27 February 2014-People in Ukraine and Ukrainians around the world are celebrating the triumph of democracy while mourning the loss of Ukraine's courageous sons and daughters. At the
same time, new challenges, such as the establishment of a functioning democratic government, the Russian Federation's suspicious attitude toward changes in Ukraine, secessionist sentiments in eastern Ukraine and the Crimea, and the very difficult economic and financial situation, need to be addressed. The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies is monitoring and assessing the situation in Ukraine, thereby providing important academic and community services. As a research institution, CIUS does not deliver real-time information or feature breaking news. What we do is search constantly
for new opportunities to bring fresh perspectives, expert opinions, and social media access to members of the academy and the general public, both domestic and international.
Our partners and supporters want to know what is new at CIUS and what is coming up. Since the crisis began, CIUS political experts David Marples and Taras Kuzio, along with other staff
members and associates of the institute, including Frank E. Sysyn, Bohdan Harasymiw, Bohdan Klid, Marko R. Stech, Jars Balan, Derek Fraser and Volodymyr Kravchenko, have given more than 130 interviews to various media outlets in Canada and around the world, including CBC News, CTV News, BBC World TV News, CNN, ABC Radio Australia, Al Jazeera, the Washington Times, Dagbladet (Norway), Ekstrabladet (Denmark), La Stampa (Italy), and many others. We shall make some of those materials available to our audience through the institute's own media resources.
In addition to a CIUS Facebook page, the institute has recently launched a CIUS YouTube page, which is the place to visit for CIUS events coverage, expert opinion, and other stimulating content.
Currently, all the material offered there concerns the situation in Ukraine. Other CIUS activities will be covered in due course. This material can be accessed either by clicking on the YouTube icon located on the main page of the CIUS website (http://www.ualberta.ca/CIUS/) or by going directly to the CIUS YouTube page (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjHjJpnElzXCZ8SbliMs2Q).
To analyze the current crisis and forecast its likely aftermath, the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies invited several prominent political experts-Olexiy Haran, Amanda Paul, Taras Kuzio and Bohdan Nahaylo- to participate in a symposium titled "After Vilnius: Which Way for Ukraine?" which was held on 30 January 2014.
Now Ukraine faces the extremely difficult task of rebuilding its political system, government, and economy, as well as dealing with its large northeastern neighbor. The complexity of political relations between Ukraine and Russia cannot be fully grasped without considering the role of natural resources, which are often used by the energy-rich Russian Federation as a foreign-policy tool. On 12 March 2014, Dr. Margarita M. Balmaceda, professor of diplomacy and international relations at Seton Hall University and research associate at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, will speak on "The Politics of Energy Dependency: Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania between Domestic Oligarchs and Russian Pressure: A Book Launch and Discussion of Current Energy Politics." This event is organized by the institute's Centre for Political and Regional Studies, which remains at the forefront of studying contemporary Ukraine. Please support Ukraine and Ukrainian studies in Canada by attending this eventю