Ukraine has every reason to cherish its statehood and to cultivate pluralism of opinion and diversity of culture. It needs support in ensuring that this is preserved

“It was only after I made the film “Katyń” that I had the grounds to come here and visit his grave”, Pan Wajda explained before the film showing in Kharkiv. “My father was a witness to the Katyń Crime, and my mother lived through the Katyń lie ..."

The Institute of National Remembrance has been instructed to draw up new textbooks on Ukrainian history “in order to help bring up the younger generation in a spirit recognizing their national identity, respect and love for their native land”.

The good news from Freedom in the World 2008 is that Ukraine remains one of the 90 countries classified as free. Concern was expressed about many other former Soviet republics and over a general decline worldwide

According to a judgment from Ukraine’s Constitutional Court issued on 20 December 2007 all films shown must have dubbing or subtitles in Ukrainian

Over the first 10 months of the year, according to the State Committee of Statistics, there were 398 thousand births against 630 thousand deaths however the Ministry of Justice asserts that the ratio is decreasing

The Ukrainian Security Service [SBU] has created a special working group to study and then make public archival documents on the activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian Resistance Army], as well as on well-known figures of the Ukrainian liberation movement

The SBU have published details about special units of the Soviet security and enforcement bodies which pretended to be resistance fighters, as well as information about the extra-judicial bodies used to pass sentence during the Terror

The Security Service has a document providing evidence of crimes committed by agents of the Security Service who disguised themselves as Ukrainian Resistance Army fighters and tortured and murdered people in Western Ukraine

The Institute of National Remembrance wants the Russians “to declassify the KGB archives from the time of the Second World War, in particular as regards the activities of the OUN – UPA, as well as the pseudo-Bandera-supporting groups of the NKVD”

14 October marks the official founding date of the Ukrainian Resistance Army [UPA]. An administrative court in Kyiv on Friday allowed all applications make by the Kyiv City State Administration to restrict mass actions by political factions and organizations with very different attitudes to the date

The Mayor of the village Kryhyvtsi calls on people to refrain from spreading enmity and dissent. , This is our history and nobody should speculate on it.”

Asked what needed to be done to resolve conflict after a century in which “there were many events in Ukraine’s history where Ukrainians killed one another in large numbers”, 52.3% answered that there must be reconciliation and believed that it was not a question of some having been right, and others to blame.

Over the first three months of 2007 the death rate was 250-300% higher than the rate of births in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Donetsk, Luhansk and Kirovohrad regions.

According to the US State Department Country Report on Human Rights Practices, corruption remains widespread in all branches of power in Ukraine. Other problems highlighted were an increase in racial intolerance; violations of the rights of women and of children; and law enforcement officers frequently resort to torture and extortion

The National Expert Commission for the Protection of Public Morals has approved criteria for defining pornographic and erotic products

President Yushchenko has already instructed Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko to appeal against the court ruling revoking a previous decision to make dubbing of a percentage of foreign films into Ukrainian mandatory

What this means in practical terms is that from 1 January next year the Swiss authorities will no longer consider applications for political asylum from Ukrainian nationals

The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union reports the worrying reappearance of pressure on businesses from the tax authorities, as well as language and religious conflict and the emergence of skinheads in eastern regions with support coming from certain political forces

Stanislav Kulchytsky considers that former Soviet republics have the right to their own history and the energetic development of a Ukrainian school has made a return to the days when the history of each people was written as a part of the history of Russia impossible