Former president Vladimir Putin decreed 2007 as "The Year of the Russian Language." Gallup Polls reveal increasingly favorable attitudes toward learning the Russian language in several post-Soviet states, most notably in Georgia, Moldova, and Armenia.

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?

Three months away, a new mark appeared on Ukraine’s policy map. Those who put the mark have declared very clearly and loudly their political and electoral ambitions by intending to consolidate under the United Center Party’s roof as many as possible political forces engaged by the President and his administration.

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.

If Tymoshenko wants to stay in office, she needs to patch up or enlarge the coalition before the parliament’s summer vacation or block the parliament’s work by raising debatable and provocative issues or besieging the rostrum.

Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych have the highest ratings as potential candidates for the presidency. The only difference is that this past winter Tymoshenko was 1-2 percent ahead of Yanukovych and now their standings are exactly opposite.

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

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.

If one million “active citizens” get the right to initiate, amend, or abrogate any law and even the Constitution, then the parliament may not only lose its status of the sole legislative body...

"NATO has always taken Russia into account when considering the modalities of enlargement, the timing of it and the likely consequences of it. But it has never granted Russia a veto over this process or a role to play in it," James Sherr. 

It is conventionally believed that in the first hundred days a new government enjoys its highest rating of popular trust and ought to use this circumstance for reforms and innovations. In this sense the new Ukrainian leadership has simply wasted its first 100 days.

Last Friday, Yuliya Tymoshenko and Oleh Dubina, were to report to the President of Ukraine on the results of the gas talks with Gazprom.

There is an interesting and very plausible version: it is Viktor Baloha who put parliament out of operation. Allegedly, it was his idea to send the notorious letter to the NATO Secretary General.

By legalizing Gazporom in our market, we won’t have any impulse for re-equipping the power-consuming industries – we will live under the patronage of Gazprom.

It seemed that the talks about gas relations between Russia and Ukraine and between Gazprom and Naftagaz Ukraine were taking their normal course... before November 22.

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.

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.

DMITRY VYDRIN

The fact that two Verkhovna Rada legislators, Igor Rybakov and Yuri Bout, have withdrawn from the democratic coalition casts doubt on its prospects.

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.

YURY YAKIMENKO

I believe that President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Tymoshenko will prolong the truce till the autumn. If there are no political convulsions, no coalition reformating and if the early elections are not held before October-November, one can hope that relative political stability will be maintained in Ukraine for a longer time.

DMITRY VYDRIN

It seems that Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko wants to be dismissed. She does not want to resign, she would like to be fired.

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.

ALEXEY GOLOBUTSKY

In 2004 it came as a compromise in a sense. But Constitution is not a document for compromise, for it is a state-forming document rather than a political one.

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.

VITALY BALA

“100 days” implies carte blanche for any government. A government can do almost whatever they like within that period: reshuffle the Cabinet, put forward reforms or pursue their own economic policy. In other words, a government is given a free hand.

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.

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. 

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.

VADIM KARASYOV

The visit of the Russian President to Ukraine was a success for both Vladimir Putin and Viktor Yushchenko.

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."

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.

If there is one thing that has been hard to change in independent Ukraine, it's the country's image. Maybe that's why Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who has seen his own near demigod image from the 2004 Orange Revolution reduced to that of a mere man desperate to be re-elected, is so keen on successfully hosting the European football championship in 2012.

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.

Ever since Ukraine’s Orange Revolution swept pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko into power, summer has been a time of particular discontent in the country’s political life. The summer of 2005 saw infighting in the Orange camp escalate into Yushchenko’s firing of co-revolutionary Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

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.

There is an old joke in Ukraine: two Ukrainians find a bottle containing a genie who grants them each a wish. The first Ukrainian requests and gets what he wants; the second Ukrainian uses his wish to cancel the wish of his countryman. The joke is that envy to the detriment of one's own interests is part of the Ukrainian national character. Certainly this seems to be the case with the country’s politicians.

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.

There's nothing like a national tragedy to build a nation, especially if the details of the tragedy are buried in history, and the blame for it can be put on a regional bully. Ukraine's Holodomor is such a tragedy. Yes, at least three million hapless Ukrainians died of hunger, disease and privation in 1932-1933, and No, they shouldn't be forgotten - by anyone.

To be or not to be a member of NATO – that is the question for Ukrainians, who still aren’t in a position to decide the issue. Public opinion polls conducted in the country continue to show that most Ukrainians are against joining the Western military alliance. But advocates of NATO membership  insist that Ukrainians have not been given an accurate picture of what the alliance is about.