Stories from Quick Reads and Ukraine
Should Africa Learn From the Crimea Referendum?
“Is Crimea referendum a good model for Africa?” asks Richard Dowden: Africa’s arbitrary borders, mostly drawn by people who had never set foot in the continent, have always been an obvious target for renegotiation. But Africa’s first rulers, who foresaw chaos and disintegration if the nation states were reconfigured, ruled...
Ukrainians Desperate to Flip the Script on Fascism
Photoshoped swastika is making the rounds on RuNet.
Ukrainian Paramilitary Leader Assassinated, Moscow to Blame?
Over the past several hours rumors spread through the RuNet claiming that Alexander Muzychko, second-in-command to Ukraine's ultra-nationalist "Right Sector" leader Dmytro Yarosh, was gunned down near Rivno.
A warning message sent to Taiwan from Ukraine
The decision Russia made to send military force to Crimea worries many Taiwanese. Taiwan Explore, a blogger who devoted to introducing Taiwan, explained the parallels between Taiwan and Ukraine and why many Taiwanese feel worried about themselves when they watch the news about Ukraine these days.
A Chronology of International Violations by Russian Troops in Ukraine
The popular Maidan Translations blog republished a Facebook post by Dmitry Tymchuk, Head of the Ukrainian Center for Military-Political Studies, that describes several alleged international violations and “irregular actions” since late February 2014. Tymchuk begin this run-down by saying: For instance, on February 28, at 8.45 a.m. the flight of...
Everyday Ukrainian Life in 1942 Depicted Through Fifty Color Photos
As anti-government protests that started on November 21, 2013, burden Ukrainian life today, a vintage photo blog takes a look back on another harsh period of the country's history – through 52 amazing color photographs [photo] of everyday life in Ukraine in 1942. In 1942, like many other European countries,...
Four Biggest Misconceptions About #Euromaidan Protests in Ukraine
Ucrainica Marginalis published an overview of the four largest misconceptions about #Euromaidan, written by scholars Sofiya Grachova & Stephen A. Walsh. What this overview points out is the vast gap between how international media and outside spectators view what is happening and the message that Ukrainians involved in Euromaidan protests...
Independent Ukrainian Filmmakers Create #Euromaidan Documentaries
In Ukraine, several filmmakers united to produce a video chronology of the events that came to be known as the Euromaidan protests. “BABYLON'13”, named after a bar in which the filmmakers came up with the idea for the project, is a collection of short documentaries reflecting the development of the...
INFOGRAPHIC: The New Anti-Democratic Laws of Ukraine
On January 16, 2014, Ukrainian Parliament adopted a series of bills with a severe violation of the voting procedure. Nevertheless, on the eve of the same day the bills were signed into law by President Yanukovych. Below is an infographic by civic movement CHESNO [uk, en] outlining the major legislative...
Facebook Teams Up with Russia's Top Search Engine
Scholars and researchers of the Russian Internet can rejoice this week, for Russia's leading search engine, Yandex.ru, is now the second website in the world, after Bing in the United States, to gain access to Facebook firehose data [ru]. This means that Yandex can now search Facebook's streaming API and provide live...
New DDoS Attacks on Websites Monitoring Ukrainian #Euromaidan Protests
Vasyl Pawlowsky, an independent consultant and English-language curator of Maidan Monitoring, a website set up and maintained specifically for following events and news from Euromaidan protests in several cities throughout Ukraine, reports in a blog post that the crowdsourced site is not available due to a DDoS attack, allegedly organized...
Human Rights Violations During Ukraine's #Euromaidan Protests
One of many newly set up blogs following Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, which have entered their second month, has collected several graphic images of injured, bleeding protesters from the past several weeks of protests and speaks of the disturbing violations of basic human rights, such as beatings of citizens and...
Ukrainian Protesters Play Lennon's “Imagine” Live to Riot Police
On December 18, 2013, American musician and composer Sean Lennon (son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono) shared a photo on his Facebook wall, depicting a pianist playing John Lennon's famous song “Imagine” to the rows of Ukrainian riot police. In a week, the photo has gathered over 16,900 likes...
Former Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko Officially Supports #Euromaidan Movement
According to her official website, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has officially joined the Maidan Civil Movement, a newly formed civilian organization stemming from the Euromaidan movement, just as the protest that began in Ukraine in November 2013 enters its second month. Tymoshenko, jailed in 2011 for allegedly “exceeding...
Ukrainian Netizens Draft A Digital #Euromaidan Manifesto
As Euromaidan protests in Ukraine enter their second month, Ukrainian social media users have started circulating a Digital Euromaidan Manifesto [uk] drafted by their fellow netizens. Below is the English translation of the full original statement: Digital Euromaidan Manifesto We, the Ukrainian Internet users united by Euromaidan principles of non-violent...
The Economics of Ukraine's #Euromaidan [INFOGRAPHIC]
A Ukrainian news portal specializing in data visualization, Newsplot.org [ru], has published an infographic [ru] outlining the costs and necessities of the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv:
Ukraine: Live Streamed Monitoring of District Election Commissions
Amidst ongoing Euromaidan rallies throughout Ukraine, repeat elections have been held in five troubled single-mandate constituencies in the country, where results could not be confirmed during the 2012 Parliamentary election. In order to increase the transaprency of the electoral process, a non-government organization, Civil Network OPORA [uk, en] is preparing...
Reasons Behind Ukraine's Protests Run Deeper than “Pro-EU” or “Anti-Russian”
What most media and people following the recent developments in Ukraine know as “pro-EU” or “anti-Russian” protests after the Ukrainian government backed out of a historical agreement with the European Union that was to bring Ukrainians one step closer to Western Europe, are in fact protests that seem to have...
Ukraine: Translators Organize on Facebook to Provide Live #Euromaidan Updates
Volunteer translators following the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine have organized on Facebook, setting up pages like Maidan Needs Translators and Euromaidan Translators where urgent news from the protests that require translation to reach a wider international audience are shared and Euro-Maidan As It Is, where translated content is published. The...
Ukrainian Civil Society Calls for International Investigation of Yanukovych’ Financial Activities
As anti-government Euromaidan protests enter their forth week in Ukraine, representatives of Ukrainian civil society are calling on leaders of the European Union, the US and their law enforcement agencies and financial institutions to investigate alleged incidences of corruption and money laundering by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his son,...
Ukraine: Hackers Disable Government Websites in Protest of Police Brutality
There has been a series of cyber attacks on Ukrainian government websites after police brutally dispersed peaceful Euromaidan protests in Kyiv in support of Ukraine's European integration on November 30. On December 1, many of the government websites in Ukraine were hacked and blocked [uk], including the official website of...