Ukrainian cities Kiev, Lviv, Donetsk and Kharkiv will host matches in the 2012 European soccer championship, UEFA said on Friday, with the capital confirmed as the venue for the final. European football's governing body had delayed the decision over hosting matches in all the proposed Ukrainian cities except Kiev after the slow progress of infrastructure projects. "I'm pleased to tell that thanks to the tremendous efforts of the Ukrainian government we can finally give the green light to a symmetrical tournament with four cities in Poland, and Kiev, Lviv, Kharkiv and Donetsk in Ukraine," UEFA president Michel Platini told a news conference...

From the moment it gained independence, Ukraine has proclaimed its intention to establish close cooperation with NATO. This attitude soon led to another milestone in the Ukraine-NATO relationship - Ukraine declaring its desire to join the Alliance. Between 1991-2009 Ukrainian diplomats attended a number of NATO meetings, summits and conferences, while Ukrainian soldiers and doctors have been engaged in NATO operations as peacekeepers. Over the last decade, Ukraine’s economic, judicial, military and political systems have gone through a series of reforms. Some of these changes were made with the purpose of preparing Ukraine for NATO membership. However, Ukraine’s membership appears to remain a long-term goal which will take years to attain. What are the problems that keep Ukraine from joining the Alliance and what are the perspectives of Ukraine-NATO relations?

A bill has been tabled in the Ukrainian Parliament which, if passed, would officially prohibit the communist ideology in the former Soviet Bloc state. The bill encompasses prohibiting the public spread of communist ideology, and would legislate the removal of symbols associated with communist rule during the Soviet era. Items related to communism would only be permitted in museums. The Communist Party in Ukraine would also be restricted in its activities, not being allowed to advertise or use media outlets to popularize its ideas. One of the two initiators of the bill, Ivan Zajac, 57, of the Ukrainian National Party, said he considers the spread of communism as an appeal to restore the regime in Ukraine. “With this legislation, we want to protect Ukrainians from the spread of this ideology", said Zajac. The authors hope...

Activists from the unregistered Belarusian Christian Democracy Party (BHD) began collecting signatures today for a petition to remove a large Lenin bust in the western Belarusian town of Navahradak, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reports. The petition drive began after local officials charged party member Yury Kazak with hooliganism after he poured green paint on the Lenin bust on December 8. BHD activists told RFE/RL that Kazak was expressing his feelings toward Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, who they said ordered the murder of millions of people...

What is troubling about Ms. Kostash's essay on the Holodomor ( to read the essay, please click on http://reviewcanada.ca/essays/2009/12/01/genocide-or-a-vast-tragedy/ ) is that it gives credence to the scribblings of a pro-Soviet apologist like Doug Tottle, akin to offering up Ernst Zundel's screeds as fair commentary on the Holocaust. Simultaneously her piece and the course she describes both fail to take into account the perspective of Dr. Raphael Lemkin, "the father of the [UN] genocide convention." In 1953 Lemkin wrote: "...the Ukrainian is not and never has been a Russian. His culture, his temperament, his language, his religion, are all different...to eliminate (Ukrainian) nationalism...the Ukrainian peasantry was sacrificed...a famine was necessary for the Soviet and so they got one to order...if the Soviet program succeeds completely, if the intelligentsia, the priest, and the peasant can be...

Good afternoon, everyone. I’m delighted to welcome Minister Poroshenko here for in-depth conversations. It’s an opportunity for me to reaffirm the very broad partnership between our two nations. Earlier today, we had the first meeting of the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership Commission, and we look forward to continuing to work on these many important matters. Before I turn to the issues that the minister and I discussed and the shared objectives the United States and Ukraine are working toward, I’d like to say a few words about Honduras. President-elect Lobo has been meeting this week with President Arias of Costa Rica, President Martinelli of Panama, and has been in touch with other leaders throughout the hemisphere to advance regional cooperation with respect to Honduras. Ever since the June 28 coup, the United States has remained...

Ukraine will provide Iraq with $2.5 billion worth of weapons and military equipment under a deal intended to shore up Iraq's fledgling armed forces before the planned pullout of U.S. troops, a senior Ukrainian lawmaker said Wednesday. Anatoly Grytsenko, head of the Ukrainian parliament's security and defense committee, said the agreement with the Iraqi ministry of defense calls for Ukraine to produce and deliver 420 BTR-4 armored personnel carriers, six AN-32B military transport planes and other military hardware to Iraq. "It's worth around $2.5 billion," Grytsenko, who previously served as Ukraine's defense minister, told The Associated Press after being briefed on the deal Wednesday by state arms exporter UkrSpetsExport. UkrSpetsExport, which is handling the contracts, declined numerous requests for comment Wednesday...

Vienna, December 3, 2009 - Slightly more than half of all Belarusians in Belarus say that their nation is "a separate people," nearly 10 percent more than those who consider themselves part of "a triune Slavic nation and vastly more than the 1.5 percent who say that Belarusians are in fact ethnic Russians, according to a new poll. Those findings, announced yesterday by the Budz'ma Company on the basis of research conducted by Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies in Lithuania (BISS) and the Novak polling agency, suggest that Belarusians increasingly view themselves as separate and distinct from other Slavic groups like the Russians...

In 1932-1933, an estimate of ten million people died in a man-made famine. Today, recognized as genocide, the Holodomor is a tragedy that will never be forgotten by Ukrainians anywhere. Ukrainians know the truth; now it is time to let everyone else know. University students have long been known to be activists breaking barriers, thinking and acting outside of their comfort zone, all in the name of justice. On the 13th day of November of the year 2009, the University of Western Ontario’s Ukrainian Students’ Club held a Holodomor Awareness Day. With the donation of a Holodomor exhibit from the League of Ukrainian Canadians and generous sponsorship from...

John Demjanjuk Jr. remembers well every moment of the day his life was turned upside down. It was in the mid 1970s and he was 11 years old, the son of immigrant parents living in Ohio. His father would go to work in a Ford factory every day, come home and tend the garden. The family would visit the local Ukrainian church every Sunday. The blissful family routine came to an abrupt end when the Demjanjuk home came under siege by a slew of reporters and camera crews wondering about his father John Ivan Demjanjuk's Nazi past. John Jr. refused to believe the allegations against his father and has dedicated the past three decades to proving his father is not the man accused of forcing 27,900 Jews into gas chambers at Sobibor camp in 1943...