9th September 2011
To the Mironova Gallery in Kyiv for the opening of the exhibition “Pop Art and its Kings”, featuring rare, recently rediscovered 1963 and 1964 photos of cult pop artists Andy Warhol and Robert Indiana by the photographer William John Kennedy. The black and white pictures are fascinating, showing the two artists on the eve of their […]
9th September 2011
What is a French Catholic priest doing uncovering mass graves from the shootings of Jews, gypsies and others in Ukraine in the years 1941-1944? It’s a question which Father Patrick Desbois asks at the opening of the exhibition “Shoah by Bullets: Mass Shootings of Jews in Ukraine 1941-1944” at the Ukrainian House in the centre […]
7th September 2011
For the last few months, I have been using Twitter to tweet about new blogs and occasionally to tweet or retweet (RT) on other subjects of interest about the UK and Ukraine. As a result I now have a number of followers on Twitter including members of the public, students, diplomats, business people and opinion […]
2nd September 2011
A dozen TV cameras zoom in on a pen and an inch-thick contract. Signatures are completed; contracts swapped; and more signatures added. Eventually the process is complete and there are handshakes and a round of applause. I am at the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy to witness the signing of an important Joint Activity Agreement between […]
28th July 2011
It’s always humbling to meet elite athletes. So I am rather in awe when we bring together at the residence to mark the one-year countdown to London 2012 some truly great Olympians from Ukraine. They include Valery Borzov, who I remember winning the 100m and 200m gold medals at the 1972 Olympics in Munich and […]
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21st July 2011
One of the striking things about Kyiv is the mixture of architectural styles across the city. This is true of the Ulitsa Desyatinna, where the British Embassy is a stone’s throw from the golden domes of the (rebuilt) St Michael’s Church and the mighty Soviet-era building that today houses our colleagues in the Ministry of Foreign […]
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20th July 2011
In June 2009 I wrote a blog extolling the virtues of Kyiv’s beaches and noting the challenges Ukraine was then having paying its monthly bills for gas from Russia. I noted the views of the international financial institutions (IFIs) that it would be easier to help Ukraine if the financial arrangements in the gas sector […]
18th July 2011
Who said the following? – “Ukraine knows that it can count on Britain as its friend in the European Union. We are, and will remain, enthusiastic advocates of Ukraine’s closer integration with the rest of Europe”; and – “It is the responsibility of true friends to speak honestly when they see something which concerns them”. […]
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12th July 2011
I suspect it’s not easy, rollerblading in a wedding dress. It’s probably even harder when you’re accompanied by several dozen smartly-dressed guests, also on rollerblades, and are taking a route which includes several steep hills and staircases. There are always risks in drawing conclusions about national characteristics, so I shall resist any suggestion that this recently-spotted […]
11th July 2011
It’s easy to see international cooperation in black and white terms: either you’re “in” a particular body or organisation or you’re “out”. This is often tied to “zero-sum” thinking, which argues that something which is good for one person or country has to be bad for another. In reality, however, international relations includes a vast […]