Since the collapse of the USSR and the Orange Revolution, Ukraine has passed through three defining moments of statehood.   The most significant of these moments was the establishment of Ukraine as an independent state.

Regrettably enough, Ukraine’s image created by the Russian mass media and Russia’s image as created by the Ukrainian mass media are far from the truth. So what is Russia really like today?

Ukraine, in the wake of its Orange Revolution, has earned the image of a leading post-Soviet country regarding the pace of liberal reform. However, this perception of the country is to a large extent a kind of payment in advance rather than a reflection of actual results.

Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine are neither an ethnic sub-community of the Russian nation nor a part of the “Russian world”.

Interview with Volodymyr Ohryzko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

A meeting with Volodymyr Ohryzko, Foreign Minister of Ukraine, opens a series of ZN interviews with the new Cabinet members.

Ukraine should not hesitate to say to its younger brother, Russia, that it should learn Ukrainian political culture.

VITALY PORTNIKOV

The holding of “Sea Breeze” military exercises and Ukraine’s joining NATO should be regarded as two different processes. Some people want to unite them, but Kyiv has not applied for the NATO membership yet. Ukraine has not received the NATO Membership Action Plan and, apparently, will not recieve it in December.

VADIM KARASYOV

The winter-spring political season in Ukraine was determined by two peculiarities. Firstly, this is the influence of the 2007 early parliamentary elections on many events in the country in 2008. The second peculiarity is a more complicated and fundamental problem of institutionalization of the Parliament in the context of the constitutional changes.

VLADIMIR ZHARIKHIN

The main result to be drawn from the informal CIS summit is that under the new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Russia's policy in the post-Soviet space will not change drastically.

VALERY CHALIY

It is intolerable that, according to public opinion polls in Russia, Ukraine ranks third among the unfriendly states. In Ukraine Russia ranks first as a friendly one. Probably, this indicates that the information policies in Ukraine and Russia are different.

ANDREY KOKOSHIN, FIRST DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF THE STATE DUMA COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND HIGH TECHNOLOGIES; FYODOR LUKYANOV, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF "RUSSIA IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS" MAGAZINE

"The change consists in the fact that Russia can no longer influence the domestic policy of its neighbors. When that became clear Russia chose the pragmatic approach," Fyodor Lukyanov.

KONSTANTIN ZATULIN, ALEXANDER KONOVALOV, TATYANA PARKHALINA, OLES DONIY, LEONID KOZHARA, IVAN ZAETS, ANDREW KUCHINS

"Why do the Central and Eastern European countries seek to join NATO? For many of them it is a way to join the EU. Many countries took this as institutionalization of independence from Moscow. For many countries it was a way to return to Europe," Tatyana Parkhalina.

GEORGETA POURCHOT

Eurasian Home website with a kind permission of the Greenwood Publishing Group Inc., publishes the first chapter "Sovereignity from Within" of the book "Eurasia Rising: Democracy and Independence in the Post-Soviet Space" by the Eurasian Home website contributor Georgeta Pourchot.

VADIM KARASYOV

It seems that the Russian authorities make it clear that as long as Tymoshenko is Prime Minister, Russia doesn’t want to be Ukraine’s partner.

YULIYA TISHCHENKO

The visit of Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yuliya Tymoshenko, to Moscow on February 20-21 was made against a background of deterioration of her relations with President Viktor Yushchenko.

DMITRY VYDRIN

Moscow is afraid of making Yuliya Tymoshenko a counterpart in talks on the gas relations. As a result, Viktor Yushchenko again became the major negotiator with Russia. 

By sending troops into Georgia earlier this month, the Kremlin has shown its willingness to use force to check the advance of the West into what it considers Russia's zone of influence. The pretext for the invasion, Georgia's military clampdown on its separatist region of South Ossetia, is irrelevant.

On Friday, July 25, the Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement in which it noted that "events dedicated to the 1,020th anniversary of the acceptance of Christianity by Rus are being held in Kyiv in an atmosphere of disrespect toward the Russian Orthodox Church and the feelings of millions of Orthodox believers in Russia and Ukraine."

Remember the shell game, in which the unsuspecting player is challenged to follow a little ball with his eyes as it rolls from under one shell to the next with lightning speed? When the game operator finally stops, the player is asked to guess which shell the ball lies under in order to win a prize. However, in most cases, the operator has already managed to slip the ball into his own hands, thereby making any guess by the player a losing one.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has lost a lot since the heady days of his country’s Orange Revolution – executive power (due to constitutional changes), voter support (due to endless infighting) and international prestige (for lack of reform). More recently, his reputation as a martyr for democracy has also come under threat.

Last weekend saw the visit of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to Moscow, where she met with Vladimir Putin for the first time since he went from being Russia’s president to heading his country’s government. During the joint press conference both premiers chose their words carefully, demonstrating the sensitivity of current Russian-Ukrainian relations.

If NATO can bring Ukrainians rule of law and a decent living standard, it would already have justified its expansion. But judging by the way other Western reforms have been perverted in Ukraine, one couldn’t be blamed for having serious doubts. Probably with more candidness, Mr. Yushchenko pointed out that Ukraine can join any international organization that it likes.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and his one-time ally Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko have increasingly traded blows over the country’s budget, privatization, energy policy and, most recently, the Kyiv mayoral elections; however, when it comes to foreign policy, the two politicians who rose to power during Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution show unusual and possibly even unintended solidarity.

The crusade to raise the Ukrainian language heads and shoulders above Russian continues apace in Kyiv and other parts of the country, but as with most crusades, it’s not clear what the end goal is. Ukraine’s State Cinema Service recently announced that all films made in Ukraine must be in Ukrainian starting in July. All foreign films shown in Ukraine are already required to be dubbed or subtitled in Ukrainian.

Over the holiday-filled weekend, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov arrived in the history-filled city of Sevastopol to challenge the history and geopolitical relations of Ukraine and Russia. The official purpose of Mr. Luzhkov's visit was to take part in the celebration of the 225th anniversary of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which fell on Europe Day (May 11) and just after Victory Day (May 9).

Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov led a government delegation to Kyiv on April 25. It was only a one-day visit, and Zubkov is expected to be replaced sometime this month anyway, following the inauguration of the new Russian president.

NATO leaders arrived for their summit in Bucharest last week in an atmosphere of uncertainty bordering on mistrust. Outgoing US president George Bush continued to push for the inclusion of Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance, while European heavyweights Germany and France voiced the opposition of older member states to further eastern expansion.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has made international recognition of the Holodomor his personal crusade. Good for him. The famine of 1932-1933 claimed some six to eight million Ukrainian lives - as much as a quarter of the population - and it wasn’t a natural catastrophe. Yushchenko wants the Holodomor recognized as genocide, thus putting Ukraine’s tragedy on the same level as the Jewish Holocaust.

The issue of whether Ukraine should join NATO has returned to the public agenda, sparking off heated debates between supporters and opponents of the country’s bid. In the past, such polemics have usually meant proponents of Euro-Atlantic unity coming under attack by pro-Russian factions in the run up to an important election or a NATO-sponsored military exercise on home soil.

Reports of racism and anti-Semitism in Ukraine climbed to prominence in the nation’s media last month. Whether this had anything to do with the October 14 commemoration of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) is a matter of speculation. On that day, a few people exhibiting Nazi symbols took part in a parade otherwise composed of Ukrainian nationalists.