The Council of Europe's Disgraceful Approach to Human Rights
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Honor Roll of Countries Standing
With Ukraine in the Fight for
Freedom & Democracy:
ESTONIA, GEORGIA,
THE NETHERLANDS, LATVIA, LITHUANIA, THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC
& THE UNITED KINGDOM
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Highlights This Week
- Friends of Ukraine Network - Democracy & Civil Society Task Force Discussion
- Biotech Innovations - Ukrainian Scientist's Breakthrough Makes Sequencing a Genome Easier
- Business Podcast - An interview with the co-founders of DeepTrait
- Talent From Ukraine Continues to Captivate
- This Week in History - Unveiling of DC Shevchenko Memorial, Victory Against Kremlin's Standard Anti-Ukrainian Propaganda
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Ukraine Furious as Russia Gets Back its Council of Europe Voting Rights
From the BBC News
Commentary By Robert A. McConnell [RAM]
Five years after Russia had its voting rights removed because of the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly has voted to restore them.
The assembly backed the proposal in the face of angry opposition from Ukraine, whose delegation later walked out.
Moscow described the vote as a "victory for common sense".
[More like a disgrace and a condemnation of the Council as meaningless. RAM]
Russia had threatened to abandon the 47-member human rights body, which is not linked to the EU.
[Before this vote the threat would have been a so what? But given the Council’s lack of commitment to human rights and reasonable standards maybe these scoundrels belong together. RAM]
Opponents say the resolution adopted in the early hours on Tuesday at the assembly's headquarters in Strasbourg is the first crack in international sanctions imposed against Russia in 2014.
But supporters say engagement with Russia will help tackle human rights abuses in Russia
.
[The seemingly endless and naive belief the Kremlin will change leads these clowns to reward Russia for continued and aggressive human rights abuses, and ignores the specific reason Russia’s removal was ordered in the first place. Russia not only remains in Crimea, but abuses the population and is building the peninsula into a military threat to the region. RAM]
So, who was against the move?
In the vote tallied 118 in favor to 62 against, Ukraine failed in its move to stop Russia's delegation being allowed back into the chamber, supported by delegates from the United Kingdom, the Baltic States and elsewhere.
German and French delegates largely backed Russia's return, arguing it was better to have Russia inside the body than out, and also because the human rights court gave Russians a destination of "last hope."
Last week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, complained that it was "especially disgusting to watch some European partners actually cover their attempts to assist the Russian government with concerns about Russian civil society."
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Europe Starts to Lose Its Nerve on Russia (Don't We Need Human Rights Organizations?)
From the Wall Street Journal
By The Editorial Board, June 26, 2019
The U.S. often gets knocked for its skepticism of multilateral institutions, but these groups often prove America’s point. See the news that Russia is being welcomed back to the Council of Europe, which calls itself “the continent’s leading human rights organisation.”
In 2014 Russia lost its voting rights in the Council’s Parliamentary Assembly over its annexation of Crimea and occupation of Eastern Ukraine. In response Moscow stopped paying its annual €33 million dues in 2017, and the Russians threatened to leave the organization if they couldn’t vote for its next secretary-general. The intimidation worked. On Tuesday the assembly voted
118-62
to restore Russia’s status.
This marks the first time Europe has abandoned a major sanction against Russia since 2014. The Ukrainian delegation walked out in protest, and President Volodymyr Zelensky noted the irony that Tuesday also marked a United Nations deadline for the Russians to release 24 Ukrainian sailors held hostage since November.
Every assembly member from Turkey—that model human-rights promoter—voted to reinstate Russia. But even five of seven from the Netherlands approved. In 2014, 189 Dutch citizens were killed when a Russian missile brought down flight MH-17 over Ukraine. Last week an investigation led by the Dutch government named three Russians as murder suspects in the shootdown.
Mr. Zelensky failed to convince German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron to oppose reinstatement. They may hope the olive branch will encourage Russia to behave better. But the Council of Europe exists to defend human rights, the rule of law and democracy—not appease dictators.
