The national JSC Naftogaz Ukrainy did not take Russian gas illegally during the Russian-Ukrainian gas row in January 2009, the Verkhovna Rada's temporary commission for inquiry into the state and functioning of Ukraine's gas transportation system and Ukrainian customers provision of with gas in 2008-2009 has said. "We cannot confirm that there was stealing. The commission has found that there was no intentional theft of gas," head of the commission MP...

When Ukraine resisted Soviet attempts at collectivization in the 1920s and '30s, the Soviet Union under Stalin used labor camps, executions, and starvation (Holodomor) to kill millions of Ukrainians. In 1933, the recently elected administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt granted official U.S. recognition to the Soviet Union for the first time. Especially repugnant was that this recognition was granted even though Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had just concluded a campaign of genocide against Ukraine that left over 10 million dead...

There are some surprising -- I'd even say, clinical -- changes happening in the Russian collective unconscious and in foreign policy, which is directed largely at shaping that collective unconscious. Take a look at the news reports from just one day, February 3. The day started with two articles. One in "Nezavisimaya gazeta" was written in such a way that it caused a sensation: U.S. State Department official Matthew Bryza was portrayed as threatening Moscow with the prospect that the United States would establish military bases in Georgia in retaliation for planned Russian military installations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia...

THE Winnipeg Free Press has been lauded for its coverage of the 75th anniversary of Holodomor, a devastating famine-genocide that wiped out millions in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko will award the newspaper with its John Syrnick Award for Journalism in early March. Lesia Szwaluk, the foundation's executive director, said the national award is given every second year for exceptional coverage of issues important to the Ukrainian-Canadian community. To mark the milestone anniversary of the famine last November, the 2009 award's selection committee...

He is the chairman of the Department of External Church Relations (OVTsS) of the Moscow Patriarchate, permanent member of the Holy Synod, Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad. Honourary and full member of many academies. The majority of Orthodox believers did not know more than these brief details about Kirill Gundiaev, a citizen of the Russian Federation (RF). It is true that servants of the Church are not accustomed to revealing the details of their personal lives, their views and preferences. In the case of Kirill, we have the exact opposite. He not only never concealed his radical views, he also actively disseminated them both inside Russia and beyond its borders...

Ukraine received most of known crude oil and gas fields around the maritime area disputed by Romania in the Black Sea after a ruling by the International Court of Justice, a Ukrainian official said Tuesday. The U.N.'s highest court on Tuesday defined the Black Sea border between Romania and Ukraine, giving Romania about 80% of the disputed area, according to Romanian diplomats. But Andriy Honcharuk, a deputy head of President Viktor Yushchenko’s office, said the territory awarded by the ruling to Ukraine contains most of the known fields in the area...

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has called a documentary entitled "Svoi-Chuzhoi," which was recently broadcast on Russian television, "a provocation" which attempts to discredit the Ukrainian armed forces. "The documentary, which was made at a low professional level, does not contain any evidence of Ukrainian servicemen's participation in the Russian-Georgian conflict in August 2008," the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a statement released in Kyiv on Tuesday...

The January natural gas war between Ukraine and Russia was a badly needed wake-up call for European Union bureaucrats who have dragged their feet on energy diversification and who have long been wimpy with Russia. The cutoff of natural gas supplies revealed how deeply dependent both Ukraine and Europe have become on a nation whose leaders are keen to use energy as a geopolitical tool of influence and blackmail...

On February 1-9 three sculptors (Orest Dzyndra, Serhiy Klyapetura and Petro Romanyuk) will participate in the most known and the world’s biggest Snow Sculpture Carnival which is to take place in Quebec city. “Ukrainian team of sculptors had presented a draft composition “Vertep” for consideration of an international jury and has been granted with a right to carve out of snow a sculpture...

January 28, 2009, the Embassy, Canada’s foreign policy newsweekly presented a look at Ottawa’s key diplomatic players, and the issues they’ll be pushing this session. Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada Ihor Ostash is on the top ten rating list. There are 171 foreign representatives accredited in Ottawa...