Ukraine relieved at U.S. election result

When U.S. media began to call the presidential race in Joe Biden’s favor on November 7, it was about 6:30 p.m. in Kyiv. Within hours, a former president tweeted that his country was “blessed,” an investment banker voiced hope for reforms, and a political analyst said fears that Washington might use Ukraine as a pawn in a bid for a Russia reset would fade. For many politicians, civil-society leaders and citizens in Ukraine, the news came as a relief. Barack Obama’s former point man on Ukraine is a relatively familiar face in Kyiv, and Mr. Biden, in turn, may be more familiar with Ukraine than any previous U.S. president. He made six trips to Kyiv as vice-president, five of them from 2014 onward – after Russia seized the Crimean peninsula and fomented separatism following the downfall of Viktor Yanukovych, the Moscow-friendly president pushed from power by the Euro-Maidan movement. Mr. Biden once joked that he spoke more over the phone with then-President Petro Poroshenko than with his wife during those turbulent years.