A Royal Gift to the Government

A number of facts suggest that the Presidential Administration is promoting Natalia Korolevska’s political project. True or not, she is now playing into the hands of the government in its efforts to take control of the future parliament

Why Invest in Culture?

How Ukrainian officials are distorting Ukrainian culture

Russification Redux?

A confrontation over language legislation proposed by the ruling party is unfolding in Ukraine.

The Backup Plan

As the Presidential Administration begins to doubt its ability to stay in power after the parliamentary and later presidential elections, the current authorities are under pressure to pursue alternative scenarios, a key one being changes to the constitution

Questions Without Answers

Vitali Klitschko’s rapid political ascent is due to his readiness to say what most voters want to hear. Yet, it is currently too early to talk about any strategic vision of the nation’s development

Vitali Klitschko: “The Opposition Should Unite In the Parliament”

Vitali Klitschko’s Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) refuses to run under a single party list with Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna and Arseniy Yatseniuk’s Front of Change in the upcoming parliamentary election. From now on, it is the only opposition political force other than the ‘united opposition’ that is confidently crossing the 5% threshold.

How to Save Ukraine

The leading Western media have written much and mostly negative about Ukraine in the past few weeks, focusing on Euro 2012 boycott by European presidents for the bad treatment of Ms. Tymoshenko

A Taste of Isolation

Bankova Street’s hopes to manipulate the EU have crashed. Europe has let Ukraine know that it cannot integrate with its current government, but the issue of an efficient alternative remains open

Weapons Against Opposition

As its popularity ratings plummet, the Party of Regions will find administrative resources and falsifications insufficient and will have to actively employ spoilers against the opposition. The latter’s excessive ambitiousness will only give the advantage to Bankova Street*

Through Union to Conflict?

Batkivshchyna and the Front of Changes, two most popular opposition forces, presented the Declaration of Unity signed by Yulia Tymoshenko and Arseniy Yatseniuk. They announced plans to run under one list in the upcoming parliamentary election.

Criminal-Political Code

Passed hastily at night, the new Code of Criminal Procedure was supposed to be a demonstrative adaptation to international standards that will conceal broader opportunities for those in power to continue political repression in the Ukrainian reality

Naftogaz Up For Sale

On 13 April, the Verkhovna Rada passed an amendment to the Law On Pipeline Transport to Reform the Oil and Gas Complex, which provides for the re-organization of Naftogaz, currently a national joint stock company.

The Power of an Imprisoned Woman

The situation surrounding the former Ukrainian prime minister has attracted so much attention that any procedural nuances will now drown in fiery debates about the need to have her released, evaluations of the Ukrainian government’s proclivity to repression and proposals of possible ways to pressure it into releasing political prisoners.

Command Post Exercise

The main players facing off in the parliamentary election campaign this autumn have begun to deploy their party structures.

Yuriy Lutsenko: “I will definitely participate in the next presidential campaign”

The Ukrainian Week managed to obtain several answers from Lutsenko prior to his hearing in Strasbourg.

Final Say

The European Court of Human Rights has yet to rule in Yuriy Lutsenko’s case

Kyiv Sets the Trend

The mayoral election in Kyiv will be the first test to reveal the united opposition’s ability to resist the technologies that will be used by the government to ensure the necessary outcome of parliamentary and presidential elections

National Project Watch

An investigation has revealed the essence of Ukraine’s current “national projects”program: these are mostly frauds covered up by hollow promises

PACE Co-Rapporteur Mailis Reps: "The Ukrainian Parliament Could Extend Amnesty to Opposition Leaders”

PACE Monitoring Committee Co-Rapporteurs have once again visited Ukraine where they were finally allowed to see Yuriy Lutsenko and talk to the Prosecutor General. In an interview with The Ukrainian Week, Mailis Reps, Co-Rapporteur of the Monitoring Committee and an Estonian MP, shares her impressions of a meeting with Lutsenko and others and adverse trends she spotted in Kyiv.

Khoroshkovsky in London: Kyiv Can Deal with Moscow

Participating in a London round-table, Deputy Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovsky used his impeccable manners and good command of English to try to present a very positive picture of Ukraine in the world's financial capital

Losing Ground

Despite pressure and money, despite manipulating election legislation and bribing entire social groups with financial injections from the budget, Ukraine’s leadership feels increasingly insecure. The fear of losing power is gradually turning into panic as current officials become increasingly aware that one day they will be held accountable for violating written and unwritten social laws

Election Tango

It looks like the latest local by-election was a platform for testing mechanisms that could be used in the 2012 parliamentary election

The Return of the Prodigal Son, Who Never Left Home

Despite implementing large-scale image-building projects, which were largely directed towards the European audience, Petro Poroshenko has no alternative choices for the nation’s development. He has always been part and parcel of the post-soviet oligarchic system

High Demand, Zero Supply

None of the existing opposition parties really seek demonopolization, separation of business and government, or desovietization

Longing for a Right-Wing Force

Ukraine has an objective demand for a right-centre alternative aiming at liberating and supporting private initiative, radical separation between government and business, and the rapid de-sovietisation of society

GRECO President: “Kivalov Twisted My Words Significantly in His Statements”

If you can't win over an opponent, try to distort what he says. Apparently, Party of Regions member Serhiy Kivalov has been following that motto as he tells Ukrainians in his numerous interviews that the president of GRECO, Marin Mrčela, the Council of Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption, allegedly opposes the decriminalization of Articles 364 and 365 of the Criminal Code under which Yulia Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko were sentenced.