News

Putin regime has two years at best, finance leaders say

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KYIV – When the West imposed economic sanctions on Russia for its military aggression against Ukraine, its leaders assured the public that they would accomplish their goals of restoring order and peace better than a military response would have. Hence President Barack Obama’s restraint in supplying arms to Ukraine. Nearly two years later however, the Ukrainian public – forced to endure economic misery and possibly another military draft – is still anxiously waiting for the sanctions to force an end to the aggression. The latest forecasts that surfaced in recent weeks cite 2017 as the year when Vladimir Putin’s regime could begin to crumble. “I think it’s very clear that Russia is in a very, very weak position.

News

Proposals to resolve armed conflict in Donbas fail to impress experts

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KYIV – Top U.S. and Russian officials were literally brainstorming on new ways to resolve the armed conflict in Donbas on January 15, as described by Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov. A solution has yet to emerge from the meeting in Kaliningrad between Mr. Surkov and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the details of which were not made public. Instead, other creative proposals have surfaced in recent weeks to solve the conflict, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) taking control of the Ukrainian side of the occupied border, as well as the United Nations dispatching humanitarian missions and possibly peacekeepers. They haven’t made Ukrainian political experts any more optimistic. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has yet to propose to the Europeans an alternative to the current plan, which involves local elections in occupied Donbas, followed by de facto autonomy, said Oles Doniy, the head of the Center for Political Values Research in Kyiv.

News

Poroshenko has 25% support, 70% disapproval, poll reveals

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KYIV – About 25 percent of Ukrainians approve of the job President Petro Poroshenko is doing, while about 70 percent disapprove of his performance, particularly his administration’s handling of the war in the Donbas. As president, he’s the commander-in-chief of the military and has led the negotiations with foreign leaders to resolve the conflict. “He has quite strong support, particularly when compared with [Prime Minister Arseniy] Yatsenyuk,” said Petro Oleshchuk, a political science lecturer at Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. “The public is banking on Poroshenko to resolve this war and his rating reflects certain hopes and expectations. I would even say that they’re a down payment.”

The poll, released on January 12, was conducted by Rating Group Ukraine between November 19 and 30, 2015, in cooperation with the International Republican Institute’s Center for Insights in Survey Research and was financed by Global Affairs Canada.

News

Shokin-Kasko rivalry seen by U.S. as hindering anti-corruption efforts

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KYIV – It’s the new year, but the Procurator General’s Office of Ukraine is still resisting the U.S. government’s anti-corruption recommendations. The latest episode in the U.S. government’s anti-corruption struggles with the Poroshenko administration involves Procurator General Viktor Shokin denying permission for Deputy Procurator General Vitaliy Kasko to travel to Washington as part of a senior-level Ukrainian delegation that will examine anti-corruption reform. In the Procurator General’s Office, Mr. Kasko is responsible for international cooperation, asset forfeiture and asset recovery. Last fall, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt praised Mr. Kasko for his anti-corruption initiatives and came to his defense after reported pressure from his superiors to undermine these efforts. “By withholding permission for Mr. Kasko to join the delegation, you may hinder the advancement of reform efforts,” said a letter addressed to Mr. Shokin that was written and sent in December by an unidentified U.S. Embassy official.

News

Ukraine faces new set of economic challenges

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KYIV – Ukrainians rang in the new year with unprecedented economic challenges. In response to the January 1 launch of the Ukraine-European Union free trade area, the Russian government in December imposed a trade embargo on food-related imports from Ukraine and nixed their free trade zone launched in 2011. In addition, changes introduced by Ukraine’s Parliament to the 2016 central budget, approved on December 25, 2015, were not cleared with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), making it uncertain as to whether the next loan tranche of $1.65 billion, needed by the Ukrainian government to ensure stability, will arrive this month. After this year’s economic depression, with an expected 11.5 percent drop in GDP estimated by the government, Ukraine’s economy is widely expected by economists to stabilize, but grow not more than 2 percent. And that’s only if the war in the Donbas doesn’t escalate.

