Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

In this image released by 20th Century Fox, Mark Wahlberg stars as Max Payne, left, and Mila Kunis stars as Mona Sax in a scene from “Max Payne.” AP Ukraine Abroad

Mila Kunis on screen in new ‘Max Payne’ movie

Milena Markovna Kunis, star of a new Hollywood movie based on the video game, told her life story to the Los Angeles Times on Oct. 16. The 25-year-old actress, in a seven-year relationship with actor Macaulay Culkin, left Ukraine at age 7. “It was right at the fall [of the Soviet Union.] It was very communist, and my parents wanted my brother and me to have a future, and so they just dropped everything. They came with $250.” It was tough at first. “I blocked out second grade completely. I have no recollection of it. I always talk to my mom and my grandma about it. It was because I cried every day,” Kunis told the newspaper “I didn’t understand the culture. I didn’t understand the people. I didn’t understand the language.”

The tough times didn’t last. At age 9, her future manager spotted her at an acting class and, at age 14, she starred in TV’s “That ‘70s Show,” which ran from 1998 to 2006.

Retail boom ahead? One expert says so

Despite a global economic outlook that is rapidly darkening, developers remain on track to open a record 26 million square meters of shopping mall space in Europe by the end of 2009, according to Thomson Financial News, citing figures from real estate consultant Cushman & Wakefield on Oct. 16.

More than half of the new space will be built in Russia, Ukraine and Turkey – with Ukraine’s floor space set to double.

Investors are banking on Eastern Europeans to shop their way out of the economic slump. “Central and Eastern Europe have historically been poorly served and there is considerable pent-up demand from retailers and consumers in these markets,” Boris van Haare Heijmeijer, head of European retail services at Cushman & Wakefield, told Thomson Financial News.

Ukraine takes a beating in the foreign press

Ukraine’s brewing economic crisis only served to call international attention to its political crisis.

The world’s press spewed out a stream of bad news, led by Ukraine’s negotiations for a possible $14 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to restore investor confidence. The amount is 10 percent of the nation’s annual gross domestic product and the largest IMF loan that Ukraine has ever sought.

Meanwhile, unnamed experts told Esmerk business information service that Ukraine could suffer possible losses of $70 billion from the global slump as it heads into pre-term parliamentary elections, now called for Dec. 14.

From London’s Guardian newspaper on Oct. 17: “Ukraine has a widening current account deficit after sharp declines in the price of steel, credit-financed import increases and rising prices for gas imports. In the first half of this year, the deficit rose to 7.9 percent of GDP from 4.2 percent last year. Heavy borrowing by Ukraine’s budding banking sector has swelled the country’s total foreign debt to some $100 billion, according to July figures. Of this, just $15 billion is government debt. Foreign exchange reserves stand at $37.5 billion.

London’s Independent newspaper also on Oct. 17 wondered if Ukraine would be the next Iceland, meaning at risk of bankruptcy: “The central bank was forced to impose restrictions on deposit withdrawals and lending after panicked savers rushed to empty their accounts, draining the banking system of more than $1.3 billion. The authorities also had to rescue two key banks and battle a sharp fall in the currency as the stock market plunged.”

Others noted Ukraine’s industrial output dropped 4.5 percent in September, the second declining month, largely because of slumping prices and demand for steel, the nation’s top export.

Parliament’s speaker, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, predicted a 25 percent annual inflation rate, the highest since 2000’s 25.8 percent.

And Askold Krushelnycky, writing in London’s Independent newspaper on Oct. 21, was harshest: “Their leaders are at war, their country is verging on bankruptcy and the Russians are growling on their doorstep. Ukrainians have been plunged into disillusion and despair by the lethal combination as they witness the death throes of the Orange Revolution…”

Krushelnycky ended by anonymously quoting a former member of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc: “Whatever the elections produce, little will change. Most MPs are there to make money…It is hard to explain to a Westerner the level of cynicism prevalent in parliament. I wouldn’t call it a parliament; rather it’s Ukraine’s most exclusive business club.”


