On September 22-23, Ukraine’s president Viktor Yanukovich will be in New York City to address the General Assembly at the United Nations. Since his election to office, the pro-Russian President has taken alarming steps to compromise Ukraine’s national identity and sovereignty. In the past few months we have witnessed: - the unconstitutional extension of the lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea; - the rising dependence on Russia to provide for Ukraine’s security and stability which poses a definite threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty - the denial of the Holodomor as an act of genocide and...

Beijing and Kiev signed 13 agreements on Thursday, the first day of the Ukrainian president's state visit to China, in what analysts are predicting could be the beginning of a new "Silk Road". The agreements marked a new beginning in the relationship between the two countries, which had come to a standstill under Ukraine's previous president Viktor Yushchenko. Apart from boosting their political relationship...

As Ukraine marks its Independence Day on August 24, one analyst says Kyiv's greatest accomplishment since independence has been "survival." But he adds that survival is not good enough. Andrew Wilson, the author of books like "The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation" and "Ukraine's Orange Revolution" and a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, talks to RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service correspondent Maryana Drach about the high and low points of the country's 19 years of statehood. RFE/RL: According to the latest opinion surveys, 45 percent of Ukrainians have doubts about whether Ukraine is truly an independent state. What is your view?

The mountainous terrain of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast in western Ukraine is nowadays a haven for pleasure-seeking hill walkers, berry pickers and wild boar hunters. But in the middle of the last century, the hills provided shelter for Ukrainian partisans fighting against Soviet occupation. These guerrillas would often live for weeks in hideouts high in the Carpathians. Some of these safe houses are well-preserved, restored and accessible at the end of a pleasant hill walk, taking in stunning views and providing a glimpse into one of the most violent chapters in Ukraine’s history...

The High Administrative Court of Ukraine has dismissed suits lodged by the coordinator of the Harmony and Order NGO Dmytro Hudyma to declare four decrees by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on awarding the Hero of Ukraine title to Soviet soldiers illegal and cancel them. What is especially astonishing about this dismissal is that Hudyma based his suit on the same arguments used by the Donetsk Administrative Court of Appeals, which, on April 21 upheld an appeal by the Donetsk Medical University’s professor Anatoliy Soloviev, that withdrew the Hero of Ukraine title from Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) Commander-in-Chief Roman Shukhevych on the grounds that...

The Ukrainian Canadian community held a flag- raising ceremony at Queen’s Park on Tuesday, August 24 at 12:00 noon in honour of the 19th Anniversary of the Restoration of the Independence of Ukraine. The event was organized by the Canadian Conference in Support of Ukraine (CCSU): League of Ukrainian Canadians ( LUC ), League of Ukrainian Canadian Women (LUCW) and Ukrainian Youth Association of Canada (CYM). The event is supported by the Consulate General of Ukraine in Toronto and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Toronto. Honoured guest speakers at the event included members of the provincial and federal parliaments, representatives of the Ukrainian government, the consular corps, Church and community leaders...

The Ukrainian parliament recently approved a new law pertaining to local elections scheduled for October 31, 2010. The law "On Elections of Deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Local Councils and Village, Settlement and City Mayors" (“the local election law”) has raised concerns among domestic and international experts as well as some members of the Central Election Commission and opposition parties. At least one party has filed a petition with the Constitutional Court seeking an order from the Court declaring certain provisions of the Law to be unconstitutional. The Law includes...

It is now over seventy years since the start of the Second World War, but stories of the atrocities committed by the Nazis during the war still resonate to this day. In the case of Kiev (in their language, Kyiv), the capital of Ukraine, the population was decimated during the war from 400,000 people to less than 100,000. While it might not have been specifically stated at any point, it appears evident that the Nazis' plan was to cull the population of Ukraine to make room for eventual German colonization. In such a terrible environment, the citizens tended to take their victories wherever they could, and in the case of the people of Kiev, their method of fighting back came in the form of football/soccer. However...

Coordinator of the NGO Onovlennia Krainy (Renewal of the Country) and ex-head of the Security Service of Ukraine Valentyn Nalyvaichenko has said that by denying the Holodomor, the famine of 1932-1993, the new head of the Ukrainian National Memory Institute (UNMI), Valeriy Soldatenko, is violating Ukrainian legislation and international law, the press service of Onovlennia Krainy reported on Thursday. Nalyvaichenko was commenting on a statement by Soldatenko that...

The Donetsk administrative court of appeal has ruled to revoke the resolution "On the free development and use of the Russian language in Donetsk Region,” which was adopted by the Donetsk regional council on 18 May 2006. Mariya Oleynyk, the deputy head of the Donetsk regional branch of the Ukrainian Taras Shevchenko association Enlightenment [Prosvita] and head of the Donetsk regional branch of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, has forwarded this ruling to UNIAN...