Tensions that were simmering between anti-government protesters and riot police for the past three months finally erupted into revolutionary conflict in Ukraine last week. Street clashes leave at least 26 people, including 10 police officers, dead and hundreds injured. The violence begins when protesters attack police lines and set fires outside parliament after it stalls… Read more.
Viktor Yushchenko
Ukraine’s Never-Ending Europe Spring
I’m on record hailing Ukrainians as my favorite ex-communists. Alas, I’m also on record lamenting that, ever since their triumphal Orange Revolution in 2005, they have done nothing but trample all over my hopes for the political development of their country. Just two years after that revolution, which was supposed to set them on an… Read more.
Update on My Favorite “Ex-Communists”: the Ukrainians
In November 2004, the world watched in awe as Viktor Yushchenko, scarred but unbowed by a botched assassination attempt, led Ukrainian democrats in an Orange Revolution against the communists who had lorded over them for fifty-plus years. In April 2005, I wrote a laudatory and hopeful commentary on Yushchenko’s historic visit to the United States,… Read more.