The New York Times: Yes to EU, no to NATO

America’s leading newspaper, The New York Times, weighed in on Ukraine’s domestic political crisis in an Oct. 17 editorial:

“Ukrainians must be allowed to sort out their own problems. Russia’s meddling in the name of a specious sphere of influence is unacceptable. Countering it with American pressures to join NATO will only stoke internal divisions, so long as Ukrainians are far from agreed about the alliance. The better course at this stage is to encourage Ukraine’s hopes of joining the European Union. Fearful of provoking Russia, the Europeans resisted American efforts to start moving Ukraine toward NATO membership. They should not drag their feet on European Union membership. All three of Ukraine’s rival leaders have declared support for European Union membership. Letting them know that their country’s chances will increase if they can work together might even help break the stalemate.”

Gogol Bordello's Hutz stars in Madonna movie

This month’s release of the first movie with Madonna as director is generating waves of attention for Eugene Hutz, 36, a native of Boiarka, Ukraine.

Hutz is best known for starting the popular gypsy punk rock band, Gogol Bordello, in New York in the 1990s. He is also acclaimed for his comic performance as the English-mangling guide of the 2005 movie, “Everything Is Illuminated.”

Madonna directorial debut, set in London, has been almost universally panned as dull and uninspiring. Hutz moonlights in the sex trade by providing sadomasochistic services to gay men.

Owen Gleiberman, writing for Entertainment Weekly magazine on Oct. 24, called Hutz’ character a “gratingly boisterous Ukrainian gypsy with a Josef Stalin mustache…The movie is short on wisdom, but it might have gotten by if it had had better filth.”

Poles want Ukraine in NATO; Ukrainians don't

A recent survey showed that 72 percent of Poles want Ukraine to join the NATO military alliance, according to a Polish pollster CBOS report from Oct. 17. Polls in Ukraine show the nation is divided, at best, about the prospects of NATO membership.

A September poll by Kyiv-based Sophia polling firm found that 61.2 percent were against joining NATO, essentially unchanged from May. The same firm found that NATO support inched up since the May poll, but only to nearly 24 percent. Earlier, in spring, the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, a Kyiv-based think tank, found 59 percent against Ukraine joining NATO, 22 percent for NATO, and 19 percent undecided.

Western voices tough on Ukraine’s NATO bid

Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, wrote on Oct. 20 that the United States needs to make strategic choices: “We cannot deploy missile interceptors along Russia’s borders, draw Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, and still expect Russian cooperation on Iran’s nuclear program.”

Along the same lines, Rodric Braithwaite, writing in London’s Prospect Magazine, said: “In cautious meddling, there is a risk not only of infuriating the Russians, but causing the Ukrainian state to implode … That is one of the reasons why a majority of the Ukrainian people do not want their country to join NATO.”


Russian view of Ukraine: 'A big buffer zone'

Russia’s goal is to expand its sphere of influence, Pavel Felgengauer, an independent military analyst in Moscow, told journalist Anya Ardayeva in an article published by Thai Press Reports on Oct. 20. “Our strategic goal is creating a big buffer zone, a sphere of influence that involves all the former Soviet Union: Ukraine, Belarus, trans-Caucasia, former Central Asia. That’s where we want to dominate and we want Western influence out and no NATO membership absolutely for these nations.”

Germany wants 'Ivan the Terrible' for crimesAccording to the Chicago Tribune on Oct. 20, German prosecutors are seeking to extradite former U.S. autoworker John Demjanjuk, now 88, retired and living in Ohio: “For 30 years, Demjanjuk has fought charges in Israel and the United States that he is ‘Ivan the Terrible,’ a sadistic Nazi concentration camp guard who helped run the gas chambers at Treblinka, a death camp in occupied Poland where more than three-quarters of a million people died during World War II.” The U.S. newspaper reports that German prosecutors want him on charges he took part in killings at the Sobibor death camp, also in Poland. Demjanjuk has had his U.S. citizenship revoked and restored, and had his 1988 war crimes conviction in Israel overturned in 1993. He has denied the charges.