For five years Viktor Yanukovych claimed to be a democratic, moderate, and unifier—everything that the Orange elites presumably were not. In the two months that he has occupied the president’s seat, Yanukovych has shown that he is an authoritarian, radical, and disunifier—everything that the Orange revolutionaries had accused him of being in 2004. The con, as it turned out, was a conman and his supposed makeover by U.S. political consultant Paul Manafort was nothing but an elaborate con. Having succeeded in “coordinating” government within...

The Viktor Yanukovych administration is undertaking a radical overhaul of Ukraine's national identity that turns its back not only on the Yushchenko era, but also on two earlier presidents. All three presidents promoted Ukrainophile national identity that was based on the doyen of Ukrainian historiography, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, president of the 1918 Ukrainian independent state and murdered by the Soviet authorities in 1934. President Yanukovych and Minister of Education, Dimitry Tabachnyk, have outlined policies to re-write school textbooks, in some cases together with Russia...

Russia's Black Sea fleet might not carry much weight in strict military terms but its presence in the port of Sevastopol will burden Ukraine's future for generations to come, critics of the move say. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich argues his country will save billions of dollars from the trade-off involving the extension of the fleet's lease to 2042 in exchange for cheaper gas, vital for the economy. But his critics, who see the Russian navy's presence as an affront to Ukrainian independence, say Yanukovich has made a fatal error for the nation and handed the political opposition a stick with which to beat him for the rest of his time in power...

UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER NIKOLAI AZAROV on Wednesday acknowledged that his newly elected pro-Russian government was seriously considering Moscow's proposal to merge its state-run behemoth Gazprom with Ukraine's national energy company Naftogaz. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced the proposal Friday, and has since issued daily reminders to Ukraine that this is a plan Moscow is seriously -- if not forcibly -- pushing...

Second Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma (1994-2004) has said he is totally against the opening of monuments to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. "I'm totally against this... There should be at least a local referendum on such issues, but if this is done without rhyme or reason, then I think it's absolutely incorrect," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Thursday. Kuchma said that the number of soldiers killed during the Second World War could not be compared with the number of those who died in Nazi Germany. He said...

The first two months of office of Ukraine's new President Viktor Yanukovych look like the unfolding of the worst possible post-election scenario for the country. The new President has prolonged the stay of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea until 2042, which cancels any chances of joining Nato for the next 30 years and also puts in doubt the country's EU membership prospects for decades to come. He seems poised to accept a takeover of Ukraine's highly-advanced aviation and nuclear industries by Russian companies, and is ready to "examine" the Kremlin-proposed merger, or takeover, of Ukraine's key strategic asset, the state-owned gas and oil monopoly Naftogaz, by Russia's Gazprom...

“The truth that Ukraine’s people needed to know has already been revealed to them.” That was what Valery Khoroshkovsky, the new head of Ukrainian security service, had to say about the declassification of KGB files in Ukraine undertaken by his predecessors. In other words, it’s business as usual: the Soviet archives are once again to be closed to outsiders. The new head of the security service is effectively saying that the public reevaluation of history is not one of the Service’s main priorities. So if the government could be said to have been even remotely engaged with the issue of historical transparency in the past, that time is now over. A more Soviet, “patriotic” view of history will replace the tendency towards de-Sovietisation...

Since May 2005, when celebrations took place to mark 60 years from the end of the World War II in Europe, the debate on the full meaning and consequences of the victory over Nazi Germany has gathered momentum. This debate was stimulated by the controversial move of the then Russian president Putin to celebrate the anniversary in Moscow on May 9th with the participation of all European leaders. In 2005, the Estonian and Lithuanian presidents decided not to attend. The European Parliament reacted to these developments by initiating an independent debate on the consequences of WW II. This debate took place on May 11th, 2005 and resulted in...

Communists unveiled a monument to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin on Wednesday, sparking the anger of Ukrainian nationalists. The 2.5-meter (8-foot) monument shows Stalin from the waist up and is mounted on a pedestal in front of the Communist Party's office in the city of Zaporizhya. The unveiling comes ahead of Sunday's 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. Many Communists revere Stalin as commander-in-chief during the war. A recording of Stalin's voice was played, red flags waved and the pedestal was covered with flowers. "Stalin, rise and establish order!" a poster read...

The funerals in Poland arising out of the recent Katyn airplane catastrophe remind us not only of the current tragedy, but also serve to underline the Polish disaster in Katyn forest where some 20,000 officers were massacred by the Soviet NKVD secret police. Those familiar with that disaster know that the Soviet regime sought to blame the massacre on the Nazis, falsified records and refused to reveal the archives to allow the truth to emerge until after the Soviet Union fell apart. To this day, not everything about Katyn forest has been revealed. To all Poles, Katyn forest is a reminder of their suffering during World War II. But Polish wounds that took so long to heal were again reopened by recent events...