The Ukrainian Weekly, 2019
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INSIDE: l Ukraine’s Marine commandant visits the U.S. – page 4 l No signs of “Ukraine fatigue” in Washington – page 7 l Photo report: St. George Ukrainian Festival – page 11 THEPublished U by theKRAINIAN Ukrainian National Association, Inc., celebrating W its 125th anniversaryEEKLY Vol. LXXXVII No. 22 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2019 $2.00 Zelensky to make Brussels his first foreign trip, after visiting frontline in Luhansk region by Mark Raczkiewycz KYIV – President Volodymyr Zelensky is making Brussels the destination of his first foreign trip on June 4-5 to visit European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) institutions. Meetings are planned with European Council President Donald Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Mr. Zelensky will “inform EU and NATO partners about the security situation in eastern Ukraine, discuss ways to activate international efforts to end the war in the Donbas and exchange opinions with institutional leaders of the EU and NATO regarding continuing key reforms in Ukraine,” says a statement on the presidential website. Separately, the EU announced that the next EU-Ukraine summit will take place in Kyiv in July. The 28-member polit- ical and economic bloc is Ukraine’s largest trading partner, with total turnover in goods and services between the two entities amounting to more than $49 billion (U.S.) last year. Ukrainians also enjoy visa-free travel to most EU countries. This week, Mr. Zelensky visited the war zone in Luhansk for the first time as president. The political newcomer had given numerous entertainment performances for soldiers in the Donbas with his comedy troupe since the Russo- Ukrainian war started February 2014. His visit took place on May 27 in the frontline towns of Shchastya and Stanytsia Luhanska, the latter of which is Presidential Administration of Ukraine (Continued on page 15) On May 27, Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Donbas war zone in Luhansk Oblast for the first time as president. Russia refuses to obey U.N. tribunal order to free Canadians adopt wait-and-see approach 24 Ukrainian servicemen to Zelensky administration in Ukraine by Mark Raczkiewycz by Christopher Guly Special to The Ukrainian Weekly KYIV – A Moscow court on May 27 denied an appeal by eight Ukrainian navy crewmen to be freed OTTAWA – Volodymyr Zelensky’s bold despite a United Nations tribunal ruling two days ear- decision to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada lier that ordered Russia to free 24 Ukrainian seamen and push the parliamentary election ahead who have been detained for six months. from October to July a day after he was Moscow will not abide by the ruling, Kremlin sworn in as Ukraine’s sixth president could spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian media. have been lifted off the script from “Servant A majority of 19 to 1 judges of the International of the People,” the popular Ukrainian come- Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg ordered dy series that made the current head of Russia to “immediately” release the 24 Ukrainian ser- state a television star. vicemen who were taken captive aboard three ships in While taking a wait-and-see approach, shared waters of the Black Sea on November 25, 2018. Canadian government and Ukrainian com- Twenty-two of the prisoners are navy personnel and munity officials don’t expect the 41-year-old two are Security Service officers. The tribunal also said erstwhile actor and current populist politi- Moscow must return the three impounded vessels. cian to upend the Ukraine-Canada relation- Russian judge Roman Kolodkin was the lone ship as he did with Ukraine’s political estab- opposing vote in four decisions of the U.N. tribunal, lishment on TV, based on their initial con- according to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection tact with the newly minted president. Group. Moscow has charged the seamen with “aggra- “In terms of the direction that the presi- vated illegal crossing of the state border of the Russian dent and his new administration want to Federation.” If found guilty, all 24 face a maximum take, we look forward to hearing their sentence of six years in prison. vision so that Canada can evolve its sup- Kyiv says they were illegally taken prisoner. No port based on their needs,” said Canadian Kremlin representative attended the tribunal hearings Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan, who repre- Stéphanie Labossière, Joint Task Force-Ukraine (C) 2019 DND-MDN Canada in Germany. sented the Canadian government at Mr. Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan (right) and Canadian Zelensky’s presidential inauguration on Ambassador to Ukraine Roman Waschuk walk toward the Mariyinsky (Continued on page 10) Palace, where heads of foreign delegations and ambassadors were (Continued on page 12) hosted at a reception. 