Russia's control of the seas

In the recent aggressive actions by Russia in the Sea of Azov, Russia has challenged international maritime law without reproach. By capturing Ukrainian ships and crews and regulating access to the Sea under their bridge, they have essentially closed off shipping to Ukrainian ports. They have crippled Ukraine's ability to trade and no one has stood up against them. The Ukrainians are still counting on NATO’s more active participation in condemning Russian aggression especially in the Sea of Azov crisis. We know that NATO means 'No Action, Talking Only'. This applies especially to the US and Trump. But hope remains.

Putin's strategic moves with Crimea and challenges to Ukraine by land and by sea have gone unpunished. No one cares about Ukraine. In the past, world wars have been started over much less. Yes, I learned in the board game RISK that Ukraine's borders are not defensible. Ukraine's defenses - one war ship - are certainly not up to the standard required to be a superpower whose borders others respect. No, instead, Putin pushes the boundaries wherever and whenever he can, gaining ground by inches if he has to, inducing fear among any who cross his lines. It is so frustrating to watch.

The New York Times summarizes the risks today:

"Such fears have highlighted how easy it is for Russia to squeeze Mariupol and Ukraine as a whole by dialing up and down pressure. It eases off when it wants to head off calls abroad for sanctions and assert plausible deniability, while leaving such a cloud of uncertainty that nobody can be sure what the risks are."

Meanwhile, Moscow is making moves to 'integrate' Belarus into Russia and the Unification Assembly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is taking part in Kyiv today to unite the two factions of the Ukrainian Church and remove Russia's controls over it. This is a volatile period for Europe. Putin won't stop until he has regained control of what was once the Soviet Union. Anything can explode.

Ukraine/Russia Conflict

The conflict between Ukraine and Russia explained very well. Above, the bridge Russia built from Crimea to the mainland.

Daniel McLaughlin, Central and Eastern Europe Correspondent for the Irish Times discusses the major tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

https://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=b9_21472326_70__

Ukraine is not Russia

In response to Putin claiming that Ukraine is just southern Russia and in follow-up to the post about the spelling of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, I offer this comparison between Kyiv and Moscow. Kyiv was founded back in 482 AD by three Norse explorers and their sister. Ukraine was a great Empire by the  9th century and its Christian roots go back to that period. In 867 Saints Cyril and Methodius appealed in person to the Bishop of Rome to bring the Christian faith into Kyivan Rus. By 906, they had founded a diocese in Peremyshl, today a diocese of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in what is now Przemyśl, Poland from where my father's family hails. Their efforts, and those of their apostles, led to the translation of Christian Scriptures and service (liturgy) from Greek to Slavonic, and the eventual development of the modern Cyrillic alphabet. Christianity became dominant in the territory with the mass Baptism of Kiev in the Dniepro River in 988 ordered by Vladimir the Great.

This was several hundred years before Russia even existed! Moscow was founded around 1147. Ukraine is not Russia and never has been.

A week of turmoil and love in Ukraine

It's been a horrible week for President Petro Poroshenko. The Russians captured Ukrainian ships and sailors in non-territorial waters and no one will come to Ukraine's aid. They took 24 prisoners. Oh, the US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who has already resigned her post, denounced the move. Angela Merkel denounced the move, too, but fell short of condemnations or urging NATO support because she needs Russian gas. And Russia is building an undersea pipeline to bypass Ukraine.

Trump yesterday cancelled his scheduled meeting with Putin in Argentina - because of the conflict with Ukraine, yeah right. He cancelled the meeting because he would have to explain the Cohen guilty plea about what he did and knew about Russia dealings during Trump's campaign for President. And he'd have to stomp on Putin for Ukraine digressions which he is loathe to do. So he cancels the meeting. No meeting, no problems.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian women in other parts of the country were making their own news. Miss Ukraine 2018, Veronika Didusenko, was disqualified from her title because she has a son. And she has taken to Instagram to fight this prejudice which she says she faces every day. This beautiful young woman has launched a global campaign to end discrimination against women who have children.

Miss Universe Ukraine, Karina Zosan, is on her way to Thailand for the worldwide competition. Her extraordinary outfit "Tree of Life" delivers a stark contrast from the war in Donbas and on the Black Sea. This stunning young woman comes from Odessa, Ukraine's main Black Sea port.

Thank you for the positive feedback about our national costume!🌺

This dress is decorated with traditional elements of Ukrainian ornament.

The mallow flower has been decorating the Ukrainian houses since ancient times.

Red color symbolizes the love of Ukrainian people to their land, to their families, to the Motherland. White color indicates the purity and holiness of the Ukrainian soul.

10 masters of different areas of crafts, decorators, seamstresses, and blacksmiths worked over the embodiment of this idea.

The manufacturing took more than 90 days.

The number of silk threads used for decoration is almost 11 kilometers that were made by the hands of masters of 50 flowers.

It was created by Дизайн-студия Svitlo
Photographer - Олеся Искова (Olesya Iskova)

#MissUniverse #MissUniverseUkraine

On yet another world stage, UKRAINE'S Junior Eurovision contestant, 11-yo Darina Krasnovetska, opened the event in Minsk with her high voltage 'Say Love'. She came in fourth after Poland, France and Australia. I have a feeling we haven't heard the last of her. 

So here are the men fighting wars again and the women fighting injustice, building trees for life and singing songs of love. "Those Ukraine girls really knock me out, they leave the west behind." 

