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

Equal access to the media during this year's Ukrainian presidential campaign is a key issue in determining to what degree Western governments, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe can judge the election as "free and fair" (Ukrayinska pravda,... MORE

Candidate registration for the October 31 Ukrainian presidential election officially closed on August 6. Next, all candidates must collect 500,000 signatures by September 20 (Ukrayinska pravda, August 5). The number of candidates has steadily grown with each presidential election: six in 1991, seven in 1994,... MORE

At its party congress at the end of July, Unity (Yednist) refused to back Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych for the upcoming presidential elections (Ukrayinska pravda, July 24). Unity is headed by Oleksandr Omelchenko, the popular mayor of Kyiv and head of the Kyiv state administration.... MORE

With Ukraine's presidential election just three months away, Russia appears to be stepping up efforts to influence the outcome of the ballot in its neighbor. Ukraine remains the linchpin in the new frontier of Russia-led Eurasian integration. The result of the October 31 election may... MORE