Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent. Ukraine is not new. As my colleague, Professor Paul Robert Magocsi, recently demonstrated in an incisive essay, “Ukraina Redux,” Ukrainians have attempted to forge a state of their own over several centuries. Repeatedly, Ukrainians’ struggle for independent statehood has been thwarted by predacious, indeed rapacious, neighbors. This first happene

A bloodied shirt, tattered pants, leather shoes sliced open and flesh shaved off by razor-wire are what I endured while getting a closer look at South Ossetia, a Russian-occupied region of Georgia. This rendering took place under the gaze of a nearby Russian watchtower, whose inhabitants thankfully chose not to sally forth. Meanwhile their Georgian counterparts, deployed further back from this sleepy borderline, patrolling a once-important regional highway now little more a weed-covered strip of

I have written before that I am a man of conflicted faith. Yet even though I lecture as a professor of political geography, I cannot but bear witness to Ukraine's agony through the lens of my religion, the faith of my Ukrainian Catholic ancestors. To that I confess, wholeheartedly. And so Ukraine's tortures have become, as it were, my daily bread. I eat its distress, yet gag as I do, symbolically consuming the flesh and blood of the many now being murdered by Russia's legions. The land of my pr

I have been getting a lot of questions about Ukraine of late, for obvious reasons. I haven't been giving out too many answers because, frankly, I have no idea of what Mr Putin intends to do this week, next month, or next year. Nor do the other pundits I have read. Of course, I agree with those who caution against appeasing this Russian bully - as every kid learns, sometimes the hard way, caving in to a ruffian never works. Many years ago, when I had to deal with just such a tormentor, I did so