2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2019 No. 22 ANALYSIS Ukraine’s new Presidential Administration Saakashvili hails ‘courageous’ Zelensky and then we’ll see. I’ll consult. I’ll be talking to people.” Mr. Saakashvili said, “We cannot Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian is filled with show business friends president who served as governor of let this third chance pass us by,” explaining Ukraine’s Odesa region in 2015-2016, has that Ukraine had a chance to carry out suc- Mr. Zelensky has appointed Andriy welcomed the restoration of his Ukrainian cessful reforms after its Orange Revolution by Vladimir Socor in 2004 and again after the Maidan protests Eurasia Daily Monitor Bohdan as the new head of the Presidential citizenship by President Volodymyr Administration. Mr. Bohdan claims credit Zelensky as a “courageous step by a coura- that pushed Ukraine’s pro-Russia President Ukraine’s elder statesman Volodymyr for having conceived the political project of geous and worthy president.” Mr. Saakashvili Viktor Yanukovych from power in 2014. He Horbulin cautioned Volodymyr Zelensky the Zelensky presidential candidacy and made the remark in an interview with RFE/ described Ukraine’s “third chance” as “a ahead of his inauguration that he should promoting it through Mr. Zelensky’s show RL’s Ukrainian Service on May 28 after Mr. peaceful electoral revolution.” However, he not fill the senior presidential staff and top on the television channel owned by oli- Zelensky signed a decree that annulled a did not clarify whether an “electoral revolu- national security posts with his personal garch Ihor Kolomoisky. Mr. Bohdan has decree by his predecessor, Petro tion” referred to Mr. Zelensky’s presidential friends and business associates. Ukraine’s worked from 2014 to date as Mr. Poroshenko, which deprived Mr. Saakashvili election victory in April, early parliamentary previous presidents repeatedly made that Kolomoisky’s attorney, litigating for him of his citizenship. Speaking via Skype from elections scheduled in July following Mr. mistake, privileging personal loyalties at against the Ukrainian state over the nation- Poland, Mr. Saakashvili told RFE/RL that Mr. Zelensky’s May 21 decree that dissolved the expense of professionalism, Mr. alization of PrivatBank (Ukraine’s largest Poroshenko’s decision to strip him of Parliament, or both. In Georgia, Mr. Horbulin noted in a widely-circulated essay bank, co-owned by Mr. Kolomoisky and Ukrainian citizenship was a “cowardly step Saakashvili was swept into power after help- (Fakty, May 16). Hennadiy Boholiubov, found to have been by an unworthy president.” He said he was ing lead the peaceful Rose Revolution pro- Inaugurated on May 20, Mr. Zelensky dis- defrauded and insolvent in 2016). During grateful to Ukrainians who have supported tests there in 2003, when he was mayor of solved the Verkhovna Rada on the same day the months leading up to the presidential him, and that he was “certain there are many Tbilisi. But his party was dislodged from and called parliamentary elections for July election campaign, Mr. Bohdan chaperoned people in Ukraine who would not like to see power by an opposition force in 2012 parlia- 21. The Cabinet of Ministers will operate in Mr. Zelensky on 13 visits to the self-exiled me [back] in Ukraine.” He said Mr. Zelensky’s mentary elections and his term as president a caretaker capacity, with limited powers, Mr. Kolomoisky in Israel and Switzerland. decision to “very quickly” restore his expired in 2013. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by RFE/RL corre- for the next few months. On May 21 and 22, The Zelensky campaign’s anti-oligarchic Ukrainian citizenship shows “his character.” spondent Christopher Miller in Kyiv) President Zelensky issued a series of message required that those visits remain Mr. Saakashvili’s spokeswoman Tanya Bahranovska told RFE/RL that he plans to decrees appointing top officials of the confidential, until Radio Liberty broke the Zelensky visits Ukraine’s frontline Presidential Administration (the president’s story on them (see Eurasia Daily Monitor, return to Kyiv on the afternoon of May 29 on Donning a bulletproof helmet and vest senior staff) as well as his first top-level April 23). a flight from Warsaw. Mr. Saakashvili was over business attire, Volodymyr Zelensky national security appointments (Ukrinform, Mr. Bohdan had previously worked as granted Ukrainian citizenship and appointed to the Odesa governor’s post in 2015 by Mr. made his first visit as president and Ukraiynska Pravda, May 21, 22). “plenipotentiary for anti-corruption policy,” Poroshenko, an acquaintance from their stu- supreme commander-in-chief to the front- Mr. Zelensky has appointed Ivan Bakanov with a deputy minister’s rank, in then- dent days. Authorities in Tbilisi stripped Mr. line of the war in eastern Ukraine with as acting chief of the Security Service of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov’s Cabinet of Saakashvili of his Georgian citizenship in Russia-backed militants that has killed Ukraine (SBU). Mr. Bakanov, a childhood Ministers, from 2010 to 2014, until the December 2015 on grounds that Georgia 13,000 people and shows no sign of ending.