Archive for the ‘Ukraine’ Category

Ukraine ready to share experience in tackling Russias info aggression Deputy FM – Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news

First Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Emine Dzheppar emphasized Ukraine's readiness to share with the international community its experience in combating Russia's information aggression.

The statement came as the deputy foreign minister was speaking at the "Official Conversation" TV show on Dom TV, Ukrinform reports.

"We have decided that, given that weve been on the front not only of physical war but also of information war for eight years already, wed like to establish our leadership and expertise in this topic. Along with a number of countries that have become sponsors at the United Nations, we have held events on negative narratives, fact-checking, and information warfare, using the experience Ukraine has. We also joined the media week, initiated by some Baltic countries," she said.

According to Dzheppar, the authorities intend to position Ukraine as a country that has much to share in terms of experience gained in infowars.

"This is about, on the one hand, preserving freedom of speech, which is a value for us, and on the other hand ensuring security," Dzheppar added.

As reported earlier, in spring 2021, the Center for Combating Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council and the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy were established.

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OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) Daily Report 181/2021 issued on 5 August 2021 – Ukraine – ReliefWeb

KYIV 5 August 2021

Based on information from the Monitoring Teams as of 19:30 4 August 2021. All times are in Eastern European Summer Time.

Summary

In Donetsk region, the SMM recorded 44 ceasefire violations, including eight explosions. In the previous reporting period, it recorded 121 ceasefire violations in the region.

In Luhansk region, the Mission recorded eight ceasefire violations. In the previous reporting period, the SMM recorded three ceasefire violations.

The Mission continued monitoring the disengagement areas near Stanytsia Luhanska, Zolote and Petrivske.The SMM facilitated and monitored adherence to localized ceasefires to enable the operation of critical civilian infrastructure.

The Mission continued following up on the situation of civilians, including at four entry-exit checkpoints and the corresponding checkpoints of the armed formations in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The SMM monitored a gathering in Kyiv.

The Missions freedom of movement continued to be restricted, including at three checkpoints of the armed formations near Staromykhailivka, Nova Marivka and Staropetrivske, all in Donetsk region.*

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OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) Daily Report 181/2021 issued on 5 August 2021 - Ukraine - ReliefWeb

Ukrainian ambassador predicts a 30 percent increase in trade with Japan this year – Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news

Ukrainian Ambassador to Japan Serhiy Korsunsky believes that trade with Japan will grow by 30 percent this year.

According to Ukrinform, Korsunsky said this in an interview with Dom TV channel.

"Despite the pandemic, our trade is growing. It grew last year, and this year we expect a 30% increase in about six months, which is not bad because the Japanese market is extremely saturated," the ambassador said.

Korsunsky also announced his intention to start free trade negotiations with Japan.

"President of Ukraine Zelensky wrote a letter after a phone conversation with Prime Minister Suga. We have identified a very ambitious plan for bilateral interaction. And we are now very actively working on all these points," the diplomat assured.

In addition, he noted that he is optimistic about trade and economic cooperation with Japan, and promised to start implementing plans after elections are held in Japan and a new government is formed in the fall.

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Head of group for exiled Belarusians found hanged in Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine -- A Belarusian activist who ran a group in Ukraine helping Belarusians fleeing persecution was found dead in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, local police said Tuesday.

Vitaly Shishov, leader of the Kyiv-based Belarusian House in Ukraine, was found hanged in one of the city's parks not far from his home, police said in a statement.

A probe has been launched, with police investigating whether it was a suicide or a murder made to look like suicide, head of Ukraine's National Police Igor Klymenko told reporters on Tuesday.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is keeping a close eye on the case, according to his spokesman, Serhiy Nykyforov, while Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba promised on Twitter that Ukraine will do everything possible to fully investigate the case."

It is of utmost importance for us to reveal the truth about his tragic death, Kuleba said.

Shishov's Belarusian girlfriend, Bazhena Zholudz, told The Associated Press that she doesn't believe that he could have killed himself.

I don't believe in suicide, nothing in Vitaly's conduct signaled his intention to kill himself, she said. He didn't leave any note or message. We were together that morning and he just went out for a jog.

Zholudz added that Shishov had recently noted that he was being shadowed. He recently noted vehicles and people who were following him, she said.

