Free Republic

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has suggested that the troops may have to march onto cities as far as Kyiv or Lviv in Ukraine amid reports that Moscow was facing significant setbacks in the battle in the east. Considered a strong ally of President Vladimir Putin, Medvedev's statement may have unwittingly given away the position Kremlin finds itself in currently. “Nothing can be ruled out here. If you need to get to Kyiv, then you need to go to Kyiv, if to Lviv, then you need to go to Lviv in order to destroy this infection,” Medvedev was quoted as...

I wanted to go to Belzec (pronounced Biwzhets) because no one really does. One million Jews died there in the span of nine months - and hardly anyone knows about it. I felt it was a pilgrimage to a holy site: the second largest (after Treblinka) Jewish graveyard in history. Mike Tregenza was my guide. He is a non-Jewish, English historian who lectures at Lublin university. According to Sir Martin Gilbert, he is the world expert on Belzec. Belzec is a sleepy little hamlet in southeast Poland. A few thousand people live there. All seem to be related in some...

A City That Time Forgot By Alastair Gill Staff Writer It is 6:30 in the morning and my train, which has been laboring westwards all night from Kiev, Ukraine, is approaching the suburbs of Lviv, just 70 kilometers from the Polish border. I peer sleepily through the rain-streaked windows: wooded hills, cobbled streets, backyards and filthy, half-ruined baroque facades are running by. It could almost be Transylvania — which of course is not so very far from here. Soon the train is sliding into a cavernous hall and I disembark to face a damp Carpathian morning. Lviv (population 800,000) lies...

Church move to Kiev fuels rivalry Ukraine's Eastern-rite Catholics have moved the headquarters of their church to the capital, Kiev, amid protests by some 300 mainly Orthodox believers. The head of the Greek Catholic Church, Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, held a Mass for some 1,000 believers to mark the move from the western city of Lviv. Eastern-rite Catholics follow Orthodox ritual but bear allegiance to the Pope. The move could strain ties between the Vatican and Russia's Orthodox Church, which has huge influence in Ukraine. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II, had earlier described it as an...

Lviv Municipal Council Decides To Open Memorial To Polish And Ukrainian Soldiers On June 24 Monday, June 13 2005 The Lviv municipal council has set June 24 as the date for opening a memorial to soldiers of the Ukrainian Halychyna Army and Polish soldiers buried at Lviv's Lychakivske cemetery during the 1918-1920 period. Out of the Lviv municipal council's 90 deputies, 66 voted in favor of this decision. The Lviv municipal council invited President Viktor Yuschenko and Poland's President Aleksander Kwasniewski to attend the opening ceremony. The Lviv municipal council also amended its decision No. 770 of September 2000 to...

Chances to resolve dispute over historic Polish cemetery in Lviv 2005-04-12, 10:45 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko promised to resolve the controversy over the restoration of a Polish cemetery in Lviv. Called the Young Eagles Cemetery, it is a place where Polish youths who defended the then Polish city against Ukrainians in 1918, are buried. For Poles, the cemetery is a symbol of patriotic commitment, while Ukrainians see it as a symbol of oppression. The Lviv city authorities have not agreed to restore the cemetery to its original shape as the Polish side would like to do.

Two Sides of the Same Coin 15 December 2004 Zygmunt Błażejewicz and Tadeusz Cynkin—soldiers on opposite sides of the front line in World War II—are part of Poland’s complicated past. Both men were linked to cities belonging to Poland at the time, in its eastern borderland: Błażejewicz to Vilnius and Cynkin to Lviv. Both took part in the fighting of 1939, two of many defenders against German and Soviet aggression when, after Sept. 17, 1939, both Vilnius and Lviv were invaded by the Red Army. ■ War paths Błażejewicz avoided arrest and fought from 1943 in a unit led by...