Zelensky team’s passing chance to end the war in Donbas
After the election of the sixth President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, a “window of opportunity” opened for speeding up the peace process in the East of the country. Zelensky often called himself “the president of peace”, promised to end the conflict in Donbas during his tenure, and emphasized the need for dialogue with all parties. […]
In Ukraine, quarantine measures weaken workplace protections
On 6 July this year, a tragic incident happened at a construction site in Kyiv. According to one version of events, a tower crane operator a construction site in the northwest of the city – a young father who loved his profession – took his own life. Apparently, he jumped out of the crane cabin […]
Legislating Land Reform in Ukraine
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, newly independent Ukraine carried out a land reform designed to abolish the collective farm system and distribute land among the peasants, laying the foundation for the development of a private economy. But in 2001, fearing the possible consequences of launching a land market, the […]
Organising for peace in Ukraine: an interview with Nina Potarska
The war in eastern Ukraine is now in its sixth year. As the war has entered a “slower”, but no less deadly phase, attention, particularly in the west, has dropped off. Contributors to openDemocracy have sought to draw attention to a range of issues which tend to go unreported – activists trying to bridge the divide […]
Fighting for justice in Ukraine’s construction industry
With plans afoot for a new Labour Code in Ukraine, we spoke to Vasyl Andreyev, head of the Union of Construction Workers and Building Materials Industry about the reality of defending workplace rights in the country. Trade unions today are often associated with the Soviet era, when they performed an assistive function for the authorities, rather than […]
Commons has turned 10
In March of 2019, we mark 10 years anniversary of the journal ‘Commons’, which is a good occasion to draw some conclusions and think about the future. At the time when we started the journal, there was a lack of quality texts with left perspective in the Ukrainian language. That is why over past years […]
The Land Question: land concentration and the agricultural land moratorium in Ukraine
Mykhailo Amosov For almost 30 years, the question of land reform has occupied Ukrainians. Currently, this stalemate seems irreversible. This article considers what has been happening with regards to the ‘land question’ over the past 30 years, where we stand today, and what to expect in the future. Land during Soviet times From 1921 until […]
Kryvyi Rih: wages and democracy
Maksym Kazakov Ukraine’s mining and metal industry was constructed largely in the era of fulfilled (and over-fulfilled) five-year plans. After Ukraine gained independence in 1991, these factories and mines played (and continue to play) no less a role than in the Soviet state. Today, every school student in Ukraine has to know about the shortcomings […]
Export of raw materials as a national idea and replenishing the state’s budget
Since the beginning of Ukraine’s independence, agriculture has been seen as the new backbone of the country’s economy. The fertility of ‘chernozem’ was supposed to provide the Ukrainian market with food products and, furthermore, accumulate resources for the development of other sectors of the economy. Indeed, the industry is steadily heading towards first place in […]
Totalitarian tendencies in post-Maidan Ukraine
Volodymyr Chemerys Under Ukraine’s pre-Maidan criminal regime, any pressure on journalists used to provoke a wave of indignation. This indignation, which came from journalists, human rights defenders and civic activists themselves, even became a precursor to the first Maidan in independent Ukraine — the protests under the banner of “Ukraine without Kuchma”. Information about temnyky, […]