The Belarusian House in Ukraine, which helps Belarusians fleeing persecution with their legal status in Ukraine, accommodation and employment, also said that Shisov was recently being followed by strangers.

It noted that both local sources and our people in Belarus have alerted the group to the possibility of various provocations, including kidnapping and liquidation.

There is no doubt that this was a planned operation by security operatives to liquidate a Belarusian, dangerous for the regime. We will continue to fight for the truth about Vitalys death, the group said.

About 300 people rallied Tuesday outside the Belarusian Embassy in Kyiv, many holding his portrait.

Belarus was rocked by months of protests, which were triggered by President Alexander Lukashenko's re-election to a sixth term in an August 2020 vote that the opposition and the West saw as rigged. He responded to demonstrations with a massive crackdown that saw more than 35,000 people arrested and thousands beaten by police

Lukashenko has vowed to continue what he called a mopping-up operation against civil society activists whom he has denounced as bandits and foreign agents," and authorities conducted hundreds of raids in recent weeks to target the independent media and non-government organizations.

Belarus authoritarian government has at times gone to extremes in its crackdown on dissent, including recently diverting a plane to the capital of Minsk and arresting a dissident aboard.

Yury Shchuchko from the Belarusian House in Ukraine told The Associated Press that Shishov was found with marks of beating on his face. Nothing was stolen, he was in regular clothes people put on to work out, and he only had his phone with him, Shchuchko said.

He also said that Shishov has previously noticed surveillance during his runs and that strangers would approach him and try to start a conversation.

We have been warned to be more careful, because a network of Belarus KGB agents is operating here and everything is possible, Shchuchko said. Vitaly asked me to take care of his loved ones, he had a weird feeling."

Klymenko of the Ukrainian national police told reporters on Tuesday that there were indeed injuries discovered on Shishov's body scratched skin on his nose, a cut on his lip and an injury on his left knee. He wouldn't say, however, whether these resulted from violence. Klymenko added that police haven't received any complaints about surveillance from Shishov.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the main opposition candidate in the August 2020 election who left for Lithuania under pressure from the authorities, expressed condolences to Shishov's family on Tuesday.

Belarusians can't be safe even abroad, as long as there are those who are trying to inflict revenge on them, Tsikhnaouskaya said in an online statement.

Vitaly Shishov was helping Belarusians and was found hanged ... It happened on another country's soil. Just like the hostage-taking took place on another country's plane. Just like the attempt to forcefully bring a disloyal athlete back to Belarus from another country's territory, she said.

Earlier this week, Belarus Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya accused the country's officials of hustling her to the airport and trying to put her on a plane back to Belarus after she publicly criticized the management of her team at the Tokyo Games. Tsimanouskaya refused to board the plane and instead will seek refuge in Europe.

In an interview Tuesday, she told the AP she feared she wouldn't be safe in Belarus.

International officials on Tuesday urged Ukraine to conduct a thorough investigation into the death of the activist.

We are deeply shocked by the news of the death of the Belarusian activist Vitaly Shishov," Austrias Foreign Ministry said on Twitter. "Our thoughts are with his loved ones. Austria calls for a thorough and transparent investigation into the circumstances leading to his death.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: Were, obviously, glad to see that this is being investigated. I think his death needs to be investigated fully to elaborate all of these circumstances. And we, of course, send our condolences to his family and friends.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said on Twitter that Shishov's death "takes place amid an unacceptable Belarusian crack down on civil society, and we look forward to a complete and thorough investigation by Ukrainian authorities to establish its causes and circumstances."

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Head of group for exiled Belarusians found hanged in Ukraine

Ukraine Is Part of the West – Foreign Affairs Magazine

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in November 1991, the area that extends from central Europe to Central Asia has been commonly referred to as the post-Soviet space. The label has always been problematicand 30 years after its introduction, the time to retire it has come. The term misleadingly implies a degree of political, social, and economic coherence among a diverse set of countries that includes my own, Ukraine. Even more worrying, its use encourages policymakers and publics outside this geography to see the countries within it through a single lens.

