Articles :

Thursday morning, Ukraine’s greatest boxer Wladimir Klitschko announced his retirement. His career will go down in history of boxing and professional sports in general. UNIAN recalls the most significant milestones on the path of the Ukrainian champion.

Besides the fact that Ukraine has joined the Paris Climate Agreement and the latest twists and turns regarding Lviv’s waste landfills row, environmental issues in Ukraine have long been back-shelved. Well, they shouldn’t be.

Three years since Russia’s FSB security service invented the term “Crimean terrorists”, UNIAN met with former political prisoner Hennadiy Afanasyev, who had been arrested by Russian-occupation authorities in the annexed Crimea on trumped up charges, about propaganda that turns people into monsters and the knowledge achieved through suffering.

It’s not the first time Interpol loses interest in the search for the fugitive ex-president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and his entourage. UNIAN tried to figure out where the problem lies.

For many, the Chornobyl exclusion zone is plainly associated with the grim computer game "Stalker" or a similar plot of a sci-fi novel by Strugatsky brothers. In fact, things have been getting much better lately. The Zone hosts a number of unique projects the world has not yet seen.

UNIAN sat down with Myron Spolsky, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian scouting organization Plast, an entrepreneur who once moved from Canada to Ukraine and observed how the Ukrainian state and society have been changing over the years of independence.

The American with Ukrainian roots, Jim Kovpak, sat down with UNIAN to talk about his will to join the Ukrainian army, the differences between the Ukrainian and U.S. military, and the problems he faced on the path to achieving his goal in Ukraine.

The so-called Anti-Maidan rallies which swept across several regions of Ukraine in the spring of 2014 were for the most part organized and headed by the Kremlin agents, with some outright scumbags among them. Perhaps, the most notorious of them was the man with nom de guerre "Motorola," who eventually got blown up in an elevator in Donetsk.  UNIAN figured out the fate of his lower profile fellow thugs.

In January 2015, a permit system was introduced for crossing the demarcation line between government-controlled territory and occupied areas of the Ukrainian Donbas. UNIAN reports on the changes at this “border” within the country that have developed over the past two years.

UNIAN offers its exclusive ranking of the most significant events for the national sports in the past year.

Japan is quitting smoking rapidly: for less than two years, 5% of smokers of the "Land of the Rising Sun" gave up smoking cigarettes. UNIAN visited Tokyo to find out why Japanese smokers can get rid of the bad habit smoothly.

Before the New Year holidays, when many Ukrainians will go on vacation to the country’s tourist-friendly - and not so much - regions, our winter resorts should take a look at the results of hospitality of their summer counterparts, not to repeat the same mistakes.

Deputy Head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Nadir Minbashiyev in an interview with UNIAN said what the humanitarian missions are engaged along the demarcation line and in the occupied territories of Ukraine, elaborating on coordination with the local authorities, and explained  why the demarcation line is turning into an actual border.

15 years ago, December 5, the first ever all-Ukrainian census (and so far the only one) was carried out. Later on, ignoring the UN recommendations on the need to carry out further recounts every ten years, our country continues to delay the procedure.

The fourth unit of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant has been covered with a new sarcophagus. A 36,000-tonne confinement will ensure 100 years of protection. But experts have warned - this is only the beginning of a big load of efforts to transform the Chornobyl zone, and plenty of challenges still lie ahead.

Today someone recalls how they voted for the Ukrainian independence 25 years ago, someone remembers how three years ago the riot police were slamming on everyone who dared move outside the Presidential Administration, while someone daydreams for some reason to do another take of those events on Bankova.

Three years have passed since the night of a bloody crackdown on the Maidan protesters by Berkut riot police. And while the former president - a traitor and a fugitive - claims he can’t remember the events of three years ago, dozens of victims are still waiting for justice, a fair sentence for those who were beating the activists with batons during a peaceful protest.

The Holodomor famine, an artificial measure masterminded by Joseph Stalin, claimed the lives of about 10 million Ukrainians, forever remaining a horrible black spot in the country’s history. On the eve of the 83rd anniversary of the genocide of Ukrainian people, UNIAN spoke with a witness of that tragedy.

Discussing the topic of international peacekeeping missions at a meeting of the UN Security Council, Ukraine has confirmed its continued active participation. UNIAN figured out what peacekeeping missions our country supports and whether it is possible to urgently return Ukrainian peacekeepers, these experienced troops, to protect their own homeland, if such urgent need arises.

In an interview with UNIAN the minister for the occupied territories and internally displaced persons, Vadym Chernysh, told why international organizations turn a blind eye  to the problems of Crimea, while the majority of Ukrainian officials avoid discussing topics of the return of Donbas and reintegration of the population of the temporarily occupied territories.