Today’s “Embassy,” Canada’s foreign policy newsweekly, recognized Paul Grod, National President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, as being among Canada’s “top 80 influencing Canada’s foreign policy.” This is a great honour for the Ukrainian Canadian community at an important time in Ukraine’s history and Canada-Ukraine relations. This is also a positive affirmation of the successful efforts of the Ukrainian

Two years have passed since Viktor Yanukovych was inaugurated as president. Since then Ukraine has changed greatly. After hardly any legislation being adopted during five orange years, the country has seen febrile legislative activity. The number of government changes has also been large. But the trajectory is worrisome. With the latest appointments in January and February, a clear pattern is evident: Yanukovych is concentrating power into the hands of his family. The number of oligarchic groups in the government has steadily been reduced, and only two – the Dmytro Firtash and Rinat Akhmetov groups - are left standing. There is little reason to believe they will survive...

Anti-Status-Quo Foreign Policy. During his campaign, Putin provided ample insights into how he views the world and Russia’s relationship with the U.S. The picture is bleak. Much of Putin’s pre-election rhetoric harkened back the 19th-century nationalism and imperialism. He likes to quote the 19th-century Russian foreign minister Count Alexander Gorchakov that “Russia is concentrating.” Another slogan from the same era, often heard in the Moscow policy circles, belongs to the Czar Alexander III: “Russia has no allies but its army and navy.” This is a prescription for a prickly foreign policy, belt tightening, rearmament, wars with neighbors, and a chronic confrontation with the West. Xenophobia. Anti-Americanism in Russia is rampant. Putin has relentlessly...

There is no question that the conference, “Ukraine at the Crossroads” and parliamentary hearings on the status of human rights in Ukraine – all of which took place in Ottawa from March 5th-8th – left an impression on those attending. The inclusion of world-renowned academics and historians, as well as the heartfelt cooperation of the Canadian government, showed that the world is deeply concerned about Ukraine’s well-being - a comforting thought for those who live in the Ukrainian diaspora, and long for their homeland’s economic and political freedom. Though many express this sentiment, it is perhaps the most refreshing to know that young people in the Ukrainian community stand ready not only to learn about the tribulations of their homeland, but to share the heavy burden of eradicating them. With financial sponsorship from the BCU Foundation...

A news item on my computer screen reports that John Demjanjuk, a convicted war criminal, passed away at age of 91 in a German nursing home, still protesting his innocence. I look at a letter in my archives I wrote to my literary agent, the late Stanley Colbert, 25 years ago. In the fall of 1987, John Demjanjuk was a retired auto worker from Cleveland, on trial for his life. A man of Ukrainian birth who settled in America after the war, Demjanjuk had been stripped of his American citizenship and extradited to Israel in 1986 to face charges of having been "Ivan the Terrible," a guard of legendary...

Just when did people start referring to the inner circle around President Viktor Yanukovych as “The Family”? The term is now commonplace, but my impression is that it started entering the political vocabulary of Ukraine about six to twelve months ago, when son Oleksandr joined Viktor Senior and Viktor Junior to form a triumvirate of power holders and all three began promoting their buddies to positions of authority in the government or to positions of unbounded rapaciousness in the economy. Little Viktor has long been active in the youth branch of the Party of Regions—call them the “Regionnairettes”—and has served as a dutiful member...

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Gryshchenko’s recent response to the opinion article of five E.U. foreign ministers was a paradigm reminiscent of Soviet diplomacy. Granted it was amusing because it was so egregious. After all, Gryshchenko is a copycat of Russia’s foreign minister Lavrov and they are alumni of the same school. Perhaps the most entertaining statement is in the introduction where Gryshchenko states, “for me it is not perception that matters but facts.” He then submits five misrepresentations, spins them like an old Soviet apparatchik, and offers them as a diplomatic rebuke to his foreign counterparts. Having spent time in the West, Gryshchenko cannot possibly believe that...

Much has been accomplished since women-libbers started burning bras some 50 years ago. Yet, as the world marked another International Women’s Day on March 8, it was clear that the struggle is not over. Take Rush Limbaugh, for instance, and his sexual slurs against a law student. He apologized but major sponsors of his radio show are withdrawing support: women matter. But not in Ukraine. There, the violation of human rights, women’s in particular, is endemic. Not only have its leaders failed to address issues like equality in the workforce, equal pay for work of equal value, or ...

Last week I was in Canada speaking at a conference on Ukraine. Ukraine is important to Canada because the country is home to a large Ukrainian diaspora community, with some 1.3 million residing there. They came in several waves. First, at the end of the 19th century from the Galychyna region (then part of the Hungarian-Austrian Empire), which was in those days a particularly poor and over-populated region with few employment opportunities. New waves came with the establishment of Communism in the 1920s, the outbreak of World War II and the repression placed on Soviet Ukraine by Stalin. After this the gate was closed, with a new wave of migration only beginning following Ukraine’s independence in the 1990s. The Canadian Ukrainian community is very active and...

On the basis of a meeting in Kyiv on March 21, 2012 in Kiev between authorized representatives of the Government of Canada, Canadian MP Mr. Bob Dechert and Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine H.E. Troy Lulashnyk, and members of the Dictatorship Resistance Committee in Ukraine Valentyn Nalyvaichenko (chairman of the Political Council of "Our Ukraine" party), Sergiy Soboliev (leader of "Reforms and Order" party), Volodymyr Moisyk (vice-chairman of "For Ukraine" party), Volodymyr Vyazivsky (Member of the Ukrainian Parliament), Victor Matchuk (Member of the Ukrainian Parliament), The meeting...