Deputy Education Minister Maksym Strikha: "Science is not a means of satisfying one's curiosity, but the guarantee of the national security"

Mr. Strikha spoke to The Ukrainian Week about the current status and the potential of the Ukrainian science, the need for reform at the National Academy of Sciences, and forged academic degrees.

Trouble at the Academy

On the maladies afflicting Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences and its chances of recovery

To Sell Boryspil Airport

During the Yanukovych era, Boryspil International Airport went through at least two high-profile scandals associated with the attempts to transfer it into private hands. But even after officials were changed in offices, these attempts continue

The Origins of Donetsk Separatism

Donetsk separatism only truly became a noticeable problem in 2014. Until then, almost no one believed that it existed.

How Russian Troops Entered Donbas on August 23

For four days, the Russian "brothers" made preparations to shoot down Ukrainian troops near Ilovaysk

The Nerve of Annexation

Some experts feel that the war in the Donbas was started to distract attention from the annexation of Crimea and force its recognition. If this is the case, the goal has almost been achieved. Indeed, when the military and civilians are dying, who can be bothered with Crimea where everything seems to be relatively quiet? However, that quietness is deceptive.

Crimea: The Multitude of Nations

The Bulgarians, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Karaites, Crimean Tatars, Krymchaks, Ukrainians, Russians, Romani – these are just the most prominent of the ethnic groups that populated the peninsula over the last 150 years

Without 1933, There Would Be No 2014

The echoes of the Famine in today's separatism in South-Eastern Ukraine

The Donetsk Syndrome

Ukrainian war veterans return from the Donbas. And face a new war

A month in captivity in the “Donetsk People’s Republic”

Ruslan Petrenko (not his real name) from a small town near Donetsk was a pro-Ukrainian activist. This got him in trouble: he was taken hostage by the “DNR” terrorists and spent more than a month in captivity

The Next People’s Republic?

Without “tourists” from Russia, the separatist movement in Kharkiv has quickly marginalised. If not for pro-Russian sympathies of the local authorities, it would hardly pose any threat at all

Giovanni Kessler: “A Comprehensive fight against corruption cannot be confined to single cases, there is a need for an overall strategy to combat fraud and corruption”

The Ukrainian Week met with Giovanni Kessler who is the current Director-General of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) during his visit to Ukraine. We spoke on the instruments which Ukraine can apply to fight corruption more effectively, possibility of creation of the joint EU-Ukraine body for corruption investigation and the role of OLAF in this process.

“Is There Any Other Way?”

The Ukrainian Week speaks to proactive young Ukrainians – soldiers, volunteers and activists – to find out what they think of as their major accomplishment, of their peers in politics, and of leaving Ukraine

Sociologist Yevhen Holovakha: “30 years is a minimum term for a change in values”

In his interview for The Ukrainian Week, sociologist Yevhen Holovakha discusses ways used to install Soviet values, explains why nostalgia about the USSR and argues that one efficient way to de-Sovietize society is to dispel the myth about the high standard of social care under the Bolsheviks

Historian and sociologist Oksana Mikheyeva:“We must drag people out of the media coma”

The Ukrainian Week speaks to Ms. Mikheyeva about the humanitarian future of her native region

The Comic Wars of Rinat Akhmetov

Rinat Akhmetov, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Yanukovych continue to weave plots for Eastern Ukraine, making the rebels with black-and-orange ribbons think that they are dying for a New Russia, not for oligarchic interests

Fundraising for the Ukrainian Army

Volunteers who raise funds for the Ukrainian military share their motivations, worries and bank details for those who are willing to donate

Nils Muižnieks: “Once the central government has a long-term plan for IDPs, assistance from the international community will be forthcoming”

The Ukrainian Week talks to Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks about the flow of IDPs from Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, ways for the government to deal with the problem Ukraine has never faced before, and about the hard lesson on integration of minorities Russia’s neighbours had to learn

Russia: Headlong Away From Freedom

The ability to travel or foreign channels on cable TV are failing to safeguard homo post-sovieticus from propaganda of hatred

Donbas battalion commander:“Our format is a compromise between state agencies and the voluntary movement. We want to change our country”

Semen Semenchenko talks about voluntary special forces, the Chechen trail in Eastern Ukraine and inevitable terror

The Chronicles of Dignity

How the past six months changed Ukrainians, Ukraine and the Maidan

Exporting Hatred

Human rights advocates and international experts are alarmed at growing xenophobia in Crimea and separatist-controlled territories

Organize or Face Disappointment

Without grassroots organization and political parties funded by membership dues, Ukrainians will find themselves disappointed once again by self-serving political leaders. Even worse, the country could face further degradation or loss of sovereignty

The Foreign Hundred

The Maidan became both a tourist destination and a place where foreigners, who are not indifferent to the fate of Ukraine, gathered. The flags that flew above it were from various countries, not only those of Ukraine and the EU. The heroes of Nebesna Sotnya - the Heaven Hundred - also include the citizens of other countries. How did, and do, foreigners view the Maidan?

Peter Pomerantsev: “Russia Today is a distraction for more subtle things that Russia does in the sphere of information”

The Ukrainian Week talks to Peter Pomerantsev, British television producer and non-fiction writer who spent nine years in Russia, on Russian state propaganda, new methods of informational war and how Ukraine should defend itself

Heresies and Sects in Russia

Was the West really the source of deviance for Russian orthodoxy?