Section: The Economist (The United Kingdom)
War and cheese
Parmesan of patriots AT 27, Oleg Sirota was living the Russian dream. He had an information technology company with 30 employees, an apartment in Moscow, a Toyota and a Mercedes. Yet he was tormented by an unfulfilled childhood ambition: “All that time, I was dreaming of farming, dreaming of milk, of cows and of cheese.” He thought about starting...
Dissociative disorder
UKRAINE’S efforts to reach an association agreement with the European Union have led to revolution, poisoned relations with Russia and caused war with Russian-backed separatists. After years of negotiations, Ukrainian and EU leaders at last signed the agreement in Kiev in March 2014, just after the Maidan revolution. But the deal may yet...
Once more around the bloc
TWO years ago a Ukrainian blogger, Mustafa Nayem, published a Facebook post calling people onto Kiev’s Maidan and launched the protest that toppled the government of Viktor Yanukovych. On March 27th Mr Nayem, who is now a deputy in the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, called people out again—this time to demand the dismissal of the...
Bite the bullet
Mr Poroshenko, not empty-handed A COLUMN of men in camouflage snaked through the streets of Ternopil, a sleepy town in western Ukraine, with a casket held aloft earlier this week. Yuri Dinya, a solider who died from wounds sustained in eastern Ukraine, was the latest casualty of a war that sputters along largely out of sight. Although the...
The lady’s not for turning
ON MARCH 17th, as The Economist went to press, Angela Merkel was on her way to Brussels for a summit that may define her legacy as German chancellor. At her initiative, the 28 member states of the European Union were to agree to a controversial deal with Turkey that Mrs Merkel had earlier this month sold as a potential “breakthrough” in the...
A modern martyr
A defiant Nadia Savchenko UKRAINIAN historians may yet be grateful to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. His war against the country has given it a rallying cause. He has also provided it with a national hero, a Ukrainian Joan of Arc. She is Nadia Savchenko, a 34-year-old military pilot who served in Iraq. In July 2014 Ms Savchenko was...
Dear friends
IN TSARSKOE SELO (“Tsar’s Village”), a smart district in Kiev, Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, owns a swathe of desirable land. Across the street sits a sprawling compound belonging to Ihor Kononenko, the president’s friend and deputy head of his parliamentary faction. The two men met during their Soviet army service....
Vladimir unbound
CHANTS of “Russia without Putin!” echoed through Moscow four years ago. Vladimir Putin’s choreographed return to the presidency and vote tampering in parliamentary elections brought thousands to the streets; his approval ratings fell to 63%. But after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, those ratings soared to nearly 90% and have not come...
Referendum madness
ONE dodgy referendum lost Ukraine Crimea. Another threatens to lose it the European Union. On April 6th the Dutch public will vote on the “association agreement” the EU signed with Ukraine in 2014. The deal cements trade and political links with one of the EU’s most important neighbours; the prospect of losing it under Russian pressure...
Making Joe Biden mad as hell
JOSEPH BIDEN, America’s folksy vice-president, is not known as an enforcer—except in Ukraine, where he has become the spearhead of American policy. This week Mr Biden made his fourth visit to Kiev since Ukraine’s Maidan revolution and delivered a fiery speech in parliament, imploring the country’s leaders to eradicate “the...