Letters to the Editor

“False binaries” and naivety

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Dear Editor:

In his columns for The Ukrainian Weekly, Andrew Sorokowski has demonstrated not only his talent for philosophy, but also a naivety that has a certain charm to it. Nonetheless, naivety can be fatal, as our Ukrainian ancestors learned from their enemies. Dr. Sorokowski demonstrates his naivety in his “False binaries” column (December 13, 2015), in which he says that a solution to a debate over homosexual rights in Ukraine is needed, rather than a false binary promoted by the West. Dr. Sorokowski makes sense in calling for a solution in the conflict between traditional Western values and secular postmodernism, but my two decades of journalism have led me to conclude that, like its Bolshevik predecessors, the Left isn’t interested in a solution. The Left is engaged in an ideological battle to annihilate traditional Western and Christian values.

News

Ukraine’s foreign-born ministers at the forefront of reforms

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KYIV – When Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov told Mikheil Saakashvili to “Get the hell out of my country!” to conclude their nasty shouting match at the December 14 meeting of the president’s National Reforms Council, he struck a nerve in the country. Ukrainians have been critical of the unprecedented number of foreigners serving in key government posts. Some don’t like their dogged pursuit of reforms, while others don’t like their style. Some are accused of looking for a scapegoat. “We have ministers and governors [oblast state administration heads] from abroad that we’re going to call prime minister and president.

Ukraine

UCU charity evening in Kyiv raises more than $180,000

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KYIV – Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) held its eighth annual Charity Evening and Silent Auction in Kyiv on December 5. What began as a modest get-together of mostly diaspora and native Lviv professionals in Kyiv has swelled to become among the most well-attended and highly sought-after charity events in the capital city – so much so that demand exceeded available tickets. The evening’s emcees were television star and Ternopil Oblast native Serhiy Prytula, who passed the microphone for part of the evening to UCU founder and former rector, Bishop Borys Gudziak of St. Volodymyr Eparchy in Paris, who called upon the guests to make a pledge this holiday season. “Do we have the right to complain?” Bishop Gudziak asked rhetorically.

News

Presidents of Ukraine, Poland agree to cooperate in countering Russia

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KYIV – Amid renewed Russian military aggression on the Donbas frontlines, which has brought a new round of dead and wounded, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko hosted a visit by Polish President Andrzej Duda on December 14-15 during which they consolidated their cooperation across many spheres. Riding a wave of conservative political victories in Europe this year, Mr. Duda went to great lengths to demonstrate Poland’s commitment to Ukraine. He announced that he will advocate for Mr. Poroshenko and his delegation to “have a seat at the table” at the next NATO summit, which will occur in Warsaw in early July. In the context of their plans to relaunch a presidential consultation committee to discuss projects and initiatives, the two leaders went so far as to agree on settling remaining conflicts over culture in order to ensure regional cooperation on crucial issues of security and defense. “In giving deep honor to the victims of the tragic pages of history, the common responsibility of Ukraine and Poland is to ensure their descendants a peaceful present day.

News

At the epicenter of reforms, Jaresko offers bird’s eye view

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KYIV – Natalie Jaresko has been at the epicenter of the Ukrainian government’s reform efforts since accepting her appointment to the Cabinet as finance minister on December 2 of last year and taking Ukrainian citizenship the same day. Since then, Ms. Jaresko has earned international recognition for her successful execution of a $15 billion debt operation, in which Ukraine’s government and some of its biggest enterprises had to restructure their debt repayments that were made impossible due to the economic wreckage caused by the war in Donbas. Her next biggest challenge is preparing the 2016 state budget, which will require a painful $2.5 billion in savings, most likely in the form of spending cuts, to meet the International Monetary Fund’s requirement that the deficit not exceed 3.7 percent of GDP. “Ugh. I don’t know how you’d compare.