On November 11 a powerful storm arose in the northeastern Black Sea. By the end of it, Russia and Ukraine faced serious environmental damage from an oil spill and a potentially acrimonious diplomatic situation. According to Ukraine's Emergency Situations Ministry, after the storm four ships... MORE

Ethnic tension has increased in Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula as the authorities move to tackle the problem of Crimean Tatar squatters occupying local plots of land. In early November, Tatars were forcibly evicted from two construction sites that, according to the Crimean authorities and the local... MORE

Russia’s top officials are loudly complaining about Kyiv’s tactics in a bitter dispute over Ukraine’s Kremenchug refinery, pledging to defend the interests of the Russian shareholders there. The incident is just the latest irritant in an already uneasy energy relationship between the two neighbors. “I... MORE

The Ukrainian government has simplified the procedure allowing the special services and police to procure confidential information about citizens. Ukrainian human rights activists and Internet providers believe that the government violated the constitution by legalizing widespread surveillance, giving the secret services almost unlimited access to... MORE

Friday, November 2, was the last day that the Our Ukraine-People’s Self Defense (NUNS) bloc could collect signatures to support a “democratic” (orange) coalition with the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT). BYuT deputies have openly expressed their fear that disunity in NUNS will lead to an... MORE

A coalition consisting of President Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense bloc (NUNS) and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) is showing cracks long before the newly elected parliament even has its first meeting, which is expected in late November. There is no unity of opinion among... MORE

President Viktor Yushchenko’s recent efforts to commemorate World War II nationalist fighters have provoked a wave of pro-Russian and leftist extremism in Ukraine. Radical leftists disrupted commemorations of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) across Ukraine on October 14, and the Russian radical nationalist organization Eurasian... MORE

Ukraine officially announced its parliamentary election results on October 15. Unlike the 2006 elections, no political force has contested the results. The Party of Regions closed its makeshift camp in downtown Kyiv on October 18 after declaring that they would take their 175 seats, despite... MORE

The blocs of Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense (NUNS) and Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) have agreed to form a majority coalition in Ukraine’s newly elected parliament. Tymoshenko should be the new prime minister, and the post of parliament speaker should go to Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, who is the leader... MORE

Opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko’s hopes to become prime minister may be dashed. President Viktor Yushchenko wants to invite the Party of Regions (PRU), led by her archrival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, to join a new Cabinet of Ministers. If the PRU, which will have more... MORE