO Forum on Beijing +20 UN ECE Reviewpublished its Declaration and Recommendations with themotto “Every Woman, Every Right, Every Minute:Everyone is Responsible and the Time is Now.”

A day later, Ukraine’s government delegation at the U.N.ECE Beijing +20 Regional Review included Minister ofSocial Policy Liudmyla Denisova. She spoke frankly duringher presentation about the conflict in Ukraine, as well asthe current Ukrainian government’s commitment to gen-der equality. She made a special point of describingUkraine’s current challenges, especially as they relate tosafeguarding women and children, many of whom are suf-fering from complex life circumstances in the conflictzones of the country’s southeast territories controlled byillegally armed groups. The dire situation in Ukraineevoked sympathetic references from the president of theNGO CSW Geneva, and the undersecretary general and

executive director of U.N. Women, as well as overt supportfrom the participants of the conference.

Finally, in mid-December, members of the Ukrainiancommunity in Melbourne, Australia, welcomed UkrainianPresident Petro Poroshenko and Australian PrimeMinister Tony Abbott in their midst, and prayed for peaceand unity in Ukraine during the president’s visit .

Ulana Suprun (center) with a group of Ukrainian and international (U.S., U.K. and Czech) trainers on July 16 at a base

on the border between Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk. The Ukrainians were certified as Combat Lifesaver (CLS) trainers.

“2014: The Year in Review” continues in next week’s

issue.

The Ukrainian community in Melbourne, Australia,welcomes President Petro Poroshenko on December 11.

Courtesy of Anna Kaminskyj and Sonja van de Camp


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Starting off 2014 in the realm of U.S.-Ukraine rela-tions, was news that leaders representing more thana dozen Ukrainian American organizations met at the

White House with President Barack Obama’s seniornational security staff to discuss the crisis in Ukraine.They urged the Obama administration to take strongaction in support of democracy in Ukraine and to send afirm message of support to those gathered throughoutUkraine in opposition to government corruption and vio-lence against its citizens. The non-partisan meeting heldon January 3 was initiated by the co-chairs of Ukrainian-Americans for Obama, Julian Kulas, Andrew Fedynsky andUlana Mazurkevich, as well Alexandra Chalupa, co-conve-ner of the National Democratic Ethnic CoordinatingCommittee. The Obama administration was representedby Karen Donfried, special assistant to the president andsenior director of European affairs at the National SecurityCouncil (NSC), and Lyn Debevoise, director for Central andEastern European Affairs at the NSC.

Although several participants were unable to attend dueto a severe snow storm that hit parts of the Midwest and

the Northeast, among the groups invited to representUkrainian Americans were the Ukrainian CongressCommittee of America, Ukrainian National InformationService, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, United UkrainianAmerican Relief Committee, Ukrainian Human RightsCommittee, Ukrainian National Association, UkrainianNational Women’s League of America, Ukrainian AmericanBar Association, Kyiv Mohyla Foundation of America andthe Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches.Many other Ukrainian American organizations participatedbehind the scenes leading up to the meeting, helping toshape the group’s message to the Obama administration.Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), co-chair of the CongressionalUkrainian Caucus, was represented by her aide, AllisonJarus. Dr. James Zogby, chair of the Democratic NationalCommittee’s Ethnic Council, also attended.

Then, on January 7, the U.S. Senate unanimously passeda resolution “expressing support for the Ukrainian people

in light of President [Viktor] Yanukovych’s decision not tosign an Association Agreement with the European Union.”Senate Resolution 319 was sponsored by Sen. ChrisMurphy (D-Conn.) and had 10 co-sponsors, Democratsand Republicans alike. The resolution noted that: “theabrupt reversal on the eve of the summit followingRussian economic coercion and to protect the narrowinterests of some officials and individuals in Ukraineprompted hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians all acrossthe country, especially young people and students, to pro-test the decision and stand in support of furtheringUkraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration.” The resolution also

said the Senate: “condemns the decision by Ukrainianauthorities to use violence against peaceful demonstratorson November 30, December 1, and December 11, 2013,and calls for those responsible to be swiftly brought to jus-tice and all detained nonviolent demonstrators to beimmediately released; and notes that in the event of fur-ther state violence against peaceful protesters, the presi-dent and Congress should consider whether to apply tar-geted sanctions, including visa bans and asset freezes,against individuals responsible for ordering or carryingout the violence.”