This reductive approach serves the Kremlins imperialistic aims. Russian President Vladimir Putin spares no effort to promote the false historical narrative that Ukrainians and Russians constitute one nation; his recent 5,300-word opus on the subject has reportedly become compulsory reading for the Russian military. Putin wishes to reassemble the countries of the former Soviet Union and reverse what he calls the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century. But for millions of people across the region, the Soviet Unions collapse was not a catastrophe. It was a liberation.

Immediately after 1991, a shared history did unite the countries that emerged from the Soviet Unions wreckage. But their divergent trajectories in the decades since make that common experience less and less relevant. Western countries need to stop seeing them as simply a post-Soviet space. But if this geopolitical construction is outdated, then what framework should replace it? And what changes would the shift require of the United States foreign policy and those of its allies? In the case of Ukraine, above all, recognizing the new reality means institutionalizing the countrys place within the West. It is time for the United States and Europe to set out a clear road map for Ukraine to finally join NATO and the European Union.

In the mid-1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachevs reform program of glasnost and perestroika unleashed centrifugal forces within the Soviet Union. Constituent republics made efforts to escape Moscows orbit, reclaim their national identities, and find their own paths to overcoming economic hardship. Sovereign countries before their forceful capture by the Kremlin, these nations were returning to a natural equilibrium. By 1991, to the surprise of many Western policymakers, the process was complete: the Soviet Union was dissolved, and in its place were 15 independent states.

Since then, the pace of change has varied from one country to the next. Some, such as Belarus, have slowed time and tried to hold on to their Soviet heritage; others leapt as far forward as possible, as quickly as possible. The Baltic states and the nations of the former Warsaw Pact shrugged off their Soviet pasts and took steps to integrate with NATO and the EU as early as the 1990s, completing the process by 2004right before Russian imperialism began to reemerge. Unfortunately, Ukraine and Georgia missed that historic moment. Both were left outside the door, and both later suffered Russian military attacks, at the cost of lives and territory.

Over the past two decades, Putin has attempted to restore Moscows control across the region, violating internationally recognized borders in the process. But the Kremlin has not been able to turn back the clock. By trying to bend the arc of history to his will, Putin has only strengthened the forces he aims to subdue. This dynamic became apparent after Russias 2008 invasion of Georgia, and even more so after its 2014 attack on Ukraine.

The Kremlin had been exerting pressure on Kyiv long before this incursion. Putins persistent bullying, combined with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovychs ill-conceived decision to give in to Moscow and reverse the pro-European course of previous governments, triggered the protests in late 2013 that turned into Ukraines Revolution of Dignity. After Yanukovych ordered police to fire on the protesters, resulting in more than 100 deaths, the Ukrainian people forced him from office. Russia invaded Crimea within days. But Ukrainians already had irreversibly changed our countrys trajectory, ensuring that no government in Kyiv would ever consider treating its citizens with the heavy hand the Russian and Belarusian governments use against their citizens today.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Ukraines independence. Millions of young Ukrainians have not lived a single day in the Soviet Union, and many of them now have children of their own. The idea of a common Soviet past, already fading among older generations, means little to them. These young people have lived through two revolutionsfirst the 2004 Orange Revolution and then the 2014 Revolution of Dignityand an ongoing war with Russia. For them, Ukraine has never gained independence; it has always been independent.

In Ukraine and elsewhere, cutting ties with Moscow will proceed no matter what Putin or his entourage has to say about it. The United States and its Western partners therefore have an opportunity to craft an ambitious strategy in the region, with specific policies tailored to the circumstances of individual countries and blocs.

In the case of Ukraine and Georgia, moving forward with NATO membership should be a top priority. As NATO itself declared in its 2008 Bucharest summit communiqu and reaffirmed in Brussels this year, this outcome is inevitable. Both countries already participate in NATO activities as Enhanced Opportunities Partners. Together with Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey, Ukraines and Georgias contributions are critical to ensuring security in the Black Sea. Russia is growing increasingly aggressive in the region: it is disrupting trade routes and interfering with the freedom of navigation, building up its conventional and nuclear capabilities in occupied Crimea, and using the territory as a logistical hub for its military activities in the Middle East.

Beyond security cooperation, Ukraine and Georgia are committed to deepening their economic and political integration with Europe. Along with their counterpart from Moldova, the foreign ministers of the two countries established the Associated Trio in Kyiv earlier this year with the express purpose of gaining eventual EU membership. For Europe, engaging with the group is an opportunity to enhance the EUs global standing, by expanding the reach of its democratic values and strengthening its economic muscle. For the United States, this deepening cooperation will serve the Biden administrations goals of shoring up transatlantic unity and strengthening the eastern border of democratic Europe.

