We Will Not Forget, We Will Never Surrender
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Highlights This Week
- Remembering the Victims of Communism
- Making the Grade: Ukraine's Annual Report Card Highlights
- Center Stage: Ukrainian Dance Artist WOWS AGT Judges
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The Twelfth Annual Roll Call of Nations
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Remembering the Victims of Communism, the U.S. - Ukraine Foundation Participates in the Annual Memorial Wreath Laying
By
Matthew Popadiuk
This past Friday, June 14, the Twelfth Annual Roll Call of Nations was held at the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, DC. The ceremony has been held annually since 2007 to honor and remember the millions who have suffered and died under in-humane totalitarian communist regimes. Among those nations with such victims is Ukraine, which is recognized as one of the countries that suffered the most under communist rule as a result of the brutal Stalin-era policies of the Soviet Union - including the The Great Terror and the man-made genocidal famine of Holodomor.
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Matthew Popadiuk of the U.S. - Ukraine Foundation participated in the wreath laying ceremony alongside dozens of other representatives of embassies, former and current captive nations, human rights groups and other advocacy organizations who stand for liberty and freedom.
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This year, the representatives gathered to lay wreaths at the memorial which is sculpted in the image of the Goddess of Democracy. Among those present was Matthew Popadiuk, representing the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation at the ceremony. The Foundations participation was in memory of the millions of Ukrainian victims of Soviet communism. In attendance as well, were the Embassy of Ukraine and the Crimean Tatar community who also laid wreaths.
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Representing the Embassy of Ukraine,
Oksana Shulyar, Deputy Chief of Mission.
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Representing the Crimean Tatar
community, Inci Bowman.
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Making the Grade: Ukraine's Annual Report Card Highlights
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U.S. - Ukraine Foundation Chair, Ambassador Roman Popadiuk, provides remarks before beginning a panel discussion at the 7th Annual Ukraine Report Card Summit on June 13, 2019.
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Does Ukraine Pass the Test? Experts Assess Ukraine's Progress Being Made at the 7th Annual Ukraine Report Card Summit
Several representatives of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation's Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN) shared their expertise at this year’s U.S.-Ukraine Working Group Summit: Providing Ukraine with an Annual Report Card conference, which assessed Ukraine’s progress in political and economic development as well as with regard to security issues.
Click on the video links below to view snapshots panel discussions featuring FOUN Members
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View the co-Chair of FOUN's Task Force on Democracy and Civil Society, Orest Deychakiwsky's, assessment
in the panel on Robust Democratic Politics.
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View Ambassador Temuri Yakobashvili's assessment in the panel on Ever Greater Energy and Security.
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View FOUN's External Relations Coordinator, Robert McConnell's, assessment in the panel on Ever Greater General Security.
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Ukrainian Dance Artist WOWS AGT Judges
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Earlier this year, America's Got Talent Champions, featured three unique acts from Ukraine among the top 50 acts selected.
In this current season of the show, once again, talent from Ukraine shines.
To be amazed, watch the video to the right.
Get ready to vote for Ukraine's Marina Mazepa in the coming weeks. Details to follow.
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June 22, 1941 - The Nazi Invasion
By Joseph Bistransky, Intern
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By nearly any metric, the Second World War’s Eastern Front – which began with the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union 78 years ago this week – was the deadliest and most brutal conflict in human history. In many histories, the Soviet Union is portrayed as the key victim of this conflict, and the greatest contributor to victory over fascism. While this statement is perhaps literally true, the focus on the state rather than its peoples, as well as the far too frequent interchange of “Russia” for “Soviet Union” in popular telling, brushes over the diversity of nationalities and peoples who contributed to the Soviet war effort, and ignores how the brutality, callousness and incompetence of the Soviet government often sabotaged the valiant efforts of the ordinary people living under its rule.
For the first two years of the Second World War, the Soviet Union was an ally of the fascist powers following the division of Eastern Europe between them under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviet army fought as an ally of the Nazi forces in the invasion and division of Poland that culminated in a joint victory parade in Brest, and with the Axis’ blessing snuffed out the democratic Baltic republics. While the Nazi war machine wreaked havoc in the West and built strength for an Eastern thrust, the USSR provided it with vast amounts of food, phosphates, oil, and other raw materials. In the lead-up to the Nazi invasion of the USSR, Stalin purged the Red Army’s most competent officers and ignored repeated warnings from Soviet intelligence that an attack was imminent. The result of this is that millions of people were left entirely under-prepared for the attack when it came and had to pay an unnecessarily high price for their eventual victory.
Ukraine’s contribution to this victory can hardly be overstated. The Ukrainian SSR provided two-thirds of the Soviet Union’s iron, half of its steel, and 60% of its coal, as well as 4.5 million soldiers – 15% of the Red Army’s total manpower. All of Ukraine’s territory was occupied by fascist forces during the war, and somewhere around 7 million Ukrainians lost their lives – a number which severely understates the true damage to the country, as it excludes the toll of Soviet repression against its own population. This represents over a quarter of the Soviet Union’s total losses, and over 15% of the total Ukrainian population – a greater percentage than any other combatant nation besides Belarus and Poland.
The deep impact left by this trauma remains potent and has been exploited for political gain - too often by those who would repeat Soviet leaders’ mistakes. Notably, Putin’s Kremlin is engaged in historical revisionism which seeks to seize political control of the memory and legacy of victory, through denial of Soviet crimes and collaborationism, apologia or even praise for Stalin, and minimization of the contribution of non-Russian Soviet peoples, most egregiously Putin’s repeated claim that Ukraine’s contribution to the defeat of fascism was unimportant. As those who remember the conflict continue to dwindle in number, the challenge for the rest of us will be to honor those who sacrificed for our common victory without falling into the political trap of extending that respect to the regime which undermined and repressed them - before, during, and after the war.
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Nazi & Soviet forces victory parade in Brest, Poland.
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In Ukraine, Kyiv’s Khreshchatyk Street after
the Nazi's bombardment of the city.
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SUPPORT THE U.S.-UKRAINE FOUNDATION'S
2019 ANNUAL GIVING CAMPAIGN
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