Can the middle class drive Ukraine's independence and development?

People commemorate the 4th anniversary of the February killings of protesters on the Maidan

November 21, the 4th anniversary of the Maidan, begins in Kyiv with a prayer for the Heavenly Hundred, the protesters killed at Instytutska Street in February 2014, and the victims of earlier shootings, police violence throughout the revolution

Ukraine’s Parliament has started to change the electoral system. Will they be able to finish the job and what will change if the reform goes through?

According to recent sociological studies, there have been no significant changes in the mood of Ukrainians over the last three years. The scarcity of demonstrations cannot be attributed to loyalty to the current government, but rather to the fact that the opposition is equally far away from understanding what the citizens need and how these needs can be met

What is needed for Ukraine to have a political force that is not linked to oligarchs

High-profile arrests have been expected for a very long time. For over two years now, Ukrainians have been demanding punishment for those in power who were guilty of escalating events on the Maidan and then the war in Donbas. The question “Why aren’t the Regionals being punished?” is hotter than ever, and it’s only recently that the Prosecutor General’s Office has tried to answer it. Now Oleksandr Yefremov, ex-Head of Luhansk Oblast State Administration, then First Deputy Head of the Party of Regions and generally one of the more odious ex-Regionals, is sitting in jail awaiting trial

Although his powers are president of Ukraine are quite limited, over the last two years Petro Poroshenko has learned to use them like a virtuoso, allowing him considerable influence over the legislature and Government

The Baltic States have already injected their share of optimism in the European project. Now the turn has come for Ukraine to cure the Union with her magnanimity and optimism

Is Maidan 3.0 possible, and what would it look like?

Politicians on why strong-arm tactics remain a tool to influence parliamentarians and officials, and how effective these actions can be

To achieve successful democratic development, the Ukrainian citizens need our moral, financial and practical support

Ukraine needs an election system that will enable new movements and politicians who enjoy community trust locally

The first speaker of the Seimas of the independent Lithuania and EMP until recently on the way Europe is changing its perception of Russia, the shifting "center of Europeanness", and why it is crucial for Ukrainians to resist disenchantment

What happened in EuroMaidan a year ago will force West European and North American sociologists to revise their writings

The Ukrainian Week spoke to the former deputy chief of the Security Service of Ukraine and current MP about Ukrainian partisans in the Donbas, sabotage in Russia, reforms in the SBU and who it worked for prior to the Maidan.

Ukraine has become a litmus test of global moral (in)sensitivity at the beginning of the 21st century

Chairman of the Lustration Committee speaks about the government’s tricks, the Kremlin’s agents and the need to rebuild government agencies from scratch

Live reports for foreign TV are much like navigating a minefield of alien stereotypes, alien influences, alien prejudices and alien interests. Things are further complicated by the spiteful foreign language that just keeps picking all the wrong words out of memory, as you feverishly fish for the right ones.

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

New political turns at the Cannes Festival

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 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?

“People often come to museums in the Netherlands. Just to hide away from the rain,” Yulia Lytvynets, Chief Custodian of Ukraine’s National Art Museum, says. The recent revolutionary events changed the angle from which her museum’s staff approached preserving the collection and the museum building and building horizontal relationships between museums and individuals.

There are reasons to believe that officers of the Federal Security Service of Russian Federation (FSB) were involved in the planning and implementation of the so-called antiterrorist operations in Kyiv during the mass protests on Maidan in February, Ukrainian Security Service Chief (SBU) Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said during the press-conference on April, 3rd.

The ideas of 1789 – liberty, equality and fraternity – made an indelible impression on the memories of nations and many democratic constitutions to this very day. The same fate also awaits the ideas of the EuroMaidan: liberty, dignity and truth.

How Ukraine should tackle lustration, skeletons in the closets of its new government and tools that could help it not lose the war

Poles supported the Maidan gladly and passionately – more so, I think, than Russia supported the anti-Maidans

It was bitter on the one hand. The West didn’t support us… Kept waiting… Negotiating… On the other hand, what did we expect? Did we hope that Europe would immediately side with the Maidan, believe in Ukrainian civil society and press the tyrant out of power? Firstly, that is not how things are done in international politics. Secondly, European officials had every reason to be skeptical.

