UCCLA Media Release: Ottawa (13 July 2019 - For Immediate Release)
The General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation has declared the Toronto-based World Congress of Ukrainians to be an undesirable organization. Founded in the USA, in 1967 (and then known as the World Congress of Free Ukrainians) the website of the Ukrainian World Congress describes this non-governmental organization (NGO) as being a coordinator of the Ukrainian diaspora worldwide. The UWC’s current president is Paul Grod, a Toronto-based lawyer, formerly president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.
A law on “undesirable organizations” was signed by the Russian Federation's Vladimir Putin in May 2015. Any NGO that, in the opinion of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, or his deputy, represents “a threat to the security of the state and the constitutional framework,” can be categorized as undesirable and prohibited from being active in the Russian Federation. After being listed as “undesirable” an NGO's accounts are frozen, all of its branches must be closed and violators of this law are subject to fines of up to 500 thousand Russian rubles ($10,000 Cdn) as well a period of imprisonment of up to eight years.
Over 2 million Ukrainians are currently found within the borders of the Russian Federation, the third largest nationality after the Russians and Tatar
For more information, please contact the Ukrainian World Congress:
