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In case anyone forgot theres a war going on in Ukraine, this weeks news was a stark reminder.

On Saturday, April 23, an American paramedic who was part of the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, was killed in the occupied Luhansk region when the vehicle he was riding in hit a landmine. Joseph Stone died and two other OSCE monitors, a German woman and a Czech man, were injured in territory controlled by Russian-led separatist forces. RFE/RL reported that OSCE Secretary-General Lamberto Zannier said there will be both an internal investigation and a criminal investigation to understand who is responsible for this outcome. He added, A mine was left on a road which is also used by civilians, and there could have been other victims as well.

On Wednesday, April 26, Ukraine reported three of its troops were killed and five wounded in yet another flare-up of fighting in eastern Ukraine. According to the Associated Press, the press office for the Ukrainian governments ATO said Ukrainian positions had come under fire 65 times in the previous 24 hours. It appeared to be the worst loss of lives reported in weeks, the AP noted.

Then on Thursday, April 27, there was news of yet another death on the frontlines. Ukraines Armed Forces reported that one Ukrainian soldier was killed and six wounded in action. Russian forces were firing upon Ukrainian positions near Avdiyivka, Horlivka, Pisky and Maryinka (Donetsk sector), Vodiane and Shyrokyne (Mariupol sector), and near Popasna and Triotske and at Stanytsia Luhanska (towards Luhansk sector). As the U.S. Mission to the OSCE noted that day, After a drop in fighting over the Easter holiday, combined Russian-separatist forces appear to be back to business as usual, driving up ceasefire violations to over 1,000 per day.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities reported that the 64th so-called humanitarian convoy from Russia had proceeded into Ukraine.

At the same time, there was news this week of a new exhibit of photographs at NATO headquarters in Brussels of children who have suffered as a result of what President Petro Poroshenko has called Russias undeclared war against Ukraine. Ukraines Vice Prime Minister Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze comments in a short video report on the exhibit posted by RFE/RL: When you see a photo of a real child who has gone through pain, through horror that people in Europe cant even begin to imagine, this photo tells a lot to everyone who sees it. Parents and teachers in Ukraine have reported increases among these young victims of war of bed-wetting, anxiety, aggression and withdrawal. UNICEF says more than 200,000 children need psycho-social support due to the trauma they have experienced.

Close to 10,000 lives have been lost in eastern Ukraine since 2014. Some 2 million have been displaced since Russia occupied Crimea and invaded the Donbas. And the aggression continues.

U.S. Charg dAffaires Kate Byrnes told the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on Thursday, April 27: Russias aggression against Ukraine has shaken the very foundations of security and stability in Europe, and is antithetical to achieving a Europe that is whole, free and at peace. The United States affirms its staunch support for Ukraines sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. We do not, and will not, accept Russias efforts to change the borders of Ukraine.

Back in Washington, expressing condolences to the deceased OSCE monitors family, State Department spokesperson Mark C. Toner underscored the increasingly dangerous conditions under which these courageous monitors work, including access restrictions, threats and harassment. He also stated that the U.S. urges Russia to use its influence with the separatists to allow the OSCE to conduct a full, transparent and timely investigation and again calls upon Russia to use its influence with the separatists to take the first step toward peace to eastern Ukraine and ensure a visible, verifiable and irreversible improvement in the security situation.

Although those words may be fine and good, its high time for the United States and others to speak not of Russias influence with the separatists, but of Russias direct role in waging this war. The truth of the matter is that the war will not end until Russia decides to withdraw its troops and weapons from Ukrainian territory.

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Russia's war against Ukraine - The Ukrainian Weekly (press release) (subscription)

BERLIN German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi next Tuesday to prepare the upcoming G20 summit in July and discuss geopolitical conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, a German government spokesman said on Friday.

"The visit serves the preparation of this year's G20 summit in Hamburg," Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said during a regular news conference.

"In addition to the G20 issue, other current foreign policy challenges will also be discussed, such as the Ukraine conflict or the war in Syria," he added.

Seibert said that Merkel and Putin would give a press conference between two rounds of meetings in Sochi.

(Reporting by Michael Nienaber; Editing by Victoria Bryan)

UNITED NATIONS U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned on Friday that failure to curb North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs could lead to 'catastrophic consequences,' while China and Russia rebuked Washington's threat of military force.

CHATELLERAULT, France French presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron launched a scathing attack on Friday against politicians who have failed to endorse him against far-right rival Marine Le Pen, saying they were making France "morally weak" and pandering to extremists.

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Merkel, Putin to discuss G20, Syria, Ukraine in Sochi on Tuesday - Reuters

Cxema was born in Ukraine in a time of disillusionment by the Maidan, the countrys militarization, increased panic about impending war, counterrevolution, and economic crisis.

Frank Hoffman, journalist at Deutsche Welle and witness to the emergence of Berlins techno culture, once asked Slava Lepsheev whether he realized he was a revolutionary. Lepsheev protested: he did not see himself that way. Nevertheless, it was Slava who created Cxema (pronounced Skhema), the series of techno events which serve as spaces for Kyivs audiovisual and bodily revolution. Cxema was born in Ukraine in a time of disillusionment by the Maidan, the countrys militarization, increased panic about impending war, counterrevolution, and economic crisis. Raves became spaces for revolutionary pathos to maintain its validity despite the passing time, and on the contrary to grow stronger and reach increasing numbers of people. As it repeatedly brought together up to two thousand young progressives on a single dance floor, in the dreamy mood of total freedom, Cxema offered a space radically different from its surrounding reality.

Initially, what connected us was having no money and having the same friends. The only person that everybody knew was Vova Vorotniov, a graffiti artist. Vorotniov designed the symbol which integrated separate groups of party-goers into one movement, while defining its bounds and political meaning. Vovas t-shirts said poor but cool, with two Chanel logos in place of the double Os. Poverty, a particular sense of style, and a love for techno joined within a coherent symbol through which young people saw themselves as members of one community. The symbol let them forget the shame they felt about not having money.

The poor-but-cool youth culture in Kyiv took shape even before the Euromaidan, as with how Sergey Klimko and some of my other friends from the Visual Culture Research Center in Kyiv ran a DIY club at no. 31 Nizheyurkovska Street (NY31). The small building with a cul-de-sac, surrounded by mountains and woods, developed into a platform of the Centers alternative activities, including film screenings, DIY culture festivals, radical exhibitions and almost weekly dance parties. It was there that artists and activists, intellectuals and subculture representatives, electronic music scene members and simply cool people, would meet for the first time.

Once the hangar closed and Kyivs Maidan protests erupted, the poor-but-cool community went into temporary hibernation. First, it had lost its place in urban nightlife, and second, the revolution kept changing Kyivs political contexts daily. Notably, I went to my last rave before Cxemas creation straight from Maidan on the night of November 29th-30th, when militsya troops brutally crushed a student protest. The revolution reached its next stage.

After the revolutionary events, I agreed to Slava Lepsheevs proposal and went to work behind the bar at his parties. I had worked as a bartender in NY31, and it seemed like Slavas parties would rally the poor-but-cool crowd once again. I promptly quit my bartending job, though, in favor of employment in the post-revolutionary Ministry of Culture. I thought that there and then I would find opportunity for change. Six months in, I realized that this was the last place for revolution. I returned to Cxema. I was asked to join the team as a media relations coordinator, because the media was starting to take active interest in the Kyiv scene. The confident poor-but-cool community was becoming the cool crowd not just in Kyiv, but in also in an international cultural context.

Cxemas depressing setting was only apparent in a few of its aspects, including its drug of choice. While 1970s hippies experimented with LSD and 1990s ravers got their energy from ecstasy pills, amphetamine was the vice of Kyivs audiovisual revolution. Whereas NY31 raves had revolved around cheap drinks and cannabis, amphetamine use spread at Cxema parties. Things started to get a little uptight, but it did not stop us from having fun. In I-D Magazines documentary on Cxema, one partygoer gave a spot-on observation on the atmosphere: Cxema is not a party where you go to chill with friends. You go there the same way youd go to work.

There is another aspect to her words. Having incorporated the poor-but-cool culture, Cxema acts as a meeting place for fashion lovers who come meticulously dressed in their thrift store finds. The parties have turned into catwalks for showing off ones original image, the key element to being cool. This phenomenon is what brought Cxema to the attention of international fashion and pop culture media, such as Vice, I-D or Dazed & Confused. Although Euromaidan brought Ukraine into the public eye, nothing after the revolution fascinates international media quite like Kyivs partygoers in their hip 90s outfits. Their fashion savvy was accrued not only via blogs and fashion magazines, but also thanks to their digging through tons of visual production from decades past, piling up in Kyivs thrift stores. For those people, the return of 90s fashion was not so much the latest trend as a side effect of wearing second-hand clothes.

Cxemas inclusivity has raised the question about its own status in relation to the wide-spread radical right worldview among Kyivs youth. The issue initially arose when one party was attended by a small group of guys sporting Nazi tattoos. It was a fairly known crew connected to Kyivs soccer team Dynamo a former extreme right fan association. They had no intention of assaulting anyone, they just came to party. And because their presence was noted by the media, it could have resulted in an increased interest in Cxema among the radical right.

The question reappeared while discussing the fairly popular European record label, Berceuse Heroique. Its records are often accompanied by illustrations depicting successes of European far right organizations such as the Golden Dawn in Greece, the Right Sector in Ukraine, or mass riots on Polands Independence Day. Such an aesthetic had prevented the label neither from operating legally on European territory nor from signing deals with young progressive artists. The possibility of collaboration caused my temporary departure from the project.

When I worked for Cxema, I stood for preserving its revolutionary enthusiasm. The projects development in Ukraine and abroad foreshadows an increase in moral responsibility and the need to work out new principles, adapted to the current challenges facing Kyivs musical and visual revolution. To me, such principles are feminist and anti-fascist. If Cxema were to ever abandon them, that would be the end of it.

Translated from Polish by Aleksandra Paszkowska.

Excerpt from:
CXEMA and Rave Parties in Ukraine: Poor But Cool - PoliticalCritique.org

Published on Friday, 28 April 2017 11:34 Category: Articles and Commentary Written by Valerii Pekar

Ukraine: The European frontier- a blog curated by Valerii Pekar.

Ukraine is currently considered one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. Some argue that this is just a perception, as Ukraine is also one of the most transparent countries in Europe, ever since it established an unprecedented openness of public data and private data of public servants (known as e-declarations). Countries with less data transparency could be very corrupt as well, but this is not a permanent focus of internal and international public opinion. Furthermore, corruption in Ukraine has been brought into focus since the Revolution of Dignity (EuroMaidan), which had a clearly pronounced anti-corruption orientation.

Nevertheless, corruption in Ukraine remains high both subjectively and objectively; therefore discussions on how to overcome it are much more productive than discussions about whether it is as high as may be perceived.

There are two principal approaches to the issue.

The first one, known in Ukraine as anti-corruption reform, is to ensure the inevitability of punishment for corruption. Traditionally in Ukraine corrupt bureaucrats, tax and custom inspectors, militiamen (an old name for police officers), prosecutors and judges are members of the same close-knit clans, so a corrupt state servant would never be punished, except in the rare occasions of aggravated clan wars. This is why a number of new independent institutions have been created. The National Anti-corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialised Anti-corruption Prosecutors Office were introduced to investigate cases of high-level corruption, while the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) analyses the integrity of public servants and politicians.

By the beginning of 2017, NABU had initiated some 264 criminal cases and the NAPC had gathered 107,000 e-declarations of MPs, top government officials, judges, prosecutors, etc. Nevertheless, public activists are concerned about severe problems, and even rollbacks, in this sphere.

There are several major issues that have emerged as a result. The first major is that an independent and new anti-corruption court has not been established, as was demanded by the law. NABU cases, hence, go to the traditional corrupt courts and stop dead there. Second, the NAPC has not yet started a full-scale examination of the e-declarations, and the online register of e-declarations has many bugs and often does not work as it should. Third, some politicians have tried to undermine the independence of NABU by blocking the assignment of independent and trustworthy auditors. Fourth, until now NABU has had no legal right to wiretap communications and, in order to initiate wiretaps, it has to go to the traditional corrupt institutions which often immediately inform the suspects. Fifth, the law demands that investigation functions be transferred from the Prosecutor Generals Office to the newly established State Bureau of Investigations, but its head has not yet been assigned. Sixth, the mandates of the members of the Central Election Committee, one of the most corrupt institutions, expired long ago and new members have not been elected. Seventh, civil society organisations, the business community and international financial organisations have all demanded the dismissal of the extremely corrupt tax militia (a part of the fiscal service) and the establishment of an analytical demilitarised Financial Investigations Service under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance. Last, but not least, there are rumours that the examination of candidates to the reconstructed Supreme Court of Ukraine is not honest, and civil activists are demanding the publication of the tests of the applicants together with the grades, and to organise an online live stream of the interviews and to make public and transparent the attempts of the High Qualifying Commission of Judges to tackle the veto by the Public Integrity Council. All of these issues mentioned above, and some additional demands, were included to the Anti-corruption Declaration, signed on April 10 by dozens of authoritative NGOs and political parties.

