Ukrainians Of Buffalo & WNY

A Moscow court has prolonged the pretrial detention of 24 Ukrainian sailors detained by Russian forces who attacked three Ukrainian Navy vessels in the Black Sea in November.

After being shelled repeatedly and pushed to the brink of shutdown, the Avdiyivka Coke and Chemical Plant in eastern Ukraine's war-torn Donetsk region is once again running at full capacity. The factory is one of the largest coke producing plants in Europe and plays a vital role in fueling Ukrainian industry. It now produces purified coal fuel at a rate not seen since early 2014, before the start of the conflict with Russia-backed separatists in eastern...

According to the U.S. criminal complaint, the scheme, which netted $100 million in illegal profits, involved hacking into a database run by the Securities and Exchange Commission, between February 2016 and March 2017.

Follow all of the latest developments as they happen.

A Moscow court has prolonged the pretrial detention for 12 of 24 Ukrainian sailors detained by Russian forces who attacked three Ukrainian Navy vessels in the Black Sea in November.

Jan Palach set himself alight in central Prague 50 years ago, a shocking act that made headlines around the world. But it's less well known that others, before and after Palach, took the same desperate action to protest the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.

The Paris Opera Ballet has dropped Ukrainian-born dance star Sergei Polunin from a production of Swan Lake after he made a homophobic and sexist rant on social media.

There was a confrontation at a church in northern Ukraine, as residents prevented priests affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate from entering on Sunday, January 13. There has been tension in the Orthodox community since the Orthodox Church of Ukraine recently split from the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

A Polish man accused of involvement in the firebombing of a Hungarian cultural center in western Ukraine last year says he received instructions on the attack from a German journalist who has worked for a German deputy with the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Friendship Of Peoples Street long served as more of a bridge than a divide between two towns along the Russia-Ukraine border. Now, a fence bisects the street, driving a visible wedge between neighbors.

Splitting the Ukrainian church from Moscow is an attempt to build an independent nation

The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who reigns in Constantinople, has a magnificent title which corresponds to almost nothing on earth. Although he represents an unbroken tradition of almost 2,000 years of Christianity, Constantinople has been the Muslim city of Istanbul since 1453 and there are now fewer than 3,000 Orthodox Christians living there. Although his title is a claim to universal authority in the church, this has been has been obviously false since the papacy broke away and took with it western Christianity in the 11th century. Adding insult to injury, the patriarchs of Moscow regard themselves as his successors in “the Third Rome”. Yet still he matters. His decision last year to recognise the Ukrainian Orthodox church as a body separate from Moscow was celebrated in his cathedral in Istanbul today. It came in the teeth of Russian opposition, and the political rift between Ukraine and Russia is now paralleled by a rift on the spiritual plane between Moscow and Constantinople and the declaration of a formal schism.

This may all seem like shadow play. But religions matter. It is obvious that they reflect political and even economic tensions. But they also help shape and form them. Religious allegiance has been a very important part of how nations imagine themselves into being, and so of how they define who is and is not a member. This may not be obvious in England, where the near collapse of the state church has run in parallel with a more general crisis of legitimacy. But in countries such as Poland and Ireland, religion and nationalism were inseparable for most of the 20th century. Even some forms of secularism can serve the same function of crystallising the idea of a nation, as the doctrine of laïcité does in France, or the separation of church and state does in the US. In all these cases, there is an underlying idea that only those people who share in a particular doctrine can truly be part of the nation. And in Ukraine, where President Petro Poroshenko is campaigning for re-election using the slogan “army, language, faith”,the connection could hardly be more stark.

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Newly elected head receives decree of autocephaly in elaborate ceremony in Istanbul

The biggest rift in Christianity in centuries is expected to open up after a new Orthodox church in Ukraine gained formal independence from Moscow in a move set to heighten geopolitical tensions in the region.

The newly elected head of the Ukrainian Orthodox church travelled to Istanbul to receive the “tomos”, or decree of autocephaly (independence), from the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, in an elaborate ceremony in St George’s Cathedral on the eve of the Orthodox Christmas.

Related:Ukraine-Russia tensions reach Greece’s holy Mount Athos

Related:Russian Orthodox Church cuts ties with Constantinople

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Russian president tells US leader he is open to dialogue and pledges more aid to Syrian government

Vladimir Putin has told Donald Trump in a new year letter that Moscow is ready for dialogue on a “wide-ranging agenda”, the Kremlin said.

The US president cancelled a planned meeting with his Russian counterpart at the G20 summit in Argentina in November, citing tensions about Moscow’s forces opening fire on Ukrainian naval ships and then seizing the vessels.

Related:2018: the year the global order frayed

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