INSIDE: Vice-President Joe Biden pays a visit to Kyiv – page 3 Holodomor commemoration on Parliament Hill – page 4 Service at St. Patrick’s remembers Holodomor – page 11 THEPublished U by theKRAINIAN Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal W non-profit associationEEKLY Vol. LXXXII No. 48 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2014 $2.00 Canadian medical mission to Ukraine performs Ukrainian Days event stresses complex surgeries on Euro-Maidan’s injured urgency of situation in Ukraine by Laryssa Waler surgeons, anesthetists and nurses. The team was assembled from across Canada, TORONTO – A specialized team of including Victoria and Vancouver, British Canadian health professionals recently Columbia; Edmonton, Alberta; Winnipeg, returned home after completing a medical Manitoba; and Toronto. mission in Ukraine during which, working Over 60 patients from across Ukraine alongside Ukrainian doctors and nurses, with complex post-traumatic defects and they performed reconstructive complex deformities were seen in consultation. A surgical procedures on victims of the Euro- total of 37 reconstructive procedures were Maidan movement and Vladimir Putin’s performed in 30 patients. These included: invasion into eastern Ukraine. seven skull reconstructions; 10 bony recon- The mission was organized by the structions of the facial skeleton; nine soft Canada Ukraine Foundation and Operation tissue reconstructions of the eyelids, nose, Rainbow Canada, under the patronage of lips; five burn and scar revisions; and six the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. The upper extremity reconstructions medical team of 25 professionals was com- posed entirely of volunteers and included (Continued on page 4) Matthew Dubas A delegation of Ukrainian Americans from New Jersey during the Ukrainian Days event in Washington. by Matthew Dubas States designate Ukraine as a Major non- NATO ally (MNNA), which will facilitate the WASHINGTON – The Ukrainian Days U.S. to support Ukraine with military sup- advocacy event on November 18-19 on plies, arms, increased border security and Capitol Hill attracted dozens of Ukrainian other areas of cooperation. Americans as they expressed their con- On Wednesday, November 19, Ukrainian cerns about the ongoing crisis in Ukraine at Americans met in the Senate Foreign the offices of their respective Congressmen Relations Committee room with staffers and senators. The event was sponsored by from Sen. Robert Menendez’s office and the Ukrainian National Information Service advisors to the Foreign Relations (UNIS) and the Ukrainian Congress Committee. Jodi Herman, foreign policy and Committee of America (UCCA) with assis- trade advisor to Sen. Menendez, who chairs tance from the newly established Ad Hoc the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Committee on Ukraine (AHCU). reported that S 2828 had passed unani- Proposed legislation includes S 2828 mously in committee voting 18-0 in (Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014), September. The legislation is pending sub- HR 5190 (Ukraine Security Assistance Act mission to the Senate floor due to resolu- Canada Ukraine Foundation of 2014) and S 2238/HR 5241 (Crimean tion of budgetary issues and provisions for Roman Waschuk, ambassador of Canada to Ukraine, with members of the Canadian Annexation Non-recognition Act). There is and Ukrainian medical team. also work being done to have the United (Continued on page 10) Holodomor tragedy haunts memory of Zhytomyr doctor by Zenon Zawada Dr. Osypenko, 89, is among the rapidly diminishing number of Holodomor survi- LIUBAR, Ukraine – Dr. Hryhorii vors who can offer such testimony of the Osypenko remembers that he had an older Soviet genocide of the Ukrainian people. brother Mykhailo. During the frigid autumn Among the latest estimates, offered in of 1932, his mother sent Mykhailo to a field 2008 by then-Vice Prime Minister Ivan to find any frozen or rotten potatoes that Vasiunyk, was 168,812 survivors still alive – a hadn’t yet been dug up. number that has since diminished. To offer “It was pretty far and it was cold already,” any recollection of the event, one would have Dr. Osypenko recalled, having been 7 years to be no younger than 84 (born in 1930). old at the time. “And he rested at a haycock Ukrainians say only those with the and froze to death there. But we didn’t know strongest immunity survived the where he was or what happened to him.” Holodomor, and there may be no better By springtime, some boys who were till- example than Dr. Osypenko, born on ing the field found Mykhailo’s body and February 8, 1925, who still walks 30 minutes buried him there, placing his cap on a stake a day to catch a ride to his job as an infectolo- to mark the spot, Dr. Osypenko said. “There gist (infectious disease specialist) in the dis- was a bag near him and it was empty,” he Zenon Zawada trict hospital in the town of Liubar, on the said. “Everyone wanted to eat something in Dr. Hryhorii Osypenko, 89, stands in front of his house and outdoor cellar on the same southwestern edge of the Zhytomyr Oblast. those days. So probably someone ate those land in the Zhytomyr region from which he