Saakashvili: the reformer not a puppet

               Today Mikheil Saakashvili resigned from the position of the Governor of Odesa Oblast’ (Ukraine). He was appointed on this position by the President Petro Poroshenko last year. Saakashvili has a reputation of corruption combater in Georgia by implementing very successful reforms starting in 2003. If Ukrainians hoped for a miracle like it happened in Georgia, they would be disappointed. There is no only one person or element that would magically fix the things. The key element of success in combating corruption is a political will. Apparently, there is neither a strong political will nor the power of people to support the changes in the corruption system of Ukraine.  

Afanasyev and Soloshenko released

 Illegaly imprisoned in Russia, Ukrainian citizens Hennadiy Afanasyev and Yuriy Soloshenko, have been returned to Ukrainian soil yesterday.  Afanasyev was accused of participation in a “terrorist group”, kidnapped in 2014, beaten up, tortured and forced to testify against  Oleksandr Kolchenko and Oleg Sentsov (currently imprisoned in Russia). Ukrainian pensioner, Soloshenko captured in Moscow in 2015, being accused of “espionage”.  According the President Poroshenko, the release of prisoners has happened due to efficient work of Minsk agreements. He reminded that the goal of Ukrainian state was to return all Ukrainian hostages held in Russia.

Nadiya Savchenko: “my word cannot be taken away”

The agreement on release of N. Savchenko has been achieved between Petro Poroshenko and Vladimir Putin by telephone call on Monday, April 20. Mother and sister of Nadiya along with P. Poroshenko had a telephone call with her yesterday. Despite the poor health after the dry hunger strike of Russian illicit prisoner, sentenced for 22 years, N. Savchenko’s spirit is strong and unshakable. Her reaction on the news about her possible release was very a strong as N. Savchenko herself: “the last word belongs to me and it cannot be taken away”. 

How much truth in Ukrainian President's words?

Independent analytic platform, VoxUkraine, launched a great initiative. International and Ukrainian experts analyse the latest speech of President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, in order to detect how much truth or lie is there. The analysis shows how many times the President “made mistake” while answering to the journalists. What are the decisions he support undoubtedly and what are the weak issues read here (available in English, Ukrainian and Russian): Political Experiment