Latest news with #Cossack
Observer
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Observer
Spectacular Cultural Performances at Russia's 80th Victory Day
The grand celebration at The Diplomatic Club in Muscat marked the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War with a spectacular array of performances and cultural events. The evening was headlined by a riveting Cossack show performed by the renowned ensemble 'Lyubo-Milo' from Russia, captivating audiences with energetic dance and traditional music. The event also featured a vibrant concert showcasing songs from the war years, stirring memories and patriotic pride among attendees. Supporting these performances, guests enjoyed a buffet of Russian and Soviet cuisine, along with specially designed photo zones reminiscent of wartime days, allowing families and guests to capture memorable moments amid a historical setting. Spectacular Cultural Performances at Russia's 80th Victory Day The celebration was organised by Russian House Oman, with the backing of the Board of Russian Compatriots in Oman, and was held under the patronage of the Russian Embassy in Oman and the Government of Moscow. The event drew a distinguished assembly of diplomats, business leaders, and dignitaries, including HE Oleg Levin, Russian Ambassador to Oman; ambassadors from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan; as well as prominent officials such as the Prime Minister of the Republic of Dagestan, Abdulmuslim Mukhudinovich Abdulmuslimov. Spectacular Cultural Performances at Russia's 80th Victory Day HE Oleg Levin underscored the enduring importance of Victory Day: "The Great Victory of 1945 is a testament to courage and unity. It is crucial that we remember the sacrifices made and ensure that the history remains truthful, unaltered, and shared globally. Victory Day is a reminder of hope and resilience, linking generations past and present." Similarly, Igor Egorov, head of the Board of Russian Compatriots in Oman, expressed the event's significance: 'Victory Day is not only commemorative but also educational. It reflects our commitment to reinforce the values of peace and justice, fostering a mutual understanding between our nations.' Spectacular Cultural Performances at Russia's 80th Victory Day Special attention was given to engaging the younger generation, with activities designed to teach children about the importance of the victory and the sacrifices made by their ancestors. Anna Popova, director of Russian House Oman, highlighted these efforts: 'By educating children about Victory Day, we nurture qualities of fortitude, unity, and loyalty to peace — principles deeply rooted in both Russian and Omani cultures.' The celebration in Muscat not only served as a poignant commemoration but also as a platform for strengthening cultural and diplomatic ties, promoting dialogue rooted in shared values of peace, resilience, and persistent remembrance.
Powys County Times
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Powys County Times
Royal Welsh Show 2025 main ring attractions announced
The Royal Welsh Show has announced the main ring attractions for 2025. The Royal Welsh Agricultural Society has announced the list of main ring attractions for the 2025 Royal Welsh Show, which will be held from July 21 to 24 at the showground in Llanelwedd, Builth Wells. The headline act for this year's event is the return of the Ukrainian Cossacks. The Cossacks are known for their daring displays of horsemanship. They will present a 10-minute showcase of traditional Cossack riding in the main ring. The Ukrainian Cossack stunt team, led by founder Oleh Yurchyshyn, has performed at more than 20 prestigious events across Europe and the Middle East. They will perform stunts including flipping beneath galloping horses, forming six-person human pyramids on horseback, and executing somersaults mid-charge. The team rides Ukrainian Warmblood horses, a breed known for its endurance and bravery. Many of the riders maintain the traditional 'oseledets' hairstyle, a topknot on a shaved head that symbolises their cultural heritage. Aled Rhys Jones, chief executive of the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, said: "The 2025 Royal Welsh Show continues our tradition of bringing world-class entertainment alongside the very best of Welsh agriculture. "The Ukrainian Cossacks represent exactly the kind of spectacular, culturally rich performance our visitors have come to expect from the main ring. "Their appearance this year carries extra significance as a celebration of courage and resilience." The show will also feature the UK's number one motorcycle display team, Bolddog FMX, who will perform stunts and aerial acrobatics. Meirion Owen and his sheepdogs will demonstrate traditional sheepdog work, while the Regimental Band & Corps of Drums of The Royal Welsh will showcase Welsh musical heritage. The RAF College Band will perform on Tuesday, and the RAF Falcons Parachute Display Team will descend into the main ring on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The British Army Drone Sports Association will demonstrate military drone operations on Monday and Wednesday. The show will also feature a heavy horse village, celebrating traditional working horses. Visitors can also look forward to a variety of other main ring entertainment throughout the show, including the Inter Hunt Team Relay, Parade of Hounds, and Mounted Games. Tickets for the event are available online at or by calling 01982 553683.
