• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

INSIDE: l A coda to the 2014 Shevchenko bicentennial – page 4 l Music from the Carpathian Mountains in NYC, DC – page 5 l Our community: New York, Connecticut, Florida – page 15 THEPublished U by theKRAINIAN Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal W non-profit associationEEKLY Vol. LXXXIII No. 2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 2015 $2.00 Savchenko’s hunger strike Verkhovna Rada approves 2015 budget, enters fourth week RFE/RL Ukrainian Service but further amendments are certain A hunger strike by Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko, who is being held in Russian custody, is now in its fourth week. First Lt. Savchenko’s legal team says she has been ingesting only warm water since she began her protest on December 13, 2014, and that her health has begun to suffer. Her lawyers have been barred from visiting Lt. Savchenko in detention through the end of state holidays on January 12. The pilot, who was captured by pro- Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in June, was transferred to Russian pretrial detention in July. Russian authorities have charged the 33-year-old first lieutenant with com- plicity in the killing of two Russian jour- nalists covering the Ukraine conflict. Lt. Savchenko denies the charges and says her transfer to Russia was ille- Andrey Kravchenko/UNIAN gal. Her supporters on January 5 car- Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk holds up a copy of the 2015 state budget after the parliamentary majority voted for its approval ried out a one-day Twitter campaign, at 4:24 a.m. on December 29, 2014. Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko applauds. using the hashtag #FreeSavchenko, to mark the 22nd day of her hunger strike. by Zenon Zawada The nation’s fiscal plan was unprece- legalized corrupt schemes that steal billions dented in its reforms, such as keeping high from the country,” National Deputy Tetiana KYIV – Ukraine’s Parliament, voting on royalty payments on firms that extract nat- Chornovol, a prominent anti-corruption the last weekend of 2014, approved several ural gas, mostly controlled by the nation’s activist, wrote on her Ukrayinska Pravda UNWLA activists confer dozen bills amending the tax and budget biggest oligarchs, and sharply cutting state blog after the voting. codes in order to accommodate the 2015 subsidies to the coal industry, which were “For the first time, the oligarchs suffered with Savchenko’s lawyers central state budget, which was revamped largely pocketed by Donbas oligarchs. a loss. For the first time, the government since its presentation the prior week and “I was happy to have fulfilled the prom- truly entered into their pockets, even those NEW YORK – Activists of the approved early Monday morning, ise that I gave during elections, which was Ukrainian National Women’s League December 29. to eliminate in the Verkhovna Rada the (Continued on page 16) of America (UNWLA) met with two of the three attorneys representing 1st Lt. Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian pilot captured by pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine in June of last year New book presents evidence on positive roles and now being illegally detained in Moscow, to discuss how the organiza- tion can help secure her release. of Ukrainian Jews in Euro-Maidan movement The meeting took place on Kingston, Ontario. In selections by various December 9, 2014, at The Ukrainian by Oksana Zakydalsky authors, covering the period November 21, Museum. Attorneys Mark Feygin and TORONTO – The demonstrations on the 2013, to March 20, 2014, Prof. Luciuk offers Nikolai Polozov said they came to the United States with one main objective: Maidan in Kyiv that subsequently became compelling evidence about the positive role to achieve prisoner of war status for known as the Euro-Maidan and the Ukraine’s Jews, as well as those in the dias- Lt. Savchenko. Revolution of Dignity began on November pora, played in defense of the political sov- Russia refuses to recognize that the 21, 2013, when it became known that the ereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. pilot, who has been protesting her Yanukovych government had refused to The specific motivation in putting togeth- imprisonment with a hunger strike sign an Association Agreement with the er this volume, Prof. Luciuk said, came from that she began on December 13, 2014, European Union. An avalanche of propa- his reading about Jews who had been active is a POW and thus subject to provisions ganda was let loose against the Maidan in Kyiv in the government of the Ukrainian of the Geneva Conventions. Her law- demonstrations, mostly stemming from National Republic (UNR) in 1918, particu- yers said they are not being allowed to Russian sources. The demonstrators were larly the role of Arnold Margolin, a see Lt. Savchenko until after the holi- accused of being: “fascists,” “neo-Nazis” and Ukrainian Jewish lawyer and politician. day season ends in mid-January. “ultra-nationalists,” but the major charge During the revolutionary