Perhaps, the most important point is that the NAPC does not show any desire to organise the examination of e-declarations of state servants and MPs, while the parliament has adopted a law which forces the representatives of anti-corruption civil society groups to submit the same kind of e-declarations. Many NGOs consider this last fact as a declaration of war by corrupt politicians on the civil society.

While anti-corruption reform is slowing down and in some areas have even been rolled back, we have to consider another way to fight corruption, which is as important as the first method. This one is about undermining the sources of corruption, rather than catching individual corrupt officials.

The freer the economy is; the less space is available for corruption. Ukraines economy remains extremely "un-free" (166th rank in the Heritage Foundations Economic Freedom Index), and even the very efficient NABU, NAPC and Anti-corruption courts are not able to eliminate corruption in this turbid water.

State-owned enterprises are the greatest source of corruption. There are still approximately 3,500 of such enterprises in Ukraine; ten times more than the average European country. Their privatisation has been postponed for years by political clans which extract money from them. In addition, opening the agricultural market has been blocked again and again. Deregulation, an area where many achievements have been reached in previous years, has now slowed. Ministries and other state agencies still have a lot of obsolete and redundant functions, often concentrating powers like rules setting, inspection, administrative services, policy development and state property management. Verification of social subsidies has failed, because there are many ways to extract corrupt money from them. Tax systems remain complicated and non-transparent (at present the Ministry of Finance is fighting for automatic VAT refund to exporters, whereas the traditional manual refund is a major source of corruption). Education and public health remain very corrupt spheres due to their post-communist models of financing.

From this point of view, every reform in Ukraine is an anti-corruption one. Indeed, there have been some important breakthroughs. Gas market reform eliminated corruption in this sphere. The new patrol police, created from scratch, enjoy much greater public trust than the former militia due to its new practices. The National Bank has cleansed the financial system of many money-laundering banks. Deregulation has deprived corrupt bureaucrats from many important sources of income. Public procurements have been completely remade with the new online platform, the award-winning ProZorro. But comparing the successes of the three years since the EuroMaidan with the long to-do list, tasks set by civil society organisations, the EU and IMF, we see that the pace of change is unsatisfactory.

This is why we need to unite the efforts of the civil society and Ukraine's international partners to overcome this rollback and to increase the pace of reforms dramatically. Only joint pressure will work effectively.

Valerii Pekaris a co-founder of the Nova Kraina Civic Platform, a lecturer at the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School and a former member of the National Reform Council. He curates a blog titledUkraine: The European frontier.

The rest is here:
How to overcome corruption in Ukraine - New Eastern Europe

Ukraine is pinning its hopes on O. Torvald but will they be able to bring it home?

UKRAINE has chosen O. Torvald to represent them at this years Eurovision Song Contest.

But what is their background, how were they selected and what is O. Torvald singing?

Alamy

O. Torvald is a Ukrainian rock band formed in 2005.

The group recorded their first album named O.Torvald in 2008 after being signed by Moon Records.

The current line up of the metal group includes:Yevhen Halych, Denys Myzyuk, Oleksandr Solokha, Mykyta Vasylyev and Mykola Rayda.

In order to be selected as Ukraines contestants for EurovisionO. Torvald had to take part in a number of rounds of the national competition.

They were second in both the judges vote and the public vote during the semi-final on February 18, enough to see them through into the final.

During the final, they once again came second in both the judges votes and the televote awarding them enough points to claim victory, after a tense tiebreak.

As the current winners Ukraines entry will go straight into the final and will not need to compete in the semi-finals.

EPA

O. Torvald will perform theirtrack Time.

The song is written in and will be performed in English.

Sunbets Eurovision odds currently list Ukraine winning at 22/1.

Slow down Give me some time Turn down The volume of your cry Let's take time to find A place without violence Lets listen and hear The true meaning of silence

Getty Images

Ukraine have competed in the competition a total of 13 times since their 2003 debut.

They've taken the top spot twice in that time, impressive considering they only recently joined the competition.

Ukraine's first victory came in 2004 in their second year when singer Ruslana was victorious with Wild Dances.

They also won last year's contest with singer Jamala taking first place with the song 1944.

They are the first Eastern European country to win the competition twice.

The Eurovisionfinal is due to take place on Saturday May 13, with semi-finals held on May 11 and 13.

The event will be broadcast live from the International Exhibition Centre in the countrys capital Kiev.

The reigning champion Jamala will be in attendance on the night to hand over the honour to this years winner performers.

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Who is Ukraine's Eurovision Song Contest 2017 entry? O. Torvald set to perform Time - The Sun