Raphael Lemkin's essay, ‘Soviet Genocide in Ukraine’, is one of the earliest writings on the subject by a non-Ukrainian scholar. A note ‘Begin here’, scribbled in before the second paragraph, which begins with the words ‘What I want to speak about’, suggests that the text was originally composed for Lemkin's address at the 1953 Ukrainian Famine commemoration in New York. Later Lemkin added it to the material he was gathering for his elaborate History of Genocide which was never published...

The presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Crimea does not damage Ukraine's interests, said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko. "Russia strictly ensures that the fleet will not damage Ukraine's security, or infringe on its interests," Nesterenko said in answer to reporters' questions. Nesterenko's answers were posted on the Foreign Ministry's website on Tuesday. Moscow and Kyiv "have been able to resolve all practical problems connected with the fleet's maintenance, fully-fledged functioning and presence in Ukraine," he also said...

The Holodomor Memorial Day Act, Private Member’s Bill 147 recognizing the Holodomor as an act of genocide and providing for the declaration of Holodomor Memorial Day on the fourth Saturday in November in each year in the Province of Ontario, was passed by the Parliament of Ontario on Thursday, 9 April 2009. The passage of the bill represented the culmination of an arduous process that started more than two years ago. Then Minister of Labour and current Speaker of Parliament, the Hon. Steve Peters, initiated the discussion of Holodomor awareness...

Following the historical State visit to Canada by Ukraine's President Victor Yushchenko, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, has requested Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, along with her husband, His Excellency Jean-Daniel Lafond, to conduct a State visit to Ukraine, from April 23 to 26, 2009. The State visit to Ukraine will focus on Canada's ongoing support for the country's democratic transformation and economic reform...

A Russian activist has written President Dmitry Medvedev asking that the Kremlin help Russian regions provide assistance to Russian-language schools in Ukraine, an effort that recalls Soviet-era projects, threatens Kyiv’s control of its schools, and unintentionally calls attention to the absence of Ukrainian-language schools in the Russian Federation. Anatoly Lisitsyn, who heads a charity foundation, wrote Medvedev to say that he had been asked by students at one Russian-language school in Ivano-Frankivsk to provide assistance, given the difficulties that school has had in obtaining Russian-language instructional materials...

Russian Black Sea fleet ships based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol are preparing for large-scale naval exercises, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports. Russian officials have notified Ukraine that 22 of its Black Sea Fleet vessels will leave Sevastopol for military maneuvers. This notification has been issued every day since the beginning of last week, but the ships' departure has been delayed for unknown reasons. Among the ships taking part in the exercises are three large ships able to carry navy commandos...

When news broke that suspected Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk would be deported to Germany to face charges of accessory to murder in 29,000 cases, this tiny hamlet, deep in Ukraine's impoverished countryside, had special reason to take note. Mr. Demjanjuk had been expected to be flown by private jet tonight to Germany. But a federal court, late Tuesday afternoon, stayed the order until it could further review the case. Eighty-nine years ago this month, he was here in Dubovye Makharinsty, a farming village about 100 miles west of Kiev. He grew up in the village and worked on the collective farm before joining the Soviet Army to fight Nazi invaders. He was wounded and then taken prisoner by the Germans...

The evident public opinion mismatch in Russians' attitudes to Ukrainians and Ukrainians' attitudes to Russians may become a threat to Ukraine's national security, experts have warned. A group of experts gave this opinion while commenting on the findings of a survey conducted by Kyiv's International Institute of Sociology and Russia's Levada-Center in 2009 for the Dzerkalo Tyzhdnya weekly newspaper. According to the results of the poll, in March 2009 some 49% of Russians assessed their opinion of Ukraine as "bad" or "very bad"...

Despite having nearly 40 percent of the seats in Ukraine's parliament, the Party of Regions remains a destructive force in national politics. The party's miserable failings make us fervently hope that its leader, ex-Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych, doesn't get anywhere near the presidency. He has demonstrated, time and again, that he lacks the character and ability to run this great nation...

Making history, the members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario unanimously passed Bill 147, the Holodomor Memorial Day Act yesterday. The co-sponsors, lead by Dave Levac, Liberal MPP for Brant, along with Cheri DiNovo, NDP MPP for Parkdale-High Park, and Frank Klees, PC MPP for Newmarket-Aurora together introduce Bill 147 which commemorates victims of the Holodomor (the engineered famine in Ukraine which murdered millions of Ukrainians from 1932-33)...