What is the point of Kiev's international biennial? When this latest addition to the bloated international art circuit was announced earlier this year, it felt like an extreme example of "soft power", with the Ukrainian government exploiting its more appealing assets, such as its cultural heritage, to improve its standing in the international community.

What is the point of Kiev's international biennial? When this latest addition ... was announced earlier this year, it felt like an extreme example of "soft power", with the Ukrainian government exploiting its more appealing assets, such as its cultural heritage, to improve its standing in the international community. After all, if you're going to reinvent a place, why not throw in a biennial for good measure?

APDS Blogger: Alex Laverty

The street jugglers are out in action and a festive buzz is growing in the Ukrainian capital where the centre has been transformed into one big Euro soccer ‘welcome’ zone. But the closer the Euro 2012 tournament gets, the more the problems mount for President Viktor Yanukovich.

Politics and sports are often an incendiary mix, as the controversy now swirling around the Euro 2012 football championship, to be co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland, demonstrates... European Union leaders have said that they will boycott matches held in Ukraine...

Sports boycotts, as part of sports diplomacy or the use of sports for political or diplomatic means, have occurred on a number of occassions in the past. The most notorious examples are the Olympic Games of 1980 in Moscow and 1984 in Los Angeles, both heavily influenced by Cold War politics. But also in 2008 only 9 leaders of EU Member States attended the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

Ukraine is still being referred to as a country “between Europe and Russia” not only in ordinary public discourse and media but by top officials and diplomats, those in the US, EU and Russia, first and foremost, but also in Ukraine itself. Why there is such an “in-betweenness”, two decades after the end of the Cold War?

The European Commission and other political leaders are planning to boycott the event because of the alleged ill-treatment of the country’s former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko who has been on hunger strike for several weeks...