December 20, 2019

Ukraine in the headlines

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“The Shoals of Ukraine,” by Serhii Plokhy and M. E. Sarotte Foreign Affairs, January/February 2020 (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2019-11-22/shoals-ukraine):

At first, it might seem surprising that Ukraine, a country on the fringes of Europe, is suddenly at the turbulent center of American politics and foreign policy. …

In fact, that Ukraine is at the center of this storm should not be surprising at all. Over the past quarter century, nearly all major efforts at establishing a durable post–Cold War order on the Eurasian continent have foundered on the shoals of Ukraine. For it is in Ukraine that the disconnect between triumphalist end-of-history delusions and the ongoing realities of great-power competition can be seen in its starkest form.

To most American policymakers, Ukraine has represented a brave young country – one that, despite the burden of history, successfully launched itself on a path of democratic development as part of a new world order after the fall of the Berlin Wall. To the Kremlin, meanwhile, it has remained an indispensable part of a long-standing sphere of influence, one that operates largely according to old rules of power. The difference between these two views goes a long way toward explaining why post-Cold War hopes have given way to the strife and uncertainty of the world today.

U.S. and other Western policymakers have long skirted hard questions about both Ukraine’s place in the Eurasian order and its role in the fraught relationship between Washington and Moscow. Although the end of the Cold War may have marked the end of one geopolitical competition, it did not mark the end of geopolitics. Nor did the dissolution of the Soviet Union mean the disappearance of Russian anxieties, ambitions and abilities. …

 

“In Round 1 of Ukraine Peace Talks, Zelenskyy Holds His Own With Putin,” by Nolan Peterson, The Daily Signal, December 13 (https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/12/13/in-round-one-of-ukraine-peace-talks-zelenskyy-holds-his-own-with-putin/):

… “Ukraine is an independent, democratic state, whose development vector will always be chosen exclusively by the people of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said while in Paris [at the Normandy format summit].

…The general consensus among Ukrainians is that Zelenskyy acquitted himself just fine. True, he didn’t achieve a breakthrough, but he also didn’t fold to any of Putin’s demands. “Contrary to the expectations of those who blamed Zelenskyy for a ‘peace at all costs’ attitude, he came back from the Normandy Format meeting with no apparent loss to Ukraine’s national security interests,” said Julia Kazdobina, head of the Ukrainian Foundation for Security Studies. “Russia did not get its way,” Kazdobina told The Daily Signal.

…Kyiv and Moscow remain at loggerheads over a spectrum of other disputes. Following an hourlong, one-on-one meeting with Putin, Zelenskyy told Ukrainian journalists: “Look, it’s very difficult to negotiate [with Putin], but today there were moments when we agreed on something, on certain things.”

Zelenskyy rejected Russian demands for the federalization of Ukraine, as well as a permanent status of autonomy for the two Russian-controlled breakaway territories in the Donbas. The Ukrainian leader also refused to negotiate directly with separatist leaders.…

After years of denying that Russia’s regular forces are involved in the war at all, it was unlikely going into Monday’s meeting that Putin would reverse course and pledge to cut off Moscow’s support for its forces in the Donbas. Such a move would mark a de facto admission of Russia’s culpability in fanning the conflict. …

 

The damage done to Ukraine,” editorial, The Washington Post, November 30 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-damage-done-to-ukraine/2019/11/29/81c43156-1121-11ea-9cd7-a1becbc82f5e_story.html):

One easily overlooked aspect of the Ukraine affair is the ongoing damage it is doing to the young government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who won a free and fair election in the spring by promising to tackle endemic corruption and end a grinding low-grade war with Russia and its proxies. Mr. Zelenskyy has made progress on both fronts, pushing anti-corruption measures through Parliament and negotiating several confidence-building deals with the Russians, including prisoner exchanges and troop pullbacks. …

For years it has been the policy of the United States to stand strongly behind Ukraine …not just to support a struggling democracy but also to advance U.S. strategic interests, such as containing Russian aggression in Europe. Yet the chaos President Trump introduced into U.S.-Ukraine relations has created a de facto diplomatic vacuum. Virtually every senior official who worked on the relationship in the past two years has resigned or testified in the impeachment inquiry and been denounced by the president.

…There remains strong support for Ukraine in Congress, including among Republicans who have been defending Mr. Trump. They should be pressing the president and Mr. Pompeo to revive U.S. support for Ukraine. The State Department ought to designate a new senior official to represent the United States on peace negotiations. Mr. Pompeo himself should get engaged. It’s vital that the United States shows it is still committed to Ukraine’s independence. Otherwise the damage done by Mr. Trump will be compounded.

 

“Don’t Believe the Trump Administra­tion’s Lies About Ukrainian Corruption,” by Adrian Karatnycky, and Alexander J. Motyl, Foreign Policy, November 14 (https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/14/with-impeachment-hearings-underway-dont-believe-the-lies-about-ukrainian-corruption/?fbclid=IwAR3FvcJ6Qt9LGnoznXABB2fAk9cvnGt6CU0NofFuK3utBhWXyJIvkd7uTzg):

…A 2018 anti-corruption poll from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Enhance Non-Governmental Actors and Grassroots Engagement program [found that] …92.5 percent of respondents thought corruption was a very serious or rather serious issue, while 86.7 percent thought it was very common or rather common. On the other hand, only 41.5 percent of households encountered corruption in the past 12 months: Of that number, 30.6 percent of respondents said they had personal experiences with corruption, while 10.9 percent had family members who experienced corruption. Significantly, 53.1 percent encountered no corruption.

Ukrainians, in other words, tended to overstate the amount of corruption in their country.…

Reforms now in place have reduced grand corruption – that is, large systemic schemes that cost the economy hundreds of millions of dollars or more – by $6 billion per year, or about 5 percent of Ukraine’s GDP.…

The country now has an active National Anti-Corruption Bureau, a new anti-corruption court, and one of the world’s most transparent annual income declaration systems, in which nearly 2 million government officials are required to disclose all their holdings in an online database open to the public…

… the popular impression of a nation drowning in graft is more a reflection of Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s associations with dodgy oligarchs and expat intermediaries – as well as the well-compensated dalliance of Biden’s son Hunter with a company owned by a powerful former government official – than of Ukrainians’ lived reality.…

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