Chornobyl, a wasteland of hope

This BBC feature article tells a very sobering reality of life in Ukraine. For the people of Chornobyl (Chernobyl to the uninformed*) who stayed after the nuclear disaster, and for those now finding the answer to war in its outskirts, it's clear that hope has a different composition. To find cheap land, a home free of bombardment and war, a place to start again, where peace is found in perfect stillness, that is the where hope is found. In this place, radiation is not the issue. Survival until tomorrow is. So people from the war ravaged towns of Eastern Ukraine flee to a place where the air is now free of radioactivity but the soil still carries its contamination threat. It's a matter of least of two evils.

"Radiation may kill us slowly, but it doesn't shoot or bomb us," says Maryna. "It's better to live with radiation than with war".

*Чорнобиль – Ukr. – ancient Ukrainian town, first mentioned in chronicles in 1193. In compliance with international rules (UNCSGN & UNGEGN), the transliteration of names of settlements is made only from the country state language, where the object is located. Accordingly, the only correct transliteration from Ukrainian state language - Chornobyl.

Pierogi Day

National Pierogi Day is tomorrow in the US. Pierogi is, of course, a Polish word. The Ukrainian equivalent is pirohy. Whatever you call them, these delightful dumplings filled with potatoes and cheese (what the Polish call ruski pierogi but they are really Ukrainian not Russian) are to die for. I'd better start making them now. Tomorrow is just a few hours away.

This is pretty much the same recipe as my mom's that I make.

#KyivNotKiev

Campaign asks foreign media to change their spelling of Ukraine’s capital

Ukrainian: Київ 

Kyi, Schek, Choryv and sister Lebed who founded Kyiv*

With the Center for Strategic Communications, StratCom Ukraine, the Ukraine Foreign Ministry plans to post on Facebook and Twitter a request to international media, such as Reuters, the New York Times, the BBC and others, to use versions of Ukrainian place names transliterated from Ukrainian, not Russian, into English. The name of the capitol, Kyiv, come from it's founders name Kyi. Hence Kyiv not Kiev.

It follows an effort to alert media and the world that calling Ukraine the Ukraine is more than a grammatical error. It's an insult that stems from the era when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union rather than a sovereign state. Read an article about there here.
For that matter, why is Ukraine spelled that way rather than Ukraina, which is its name in Ukrainian?

*Unknown - Файл:Кий, Щек, Хорив и Лыбедь (миниатюра Радзивилловской летописи).jpg

Holodomor during Dublin Festival of History

The following information is about a discussion about Stalin's famine in Ukraine scheduled to take place in Dublin as part of the Festival of History.  The newspaper article I added from the web. I believe all the talks will be posted as podcasts after the festival is over.

Read an article about Stalin and Holodomor in the New Republic. 

Russia was born out of Ukraine

"It happened so that although it was Russia that was born out of Ukraine, and not the other way around, due to systematic distortion of historical facts to serve ideological needs (just consider the concept of ‘great Russia’) the entire world (alas, including Ukrainians themselves) grew to believe in this distorted picture of history and culture, believe in the ‘big brother.’ But Volodymyr the Great, Baptist of Rus’, Volodymyr Monomakh, and many other ‘founders of the Russian nation and culture’ were of Ukrainian, not Russian origin!"

Russians can be nice

I have never been prejudiced that I know of. I have always treated individuals with respect, regardless of what they looked like or what stereotype they fit into. At least I believe I have.

Do animals really understand Ukrainian better?

Since I was a child, I have always spoken to animals in Ukrainian when I really wanted them to understand. For some odd reason, I always thought they could understand Ukrainian better than English.

Ukrainian Scouting in America

Vodnyj Tabir c1971 Stillwater Reservoir (I'm on the bottom right.)

In reading an interview with Sylvia Acevedo, the new CEO of Girl Scouts in America, I was reminded of the conundrum of growing up Ukrainian in America. We did not sell cookies. We had wilderness training.

Ukrainian Easter in Ireland

I've lived in Ireland since 2008, and I have not hosted a traditional Easter lunch until this year. I learned that the Catholic Church in Westport was going to do a blessing of the baskets at 2:30 pm on Easter Saturday and I thought this would be a good year to invite friends over to help us celebrate and to introduce them to the traditions I grew up with. I didn't know then how events would unfold.

Alex's paska ready for the oven.

Movie being made about Holodomor, and book wins prize

Photograph by Alexander Wienerberger, 1933

Starring British Actor James Norton, the movie titled 'Gareth Jones' will tell the story about a Welsh journalist who told the world about what was going on in Ukraine under Stalin.

Four years since Russians invaded Crimea

On the 22 February 2014, President Vladimir Putin convened a meeting with Russian security services to discuss extrication of deposed pro-Russian Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych from Ukraine. Putin reportedly remarked that "we must start working on returning Crimea to Russia."

Notes on immigration

A childhood friend has posted this on his Facebook page, which I am re-posting here. My mother wrote down her story and it sounds very similar. My family were in a DP camp in Italy and were almost prevented from coming to the States because the doctor thought my mother might have TB. She did not and my father "convinced" the doctor that she did not in a rather interesting way. They came over on the Queen Mary through Ellis Island like so many millions of others. My family name is etched on a plaque there. They were sponsored by my aunt and uncle in Philadelphia and in turn sponsored my aunt and uncle who were sent to Australia first instead. Those were dark times, filled with the light of hope.

These are dark times, but the light is burning out.