On January 15, the Senate Foreign Relations Committeeheld a hearing on the crisis in Ukraine which included tes-timony by Assistant Secretary for European and EurasianAffairs Victoria Nuland and Deputy Assistant SecretaryThomas Melia of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights

and Labor, as well as former U.S. national security advisorand recognized expert on this region Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Secretary Nuland, who personally met with PresidentViktor Yanukovych, as well as with the protesters on themaidan, when she visited Kyiv in December 2013, said,“Like the vast majority of Ukrainians, the United Statesand our partners in the European Union want to see thecurrent stand-off resolved politically, democratically andabove all, peacefully,” adding that the last point applies toboth the government and protesters alike. “However, theuse of violence and acts of repression carried out by gov-ernment security forces and their surrogates have com-

pelled us to make clear publicly and privately to the gov-ernment of Ukraine that we will consider a broad range oftools at our disposal if those in positions of authority inUkraine employ or encourage violence against their owncitizens,” she added.

Assistant Secretary Nuland expressed the Obamaadministration’s gratitude for the Senate’s leadership roleon Ukrainian issues and for passing on January 7 SenateResolution 319, which “sent a strong, bipartisan messageof concern and support to the Ukrainian people at a keymoment,” she said. She also thanked and commended twosenators participating in the hearing – Sens. John McCain(R-Ariz.) and Murphy – “for bringing that bipartisan sup-port directly to the people of Ukraine on a key weekend inDecember, and engaging with President Yanukovych, his

government, the opposition, the business community andcivil society in support of a peaceful, democratic way outof the crisis.” She underscored, “The people of Ukrainesaw America stand up with them at a critical momentwhen they could have felt very alone.”

Dr. Brzezinski pointed out that Russia’s Vladimir Putinsees Ukraine as a “strategic state,” without which building aRussian “supranational empire” is impossible. But that isnot the way the young generation of Ukrainians who grewup in an independent Ukraine view their country. “Theyfeel themselves to be Ukrainians,” Dr. Brzezinski explained,adding that Mr. Putin displays his historical ignorancewhen he perceives Ukraine and Russia as one nation.

Sen. McCain said Ukraine is a country that wants to beEuropean. “They don’t want to be Russian – this is whatit’s all about.” The Russians have bullied them and contin-ue to do so, using Ukraine’s need to import Russian energyresources, banning the import of Ukrainian chocolates to

Russia and taking advantage of corruption – “which isrampant in Ukraine” – to its advantage. “This is aboutwhether we will stand up for the Ukrainian people,” Sen.McCain said. “We want to be assisting morally theUkrainian people for seeking what we want everybody onthis earth to have.”

The ranking member of the committee, Sen. Bob Corker(R-Tenn.), repeatedly criticized President Obama’s admin-istration for not pursuing an active policy with respect toUkraine. “In my view, what has transpired in Ukraine isone of the most recent examples of where U.S. leadershipat the right moment could have been decisive,” he said.“Apparently overly concerned with offending Russia, theadministration seems to have somehow made the calcula-tion initially that a passive response might yield morethan assertive U.S. leadership.”

The hearing was conducted by the chairman of the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. RobertMenendez (D-N.J.), who said “this committee isn’t deaf tothose brave people whose capacity for hope and appetitefor freedom has compelled them to take to the streets. Theworld is, indeed, watching.”

On the day after the Verkhovna Rada passed a contro-versial law aimed at curtailing protest demonstrations inUkraine, Secretary of State John Kerry voiced his positionon it to the press in his remarks prior to a January 17meeting with Greek Foreign Affairs Minister Evangelos

U.S.-Ukraine relations:more important than ever

Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland testifies on January 15 about developments in Ukraine before the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sitting next to her is Deputy Assistant Secretary Thomas Melia.

U.S. Ambassador to the United NationsSamantha Power on March 4 delivered apowerful statement setting the recordstraight on Russia’s aggression and its“dangerous military intervention in

Ukraine.”

