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...

Largely unnoticed in the West, Ukraine’s new president, Viktor Yanukovych, brought to power an illegitimate government in March. Though being installed via a seemingly orderly parliamentary procedure, the current Ukrainian cabinet headed by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has no proper popular mandate. How did that come about? Ukraine has a proportional electoral system with closed lists. This means that voters do not elect individual candidates, but can only approve of pre-determined lists presented to them by various political parties or blocs. The members of the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, become deputies only in so far as they are included in their bloc’s or party’s lists the composition of which is beyond the reach of voters...

Dear Mr. President! We greet you on your high post of President of Ukraine, a position which charges you, as head of state, with the responsibility for the fate and future of the sovereign Ukrainian state. The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), the representative organization of the 1.5 million Americans of Ukrainian descent that also includes numerous citizens of Ukraine who now reside in the United States, however, is deeply disturbed by several issues outlined during Your presidential campaign, which in our opinion require careful consideration by your Administration...

Ever since he ventured into the Ukrainian countryside and saw the remnants of bulldozed Jewish cemeteries, and ever since he saw Holocaust mass graves that lie unkempt in the forests there, Meylakh Sheykhet has fought for the right to remember. Over the past 20 years, Mr. Sheykhet has found and worked to restore more than 150 Jewish cemeteries in Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus, cemeteries that were destroyed or forgotten under Soviet rule. With his greying beard and traditional Jewish dress, Mr. Sheykhet is known in Ukraine and beyond as the guardian of Jewish cemeteries. His voice is calm but impassioned as he speaks of his mission to preserve the history of a once-thriving Jewish community...

Having come to power, Viktor Yanukovych very quickly formed his vertical of power. Obviously, "friends" became governors - people who had experience working in his campaign offices, had positions in his cabinets, or were deputies. Some of the new governors have already left their mark on modern Ukrainian history, having been given such epithets as "odious", "Kuchma’s cronies", and "comedians". For example, the current governor of the Donetsk oblast, Anatoliy Blyzniuk, has returned to the post he held before Viktor Yushchenko fired him in January 2005. Ordinary Ukrainians remember...