Several Russian delegates to the parliamentary assembly are currently under European Union sanctions, though this didn’t sway the majority that gave them their voting rights back. No doubt Russia will use this logical inconsistency—members of a human-rights organization under sanctions—to demand the lifting of more penalties.
European and U.S. pressure on Russia since 2014 has isolated Russia economically, and its people are increasingly unhappy with Vladimir Putin. But the Kremlin is still meddling in European elections and its agents poisoned Britons as recently as 2018. Mr. Putin has bet that the West eventually will lose its nerve, and he may be right.
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Friends of Ukraine Network
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Foundation's FOUN Task Force on Democracy & Civil Society Joins in a Three-way Discussion
By Myroslav Dobroshynskyi, Intern
On June 20, 2019, speakers from Washington, D.C., Kyiv and Brussels discussed Ukrainian foreign policy priorities for newly elected President Volodymyr Zelensky during a telecast organized by the German Marshall Fund, and supported by the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, and the Reanimation Package of Reforms. Opening remarks were provided by Jonathan Katz of the German Marshall Fund and Orest Deychakiwsky, who is the vice-Chairman of the US-Ukraine Foundation and Co-chair of its Friends of Ukraine Network Task Force on Democracy and Civil Society.
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Last Week, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv Welcomed Back Ambassador William B. Taylor to Ukraine as Chargé d’Affaires
On June 18, 2019, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine welcomed back Ambassador William B. Taylo
r
as Chargé d’Affaires
, to lead the embassy's t
eam during this period of historic elections and transition.
On accepting his posting, Ambassador Taylor stated, "I look forward to leading the U.S. Embassy team in building strong working relationships with President Zelenskyy and his team, other Ukrainian officials and political forces, and in maintaining our strong partnerships with civil society organizations and the Ukrainian people. The United States remains deeply committed to the success of a stable, prosperous, democratic and free Ukraine, and we continue to stand in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The U.S. - Ukraine Foundation welcomes the opportunity to once again work with Ambassador Taylor, who served as ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009 as well as having participated as a member of the Friends of Ukraine Network, to further develop strong U.S. - Ukraine relations to promote democracy, peace and prosperity for all.
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A Ukrainian Born Scientist Has Created
a Better Way to Sequence a Genome
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By Matthew Popadiuk
Featured as one of 35 Innovators Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review, is Ukrainian born scientist, Olga Dudchenko.
Using a technique that was originally developed to study how chromosomes fold, Dudchenko has been able to show how bits of DNA lie physically close to one another after being spit out in disorganized fragments of DNA codes by modern gene sequencing machines. Coupled with her original methods and algorithms, this makes assembling genomes much easier.
Dudchenko and her colleagues first shared the first results of what they dubbed the DNA Zoo in late 2018, including end-to-end chromosome sequences for more than 50 species of animal. This is especially important to species of animal that face extinction since, one day, the species' DNA may be all that's left of them.
With this development, Dudchenko is taking on the task to characterize the genome of every species on earth. She notes that, “The ability to [make] decisions in an informed fashion can mean the difference between survival and extinction of the species."
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Olga Dudchenko, a Ukrainian born scientist at the Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University, has discovered a faster and cheaper method that provides for the ability to paste together the billions of disorganized, fragmented DNA codes that are read by modern gene sequencing machines.
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is a monthly podcast series produced and hosted by Mike Buryk, a member of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation's Board of Advisors, a long-time Foundation supporter and business development advisor. To start listening today, go to...
This week, we feature...
An interview with DeepTrait co-founders, Sergii Shelpuk and Ruslana Radchuk
DeepTrait is a company developing self-learning AI capable of working with the full genomes of crop plants. Co-founders Sergii Shelpuk and Ruslana Radchuk talk about how the company was founded and the services they hope to offer to the global biotechnology community.
www.deeptrait.ai/
~ In Support of USUF's Economic Development Programming ~
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Talent From Ukraine Captivates America's Got Talent Judges
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Already this year, a sixth act from Ukraine has appeared on America's Got Talent.
Hailing from Dnipro, Ukraine,
VERBA SHADOW
DANCE GROUP
is the only theater in the world which creates performances by combining shadow and light effects, acting and professional acrobatic layouts based on motives of famous films, TV series and cartoons.