U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt lights a candle at a memorial erectedon Institytutska Street, commenting: “Renewed democracy can ensurethey did not die in vain.” The U.S. Embassy on February 20 issued amessage of condolences to the families of those killed in recent vio-lence in Kyiv. The photo above was posted on the U.S. Embassy Kyiv

Facebook page on February 25.

Yaro Bihun

U.S. Mission to the U.N.


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Venizelos at the State Department. “The legislation thatwas rammed through the Rada without transparency andaccountability violates all the norms of the OSCE[Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe]and the EU [European Union],” with whom the Ukrainianpeople want be associated with in the future, he said. “Sowe will continue to stay focused on this issue, but this kindof anti-democratic maneuver is extremely disturbing andshould be a concern to every nation that wants to see thepeople of Ukraine be able to not only express their wishbut see it executed through the political process.”

Two days later, the White House went a step further inexpressing its concern, and mentioned the possibility of

U.S. sanctions if things do not improve. In a statementreleased by the White House Press Office, National SecurityCouncil spokesperson Caitlin Hayden said: “We are deeplyconcerned by the violence taking place today on the streetsof Kyiv and urge all sides to immediately de-escalate thesituation.” She said that the increasing tension in Ukraine isa direct consequence of the government failing to acknowl-edge the legitimate grievances of its people. “Instead, it hasmoved to weaken the foundations of Ukraine’s democracyby criminalizing peaceful protest and stripping civil societyand political opponents of key democratic protectionsunder the law.” From its first days, the Euro-Maidan move-ment “has been defined by a spirit of non-violence, and wesupport today’s call by opposition political leaders to re-establish that principle,” Ms. Hayden said.

On January 23 and 27, Vice-President Joe Biden tele-phoned President Yanukovych to urge an immediate de-escalation in the standoff between protesters and securityforces in downtown Kyiv. The vice-president urged Mr.Yanukovych to take steps to end violence and to meaning-fully address the legitimate concerns of peaceful protest-ers, stressing the importance of the ongoing dialogue withthe opposition and the need for genuine compromise asthe only solution to the crisis. He also underscored thatthe U.S. condemns the use of violence by any side, warnedthat declaring a state of emergency or enacting otherharsh security measures would further inflame the situa-tion and called for a repeal of the anti-democratic lawspassed on January 16. These would be the first of manytelephone calls made by the vice-president to Ukrainianleaders during the course of the year. In fact, the vice-pres-ident became the Obama administration’s point man onUkraine.

In his State of the Union address on January 28,President Obama mentioned Ukraine in a single sentence.

The comment came in this paragraph: “Our alliance withEurope remains the strongest the world has ever known.From Tunisia to Burma, we’re supporting those who arewilling to do the hard work of building democracy. InUkraine, we stand for the principle that all people have theright to express themselves freely and peacefully and tohave a say in their country’s future. …”

On January 31, one week after dozens of journalistswere attacked by police in and around Kyiv’sIndependence Square, RFE/RL President and CEO Kevin

Klose and Broadcasting Board of Governors memberMatthew Armstrong arrived to denounce the violence andto press Ukrainian authorities to honor their internationalobligations to respect media freedom and ensure basicrights and protections for journalists. The two met withreporters at RFE/RL’s Kyiv bureau to laud their courageand commitment to reporting on the Euro-Maidan. OnJanuary 20, RFE/RL Ukrainian Service reporter DmytroBarkar and cameraman Ihor Iskhakov had suffered headinjuries from beatings by Berkut police fists and batons. “Afree society does not beat professional journalists whilethey are performing their duties,” commented Mr. Klose.

On February 1, Secretary of State Kerry told the Munich

Security Conference, an annual gathering of global politi-cal leaders and defense officials, that the Ukrainian peoplewere engaged in a fight for democracy. “While there areunsavory elements in the streets in any chaotic situation,the vast majority of Ukrainians want to live freely in a safeand a prosperous country, and they are fighting for theright to associate with partners who will help them realizetheir aspirations, and they have decided that that m

Year in review (by The Ukrainian Weekly) 2014

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