Ukraine

46 million people
3,130 USD GNI (PPP)
Internet:
Free
Press:
Partly Free
Partly Free

News & Updates

A year ago, the world was abuzz with talk of the euro crisis and the feared disintegration of the European Union. By the end of 2012, the discussion has shifted to the crisis of the liberal democracy model itself. The debate is no longer “Keynes vs. Hayek” or expansionary vs. austerity fiscal measures. At the heart of today’s debate are the systemic problems affecting Western civilization.

"I’m afraid that we’ve reached the stage when the only way to move something is through punishment – i.e., targeted sanctions," stated David J. Kramer in a Nov. 24 interview with The Ukrainian Week. The Ukrainian government continues to ignore warnings from the West regarding human rights violations and corruption; Kramer argues that incentives have not encouraged the government to change the way it behaves, consequently, "applying sanctions is the only alternative.”

Freedom House condemns the initiative to recriminalize defamation in Ukraine and calls on the Ukrainian Rada (parliament) to remove the bill from consideration. On September 18, a majority of parliament deputies voted in favor of the law, which its sponsor said was an effort to rein in journalists in the lead-up to Ukraine’s October 28 parliamentary elections and could lead to jail time, fines, and other restrictions.

Susan Corke delivered a statement on freedom of expression at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)'s Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM), Europe's largest annual human rights and democracy conference, which is organized every year by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

 

Signature Reports

Special Reports

Press Freedom: An Own Goal for Ukraine

Freedom House, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), Article 19, Open Society Foundations (OSF), and the Ukraine Association of Press Publishers compiled a joint report on Ukraine's press freedom situation. The reoprt outlines the findings of a mission conducted in early April that ultimately found serious corruption issues and other problems. The report recommended a number of steps in order to improve freedom of expression in the country.

Promise and Reversal: The Post-Soviet Landscape Twenty Years On

“Promise and Reversal: The Post-Soviet Landscape Twenty Years On,” marks the 20th anniversary of the failed Soviet coup of August 19, 1991. The retrospective essay examines the changes in the political rights and civil liberties in the former Soviet Union over the last two decades, as well as includes graphs and rankings that illustrate the region's performance in the annual Freedom House publications Freedom in the World and Freedom of the Press. The report  concludes that there is a serious and disturbing failure to embrace democratic institutions in most of the post-Soviet region.

Sounding the Alarm: Protecting Democracy in Ukraine

In February 2010, under the auspices of Freedom House, David J. Kramer and two independent analysts, Robert Nurick and Damon Wilson, traveled to Ukraine to assess the state of democracy and human rights one year after the inauguration of Viktor Yanukovych as the country’s fourth president since independence. The team traveled to Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Lviv to meet with a wide range of government officials, political opposition figures, civil society actors, journalists, and students.

 

Programs

Freedom House works with the Institute for Mass Information (IMI) in Ukraine to improve coverage of corruption and to inject a public discussion about corruption and governance into local affairs through citizen journalists.