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?

Yushchenko is not ready to agree to an honorable post of parliamentary president yet. Tymoshenko showed her readiness to prolong his term as president without any elections under the condition of substantial reduction of his authority.

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

Days before the NATO summit in Bucharest began, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili rolled out a new peace initiative for breakaway Abkhazia.

Speaking today at NATO's summit in Bucharest, Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the alliance wants to welcome Ukraine and Georgia as members someday.

Ukraine's parliament on December 18 confirmed Yulia Tymoshenko as prime minister, returning the controversial pro-Western politician to power three years after the Orange Revolution catapulted her to a short-lived, divisive premiership.

On the energy map of the world, Eurasia is one region where the global hunt for energy sources carries on unabated.

Kyiv actually dreamed of being invited to join the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. Yet it was not the alliance’s fault that it did not happen once again, despite numerous favorable conditions.

Last autumn, the Kachinski brothers - Lech and Jaroslaw - started writing a new page of Polish history as soon as the rightists won the parliamentary and presidential elections.

VADIM KARASYOV

We should not discuss the theology issues and the relations within the Orthodox Church. We should discuss the celebration of the 1,020th anniversary of the acceptance of Christianity by Rus where there was a complicated political intrigue.

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.

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.

VITALY BALA

The President Yushchenko’s wish to push through his version of the constitutional reform played a mean trick on him. The President and his team did not expect that Prime Minister Tymoshenko would offer such resistance.  And Tymoshenko took the initiative.

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.

STEPHEN BLANK

In advance of NATO’s Bucharest summit Russia has decided to employ the traditional Soviet tactics of intimidation and blackmail to block NATO’s enlargement.

YURY YAKIMENKO

As regards the conflict between the President and the Prime Minister, they compete with each other for almost everything. Virtually all of important decisions or steps taken by the Cabinet evoked a reaction from the President’s Secretariat.

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.

VITALY BALA

Tymoshenko’s seeking to remove the RosUkrEnergo company from the the chain of the gas supplies and transit should be considered as an element of her presidential campaign. "Gas relations" with Russia became one of her weak points during her first premiership.

ALEXEY GOLOBUTSKY

The stability of Ukraine’s broad coalition will depend on how successfully the economic reforms will be carried out.  believe that when the first serious problems appear in the country, the coalition will have a rift.

TATYANA STANOVAYA

The Ukrainian authorities are in desperate need of success against the current background of domestic strife, economic policy problems, and fist-fights in parliament. Moreover, it needs to appeal to political groups across the board, from the left wing to patriots and from pro-Westerners to the middle-of-the-road.

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.

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).

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.