The Ukrainian Weekly, 2017
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INSIDE: l Crimean Tatar leader sentenced after sham trial – page 4 l Roald Hoffmann: Ukraine’s Nobel laureate – page 7 l Our community celebrates Ukraine’s independence – centerfold THEPublished U by theKRAINIAN Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal W non-profit associationEEKLY Vol. LXXXV No. 38 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2017 $2.00 Saakashvili returns to Ukraine Poroshenko to make repeat bid Police serve him with notice on breaching border for U.N. peacekeepers in Donbas by Mark Raczkiewycz Democratic Initiatives, said over the phone. “But [Russian President Vladimir] Putin KYIV – Historically, Ukraine has been in wanted political concessions to run parallel the top tier of contributors to United with security.” Nations peacekeeping missions in conflict Now, given that the two truces agreed to zones worldwide. Now, one of the intergov- by France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia ernmental body’s truce contingents might have failed, the West, including the U.S., is land in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has beginning to see the importance of Ukraine waged an unprovoked war since April needing “security” first – including regain- 2014, a month after it illegally annexed the ing control of the more than 400 kilome- Ukrainian territory of Crimea. ters of the border area neighboring Russia Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko – before any political actions are taken, the was to leave Kyiv on September 15 to professor added. attend the 72nd session of the U.N. General The renewed attention to peacekeepers Assembly, and he plans to address the U.N. surfaced on September 5 when Mr. Putin Security Council next week. visited China and set out conditions for a At the podium, post-Soviet Ukraine’s mission to enter the Donbas. During a news fifth president is scheduled to repeat the conference, he initially supported the idea, but only along the 450-kilometer frontline proposal he made more than two years with peacekeepers providing security ago: to send U.N. peacekeepers to the war- exclusively to truce monitors from the torn easternmost regions of Donetsk and Organization for Security and Cooperation Luhansk amid two internationally bro- in Europe (OSCE). Furthermore, he empha- kered ceasefires that never took hold since sized the precondition that peacekeepers February 2015. would be present after both sides with- Facebook/Mikheil Saakashvili Then, the West, namely Germany and drew heavy weapons and Kyiv held negoti- Mikheil Saakashvili in Przemysl (Peremyshl) in Poland before boarding a train bound France – which were integral in cementing for Ukraine on September 10. He is seen at a press briefing with Yulia Tymoshenko. ations directly with Russia’s proxies in the a truce between Kyiv and Moscow – occupied Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. weren’t keen on the idea. German leader Angela Merkel, an essen- RFE/RL firmed the operation was aimed at serving Mr. Saakashvili with the document. “Ukraine wanted ‘security’ first with its tial mediator in the failed peace process, borders restored, then the political part LVIV – Ukrainian border-control authori- Mr. Saakashvili said in Lviv on subsequently said that she supported the that would’ve given [more autonomy] to ties have formally read out a document to September 12 that the document should idea, but that peacekeepers would have to the Donbas,” Olexiy Haran, a political scien- Mikheil Saakashvili on what officials said have been delivered to him earlier. be situated throughout Ukraine’s sovereign tist professor at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy was his illegal entry into Ukraine on and research director at the policy center September 10. (Continued on page 17) (Continued on page 16) The ex-Georgian president and former governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region was served the notice on September 12 in front of a group of journalists and lawmakers Ukrainian World Congress celebrates its 50th anniversary in Kyiv outside of a hotel in Lviv, with police and border guards on hand. Ukrainian World Congress Ukraine’s state-run Ukrinform news agency reported that Mr. Saakashvili signed KYIV – The Ukrainian World Congress the document, acknowledging the allega- (UWC) held its 50th anniversary commem- tions of an “administrative violation,” dur- oration at the Mystetskyi Arsenal in Kyiv on ing the meeting outside the Leopolis Hotel August 26. in central Lviv, where he has been staying Joining the UWC leadership and repre- since September 10, when he and support- sentatives of its international network were ers broke through a line of Ukrainian bor- Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko and der guards to cross from Poland to Ukraine. First Lady Maryna Poroshenko; Head of the Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry was Ukrainian Orthodox Church Patriarch later quoted by the Interfax news agency as Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – saying that Mr. Saakashvili was in the coun- Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP); Patriarch try illegally but authorities were not intent Sviatoslav of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic on detaining him at the moment. Church (UGCC); and other religious leaders, Local media said he was ordered to high-ranking officials from Ukraine, diplo- appear at the Mostyskyi District Court of mats from around the world and represen- UWC the Lviv region on September 18 for a hear- tatives of Ukrainian civil society. Participants of the annual general meeting of the Ukrainian World Congress held in Kyiv. ing over the incident. Speaking on behalf of the UWC, President Police arrived at the hotel on the morn- Eugene Czolij enumerated the international the restoration and consolidation of President Petro Poroshenko, in his ing of September 12 and initially blocked organization’s achievements in furthering Ukrainian statehood, and highlighted the address at the jubilee event, thanked the access to the building in Lviv, whose mayor, Ukrainian interests throughout its 50-ayear current priorities related to the support of UWC for its longstanding support of Andriy Sadovyi, has clashed with President history. He particularly focused on the activ- Ukraine in countering Russian aggression, Ukraine and asserted that the UWC is a Petro Poroshenko in the past. ities of the over 20-million strong Ukrainian and in the realization of its aspirations for The State Border Guard Service con- diaspora headed by the UWC in support of European and Euro-Atlantic integration. (Continued on page 12) 2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2017 No. 38 ANALYSIS Russia’s Kerch Strait bridge: Poland drops controversial passport plan guard OSCE observers not only on the line of contact following the disengagement of both WARSAW – Poland’s government says it is parties’ forces and hardware, but in other New threat to regional stability abandoning a plan to include images in locations as well, where the OSCE SMM Polish passports of landmarks that are now restrictions on this passage have already [Special Monitoring Mission] pays its inspec- by Ihor Kabanenko within the borders of Ukraine and Lithuania. raised the cost of freight and have pushed tion visits.” In a statement, the German Eurasia Daily Monitor The passport plan had angered both Ukraine Chancellery said Mr. Putin “agreed to Mariupol’s leading metallurgical business and Lithuania, with the government in Kyiv After illegally annexing Crimea in 2014, group to transfer its shipping cargo to remove the previous limitation of deploy- calling it an “unfriendly step that will have a ment of the planned U.N. mission” after Ms. Russia declared it would build a 12-mile-long Mykolayiv (located west of Crimea) (Mind. negative impact on the development of the road-and-rail bridge across the Kerch Strait, ua, August 8). Ukrainian ports on the Azov Merkel pointed out that “changes in the Ukraine-Polish strategic partnership.” The mandate were necessary.” On September 5, connecting mainland Russia to the occupied Sea are projected to lose around $190 mil- Polish government’s proposal appeared to Crimean peninsula. And last year (2016), lion during the 23 days in August- Mr. Putin had called for the deployment of break a longstanding practice of not making lightly armed peacekeepers to protect OSCE with construction under way, Moscow offi- September Russia announced it would any claim, even symbolic, to territories cials promised that the building of this mas- close the strait (Interfax, August 2). observers monitoring the conflict in eastern Poland lost in the redrawing of borders dur- Ukraine. But he indicated that the peace- sive bridge would “in no way limit [maritime] The long-term economic damage to ing the 20th century. The disputed images navigation in the Kerch-Enikalsk Channel [a Ukraine will be even greater. After the cen- keepers would operate only along the front were of a Polish military cemetery in Lviv line separating Ukrainian government forc- deeper, navigable portion of the Kerch tral arches are installed on the Kerch and the 16th century Gate of Dawn in Vilnius Strait, linking the Black and Azov Seas], bridge, passage through the strait for es and separatists. (RFE/RL, based on – one of the most important religious, histor- reporting by Reuters and Interfax) ensuring free passage for vessels both dur- Mariupol-bound Panamax-class vessels will ical and cultural monuments in the ing the construction phase and in the period be impossible because their height can Lithuanian capital. Polish Internal Affairs Poroshenko on purposes of peacekeepers of use” (RIA Novosti, February 19, 2016). reach 37.5 meters (Deutsche Welle – Minister Mariusz Blaszczak says