period Messrs. Feygin and Polozov had was of “anti-Semitism.” Unlike “fascist” or Margolin had played a prominent role in meetings in Washington with “ultra-nationalist,” the latter was a specific Ukraine’s liberation struggle and had been Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S. charge that could be refuted. deputy minister of foreign affairs of the Olexander Mostyk, officials at the U.S. That is the topic of a new book – “Jews, UNR and a member of the UNR delegation State Department and members of Ukrainians and the Euromaidan” – edited to the Paris Peace Conference. He worked by Dr. Lubomyr Y. Luciuk, professor of the (Continued on page 12) Cover of the new compendium edited by Royal Military College of Canada in (Continued on page 13) Dr. Lubomyr Y. Luciuk. 2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 2015 No. 2 ANALYSIS Ukrainian president signs law 12 soldiers killed in road accident account. Mr. Makeyev, who headed the Ukrainian delegation at the talks in Berlin, KYIV – Twelve National Guard soldiers also tweeted that it was possible a “general allowing NATO membership bid who were traveling for rotation were killed agreement” could be signed at the Astana and 22 more were injured in a road acci- said the ceasefire was “slowly working” but meeting. He told a Ukrainian television sta- RFE/RL dent in the Donetsk region late on January must be strengthened. tion there was also a possibility of a meeting 5. The public liaison department of the President Petro Poroshenko has signed a He said he will meet with Russian in Kyiv of officials from Ukraine, Russia, the Ukrainian Internal Affairs Ministry’s main law abandoning Ukraine’s neutral “non- President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Organization for Security and Cooperation office in the Donetsk region reported this bloc” status, and said Ukrainians will Angela Merkel and French President in Europe and representatives from eastern decide whether the country should seek Francois Hollande on January 15 to discuss on January 6. The injured “were urgently Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, NATO membership once it meets the stan- peace efforts. admitted to the central city hospital in which are currently under the control of dards of the Western military alliance. The meeting will take place in Astana, Artemivsk, where a range of measures He signed the law on December 29 during the capital of Kazakhstan, whose president, were being taken to preserve the lives of pro-Russian separatists. However, it an end-of-the-year news conference in Kyiv. Nursultan Nazarbaev, met with Presidents injured servicemen,” reads the depart- remained unclear if there would be a sum- “When Ukraine meets the appropriate Poroshenko and Putin in late December ment’s statement. The police said that “an mit of leaders from Ukraine, Russia, France standards – I think that will be done within 2014 and called for Russia and Ukraine to investigative team of the Ukrainian Internal and Germany later this month as Ukrainian five-six years in the framework of Strategy seek a compromise. Affairs Ministry’s main office in the President Petro Poroshenko had said in 2020 – then the people of Ukraine will Messrs. Poroshenko and Putin have held Donetsk region and representatives of the December. Mr. Poroshenko said he was pre- determine whether the country will join several four-way conversations with Ms. military prosecutor’s office are working at pared to meet on January 15 in Astana with NATO,” Mr. Poroshenko said, suggesting a Merkel and Mr. Hollande as part of efforts the scene to determine the circumstances Russian President Vladimir Putin, German referendum would be held on the issue. to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine. of the accident.” The report noted that on Chancellor Angela Merkel and French Ukraine’s Parliament passed the law on The European Union and the United January 5, at about 7 p.m., during the rota- President Francois Hollande. Ms. Merkel’s December 23, 2014, drawing vocal criti- States have imposed several rounds of tion of servicemen of volunteer units and spokesman Steffen Seibert said earlier on cism from Russia. The new law scraps 2010 sanctions on Russia over its annexation of the National Guard of Ukraine in the area of January 5 that such a summit “only makes legislation that barred Ukraine from seek- Ukraine and support for the separatists. the anti-terrorist operation, a bus carrying sense” if progress is made on “the full ing to join any military alliance. Ms. Merkel has called on Russia to use its the servicemen collided with a KrAZ truck implementation of the Minsk peace accord Mr. Poroshenko told lawmakers that day influence on the separatists, who control on the Kyiv-Kharkiv-Dovzhansky highway and a genuine and lasting ceasefire, a con- that Russian “aggression against Ukraine” parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in the village of Minkivka, Artemivsk dis- tact line between areas controlled by created the need for “more effective guar- to do more to end the conflict.

Load more

  20

Copy Link