Mint
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Mint
A short history of Russia and Ukraine
IN JULY 2021 Vladimir Putin published an essay with arguments he would later use to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It raced through 1,000 years to argue that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, cruelly divided by 'external forces" with an 'anti-Russian" agenda. Mr Putin's war is supposed to fix that. There is truth in his claim that Ukraine and Russia are close kin, as the following maps is nonsense is the assertion that their separation into two countries is the result of some external plot, imposed on the Ukrainians against their wishes. For Mr Putin the origin of Russian-Ukrainian identity is Kyivan Rus, a confederation of princedoms that lasted from the late 9th to the mid-13th century (see map 1). Its centre was Kyiv, now Ukraine's capital. Its rulers were the Rus, Scandinavian Vikings who gradually established dominance over the region and merged with local Slavic tribes. ('Rus" is the origin of the word 'Russia".) When it comes to political and cultural tradition, Kyivan Rus is indeed the cradle of Russia and Ukraine, as well as the country now called Belarus. It was a refined European civilisation with roots in the Byzantine empire and its Orthodox Christian religion. In the mid-11th century, however, Kyivan Rus began to fragment into semi-autonomous principalities (see map 2). These included Galicia-Volhynia, which covered parts of modern Ukraine and Belarus, Novgorod in north-western modern-day Russia, and Vladimir-Suzdal, in western Russia. In 1240 the Mongol empire besieged Kyiv, finally destroying what remained of Kyivan Rus as a single entity. When the Mongol empire and its successors began to decline in the 14th century, rival polities rose to fill the vacuum. In the east of the region power eventually accumulated in Moscow, leading to the creation of the Grand Principality of Muscovy. To the west, what had become the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania joined forces in 1569 to create the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1648 the Cossacks, settlers on the steppe who amalgamated into disciplined military units, led an uprising against the commonwealth. This led to the formation of their own state, the Hetmanate (see map 3). Many Ukrainians look back to the Hetmanate as the origin of their identity as an independent state. Indeed, the original Cossack lands were often called 'Ukraine", a Slavic word meaning 'borderland". Early Cossack warriors practised a limited form of democracy, a contrast to Muscovy's autocratic regime. That the Hetmanate came about as an act of resistance to larger neighbouring powers is a history that resonates with Ukrainians today. In the 19th century, the folk memory of the Cossacks' state helped inspire the birth of a recognisable form of Ukraine's cultural nationalism. But the Cossack state had a hard time. In 1654, threatened by the Poles as well as the Ottomans to the south, Cossack leaders pledged allegiance to the tsar of Muscovy. A few decades later intellectuals in Kyiv wrote what is believed to be one of the oldest texts outlining the basis of a 'Slavo-Rossian" nation. They hoped to convince the tsar to defend them, not only because of their shared history and Orthodox religion, but also in the name of ethno-national unity. By the end of the 17th century the Hetmanate's territory had split into two: Muscovy took control of the east bank of the Dnieper river, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth seized the west. In 1708 Ivan Mazepa, a Cossack leader, led a failed uprising against Tsar Peter the Great. (Russia regards Mazepa as a traitor; in Ukraine he is a hero.) Peter went on to become Russia's first emperor in 1721. In the late 18th century the Russian empire broke up the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, with help from Austria and Prussia. The Russians also seized territory in what is now southern Ukraine from the Ottomans. This included Crimea, annexed to Russia by Catherine the Great in 1783. She oversaw the final dismantling of the Cossack Hetmanate. On the eve of the first world war the Russian empire stretched from the Sea of Japan to the Baltic (see map 4). In 1917, weakened by the war, Russia experienced two revolutions. The first overthrew the Romanov dynasty. The second was the seizure of power by Vladimir Lenin and his Bolsheviks. Officials in Kyiv founded the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR), a state in union with Russia. In January 1918 the UPR declared independence. Eventually Lenin took the UPR by force. But the strength of Ukrainian national identity compelled him to create a socialist Ukrainian republic, and to allow the use of the Ukrainian language. In 1922 Ukraine became one of the four founding members of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)—or Soviet Union. Ukraine's territory expanded during the Soviet period. Under the Soviet Union's non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, signed in 1939, the two countries carved up eastern Europe. In the ensuing fighting, what had been parts of Poland that were settled by Ukrainians were added to Soviet Ukraine. In 1954 the Soviet Union transferred the administration of Crimea from Soviet Russia to Ukraine. But Ukraine also experienced great suffering. In the 1930s Josef Stalin's policy of forced collectivisation of agriculture led to a famine, known in Ukraine as the Holodomor, which killed millions of people. In the mid-20th century Ukraine found itself part of what Timothy Snyder, a historian at Yale, later called the 'bloodlands": territory in which Hitler and Stalin, though enemies, enabled each other's crimes against locals. Co-operation between some Ukrainian nationalists and the Nazis during the war is adduced by Mr Putin as evidence for his claim that the Ukraine of today is run by fascists. In 1986, in the dying days of the Soviet Union, the world's worst-ever nuclear accident took place at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The damage, and the ensuing cover-up, heightened Ukrainians' anger towards the Kremlin. In the 1980s Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, set out to reform the Soviet Union through openness and reform—glasnost and perestroika. But eastern Europeans, subject to Soviet control through