Ukrainian MPs scuffle in a chamber of parliament in a failed bid to block an agreement allowing the Russian navy to extend its lease at Ukraine's Sevastopol port until 2042 in return for cheap natural gas supplies from Russia The parliament in Kiev on Tuesday ratified a controversial agreement that will prolong the stay of Russia's Black Sea Fleet at a Ukrainian port in return for lower natural gas prices. The far-reaching agreement was adopted by a majority of lawmakers despite fierce clashes and attempts by the opposition to block it by hurling eggs and smoke bombs in...

Last August, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev sent a letter to his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yushchenko effectively breaking off relations with the neighbouring state until a new president had been elected. Just eight months later, Medvedev is celebrating a deal with Ukraine's new president, Viktor Yanukovych, that will keep the Russian Black Sea Fleet at the naval base of Sevastopol for at least 25 more years after the current lease expires in 2017. How did Russia manage to gain such a deal? And who are the beneficiaries? The Russian Black Sea Fleet has been at Sevastopol since...

Deputies scuffle during a session in the chamber of the Ukrainian parliament filled with smoke in Kyiv April 27, 2010. Photograph by: Gleb Garanich, Reuters Ukraine's parliament disintegrated into chaos Tuesday as MPs pelted the speaker with eggs, tossed smoke bombs and threw punches to protest the new government's deal to extend by 25 years the lease for Russia's Black Sea Fleet. The protests failed as the deeply divisive and controversial agreement, reached last week, was approved by a narrow margin in Kyiv and passed unanimously by all 410 deputies in Russia's lower house of parliament...

Swiftly carrying out his pledge to improve strained ties with neighboring Russia, the new Ukrainian president agreed to a landmark deal on Wednesday to extend the lease on a Russian naval base on Ukrainian territory. The decision by the Ukrainian president, Viktor F. Yanukovich, represented a sharp reversal in policy and a victory for the Kremlin, which had feared that its military readiness would be undermined if the base were closed. “We have opened a new page in relations,” Mr. Yanukovich said at a news conference in Kharkiv, in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, where the agreement was signed. But the lease extension drew criticism from Ukrainian opposition leaders...

Mr. Speaker, it's an honour for me to rise today and acknowledge the upcoming milestone celebrations on April 17 of two very important organization, namely, League of Ukrainian Canadians...

Last summer, the Canada-Ukraine archaeological expedition conducted research in the town of Baturyn in the Chernihiv oblast of Ukraine. From 1669 to 1708 Baturyn was the capital of the Cossack Hetmanate and the seat of the distinguished Cossack hetman Ivan Mazepa (1687–1709). It rivalled Kyiv and Chernihiv, the largest cities in central Ukraine. Baturyn’s rise was disrupted when Mazepa’s rebellion for the independence of the Hetmanate from Muscovy was brutally suppressed by Tsar Peter I. In 1708 the Russian army seized and burned Baturyn and massacred between 11,000 and 14,000 Cossacks and townspeople. Last year, excavations concentrated on the site of Mazepa’s residence in Honcharivka, a suburb of Baturyn...

The late Polish President Lech Kaczynski, killed with 95 other national leaders in an April 10 plane crash in Russia, had family ties to Ukraine. Unknown to most Ukrainians and Poles, the late president has two cousins living in Ukraine – Volodymyr Mokhnachov from Poltava and Yury Kuzmyn from Odessa. Mokhnachov’s father, Yaroslav, and Kyzmyn’s mother, Valentyna, were siblings to the Polish president’s mother, Jadwiga. The family was torn apart during World War II, Mokhnachov told the Kyiv Post on April 13. Both men will attend Kaczynski’s state funeral, which will be held in Krakow, Poland, on April 18. Kaczynski’s families preferred to stay quiet about their relationship with the Polish...

Viktor Yushchenko, the third President of Ukraine and the leader of Our Ukraine, has written a letter to Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament, in connection with the awarding of the title of “Hero of Ukraine” to Stepan Bandera. “Ukrainians should convey the truth to Europe and the rest of the international community about those who fought for our liberation,” his letter states. To Mr. Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament The return to Europe is one of the fundamental principles of the Ukrainian national idea. Ukraine’s integration into Euro-Atlantic structures is a development strategy that will be implemented regardless of the change in the country’s political leadership. This is a difficult path: in order to traverse it, the support of our European partners is crucial...

I am personally thankful to the people who are helping me in my hopeless position as a very ill person, be it in prison or here in the courtroom. Therefore, I especially thank the medical personnel who are very helpful in alleviating my major aches and pains and who help me to survive this trial which for me is torture. As a matter of fact, I point out the following: Germany is guilty of the war of destruction against the Soviet Union through which I lost my home and homeland. Germany is guilty of forcing me to become a prisoner of war...

I must admit that I was stumped. For a long time in the prelude to Ukraine’s presidential election, I didn’t quite get it. I knew that candidate Victor Yanukovych had retained the services of US presidential adviser David M. Axelrod’s public relations firm. I attributed that to good advice and financial resources. But a week prior to the election “The Financial Times” endorsed Viktor Yanukovych for president. I was confounded not only by the sheer endorsement but by the reasoning which was incongruous. FT painted a picture of a thug who tried to steal the 2004 election, said nothing positive about the thug, and concluded its editorial by endorsing him for the sake of political stability...