Section: Research Organizations & Think Tanks about Ukraine
Pressure mounts on Crimeans to ‘vote’ in Russia’s illegitimate elections
More reports are emerging of Crimean public sector workers being threatened with dismissal if they don’t turn up at the polling booths on Sept. 18. Russia is illegally holding its parliamentary elections in occupied Crimea and is typically using coercion to gain turnout amid calls to boycott the event. …read more Source: Kharkiv Human...
FSB Torture & Fake Lawyers Rule in Russian-occupied Crimea
More details have emerged of torture methods used to obtain videoed ‘confessions’ from Ukrainians Russia is holding incommunicado and accusing of ‘sabotage’ in Russian-occupied Crimea …read more Source: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection...
Lukashenka Seeks to ‘Balance’ Moscow’s ‘Spiritual Influence’ in Belarus
Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has been carrying on a rapprochement with the Vatican and has even been pushing for Pope Francis to visit Minsk (Interfax, May 23, August 19). Such efforts, along with discussions in the Belarusian media about the possibility of having the Belarusian Orthodox Church become autocephalous, are intended to...
An Important Reform Milestone: An Independent Energy Regulator in Ukraine
It is hard to find anything that unites the Ukrainian parliament as efficiently as the body’s regular and purposeful failure to adopt the bill on the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Public Utilities. Neither the demands of the expert community, nor the bill’s connection with Ukraine’s international...
Here’s What Ukrainian-Americans Are Doing For Ukraine
Ukraine’s Maidan revolution united Ukraine as a nation like never before, and it reinvigorated Ukrainian-American communities across the United States. While Ukrainian-Americans are well organized nationally through such organizations as the Ukrainian Congress Committee of Ukraine and in metropolitan areas with large Ukrainian communities,...
Ukraine’s Signature Transparency Initiative Comes Under Fire Again
In October 2014, Ukraine’s parliament passed a law requiring all public officials to file an electronic declaration disclosing their assets. The law requires the identification of assets directly held by officials, as well as those held by family members, which means officials can no longer hide illegally obtained assets in the names of...
Ukraine reports death of three soldiers as EU pushes for peace
Ukraine said today (13 September) that pro-Russian insurgents had killed three of its soldiers in violation of a truce the foreign ministers of Germany and France will try to revive in Kyiv this week. …read more Source:...
Russian Mining Giant Takes Blame for Turning River Red
Norilsk Nickel has admitted that spillage from a dam caused the Daldykan River near the city of Norilsk to turn blood red. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
No right for digital participation in many regions of the world
In many regions of the world the freedom of the Internet is just an illusion. Especially in Arab countries, the neighbouring states of Russia and Subsahara-Africa the year 2015 marked the lowest point for democratic participation and civil liberties. Isn’t it incongruous? More than two billion people around the world use a mobile phone,...
Civil society in Russia – Where external support is vital
Russian NGOs are under pressure: They are hindered in their work with laws and checks by the authorities, paralyzed and driven to close down. External support is not only helpful, but vital. In the last four years, more than thirty new laws and legislative amendments have been passed in Russia that restrict personal freedoms, according to human...