the framework of the Warsaw Pact, took the opportunity to demand their freedom. In 1991 the Soviet Union itself collapsed, bringing independence to its 15 constituent republics (see map 6). Mr Putin has called this the biggest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. Ukraine suddenly became home to the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal. In 1994 it agreed to denuclearise in exchange for security assurances from America, Britain and the Russian Federation. (Ukraine used this agreement, known as the Budapest memorandum, to ask America and Britain for aid on the eve of Russia's invasion in 2022.) In 2004-05 the 'Orange revolution" highlighted Ukraine's democratic ambitions. Thousands protested against a rigged presidential election that gave victory to a pro-Russian candidate. Ukraine's democratic resolve was even more visible during the 'Maidan revolution" in 2013-14. This was a reaction to the refusal by Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's president, who was chummy with Russia, to sign an association agreement (an extensive free-trade deal) with the European Union. Thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets; Mr Yanukovych fled to Russia. Ukraine's new government signed the agreement, infuriating Mr Putin. His response to the Maidan marked Russia's first military incursions into independent Ukraine. In 2014 the Kremlin illegally annexed Crimea and sent troops into the Donbas, a predominantly Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine (see map 7). Russia's separatist proxies—led by the Russian intelligence officers— declared 'people's republics" in Donetsk and Luhansk. By December 2021, just before Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, the conflict had killed more than 14,000 people. The war continues. © 2025, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on
Mint
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Mint
Putin's alleged ‘Secret son' Ivan Vladimirovich's first photos leaked online: Report
Photos have surfaced online claiming to show the secret son of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his longtime rumored partner, Olympic gold medalist Alina Kabaeva, according to a report by The Sun. The images were allegedly leaked by the anonymously run Russian Telegram channel VChK-OGPU. The channel referred to the child as Ivan Vladimirovich Putin, reportedly 10 years old. In one of the leaked images, the boy—believed to be Ivan—is seen wearing a traditional Russian Cossack outfit, complete with braided design details around the collar and lapel. His expression is solemn, with a blunt bowl cut and lips set in a straight line. "This is Ivan Vladimirovich Putin," the Telegram channel posted, as reported by The Sun. "He hardly communicates with other children, spending all his time with guards, governesses, [and] teachers." VChK-OGPU described Ivan as 'the loneliest boy in Russia,' highlighting his life of seclusion and tight security. Until now, Putin's rumored children with Kabaeva have remained unseen and largely unacknowledged by the Kremlin. According to news outlet, the child's appearance strongly resembles photos of a young Vladimir Putin from his Soviet-era childhood—further fueling speculation about the boy's parentage. Another image allegedly shows Ivan alongside his supposed mother, Alina Kabaeva, the former rhythmic gymnast often dubbed 'Russia's most flexible woman.' Kabaeva is a public figure in her own right, having won a bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and a gold at Athens 2004. Though she has long been rumored to be romantically involved with Putin, both have remained tight-lipped about their personal relationship or any children. Putin has consistently shielded his personal life from public scrutiny. As The Sun notes, this rare leak marks a significant departure from the extreme secrecy that typically surrounds Putin's alleged family life. The Russian government has not issued any official response to the leak as of now. First Published: 24 Apr 2025, 02:38 AM IST
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Zelenskyy congratulates Ukraine's Security Service on its 33rd anniversary and grants brigadier general rank to two colonels
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has granted the rank of brigadier general to the heads of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) offices in Mykolaiv and Sumy oblasts and awarded members of the special service on the occasion of the SSU's 33rd anniversary. Source: decrees of 25 March; Office of the President; press service of SSU Quote from the decrees: "To grant the military rank of brigadier general to Colonel Mykola Lysenko – Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Office in Mykolaiv Oblast. To grant the military rank of brigadier general to Colonel Oleh Krasnoshapka – Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Office in Sumy Oblast." Details: On 25 March 2025, the Security Service of independent Ukraine marked its 33rd anniversary. Zelenskyy met with SSU personnel on the occasion, awarded them state honours and granted senior officer ranks. In his address, Zelenskyy stated that over the years of this war, the SSU "has truly become a combat-ready special service – highly efficient and strong". He said that SSU fighters are engaged in all defence sectors, from Kursk and Kharkiv oblasts to the hottest front lines in Donetsk Oblast and the south of Ukraine. Zelenskyy highlighted the achievements of the SSU and other Ukrainian security and defence forces in the battle for the Black Sea. Additionally, he emphasised the SSU's combat successes against Russia's oil refining industry and praised the service's efforts in maintaining internal security in Ukraine. Meanwhile, SSU Head Vasyl Maliuk stressed in his congratulatory speech that the priority of the special service remains the elimination of as many enemies as possible and the liberation of Ukrainian land. Quote from Maliuk: "Ukrainians have done this many times before, this time however with modern weapons and FPV drones instead of Cossack sabres. We have a strong genetic memory, fuelled by our desire for liberty and hatred for Russian executioners. And we have the desire to avenge our fallen comrades while also ensuring that our descendants are permanently immune to Muscovites." Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