and his family were evicted by the potatoes.” Communists during the Holodomor. He lost two of his brothers in the genocidal famine. (Continued on page 10) 2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2014 No. 48 ANALYSIS With Ukraine going strong, Putin Poroshenko likens Holodomor to war in east commenting on remarks by U.S. President Barack Obama’s choice to fill the number KYIV – Ukrainian President Petro two spot at the State Department, Anthony becomes lost in fog of hybrid war Poroshenko compared the Holodomor of Blinken, who told a congressional hearing 1932-1933 with the current war in eastern on November 19 that lethal assistance by Pavel Baev propagated by “anti-national thinking” Ukraine, saying the war is a continuation of “remains on the table. It’s something that Eurasia Daily Monitor about “a violent overthrow of the existing regime” (Kommersant, November 21). This imperial genocide against the Ukrainian we’re looking at.” The U.S. State Last weekend (November 21), Ukraine discourse betrays deepening fear about a people. He spoke in Kyiv as he laid a wreath Department’s Director of Press Relations marked the first anniversary of the Euro- sudden explosion of mass protests, which in memory of the victims of the Famine- Jeffrey Rathke on November 20 told report- Maidan – the public protests in Kyiv that would break through the shields of the Genocide during a ceremony at the ers that “our position on lethal aid hasn’t lasted through the hard winter of discontent OMON (Russian riot police), despite the Holodomor memorial in the Ukrainian cap- changed. Nothing is off the table and we and brought down the corrupt regime of fact that Russia is one of the most heavily ital on November 22. This was the date continue to believe there’s no military solu- Viktor Yanukovy.ch on February 21. As its policed states in the world (Moscow Echo, Ukraine had chosen to mark 81 years since tion.” He added, “But, in light of Russia’s war for state survival continues to rage, the November 22). Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs the Stalin-era Holodomor that killed mil- actions as the nominee mentioned yester- country is in no mood for street festivities. Minister Sergei Lavrov showed a different lions of people in Ukraine. (RFE/RL, based day in his testimony, as he indicated, this is Nevertheless, the Euro-Maidan clearly still side of the same fear, arguing that Western on reporting by ukrnews.com and united- something that we should be looking at.” drives Ukraine’s policy, as was illustrated by sanctions are aimed at “regime change” in humanrights.org) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, the formation of a broad governing coalition during a visit to Washington in September, Russia by ruining its economy (RIA Kyiv remembers start of Euro-Maidan pledging to restore the country’s territorial Novosti, November 22). appealed for lethal aid – a request echoed integrity and deepen its pro-Western orien- The economy is indeed sinking into a KYIV – Ukrainians are marked a new by some U.S. lawmakers in response to tation, including the goal of joining the recession so fast that the government is national holiday on November 21 – the what NATO allies say is Russia’s movement North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) unable to produce any meaningful set of anniversary of the start of the Euro-Maidan of tanks and troops into eastern Ukraine. (Gazeta.ru, November 21). guidelines for Mr. Putin’s annual address protests that led to the ouster of the coun- Reporting on U.S. Vice-President Joe United States Vice-President Joe Biden (due on December 4) and all its ministers try’s former pro-Kremlin regime. President Biden’s November 20-21 visit to Kyiv, The was in Kyiv to express full support for could be collectively sacked, according to Petro Poroshenko signed decree on Washington Post noted: “In private meet- reforms and to warn Russia against further informed insiders such as Alexei Kudrin November 13 that declared the holiday for ings with Poroshenko and Prime Minister violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty, which (RBC, November 22). The state budget for annual “Day of Dignity and Freedom” com- Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Biden also again told would be punished by new sanctions 2015, approved by the State Duma last memorations. The protests began with a the Ukrainians that the United States had (Lenta.ru, November 21). week, is based on the premise of oil prices few hundred people who met spontane- made no decisions on the country’s long- This warning was reinforced by NATO at $100 per barrel and envisages growth in ously on a vast square in central Kyiv of standing request for lethal military equip- Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who the range of 3.3 to 1.2 percent, so the inevi- November 21, 2013 – disappointed by ment to combat the separatists, according checked the deployment of new military tability of severe cuts in expenditures is then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s rejec- to senior administration officials traveling assets in Lithuania and confirmed that the beyond doubt (Slon.ru, November 21).