Washington policymakers and experts can’t remember a time in the last quarter of a century when so many Ukrainians have visited Washington. One jokingly wondered aloud whether Ukraine should move its Parliament to Washington, as some national deputies spend more time there than in Kyiv.
The financial cost of these visits to Ukrainian taxpayers and party political finances is very high, but do these visits produce any tangible results? The answer to this question is that, in most cases, they do not. There are three factors to consider.
The first is that U.S. policymakers and experts are surprised that the old guard are still dominating Ukrainian politics. Three of the political forces that regularly travel to Washington – the Petro Poroshenko bloc, the Opposition bloc and Yulia Tymoshenko/Batkivshchyna – are viewed as old-guard politicians who emerged in the 1990s. Their messages and rhetoric conveyed to U.S. authorities have not changed much over the last two decades and are largely not believed.
Mr. Poroshenko is obviously viewed as an oligarch who does not have the political will to fight corruption. A Washington expert told me: “It is very sad for the Ukrainian people that Poroshenko has become the second revolutionary leader who has failed to implement the popular demands of the Maidan.”
As to the Opposition Bloc, I have no comment. President Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions spent the most of any political force on Washington consultants, and yet they abjectly failed to improve their negative image. This was difficult prior to 2014 and since then has become impossible.
With regard to Batkivshchyna, one Washington political consultant told me: “Tymoshenko has courted the last four U.S. presidential administrations, but has not changed how Washington views her. She continues to be seen as an opportunist, a political chameleon whose views and alliances change with the wind.” Nobody in Washington knows what she really and truly stands for.
Another Washington political consultant said: “Knowledgeable regional experts in Washington voice serious concern about Tymoshenko’s past energy deals with Moscow and view her populist rhetoric with extreme caution. Her stunt at this year’s National Prayer Breakfast (where she cornered President Donald Trump and received assurances from him that Washington won’t lift Russia sanctions) was frowned upon by the expert community and is a perfect example of her penchant for grandstanding.”
A second factor causing dismay in Washington is that old-guard politicians Mr. Poroshenko, Ms. Tymoshenko and Yuriy Boyko lead in popularity in a hypothetical Ukrainian presidential election. In view of the very active civil society and independent media in Ukraine, Washington policymakers and experts are surprised at the lack of new faces that have emerged since the Euro-Maidan Revolution and are ready to win power in upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.
A third factor is that members of Ukraine’s old guard have always invested the most in Washington political consultants, lobbyists and think tanks, even though this has never led to concrete changes in their images. Mr. Yanukovych/Party of Regions (http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/330243-beyond-manafort-both-parties-deal-with-pro-russia), Mr. Poroshenko (http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2017/02/7/7134691/), Dmytro Firtash (http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2017/01/30/7133852/) and Viktor Pinchuk (http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2016/09/29/7122153/) have spent the most money on hiring Democrats and Republicans alike.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk campaigned in 2010 as a “new face” in Ukrainian politics, but his U.S. lobbyists would find it impossible to promote him as a “new face” today (http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2016/12/8/ 7129201/). Ms. Tymoshenko also has hired political consultants and lobbyists (http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/articles/2016/ 10/27/7124994/), but her image will be further damaged by the forthcoming new trial of Pavlo Lazarenko, against whom the U.S. Department of Justice has assembled leading U.S. experts.
All of these huge resources spent in Washington have been and remain a complete waste of money. U.S. political consultants and lobbyists will promise foreign clients everything to obtain contracts, but this will never translate into changing the image of Ukrainian politicians who are members of the old guard. U.S. consultants do not have magical powers to change birthdays to make their clients younger or erase their not very sympathetic past baggage.
So, do any visitors from Ukraine impress Washington?
Yes, these include younger politicians untainted by baggage from the past who were elected in 2014, leaders of civil society NGOs and well-known journalists. Politicians and oligarchs from the 1990s – no matter how much money they throw at Washington political consultants and lobbyists – will never be able to alter their images.
One of the previously cited Washington political consultants expressed his belief that if a representative of the old guard were to be elected president in 2019, “it would lead to more tumult in Ukraine and will further the country’s climate of crony capitalism, which is dangerous at a time when Ukraine-fatigue is growing in Washington.” Unlike in the West, where the old guard leaves politics after it has failed, in Ukraine they continue to hang around.
In the next Ukrainian presidential elections “the U.S. will quietly voice support for the candidate who couples seriously tackling corruption and crony capitalism with pro-Western foreign policy pragmatism.” Mr. Poroshenko, Ms. Tymoshenko and other politicians and oligarchs from the 1990s are not the candidates Washington would like to see in power. There is great hope that new leaders who emerged from the Euro-Maidan Revolution and civil society will win the elections.
Ukraine’s Europeanization is reliant upon the victory of new faces. If Ukraine continues to be ruled by the old guard, it will remain in a twilight zone with one foot in post-Soviet Eurasia and one foot in Europe.
Washington policymakers and experts, therefore, have three bits of advice for Ukrainian politicians. Firstly, do not visit us so often. Secondly, we thank you for investing in our economy, but we should warn you that political consultants and lobbyists will not change our view of Ukraine’s old guard. Thirdly, say no to Poroshenko, Tymoshenko and Boyko, and yes to the new generation of Ukrainian politicians.
Taras Kuzio, Ph.D., is a senior fellow at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, and author of the newly published book “Putin’s War Against Ukraine. Revolution, Nationalism, and Crime.”