The word “knockout” aptly describes the sentiments now prevalent in the Donbas. Total confusion and shock. Alarming rumours about trainloads of heavily armed extremists from Western Ukraine heading for Donetsk. It is as if you are reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s White Guard.

After Viktor Yanukovych fled and Ukraine found itself on the brink of a war, it seemed Ukrainians could be celebrating the victory, but somehow there was no euphoria. Only a mist.

Andrew Wilson is a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a permanent Reader in Ukrainian Studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), University College London. He shared his views with The Ukrainian Week on the prospects for rapid reform in Ukraine, on the inadequate reaction of the West to the usurpation of power by Viktor Yanukovych and the absence of the rule of law, both under the Orange government and under that of Yanukovych.

The Ukrainian Week speaks to Volodymyr Vasylenko, expert in international law and former Ambassador of Ukraine, about Viktor Yanukovych’s responsibility for crimes against Ukrainian people, grounds for prosecution by the International Criminal Court in Hague and actual assistance the West can provide to Ukraine today

Viktor Yanukovych, the ousted president of Ukraine, said on Thursday that he remained the lawful president, and asked Russian authorities to grant his personal safety.

Thousands of pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine demonstrators duelled in Crimea’s capital on Wednesday, heightening concerns about unrest in the region following the change in government in Kiev, Financial Times reports.

In early February, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks paid an urgent visit to Ukraine to assess the situation with human rights, including the way law enfrocers treated protesters, in Kyiv and regions. Based on his visit, a report will be drafted to be presented to the CoE Committee of Ministers. The Ukrainian Week talks to Mr. Muižnieks about his preliminary findings back in Strasbourg

Germany's Frank Walter-Steinmeier, France's Eric Fournier, and Poland's Radoslaw Sikorski come to the Verkhovna Rada

Yanukovych has 24 hours to sign the return to the 2004 Constitution, Poland's Foreign Ministers writes in his Twitter

Opposition leaders and Viktor Yanukovych signed the Agreement to Regulate the Crisis in Ukraine at the Presidential Administration on February 21. The text has been promulgated by the President's press-service

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper announces travel bans for top officials involved in violence against protesters in Kyiv and considers economic sanctions against Yanukovych and his supporters

MPs pass a resolution to stop the use force by the police in downtown Kyiv, The Ukrainian Week’s journalist reports from Parliament

Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to send Vladimir Lukin, the Human Rights Commissioner of Russia, with a mediation mission to Ukraine, Putin’s press secretary Dmitri Peskov reports

Public Commission to Investigate Human Rights Violations in Ukraine issues its Statement after the bloodshed of February 18

MPs who gathered to hold a parliament session at 3 p.m. were blocked from the Verkhovna Rada session room

The bodies of eight people shot dead covered with blankets are on Maidan Nezalezhnosti close to the Kozatskyi hotel

On February 19, the US imposed visa bans on senior Ukrainian government officials believed to be responsible for a violent crackdown by riot police against protesters, a senior State Department official said, as quoted by Reuters

Clashes between police and protesters continue in Kyiv

SBU, Ukraine’s security service, says that the statement of SBU Chief Oleksandr Yakymenko speaks of preparation for an “anti-terrorist operation”, not the launch of one, SBU press center clarifies

Secretary of State John Kerry is expected on Wednesday to again raise the possibility of U.S. sanctions on Ukraine, Reuters reports.

President Viktor Yanukovych threatens to put opposition leaders in jail, journalist Sviatoslav Tseholko wrote on Facebook quoting Batkivshchyna leader Arseniy Yatseniuk

From 10.20 a.m. on February 18, 2014, by 6 a.m. on February 19, 2014, 351 protesters called for medical aid, Kyiv City State Administration reports based on information from the Administration Health Care Department

Protesters have begun to take away a part of the barricade on Hrushevskoho Street where major clashes took place on January 19-22; MP Arsen Avakov said that activists would set up a checkpoint at Hrushevskoho and free the Kyiv City State Administration and four oblast state administrations by morning; four Maidan activists are still in detention centers; the opposition claims that the Maidan is not going anywhere; titushky have made another attempt to demolish barricades on Khreshchatyk; a resolution was submitted to the US Senate calling on immediate sanctions against Ukraine; the Maidan is preparing for peaceful pressure on Parliament

Former US Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer told in the interview to Deutsche Welle that the West should target Ukrainian oligarchs with sanctions.

Catherine Ashton to Meet with IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde on Thursday, The WSJ reports.

The size and persistence of the protest movement that started in November has been amazing and admirable. I think it has greatly surprised not only almost all international observers but also most Ukrainian political and civil society activists

What is happening in Ukraine is a direct reaction to the lack of consideration of the authorities for the aspirations of its citizens to be part of Europe and to live in a country governed in accordance with democratic principles and respect for human rights

The authorities’ “concessions” did not address any of the original causes of the mass protests, leaving the confrontation at a standstill

The list of wanted activists includes the son of MP Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Oleksiy Hrytsenko; and AutoMaidan activists Dmytro Bulatov and Serhiy Koba, the Interior Ministry’s statement on its website says

While American leadership is waking up to the political crisis in Ukraine, experts discuss gloomy scenarios for Ukraine

The Ukrainian State was the impossible dream of grandparents and something the parents sacrificed their lives and comfort for. For the Ukrainian leadership, it is nothing but a temporary resource of personal wealth

The title of this opinion piece does ring a bell, doesn’t it? It was Slavoj Žižek who said these words when he was asked to assess the USA and NATO bombing of Serbia during the war in the former Yugoslavia. Whereas quite a few public intellectuals and thinkers in Europe had second thoughts on NATO operations, the Slovenian philosopher didn’t bother to search for a softer phrase: “Too little and too late"

US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt: “The situation today is not hopeless, but it requires tough decisions from the Ukrainian Government regarding a number of issues, which have been put off for far too long”

Historian and sociologist Oksana Mikheyeva on why the Donbas intelligentsia is silent and what business in this region wants

The campaign offers Ukrainian journalists support and urges anyone to send in photos or alerts should any attack on a journalist take place

There are still many optimists who consider Yanukovych to be just a corrupt paranoid, who can be controlled by the oligarchy who are interested in accessing EU markets. Actually, Yanukovych is seeking violence as a way of pay back, revenge for his 2004 failure. He is using the whole state apparatus for this. He will keep talking about dialogue, but there are no democratic institutions for a dialogue in Ukraine as he usurped power back in 2010

The EuroMaidan began as a protest against President Yanukovych’s decision to disrupt the Association Agreement with the EU. Over the past two months, it has escalated into resistance to the government and President Yanukovych himself

A Russia-EU summit is held in Brussels today. Ukraine will be the top priority on the agenda, Polish publication Rzeczpospolita reports

Prime Minister Mykola Azarov resigns, the official website of the Government reports

The meeting of President Viktor Yanukovych and his working group with opposition leaders is over after four hours

Loki, the Belarussian who was killed on Hrushevskoho Street, always carried a Ukrainian flag in his pocket. Armenian Serhiy Nihoyan “never asked for anything” and was constantly on duty on the Maidan

Nearly 3,000 protesters stormed the Oblast State Administration building in Dnipropetrovsk today. As a result, three police officers ended up in hospitals and ICTV cameraman had a neck injury

Police and thugs crack down down on protesters storming the Oblast State Administration building. The injured are delivered to hospitals where the police waits for them

The Yanukovych regime has refused to compromise even after the deaths of several protesters, and there is no indication that any number of victims will change this

Roman Senyk, who was shot by the sniper during the clashes on Hrushevs’koho street on January,22nd died in a hospital on Saturday, Svoboda MP Iryna Sekh said.

A delegation from the European Parliament will visit Ukraine on January 28–30 to examine the situation surrounding the EuroMaidan first-hand. Meetings are planned with the Ukrainian leadership, opposition representatives and,k first and foremost, with the Presidium of the EuroMaidan

At this critical moment, the European Union is tarrying unacceptably in finding ways to influence the situation in Ukraine

Opposition leaders declined a deal offered to them by Viktor Yanukovych during the renewed negotiations on Saturday, January 25th.

The Ukrainian Week talks to Viktor Musiyaka, one of the authors of the Constitution of Ukraine and a professor at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, about the current events. Far from giving a comforting opinion, the professor offers specific guidelines for overcoming the deep political crisis.

