In September 2008, Ukraine seemed headed towards signing an Association Agreement with the European Union (EU) the following year, in 2009. Three years later, in 2011, the Agreement has still not been concluded. The latest obstacle to finalizing the process is the October 11, 2011, sentencing of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. A resolution passed by the European Parliament on October 27 describes the seven-year jail sentence given to Tymoshenko “as a violation of human rights and an abuse of the judiciary for the purpose of the political suppression of Ukraine's leading opposition politician.” The resolution also warns of the potential consequences for the EU-Ukraine relations: […] a failure to review Yulia Tymoshenko's conviction will jeopardise the conclusion of the Association Agreement and its ratification, while pushing the country further away from the realisation of its European perspective […] It remains to be...

A senior opposition lawmaker on Wednesday attacked the government for last week’s signing of a free trade agreement with Russia and other CIS nations that he says contains too many trade restrictions. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov surprised many by signing the agreement in St. Petersburg on Tuesday even though Ukraine had failed to persuade Russia to lift most of the restrictions. Mykola Tomenko, a deputy speaker of Parliament and a senior member of Batkivshchyna, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s opposition party, said the agreement was a waste of time. “Actually, what the prime minister has signed has nothing to do with the free market because the free trade agreement must have no exclusions and restrictions,” Tomenko said in an interview with Channel 5 television. “If we cannot sell to Russia our main commodities and cannot have normal relations in natural gas sector, then such agreement is not needed.” There were fears raised in Ukraine by opposition figures, including by former President Viktor Yushchenko, that the agreement with Russia and other CIS nations may be signaling a change in the government’s foreign policy away from seeking closer cooperation with the European Union...

An agreement on creation of the free trade area (FTA) between the CIS countries provides for reduction, not expansion of a list of goods, included into the FTA, President of the Association of Ukrainian Banks (AUB) Oleksandr Suhoniako has said, UKRINFORM reports. "Article 2 of the Agreement on the free trade zone provides for 40 pages of withdrawals from the free trade regime. This is actually "an agreement on withdrawals from the free trade area" rather than the free trade area agreement," he said. According to Suhoniako, the agreement provides for the use of import duties for goods from Ukraine by Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Russia, in particular, for sugar, vodka, sugar beet seeds and lactose. Also, export duties for Ukrainian goods are imposed as follows...

On Monday October 24th, the Ukrainian Canadian community held its inaugural Ukrainian Day on the Hill with a grand celebration of Ukrainian culture and heritage at the Government Conference Center on Parliament Hill. This event was coupled with two intense days of meetings between Ukrainian community leaders and political leaders, diplomats and government officials. The purpose of these meetings was to inform decision makers about a number of important issues to the Ukrainian Canadian community including: the 120th anniversary of Ukrainian settlement in Canada; the situation in Ukraine and the erosion of human rights and democracy in that country; Canada-Ukraine Free trade negotiations; the proposed content for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights; and immigration levels from Ukraine and visa processing. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) delegation included representatives from the Ukrainian National Federation (UNF), the League of Ukrainian Canadians (LUC), the Ukrainian-Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko (TSF), the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce (CUCC), the Ukrainian-Canadian Professional and Business Federation (UCPBF), and the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC). They held high level meetings with ...

Many children’s book heroes, just like Hollywood actors, enjoy international fame. Karlsson, Harry Potter and the Little Prince are perhaps the most famous of all on the imaginary walk of fame. But none of their adventures could have been enjoyed in Ukrainian without the talents of their translators. Several unseen magicians were able to balance the difficult task of converting the words into a new language while preserving the intangible style and meaning of the original tales. The story of Karlsson, the lovable and pudgy man on the roof, was translated into Ukrainian in the 1960s by Olga Seniuk, now 82. Originally planning to study English, her life took a different twist when...

Over the last few years several articles have appeared about the collaboration between a fraction of “Ukrainian nationalists” (a splinter led by Mykola Lebed from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists led by Stepan Bandera) and the United States Central Intelligence Agency. These mostly personal accounts have been more “confessions” rather than “revelations.” Almost from the planting of the initial collaborative seeds between “Prolog” and the CIA, the Ukrainian community guessed at the “special relationship.” Granted there was no proof, but only because no one cared enough about it to dig for evidence. One of the former presidents of “Prolog”, the late Roman Kupchinsky and more recently the director of its British affiliate the Ukrainian Press Agency...

Based on recent historical, archaeological, and architectural research, the authors provide detailed descriptions of the hetman residence in the town's citadel, Mazepa's suburban manor house, the spectacular Rozumovsky palace, and other architectural monuments. It is richly illustrated with portraits, Baturyn aerial views, photos and drawings of its restored fortifications, churches, palaces, the treasury, the guest-house, heating stoves adorned with patterned ceramic tiles, Mazepa's coat of arms, and significant archaeological finds. The booklet also provides information about Canadian and Ukrainian archeologists and researcher scholars working in Baturyn...

After President Viktor Yanukovych refused to back down to Western demands to release jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko last week, the European Union postponed his Oct. 20 visit to its capital indefinitely – until, officials said, democratic conditions in Ukraine improve. The snub raises fears that Ukraine’s European integration is now at risk, leaving the country alone in the face of increasingly loud demands from Russia, its former Soviet master. The reason for the EU’s wrath is the seven-year prison sentence given to Tymoshenko on Oct. 11 after what many in the West regard as a show trial. Brussels had pressed Yanukovych to find a way to release his main political rival, but the president indicated to a group of Western journalists on Oct. 17 that this was not in the cards...

Personal revenge and the triumph of the natural gas lobby are the most convincing explanations for President Viktor Yanukovych’s defiance of democracy and his political persecution of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The two rationales are related. During and after the 2010 presidential election campaign, Tymoshenko prophesized accurately about her own fate and that of the nation if Yanukovych became president. On Oct. 26, 2010, after the Yanukovych administration started jailing former members of her government, she said: “The mafia is showing that if you go against them, sooner or later you’ll be in jail. They have to show that they are in full control of people’s lives and that anyone that crosses them will end up behind bars...

Ukraine has failed in its attempt to get Russia to lift key commodity restrictions in effect for the past 15 years. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said on Russian television Wednesday that the free trade agreement signed between Russia, Ukraine and six other nations of the former Soviet Union on Tuesday excludes crucial commodities such as oil, gas and sugar. “For us the most sensitive is sugar,” Azarov said in a comment made in St. Petersburg and carried by state television Pershiy. “It was always on the list of restrictions, but we have agreed for the first time that...