This article covers key political factors concering the ongoing process of anticorruption reform in Ukraine. It describes the importance and need of such reform and adresses implemented bills, new institutions introduced with them, conducted tasks and overall perspective of state of reform as in July 2018. The main thesis underlined in article is the crucial role of political will among the Ukrainian policy-makers in implementing legislative mechanisms to effectively combat the issue of corruption in Ukraine.

In the springtime of 2014, incidents, that happened in the eastern part of Ukraine, led to take control over the Crimean Peninsula by the Russian Federation. At the same time, from the Donetsk region, came the information about many acts of violence, directed against the clergy and worshippers of the Christian communities other than the Russian Orthodox Church, supportive for the Kremlin authorities. Those incidents led us to formulate the following research question: what is the situation of the churches on the annexed peninsula? And further, the hypothesis that the situation of the churches on the annexed peninsula, except for the Russian Orthodox Church, has deteriorated. The research material, used in the article, is mostly based on the Ukrainian, Russian and English Internet sources, which have been analyzed in a quantitative and a qualitative way. As a result of these activities, the following communities have been distinguished to be analyzed: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, the Catholic Church of the Ukrainian-Byzantine rite, the Roman Catholic Church and various Protestant churches. The text, constructed on the „subject-problem” system, has been divided into two main parts and the conclusion section. Following the research, it has been found that the legal position of the churches operating on the peninsula, except for the Russian Orthodox Church, had deteriorated. The admission of the Russian solutions regarding religious laws makes the implementation of the church activities (missional, pastoral, educational and charitable), as well as the cooperation with foreign partners much more difficult. Breach of the previous religious freedom on the Crimean Peninsula can be considered as a form of a persecution. The analysis of our sources allowed us to notify that the scale of repressions that the churches encounter, is diÄ erent. In the most difficult position is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, competitive with the Russian Orthodox Church. The situation of the Catholic Church of the Ukrainian-Byzantine rite, as well as the situation of the Evangelical churches (well-known for their inner missions) does not look better. The Catholic Church has also suffered from particular difficulties. In the light of the above analysis, we might conclude that the research hypothesis has been positively verified. We have emphasized that the current position of the analyzed churches from the annexed Crimean Peninsula is a consequence of the recent political conditions and the speci' city of the interdenominational relations existing in Ukraine, as well as the close ties between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church. These connections are also a result of the actions undertaken by Vladimir Putin, in order to find new methods to legitimize his own political power. Consequently, he creates a framework for a „new national myth”, focusing on relations with the Russian Orthodox Church and the church traditions. The difficulties faced by churches described in the text, reflect the practices used in the Russian Federation towards „foreigners” minority communities (perceived as a threat to the confessional security of the country) before 2014. Some of these actions involuntarily led us to connotations with the persecutions of Christians and representatives of other religions, described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in the first volume of the Gulag Archipelago (1973).

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the independence of Republic of Georgia faced many social, political and economic problems, one of which was the activity of paramilitary organizations and criminal groups at that time. Two of them, the Mchedrioni and the National Guard, have access to weapons, committing crimes against civilians and controlling the resources of the country and smuggling and trafficking, controlling almost every sphere of state and citizenship. Their leaders were the political elite of Georgia, which resulted in the fact that Mchedrioni and Guards’ work was completely impunity, not to say legalized in the state. The following paper outlines the way in which the paramilitary groups operated in Georgia at the beginning of the 1990s, the political influence and activity of the paramilitary groups operating in Georgia, have led the country to function on the edge of poverty, anarchy and violence.

This article analyzes the main directions of the organizational activity held by the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (ULU) in the camp for prisoners of war from Russian army in Rastatt, Germany since May 1915 until 1917. Representatives of ULU in Rastatt founded schools of literacy and various educational courses, opened camp library and people’s theater, and equipped the church. Besides, the camp saw the creation of several Ukrainian circles and organizations whose members actively participated in the development of national life in Rastatt. Organization and management of the entire cultural and educational work in the camp was handled by the Department of Education of ULU. Members of this department were both civilians and captured Ukrainian officers whose assignment to Rastatt was agreed by the German military authorities. Á e Department of Education saw high personnel turnover as some of its members were assigned to other camps, while being replaced by new employees. During the first stages of the camp’s Ukrainization, the popularity of Russian chauvinist ideas among many Ukrainian POWs made it much more difficult to engage in the promotion of national and patriotic ideas, as well as in cultural and educational work. A lot of POWs were afraid of cruel repressions of the Russian government and the emperor for their participation in Ukrainian work. However, eventually the majority of POWs managed to get rid of these fears and created community „Independent Ukraine” whose leadership grew to lead all directions of Ukrainians’ life and activity in the camp. Due to the activity of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine, the camp prepared numerous nationally conscious Ukrainians who actively participated in diÄ erent military groups which fought against Russian Bolshevism in 1918-1920.

After the attack of the Third Reich’s army on the Soviet Union, many Cossacks in exile declared their willingness to fight in the German formations against the hated enemy. Also, a significant part of the Cossack population in the Don, Kuban or Terek territories occupied by the Germans enthusiastically welcomed the entering Wehrmacht troops. Shortly afterwards, the Cossacks were permitted to create their local government there, and also received guarantees of cultural, educational and religious freedom. The formation of Cossack troops used by the Germans for reconnaissance and 'fighting the Soviet partisans also commenced. These soldiers were to be treated equally with German soldiers. After a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front in 1943 and after the Red Army had taken the initiative on the Eastern Front, the Cossack formations together with the accompanying civilian population created the so-called Cossack

The reality of the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, which on the one hand has eradicated the notion of violence from the ideational sphere, the sphere of constructing social-political entities, on the other hand, by eradicating violence as a tool of building new social orders, has kept and appropriated its modus, or the ways of organizing of the world, its time and space, associated with the conditions of violence. In the modern and postmodern world, violence turns out to be, not seldom, the basis of sanctioning and reinforcing the mechanisms of power. Symbolic violence – as Bourdieu wanted – the tool of influence by the dominant classes, or the violence resulting from communicative oppression – legitimization of common agreement, consensus, which, transformed into an idea – the basis of the construction of the modern world, are becoming a form of oppression, a form of imposing the only one, worked out as (seemingly) common, vision of this what is and can be a question of a conflict. The sources of such understood visions should be looked for, according to Jean-Luck Nancy, in a particular desire of man, desire, which, when started to be embodied, acquired total forms, and, finally, totalitarian ones: in the desire of transformation of the society into a “masterpiece”. The thing, which was supposed to be cemented by the realized desire (society as a masterpiece), was community, communion [communio], and, finally (as the embodiment of the postulated unity in its total form) communism.