At least 42 journalists were injured in clashes with the Berkut riot police in Kyiv, the Institute of Mass Information reports based on its monitoring

Family members recognize Maidan activist Yuriy Verbytskyi kidnapped earlier from the hospital in Kyiv along with Kyiv-based activist Ihor Lutsenko in the body found in a forest in Boryspil Raion, Hanna Hrabarska wrote on her Facebook page referring to Yuriy’s niece

The United States strongly condemns the increasing violence on the streets of Kyiv, which has led to casualties and the shooting deaths of two protesters, The US Department of State reports

“We are shocked to hear the latest news from Ukraine about deaths of protesters,” says President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, in his statement on the recent developments in Ukraine

A protester is dead after four gunshots during protests at Hrushevshkoho Street, Expresso.TV reports referring to the medical service of the Maidan

A senior government source from another EU state told The EUobserver that individual EU countries could impose unilateral measures pending an EU-level accord.

Activist and Maidan leader Ihor Lutsenko disappeared this night, activist Maria Lebedeva reports on Facebook

Representatives of the Maidan NGO were not present at the talks with National Security and Defence Council Chair Andriy Kliuyev, Advisor to President Andriy Portnov and Justice Minister Olena Lukash assigned to seek a solution to the current crisis in negotiations with the civil society and opposition by President Yanukovych, says ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko

Vitaliy Klitschko and Andriy Parubiy guarantee officers no persecution and the right to serve in posts equivalent to the ones they hold now should they withdraw and cease all forceful actions demanded by Yanukovych in a written statement posted on the EuroMaydan account in Facebook

“The Steering Committee of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum calls upon the European Union to cease all financial assistance to the government of Ukraine, and to impose a travel ban on all 239 Ukrainian MPs who voted on 16 January 2014 for authoritarian new laws,” the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum’s Statement on repressive laws in Ukraine and Azerbaijan claims.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt commented on the situation in Ukraine to journalists in a doorstep interview prior to the Foreign Affaris Council taking place on January 20 in Brussels.

UDAR leader Vitaliy Klitschko is the single candidate of the resistance campaign, a post on AutoMaidan’s official Facebook account says

One of leaders of the Ukrainian opposition Arseniy Yatseniuk said that Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych called him and said he agreed for negotiations.

A large rally in Kiev that was called in part to protest a new set of laws cracking down on public protests turned violent on Sunday, 19th, The New York Times reports.

The role of the West in Ukraine's political crisis as seen by European and American experts

The spike in numbers at the protest showed the resilience of a movement with broad aims, including the ouster of Mr. Yanukovych, The WSJ reports.

Appeals for targeted sanctions against Ukrainian officials responsible for the violent crackdown of peaceful demonstrations and the use of force and persecution against journalists and protesters figure high in the messages of Ukrainian opposition, civil society and protesters of EuroMaidan to the West, in particular to the U.S. and to the EU. Apart from Yanukovych, his family members and state officials, the protesters call on the West to include business elites, so called oligarchs, supporting Yanukovych’s regime in the list of sanctioned individuals.

Ukraine's crisis is as much an internal battle between competing identities as an external geopolitical struggle between integration and exclusion from the Western project

Yuriy Lutsenko, leader of the Third Ukrainian Republic initiative and politically persecuted ex-Interior Minister in Yulia Tymoshenko’s Cabinet, is beaten and injured by Berkut riot police in the clashes on the night of January 10-11. Ten more people are injured, five taken to hospitals.

The representatives of Ukrainian diaspora in the United States has met with the Obama administration representative on Friday (January, 3rd) and discussed the possible steps to respond on the growing oppression of the democracy in Ukraine, Ukrayins’ka Pravda reports.

The oppositional MP from “Svoboda” party Andriy Illienko and party activist and lawyer Sydir Kizin were assaulted on Friday night (January,3rd) in the latest in a series of violent attacks on the demonstrations' organizers.

World academics and intellectuals called on their governments and international organisations to support Ukrainians in their efforts to put an end to a corrupt and brutal regime and to the geopolitical vulnerability of their country. Their appeal was published on the website of The Guardian.