Western capitals also have an opportunity to make inroads in other countries where Moscow historically has held sway. Georgias neighbors in the Caucasus, Armenia and Azerbaijan, deserve special consideration. Getting these relationships right can go a long way toward enhancing trust between the West and Turkey, an important NATO ally. Russia has tried to strengthen its grip by positioning itself as a peacekeeper and mediator of the regions disputes. But the unexpected reelection of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, a leader inclined to balance rather than give in to foreign powers, and the alliance between Azerbaijan and Turkey give the West an opening to limit Russias influence.

In Central Asia, Ukraines own experience is proof of Russias slipping control. Moscow has attempted to block Kyivs access to the region since 2014, but we have found ways to maneuver around the obstruction. Our persistent efforts to restore traditionally strong trade ties, develop infrastructure projects, engage diasporas, and provide opportunities for students to study in Ukraine are beginning to bear fruit.

Even in Belarus, democratic pressure is unlikely to fade in the long run, leaving an opening for the West despite the Kremlin-backed Alexander Lukashenkos efforts to cement his presidency.

Russia is still a strong regional power. But from Minsk in the west to Ulaanbaatar in the east, Moscow has long lost its monopoly on political influence.

No countrys geographic proximity to Russia should restrict the strategies of Washington or Brussels. After all, concerns about shared borders have not constrained China, which has cultivated deep ties with a number of countries that historically have fallen squarely into Moscows sphere of influence. At the same time, the United States and its European allies should dismiss the idea that by cooperating with the Kremlin, they can prevent a tighter Russian-Chinese partnership. Moscow already moves within Beijings orbitand is likely already wary of getting even closer to a much more powerful China.

Ukraines membership in NATO and the EU will not just reinforce progress in Ukraine; it will also help unify the West once more.

As a player in central and eastern Europe and in the Black Sea, Ukraine has much to offer as part of NATO on matters of regional security. The countrys capable armed forces have invaluable combat experience from fighting Russian troops since the 2014 invasion. No current NATO member possesses such experience or the knowledge that comes with it. And when it comes to cybersecurity and fighting disinformation, few countries rival Ukraines ability to both recognize and counter Russian tactics.

Ukraine also has a vital role to play in ensuring Europes energy independence. For decades we have been a reliable transit country for gas supplies to Europe. We plan to remain so, despite Russias attempts to bypass the Ukrainian system with projects such as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Ukraine offers the advantage of its unique energy infrastructure, which includes the worlds third-largest underground gas-storage facilities and 22,991 miles of pipelines. And with its huge potential for producing green hydrogen through solar and wind energy, Ukraine is well positioned to contribute to Europes green transition. Other elements of Ukraines economy show enormous promise, too, from its demonstrated capacity for digitalization to an agricultural sector with the potential to guarantee global food security.

For all the progress Ukraine has made so far, the country still needs further reform. Efforts to root out corruption fall into this category. The government has already made meaningful headway, including the implementation last month of a historic land reform lawpreviously stalled for two decadesthat will both increase transparency and boost the economy. Other crucial bills were finally passed this summer to clean up the judiciary, granting international experts a decisive vote in the process of filtering out prospective judges with dubious reputations. We are realistic about how much more there is to do to address corruption in the judicial system, the defense and security sectors, and other institutions. But the strength of the current political will is clearly evident in these brave recent steps, taken despite the enormous resistance of vested interests.

Under President Volodymyr Zelenskys leadership, Ukraine is fully committed to accelerating reform efforts in line with the expectations of its European and transatlantic partners. This is what the people of Ukraine want, and they have paid a high price defending their choice. The sweep of history, too, now appears to be on their side.

But Ukraines own efforts will not be successful without the strong support of the EU, NATO, and the two bodies member states. The steps we take must be reciprocated, with all sides working toward the goal of Ukrainian membership in both organizations. The United States and Europe must recognize that Ukraine is part of the West. Only then will our current efforts prove not to be in vain.

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Ukraine Is Part of the West - Foreign Affairs Magazine