Ukrainian Live

Archive for the ‘Ukraine and Canada’ Category

Ukraine and Canada are enmeshed. The largest Ukrainian diaspora lives here, an estimated 1.5 million, and Canada was the first western nation to recognize Ukraine’s independence in 1991.

“Canada’s soft power is important in Ukraine and the country must work with the Poles and Americans and target the middle class,” said Danylo Bilak, a Canadian-Ukrainian lawyer who has lived in Kiev for 20 years.

That is what Oleh Rybachuk is doing. He worked for both the Orange Revolution’s leaders as Yushchenko’s campaign chair, Chief of Staff and Tymoshenko’s assistant. He is disgusted with them for their actions and devotes his time to developing grassroots organizations, NGOs, throughout the country to restart the Orange movement. He explained what happened.

“In August 2005, one year after the Orange Revolution, the two were fighting and I tried to broker a deal between them. Each agreed to fire three antagonistic people from their teams, hold a press conference the next day and promise not to oppose one other. It was a truce,” he said.

Tymoshenko reneged on the agreement and that night tried to muster support to remove Yushchenko. He found out and it has been war ever since between the two.

“I blame them both,” he said. “Politics is cold blooded, not a marriage. If you are seen together like they were they had no right to do this,” he said. “I resigned because the President and Prime Minister were behaving like teenagers. It was embarrassing to the country and they embarrassed Ukraine in front of NATO and the European Union which wanted to accept Ukraine in as members but needed to hear from one voice.”