To be amazed, watch the video to the right.
Get ready to vote for all the acts from Ukraine in America's Got Talent in the coming weeks.
You'll be able to cast your vote on Tuesday, August 13, 2019. Details to follow.
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June 27, 1964 - Former President Eisenhower Unveils Washington’s Taras Shevchenko Memorial
The presence of this memorial represents strong U.S. support for Ukraine's freedom &democracy and a victory against he Kremlin’s ‘standard anti-Ukrainian playbook.’
By Joseph Bistransky, Intern
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Part of what makes Washington, D.C. look the part of capital of the free world is its great variety of monuments and memorials. Unlike the capitals of many countries, D.C.’s scenery honors not only American national heroes, but symbols of freedoms and defenders of human rights from across the world. One of the largest and most prominent of these international tributes is the memorial to Ukrainian poet and artist Taras Shevchenko, which stands at the center of a small park near the intersection of P and 22nd streets.
The monument, now a long-lasting part of the city, stands as a reminder of a high-profile failure of long-running Kremlin attempts to discredit or co-opt Ukrainian history and culture.
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The idea of building an American monument to this “greatest son of Ukraine” began in 1898, when a group of Ukrainian immigrants founded the American Shevchenko Society in Pennsylvania. Although this initial effort failed to gain traction, the idea was picked up again in the early 1960s when Georgetown professor Lev Dobriansky, a prominent D.C. area Ukrainian-American, founded a Shevchenko Monument Committee and managed to gather the support across various ethnic communities as well as Congress.
Initially, there was significant political opposition to the monument. The puppet Ukrainian SSR delegation in the United Nations lodged a protest, and the Soviet Embassy attempted to turn public opinion against it by forcing contemporary Ukrainian cultural figures to sign a letter claiming that the monument was a proxy for “dirty political purposes.” Influenced by these efforts, opponents as prominent as the
Washington Post
editorial board repeated standard lines used to denigrate Ukrainian national identity, calling Shevchenko anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic. Fortunately, the U.S. withstood this pressure, and after strong support from the public and within Congress became clear, a site and design for the monument was finally approved in April 1963. Initially, the Soviet Embassy tried to save face by announcing it would be interested in participating in the dedication ceremony, but was strongly rebuffed by the statue’s sponsors, who wrote an inscription “carefully worded … to embarrass the Soviet Union and to discourage Soviet delegations from laying wreaths at the memorial.”
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President Kuchma and Putin at the dedication of the
St. Petersburg Shevchenko memorial in 2000.
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Unsurprisingly, the Soviet delegation did not show, and the statue continued to be a rallying point for those protesting Soviet tyranny in Ukraine. To deflect from the story, Soviet officials ordered the construction of their own Shevchenko statue in Moscow, which featured a Russian version of one of his poems and was dedicated with a specially written ‘fakelore’ song proclaiming “Ukraine and Russia have become united forever.” More recently, Putin’s government similarly attempted to seize Shevchenko’s legacy with a new statue in St. Petersburg intended to “act as a reminder of the important roots which unite the peoples of Russia and Ukraine.”
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Washington’s memorial was designed by Ukrainian-American artist and sculptor Leo Mol, and was finally completed on June 27, 1964. Former president Eisenhower personally dedicated the monument, joining over 100,000 in attendance who marched from the Washington Monument to the memorial site. For them, the statue was more than a celebration of Ukrainian culture in America – it was a symbol of the continuing struggle for Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union. On unveiling the statue, Eisenhower noted: “For my hope is that your magnificent march…will here kindle a new world movement in the hearts, minds, words and actions of men; a never-ending movement dedicated to the independence and freedom of peoples of all captive nations of the entire world." Russian efforts to either discredit or co-opt Ukrainian culture will inevitably continue, but so long as Ukrainians and friends of Ukraine abroad keep their historical memory and their common values, such efforts, like the Soviet-led opposition to this now-iconic monument, are doomed to failure.
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SUPPORT THE U.S.-UKRAINE FOUNDATION'S
2019 ANNUAL GIVING CAMPAIGN
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