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Tag Archives: Ukraine

Complications in Tbilisi’s Friendship with Kyiv: The Georgian Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Autocephaly

Complications in Tbilisi’s Friendship with Kyiv: The Georgian Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Autocephaly

  By Tamar Chapidze and Andreas Umland Over the last two decades, Georgia and Ukraine have become close geopolitical allies vis-à-vis both Russia and the West. In 1997, Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova created between themselves a multilateral consultative forum that, in 2001, was upgraded into the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, better known […]

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Critical Questions for Ukraine’s New President: A List of Issues for this Year’s Reform Agenda and Kyiv’s Relations to the West

Critical Questions for Ukraine’s New President: A List of Issues for this Year’s Reform Agenda and Kyiv’s Relations to the West

On 20 May 2019, Ukraine’s new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was inaugurated. Later this year, the European Parliamentary elections will lead to the formation of new EU leadership in Brussels. Finally, Ukraine’s upcoming parliamentary elections this summer or autumn will likely reconfigure much of the – if not the entire – Ukrainian governmental elite, and lead […]

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Call for manuscripts for the new book series “Ukrainian Voices” published by ibidem-Verlag & distributed by Columbia University Press

Call for manuscripts for the new book series “Ukrainian Voices” published by ibidem-Verlag & distributed by Columbia University Press

https://www.ibidem.eu/en/reihen/gesellschaft-politik/ukrainian-voices.html The book series “Ukrainian Voices” publishes English- and German-language monographs, edited volumes, document collections and anthologies of articles authored and composed by Ukrainian politicians, intellectuals, activists, officials, researchers, entrepreneurs, artists, and diplomats. The series’ aim is to introduce Western and other audiences to Ukrainian explorations and interpretations of historic and current domestic as well […]

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Will Ukraine’s Far Right Parties Fail Again in 2019?

Will Ukraine’s Far Right Parties Fail Again in 2019?

Ever since the beginning of its armed struggle against Moscow during World War II, the Ukrainian far right has been used by the Kremlin as a bogeyman. The political radicalism, war-time mass crimes, fascist leanings, and manifest militancy of historic Ukrainian ultra-nationalism has been employed by Soviet and post-Soviet Russian agitation among Russian and Western […]

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Ukraine’s 2019 Presidential Elections: The Yuri Tymoshenko Risk

Ukraine’s 2019 Presidential Elections: The Yuri Tymoshenko Risk

In a worst-case scenario, political-technological trickery could, after the first round of Ukraine’s upcoming presidential elections, unsettle social stability in Ukraine. Cynical puppet masters are prepared to risk the outbreak of a major domestic civil conflict for the sake of securing re-election of Ukraine’s incumbent president. The relatively pluralistic political competition that emerged after the […]

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Secondary literature list for my seminar “Ukraine between the European and Eurasian Unions” @UniJena, in April-June 2019 (books, journals, websites)

Secondary literature list for my seminar “Ukraine between the European and Eurasian Unions” @UniJena, in April-June 2019 (books, journals, websites)

“Ukraine between the European and Eurasian Unions: Revolution, War, Reform” The seminar aims to introduce Master-students into one of Europe’s critical conflicts today, and to illustrate, using the example of Ukraine, inter-relation between Europeanization, post-Soviet transformation and security politics. We will touch upon general themes of European studies, like democracy promotion, neighborhood policies, transposition of […]

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Ukraine’s South as a New Geopolitical Flashpoint

Ukraine’s South as a New Geopolitical Flashpoint

  Four factors make further tensions between Russia and Ukraine along the shores of the Crimean peninsula and Azov Sea probable.   On 25 November 2018, at the Kerch Strait, Russia attacked as well as captured three Ukrainian navy vessels, and arrested their 24 sailors. The maritime clash indicates that the focal point of the […]

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Repurposing the Human Brain: Lessons in Russian- and our own- reality reversal

Repurposing the Human Brain: Lessons in Russian- and our own- reality reversal

     At the “Valdai Discussion Club” in February 2012, Putin accused the West of employing “a matrix of tools and methods to reach foreign policy goals without the use of arms but by exerting information and other levers of influence . . . to develop and provoke extremist, separatist and nationalistic attitudes, to manipulate […]

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International Implications of Ukraine’s Decentralization

International Implications of Ukraine’s Decentralization

The local governance reform that Kyiv started in 2014 will, if successful, have cross-border repercussions by way of making the Ukrainian state more resilient, compatible with the EU, and a model for other post-Soviet republics. The currently ongoing decentralization reform in Ukraine leads to beneficial effects for the everyday life of citizens. Public administration becomes […]

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De-bunking Russian Language Myths About Ukraine and the Baltics

De-bunking Russian Language Myths About Ukraine and the Baltics

Since conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine in early 2014, regional observers have worried that Russia could instigate a similar incursion in the Baltics to ‘protect ethnic Russians.’ Seemingly – goes the narrative – the ethnic Russians are identified as those who speak Russian. The reality in these countries, however, is far from that clear-cut distinction. […]

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Will Ukraine’s Euromaidan Democrats Eventually Prevail?

Will Ukraine’s Euromaidan Democrats Eventually Prevail?

A recent Forum of Democratic Forces may have finally started the process of formation of a broad pro-reform coalition of largely untainted anti-corruption fighters. On 11th January 2019, Kyiv hosted a congress of various pro-reformist grouping that together announced their support for the presidential candidacy of former Minister of Defense Anatoliy Hrytsenko. In fact, the […]

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Ukraine’s Upcoming Presidential Elections: The Ambivalence of the Zelens’kyy Candidacy

Ukraine’s Upcoming Presidential Elections: The Ambivalence of the Zelens’kyy Candidacy

Most political experts in and outside Ukraine have reacted negatively or very negatively to the announcement, on New Year’s eve, of Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelens’kyy that he will become a candidate in Ukraine’s presidential elections scheduled for 31 March (first round) and 21 April 2019 (second round of the two front-runners). Indeed, Zelens’kyy’s submission is […]

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Russia, Ukraine, and the Sea of Azov

Russia, Ukraine, and the Sea of Azov

On November 25, three Ukrainian naval vessels, two 54-ton gunboats (technically, Gyurza-M-class armored artillery cutters) and a tug, were traveling from Odessa around the Crimean Peninsula and toward the Sea of Azov, en route to the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. As they approached the Kerch Strait, the access route from the Black Sea to […]

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Why Warsaw Should Go Soft on Kyiv

Why Warsaw Should Go Soft on Kyiv

The recently intensifying memory conflict around the interpretation of some World War II events, between Ukraine and Poland, is distracting the two intertwined nations from their main international challenges and some critical tasks today. An increase of Ukrainian national security is in the core interests not only of Kyiv, but also of Warsaw. An odd […]

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How to Talk about Ukrainian Politics in the West?

How to Talk about Ukrainian Politics in the West?

Hyperbolic warnings about allegedly disastrous consequences of a Tymoshenko presidency are demobilizing Western support for Ukrainian reforms and defense My recent article “What Would a Tymoshenko Presidency Mean?” for the Ukraine Alert of Washington’s Atlantic Council has caused indignation among numerous Ukrainian experts and journalists – some of them hitherto close colleagues and professional friends. […]

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