Fears of radioactive disaster as Russian proxies plan to flood nuclear test site in Donbas. On 14 April, the occupation authorities of the “Donetsk People’s Republic,” a Russian-backed statelet in eastern Ukraine, are going to stop pumping shaft waters out of the defunct coal mine “Yunkom,” which was transformed into a Soviet underground nuclear test site back in 1979. The decision threatens to cause a nuclear disaster in the region. Within the worst-case scenario, the forthcoming filling of the mine with water may pollute soil, surface and ground waters with radiocontaminants reaching the Azov Sea.

The “golden hands” saving lives on the front lines.  The life of many Ukrainian doctors, paramedics and nurses has changed since the random killings of activists on the Maidan in the winter of 2013-2014 and working to this day in extreme conditions in the war zone. More than 60 medics have been killed on the front line in Eastern Ukraine.

Societal resilience in Eastern Ukraine: building solid foundations for a nation. The long-awaited and much-debated official adoption of the so-called Donbas De-Occupation Law by Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada provoked a heated discussion in Ukrainian society over the last three months on whether this legal act is merely a symbolic (if communicatively important) gesture to label Russia as a state aggressor, or whether it reflects a serious intention to create a strong foundation for the region’s re-integration.

In Ukraine

Seven ideas for Ukraine and Europe: to be discussed at the Kyiv Security Forum. During 12-13 April 2018, the 11th Kyiv Security Forum will be held in Kyiv, bringing together politicians, analysts, and journalists to discuss regional and global security issues. Former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, member of the Supervisory Board of the Open Ukraine Foundation which organizes the Forum, shared what will be discussed during the event.

After year of empty promises, anti-corruption activists in Ukraine forced to declare assets. After a year of discussions, no compromise was found to cancel President Poroshenko’s amendments requiring anti-corruption activists to declare their assets. The bills proposing to postpone it did not even make it to a vote in parliament.

Ukrainian civil society continues fight for anti-corruption court. Ukraine’s judicial reform is at another crucial juncture. It had many troubles already: a crucial civil society watchdog withdrew from the process of what should have been the lustration of judges, and clashes erupted over the future anti-corruption court. These issues are interrelated: the judges’ committee that is responsible for selecting the judges to staff the projected anti-corruption court is the same one which the civil society watchdog is boycotting, accusing it of faking the judicial reform.

The kings of “jeansa”: who buys influence in Ukrainian media – and how they do it. Jeansa, the menace of Ukrainian media, is one of the main vehicles for the power of oligarchs in the country – and one of the obstacles to a functioning representative democracy. Thanks to this disguised political advertising, the media – and political – discourses in the country are permanently altered, allowing to propel the “needed” candidates to victory.


Who wants the USSR back in Ukraine? 30% of Ukrainians miss the Soviet Union. The proportion of youth below age 30 is 14%. Who are these people?  Why do they miss it and what danger does this pose for Ukraine? Among the nostalgic are quite different individuals. However, one can find many things which unite them.

International aspects

Lies about Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution that just won’t go away. Many of the boldest lies written in English about Euromaidan have come not from Kremlin propaganda factories, but ostensibly respectable and well-regarded western writers.

Ukraine less westernized than Baltic States, Moldova, Georgia – research. Ukraine ranks 6^th among 14 former Soviet republics by its level of integration into the western political, economic, and cultural space. The first annual «Westernization Index 2018» was released by the StrategEast in collaboration with the experts of the New Europe Center.

Indonesian ambassador to establish Indonesia-Lviv cultural cooperations. Indonesian Ambassador to Ukraine Prof. Dr. Yuddy Chrisnandi is currently boosting Indonesian culture in Ukraine.

Donbas war

Ukrainian mothers given a voice with online documentary “War Mothers”. 

“If a husband loses his wife, he will be called a widower. If a wife loses her husband, she will be called a widow. But what do you call a mother who has lost her child? There is no such name for them in the world. It is the most terrible thing in the world.” – Svetlana Serotin

In 2016, Australian filmmaker Stefan Bugryn traveled to the warzones and frontlines of Ukraine to tell a story he felt was not being heard a home – the story of how war can affect the lives of mothers, and alter the state of motherhood.
 

Russia's threat and human rights violations

Volodymyr Balukh, a farmer jailed for flying the Ukrainian flag above his house in occupied Crimea, is now on the 24th day of hunger strike against his falsified trial and illegal sentence. He is one of the #LetMyPeopleGo list of minimum 66 Ukrainians jailed by Russia for political reasons. Today in the room of court, he announced he will not stop his hunger strike. More about Volodymyr Balukh>>>

The Kremlin’s top 5 lies about Ukraine. Putin’s propaganda is constantly trying to tarnish Ukraine’s image and reputation, and denigrate the Ukrainian state and people abroad. In fact, the Kremlin wants to make sure that the West will eventually turn away from Ukraine. Then, Russia would be able to deal with Ukraine without fear of sanctions or other negative consequences for Russia’s economy. The Kremlin propaganda machine has been programmed to regularly throw new fakes, disinformation and misinterpretation of events into the worldwide information network. Developing new conspiracy theories, Russian troll artists spread confusion, build a given situation up to where it becomes totally absurd, and then explain that there are many truths, so why not see the world through Putin’s eyes?

Five ways Russia is generating a conspiracy smokescreen around the Skripal poisoning. Tweets of the Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom, which deny Moscow’s responsibility for the former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter’s poisoning with the nerve agent “Novichok” are prime examples of how Kremlin propaganda works today. The Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis examines a few specific examples of how, according to the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Russia is hiding “a needle of truth in a haystack of lies.”

History

The forgotten tragedy of Koryukivka: How the Nazis exterminated a town of 7,000 souls. Soviet propaganda decided that the massacres perpetrated by the Nazis in the village of Khatyn, Minsk Oblast, Belarus would stand as the ultimate symbol of Nazi atrocities in all the occupied territories of the USSR. For ideological reasons, the murder of close to 7,000 Ukrainians in the town of Koryukivka, Chernihiv Oblast, was not commemorated or made public at that time. In total, Nazis burnt down and destroyed 1,377 villages in Ukraine. The Koryukivka tragedy was the most massive and bloodiest not only within the territory of the Soviet Union, but throughout Europe. It happened on March 1, 1943.
 

Good News

Dances that heal: Ukrainian teacher helps the blind to adapt to life. A Kyiv dance teacher invented an ingenious method to help blind people adapt to life. He teaches them ballroom dance. And his students already reap good fruits.