In May, Ukraine celebrated World Vyshyvanka (Embroidery) Day, a celebration of Ukrainian identity and a return to folk traditions, for the fifteenth time.

During the Soviet era, a period of stagnation, when overt expressions of Ukrainian identity were suspect, Ukrainians who dared to wear embroidered shirts were considered dissidents or nationalists, and were exposed to all the possible consequences.

However, Ukrainian diaspora in the West faced no such problem: they could wear their national clothes on any day, without any trouble.

Diaspora Ukrainians, therefore, had the opportunity to preserve and pass on the wonderful tradition of creating and wearing embroidered Ukrainian shirts. We see a striking example of such creativity in the Halaburda diaspora family. All four Halaburda sisters make vyshyvankas, using – and preserving – the skills they once learned from their mother. Currently, their collection includes about 15 full suits and 60 hand-embroidered shirts.

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Large-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine has created a number of new challenges for all civilised states. The threat and use of force, aggression, and pressure from a major, nuclear-armed world power and permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council inhibits smaller states from effectively protecting their sovereignty and territorial integrity.

This issue is of a particular relevance in the context of recent statements by the Russian Embassy in Norway. According to one statement, the Spitzbergen archipelago “is not an ancestral Norwegian territory.” Some experts have, therefore, already raised concerns about the possibility of a new territorial confrontation in Europe in a repeat of the scenario used by Russia to annex the Crimea.

In February 2020, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the 56th Munich Security Conference, “We now realise that, unfortunately, a strong army or nuclear weapon or NATO can protect the independence and integrity of one country or another. No documents, no signatories, no memorandums provide such protection. This is what we are telling you as Ukrainians, on our own example. Because, in fact, the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 appeared to be not worse a paper it is written on for Ukraine.”

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Apocalyptic scenarios, the collapse of Europe, the degradation of Ukraine, the coronavirus as the EU’s Chornobyl, and that the USA manufactured the pandemic virus: these are just examples of narratives peddled by pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets that are scrutinized by a unit at the European External Action Service (EEAS), which identifies Russia’s disinformation. The COVID-19 pandemic has seen the situation with false information from the Kremlin become even more dangerous. EEAS head Josep Borrell warns that “[d]isinformation is playing with people’s lives. Disinformation can kill.”

The East StratCom Task Force was created in 2015 to deal with Moscow’s disinformation campaigns. The unit has 16 full-time staff members whose task is not to engage in counter-propaganda, but “to explain and promote the European Union’s policies in the Eastern Neighbourhood” and to “identif[y] and expose[] disinformation.” The East StratCom’s budget increased from €1.1 million in 2018 to €3 million in 2019. Specialists of the unit monitor media, analyse disinformation and data, and publish their findings on the EU vs Disinfo website in English, Russian, German, Italian, Spanish, and French.

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Поступова інтеграція України в ЄС іде, а у зближенні з НАТО Київ не використовує наявні можливості, вважає засновник і голова Центру нових рішень, Надзвичайний та Повноважний Посол Костянтин Єлісєєв. Його ім’я добре знайоме представникам європейських кіл і всім тим, хто стежить за кроками України в напрямку Європи: пан Єлісєєв, кар’єрний дипломат з 30-річним досвідом, був заступником Представника України при ЄС, а потім протягом 5 років, з 2010 по 2015 роки, Представником України при ЄС. До травня 2019 року працював заступником голови адміністрації Президента України. У розмові з Promote Ukraine Костянтин Єлісєєв поділився думками про зовнішню політику за нового українського президента.

Читайте повне інтерв'ю на сайті Промуй Україну.

Elnur Ametov, Assistant to the Member of the Parliament of Ukraine

Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians are those who suffer the most from the violations of International Law by Russia

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has set its gaze on Crimea. During the turbulent years of the 1990s, the Kremlin attempted to dispute the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine, creating two major sources of risk for Crimea: 1) the granting of Autonomous Administrative status to the peninsula essentially enshrined the dominance of Russian language and culture in Crimea, thus securing a level of Russian influence; 2) the Russian Black Sea Fleet remained stationed in Sevastopol. Both of these risk factors subsequently facilitated the illegal occupation of Crimea.

Read the full Article and more on the Brussels Ukraïna Review Website.

Nowadays, governments, private entities and hacktivists are becoming more skilled and have gained more tools to expose those behind cyberattacks. When it comes to large-scale attacks, experts often identify Russia.

Russian and foreign programmers who participate in Kremlin-organized cyberattacks can intentionally or unintentionally reveal their employers’ names and air any information publicly. They thus facilitate the attribution of cyberattacks to foreign entities and this, in turn, causes international incidents.

Although these programmers work with special services, they are not professional intelligence officers, but only hired hackers. More often, the Kremlin has simply “found” them because they had previously broken the law, giving the Kremlin leverage to coerce them to collaborate.

Read the full Article and more on the Brussels Ukraïna Review website.

The European Union is not in its best shape right now, though there is some optimism in relations with Ukraine.

After a decade of crises, the European Union – soon with new leadership in its institutions – finds itself in a mixed mood:

On the one hand, the setbacks and contingencies of the recent past are not over and done with, but in many cases persist, and could even come back or get worse. The Euro crisis is not ultimately solved, while a global economic downturn is looming. Russia has begun to use military aggression against its neighbors and hybrid meddling in our democracies. China is becoming a systemic threat to liberal democracy by globally exemplifying a new type of authoritarianism. Brexit is weakening Britain and the EU. Transatlantic relations are in a bad state, some would say, an existential crisis. Europe is still trying to come to grips with irregular migration and numbers of asylum seekers slowly rising again. And populism and nationalism have achieved ominous electoral successes inside the EU, putting into question liberal democracy, checks and balances and many of the values on which our Union is built. Finally, climate change is beginning to weigh on economies and putting additional strain on our political systems.

Read the full Article on the Brussels Ukraïna Review Website.

The airport tower in Tehran was informed of the shooting down of Ukraine International Flight PS752 in real time by other pilots approaching and departing the airport. In the published recording it becomes clear that an Iranian pilot witnessed everything from the launch of the missile to the second it hit the Ukrainian airplane. Confirmed by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Read more on Promote Ukraine Website.

As soon as Ukraine started giving up many of its claims against Russia, the West used this “weakness” of a new Ukrainian government to finally invite Putin back on the table. Last weekend the key players of the international relations (“the leading parties in Libya’s war, as well as representatives from their foreign backers and other nations” As AlJazeera put it) discussed Libya, and some of them even tried to discuss Ukraine. The results entailed the agreement between all participants to have an arms embargo and stop interfering in Libya’s war.

Read this article and many more on the Promote Ukraine Website.

The tensions in the world keep running high. Recent frequent reports of hacking wars and virtual world hacking attacks also add anxiety. Cyber-attacks or cyber-fraud cases occur in the world every 14 seconds. Large corporations and international companies in the leading economic sectors suffer the most from hackers’ actions. According to the World Economic Forum, the total amount of planetary economic losses caused by hackers and their actions can reach 8 trillion $ before 2022.

Inna Krupnyk for Promote Ukraine

Don't want to listen? Just read this Article on Promote Ukraine Web page.