Ukraine news

A Ukrainian opposition party has prevented foreign warships participating in a NATO naval exercise from leaving the Black Sea port of Odessa.
Sea Breeze 2008, a NATO military exercise, began last Monday in Ukraine's Odessa, Crimea and Black Sea coastal regions. Two years ago, the Sea Breeze 2006 exercise in the Crimea was also disrupted by protests.
Ukraine and the United States are joined by 15 other countries for this year's exercises, which are due to end on July 26. Fifteen Ukrainian ships, four aircraft, 10 helicopters, and 500 service personnel are involved in the military exercises.
A poll conducted in April by the FOM-Ukraina pollster indicated that a majority of Ukrainians oppose NATO membership.

Ukrainian Minister of Education Ivan Vakarchuk met with representatives of the country’s Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches on 17 July 2008 in Kyiv. According to the press office of the Christian-Democratic Union, Vakarchuk emphasized the importance of the education of children and youth and how the churches and the state can work on this together.

In June, flour production in Ukraine totaled 219.500 tonnes, up 1% as compared to the previous month, according to the official statistics. Flour production decreased by 2% as compared to June 2007, reported the State Statistics Committee.
By the end of June stocks of flour at the enterprises have decreased by 11% as compared to the end of May and totaled 43.600 tonnes.
In total, following the results of 2007/08 MY, flour production in Ukraine totaled 2.7 mln tonnes, up 9% as compared to 2006/07.

The Yulia Timoshenko Bloc (YTB) again blocked the Ukrainian parliament. Verkhovna Rada leader Arseny Yatsenyuk opened the sitting in encirclement of YTB members, but immediately announced a break. He said the parliament’s meetings would be resumed if consultations on changes to this year’s budget proved successful.
Parliamentarians are trying to reach a consensus on the budget for the third straight day. The YTB faction insists on the adoption of the changes to the budget, while the opposition demands a report of the government on its activity.
Friday is the last day of the parliament’s work before a summer recess that is continue until September.
However, President Viktor Yushchenko warned the deputies on Wednesday that the parliament does not have the right to go on the recess without approving changes to the national budget.
If the Verkhovna Rada does not find a compromise by Friday, it must continue work during the recess time, the president said.
At the same time, Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko voiced confidence that the parliamentarians would pass changes to the budget in order the government could increase pensions and wages of state employees.

At a briefing the deputy head of the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine, Yuriy Bohutsky, stressed that the president is convinced that “The celebration of the 1020th anniversary of the baptism of Kyivan Rus will facilitate the unification processes in Ukrainian Orthodoxy.”
“As early as at the time that Victor Yushchenko was the head of the national Bank and the Prime Minister, he always believed that ways to unite the Ukrainian Orthodoxy should be found,” stressed Bohutsky.
He also stated that the unity of Ukrainian Orthodoxy will become a subject of discussion of Church representatives during the celebratory events in July-August, 2008. “It is a chance to find an understanding,” says Bohutsky.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva and President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko watched the concert program performed by the Ukrainian artists. Following the concert, a miniature of the Taras Shevchenko’s monument erected in Baku was presented to the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev at the Philharmonic’s Hall. Author of the monument, the Ukrainian sculptor Igor Grechanik said presenting the miniature of the freedom fighter Taras Shevchenko’s monument to the President of Azerbaijan had a symbolic character. The head of state called the opening of the Taras Shevchenko’s monument in Baku as a remarkable event and congratulated its author for the successful work. With this the Ukrainian president ended his one-day working visit to Azerbaijan.

A statue of Ukraine's wartime nationalist leader Stepan Bandera will be erected in Lutsk in western Ukraine, the city council said.
Bandera was one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) which fought with the Soviet Army during the World War II. Following the invasion of German troops in the summer of 1941, Bandera called on Ukrainians "to help the German army in the fight against Moscow and Bolshevism."
The historical sparring has developed into an unofficial war of monuments. In October 2007, the western Ukrainian city of Lvov inaugurated a statue of Stepan Bandera and adopted a resolution establishing the "Award of Stepan Bandera," while a sculpture of Catherine the Great was erected in the Crimean port of Sevastopol as part of its 225th anniversary celebrations this June.

“The meeting of the Political Committee of PACE (Parliamentary Committee of the Council of Europe) approved a rapporteur to investigate the Holodomor (famine-genocide) as totalitarian regime’s crime in Ukraine and other territory of the Soviet Union. The rapporteur is Vice-President of PACE Alexandеr Biberaj (Albania),” said Olga Gerasimuk, Deputy Chairman of Ukraine’s standing delegation to PACE, people’s MP from the ‘Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defence’ parliamentary group (NU-NS).

In the building of the Caritas-Spes Ukraine, the heads and authorized representatives of Churches attended the Conference of Representatives of Christian Churches of Ukraine. The meeting was headed by Markiian Trofymiak, the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a number of questions of cooperation between the State and the Churches; in particular, the problems of morality and academic process in educational institutions, the concept of state-confessional relations in Ukraine, and legislative provision for the activity of Churches.
According to the Institute of Religious Freedom, the participants of the meeting discussed constitutional proposals in the area of freedom of worship and activity of religious organizations.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer says he will try to persuade all NATO members to back the idea of extending a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to Ukraine. Scheffer was speaking at news conference in Kiev after winding up a two-day visit to the ex-Soviet state. A NATO summit in Bucharest in April declined to grant MAP to Ukraine and ex-Soviet Georgia, but agreed to review the issue at a meeting of foreign ministers in December. Pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko has made NATO and EU membership the cornerstone of his foreign policy. He has pledged that the final decision on membership would be put to a referendum.