Leading opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko is the target of a range of dirty tricks intended to defeat his bid to succeed Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. As Russian political commentator Andrei Piontkovsky wrote in Ukrayinska pravda on September 10, "The basic strategy of the outside... MORE

On Saturday September 18, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, the front-runner in the October presidential elections, spoke in front of 70,000 supporters in Kyiv upon his return from Vienna. Yushchenko warned the authorities, "We will not be poisoned!" Bullets or KamAZ trucks would not destroy those... MORE

Opinion polls are again at the center of Ukraine's 2004 presidential elections. The gap between Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych continues to remain stable at 5-8% (Ukrayinska pravda, September 9). Throughout the year Yushchenko's ratings have increased from 21 to 30% and Yanukovych's... MORE

The pro-presidential majority in the Ukrainian parliament collapsed when 15 out of the 30 deputies in the moderate Democratic Initiatives-People's Power faction defected. The disintegration is a major blow to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's election campaign. Yanukovych described the move as "treacherous," caused by the... MORE

On September 8, Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Dan Geoana declined an invitation to visit Ukraine to discuss recent bilateral problems. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokesman Markian Lubkivskyi reiterated Ukraine's interest in dialogue with Romania. But how sincere is the Ukrainian side in its stated desire for... MORE

Is a Georgian-style democratic revolution possible in Ukraine? While clearly refuting any similarities between Georgians and Ukrainians, the authorities are also increasingly nervous. A U.S. STRATFOR intelligence commentary that predicted Ukraine was approaching a Georgian-style revolution was widely discussed in the pro-presidential Ukrainian media. The... MORE

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Ukraine in mid August to discuss Ukraine's military contingent in Iraq. Since August 2003, Ukraine has had 1,576 troops in Iraq deployed 130 km south of Baghdad in the Polish-run sector. An additional 146 troops are to be... MORE

Ukraine celebrated the 13th anniversary of its independence from the USSR on August 24. The occasion is now regularly marked by a Soviet-style military parade and lengthy speeches elaborating national "accomplishments." Kyiv was draped with Soviet-style posters and billboards quoting President Leonid Kuchma and famous... MORE

A new scandal is unfolding in Ukraine that is likely to add to the growing realization that this year's Ukrainian presidential elections cannot be described as free and fair. On August 3 the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (www.ihf-hr.org) appealed to Ukrainian authorities "to... MORE

Senior U.S. State Department officials have reiterated their threat that if Ukraine's elections in October are not free and fair, then Ukraine has no chance of being invited to join NATO (Ukrayinska pravda, August 9). Media freedom during the elections, the officials emphasized, is an... MORE