Of general interest: RFE/RL's Belarus Service has been looking at how bison are seemingly doing very well near Chernobyl:
Bison Thrive Near Chernobyl
Bison are flourishing in the fallout zone that spans the Ukraine-Belarus border since one of the world's worst nuclear disasters.
For International Women's Day, the Kyiv Post has this tumely vox pop:
A report on remarks by Russian lawyer Mark Feigin, who has represented several Ukrainian detainees:
Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland (pictured above) is a well known supporter of Kyiv. She's now in the spotlight due to allegations that her Ukrainian grandfather edited a Nazi newspaper, according to The Globe and Mail. Here's an excerpt:
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland knew for more than two decades that her maternal Ukrainian grandfather was the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper in occupied Poland that vilified Jews during the Second World War.
Ms. Freeland's family history has become a target for Russian forces seeking to discredit one of Canada's highly placed defenders of Ukraine.
Ms. Freeland, who has paid tribute to her maternal grandparents in an articles and books, helped edit a scholarly article in the Journal of Ukrainian Studies in 1996 that revealed her grandfather, Michael Chomiak, was a Nazi propagandist for Krakivski Visti (Krakow News).
Krakivski Visti was set up in 1940 by the German army and supervised by German intelligence officer Emil Gassert. Its printing presses and offices were confiscated by the Germans from a Jewish publisher, who was later murdered at the Belzec concentration camp.
The article titled "Kravivski Visti and the Jews, 1943: A contribution of Ukrainian Jewish Relations during the Second World War" was written by Ms. Freeland's uncle, John-Paul Himka, now professor emeritus at the University of Alberta.
In the foreword to the article, Prof. Himka credits Ms. Freeland for "pointing out problems and clarifications." Ms. Freeland has never acknowledged that her grandfather was a Nazi collaborator and suggested on Monday that the allegation was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Read the entire article here
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
Kyiv threatens Russian bank with sanctions over separatist documents:
Ukrainian authorities are threatening to impose sanctions on the local subsidiary of Sberbank, Russia's main state bank, after Sberbank said it would recognize passports issued by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian central bank (NBU) made a statement on March 7, after Sberbank said it would comply with Russian President Vladimir Putin's February 18 decree ordering Russian authorities to recognize identity documents issued by separatists who hold parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
It said that if Sberbank's acceptance of separatist-issued documents was confirmed, the NBU would ask Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council to impose sanctions on the Russian bank's subsidiary in Ukraine.
It did not specify what measures it would seek, and added that the sanctions would be subject to approval by President Petro Poroshenko.
The bank issued its statement after Interior Minister Arsen Avakov called for a ban on Sberbank's operations in Ukraine.
Putin's decree has been criticized by Kyiv, Western governments, and international groups that say it violates or will undermine the European-brokered Minsk peace accords.
The Minsk accords are aimed at ending the war between the government forces and the Russia-backed separatists, which has killed more than 9,750 people since April 2014. (UNIAN, Reuters)
ICYMI: