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Poroshenko cites achievements, discusses failures in war with Putin

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KYIV – Assessing his first year in office, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko offered an uncharacteristically sober view in which he acknowledged disappointments with the government. He also stressed achievements, such as thwarting Russia’s attempts to split Ukraine. The evaluations and political plans came in a June 4 address to the Verkhovna Rada and a June 5 press conference, both nearly a year after he was inaugurated president on June 7, 2014. “I am often asked whether I’m satisfied with the work of the government. No.

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Another Yanukovych insider, Serhii Kliuyev, flees abroad

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KYIV – It’s been more than a year since former President Viktor Yanukovych fled Ukraine, and no one from his entourage has been arrested by the Ukrainian government, let alone prosecuted, for the murders during the Euro-Maidan protest. Never mind the billions alleged to have been pilfered in corruption schemes. [Former Finance Minister Yurii Kobolov was arrested by Spanish police but has yet to be extradited to Ukraine. The government has seized his property in Ukraine.]

The latest Yanukovych insider to elude arrest was Serhii Kliuyev, who is widely believed to have fled the country within days after Ukraine’s Parliament voted on June 3 to strip him of his political immunity. By June 10, he was declared missing by Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the internal affairs minister, who confirmed a week later in Parliament that he fled to Russia through the occupied territories of Donbas.

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Verkhovna Rada dismisses Nalyvaichenko from SBU

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KYIV – Ukraine’s Parliament voted on June 18 to approve President Petro Poroshenko’s request to dismiss Valentyn Nalyvaichenko as head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the country’s leading national security body. While the president argued that Mr. Nalyvaichenko had failed to fulfill his responsibilities, Mr. Poroshenko’s critics argued that the dismissal was revenge for Mr. Nalyvaichenko’s unapproved attempts to eliminate the president’s allies – alleged to be corrupt – from both the SBU and the Procurator General’s Office. The conflict over Mr. Nalyvaichenko was the biggest since the coalition government emerged in November 2014 and threatens its future stability. The president will likely appoint someone loyal to him to replace Mr. Nalyvaichenko in order to strengthen his hierarchy of power, observers said. “The new SBU head will be very loyal to Poroshenko.

Ukraine

War and recession create real estate opportunities

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KYIV – For those regretting not having invested in Kyiv real estate during the burgeoning 1990s or the market downturns since then, Ukraine’s current struggles have created a window of opportunity to find some bargains. Though Kyiv and Lviv – two of the most popular destinations for diaspora Ukrainians – are both securely insulated from the warfare on the country’s eastern edge, they have suffered from the economic devastation, particularly the hryvnia’s devaluation of about 46 percent since the war’s start. Prices haven’t fallen as low as Ukraine’s crash of 2008-2009, but they’re 15 to 20 percent lower than year-ago levels, creating an attractive entry point, said Halyna Melnykova, the general director of Blagovist, Kyiv’s largest real estate agency. “People have the ability to fulfill their hopes that hadn’t opened up for five years,” she said. And they’re acting as well.

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Poroshenko appoints Saakashvili to lead Odesa

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KYIV – In an unexpected move, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appointed former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili as head of the Odesa Oblast State Administration to lead the president’s initiatives in the region, as well as oversee the spending of funds earmarked by the central Kyiv budget. Though he was placed under arrest in his native Georgia, Mr. Saakashvili is among the most popular post-Soviet politicians in Ukraine and the West after leading reforms that turned Georgia into a competitive economy. He has a long history in Ukraine, having studied alongside Mr. Poroshenko in Kyiv and learned the Ukrainian language. A key supporter of the maidans in Kyiv, Mr. Saakashvili spent recent months criticizing the Ukrainian government for failing to quickly carry out needed reforms. In appointing Mr. Saakashvili, Mr. Poroshenko is forcing him to either show what he can do or back down from the criticism, observers said. “Saakashvili simply couldn’t be an outside observer of Ukraine’s reforms process, or just a top advisor at that.

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Ukraine and EU come up short at Riga summit

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KYIV – The Eastern Partnership summit in Riga on May 21-22 revealed the European Union has lost the boldness it demonstrated in Vilnius in November 2013, when its participants ostracized former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych for declining to sign the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement. After the military aggression demonstrated by the Russian government since then, the European Union’s leaders demonstrated heightened caution, refraining from any direct condemnations of Russia and mutedly encouraging the six post-Soviet member states on their Euro-integration efforts. As expected, in the summit’s joint declaration, the EU refrained from making clearer Ukraine’s prospects for membership, let alone offering visa-free travel regimes. For the first time, the declaration referred to “trilateral consultations” on the Ukraine-EU Free Trade Area, calling the January 1, 2016, launch date “provisional,” to the disappointment of observers. The declaration “reads like a successful sting operation by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB),” Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, wrote on May 26, describing the summit as a “disaster” for Ukraine.

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Some politicians lead change on May holidays, others keep status quo

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KYIV – Ukraine’s growing pains were ever more apparent during the annual May holidays. Parliament approved legislation in early April that was aimed at shifting the emphasis to the newly created Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation on May 8, instead of the traditional Victory Day on May 9. Yet, even with the national government sending letters to local councils advising them to organize events accordingly, traditional parades and processions were repeated on May 9 in many cities, towns and villages throughout the country. “One needs to understand the machine that the consciousness of people went through under the Soviet Union. It was always underestimated and continues to be,” said Yevhen Holovakha, the director of the Institute of Sociology at the National Academy of Sciences.

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IT lawyer leaves Cabinet, citing lack of strategy

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KYIV – An unprecedented wave of professionals from the corporate sector joined the Ukrainian government following the Euro-Maidan, some of whom have been hailed as top reformers. Among them is Economic Development and Trade Minister Aivaras Abromavicius, a lifelong investment banker who trimmed his ministry by a third and is pursuing harsh deregulation. Yet his first vice-minister, Sasha Borovik, didn’t think he and other ministers were doing enough. The Lviv-born lawyer for top IT companies, who has lived extensively in the U.S., announced on May 13 that he was leaving the Economy Ministry, citing a lack of strategy in the government and the need for deeper reforms. He also cited a lack of consensus among employees and inertia. “I don’t doubt there are intellectually strong people in the Ukrainian government,” he told the Focus magazine in an interview published on May 15.

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Chaly to become next ambassador to U.S., reports say

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KYIV – Valeriy Chaly, a foreign affairs expert and government adviser, is likely to become Ukraine’s next ambassador to the U.S., Kyiv experts and mass media are increasingly reporting. The confirmation will be made not earlier than the EU Eastern Partnership summit in Riga on May 21-22, but it may come as late as the summer, said Volodymyr Fesenko, the head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Research in Kyiv. The Ukrainian government sent a notice requesting the U.S.’s agreement in April and is waiting for a response, he said. The notice was sent as early as November, reported the Yevropeiska Pravda news site. (Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry could not confirm when the notice was sent in time for The Ukrainian Weekly’s deadline.)

The delay isn’t only from the U.S. side, he said.

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Firtash avoids U.S. extradition, faces more legal, political battles

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KYIV – Dmytro Firtash, the Ukrainian natural gas trader who magnified his wealth with his tight connections to the Yanukovych administration, reportedly was smiling in relief on April 30 when an Austrian court denied an extradition request by the U.S. to try him on criminal charges that include bribery and racketeering. Yet all signs point to many more battles ahead, and not only with U.S. prosecutors. Mr. Firtash told reporters of his intent to return to Ukraine, though not specifying when, but Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko made it well aware that what awaits Mr. Firtash upon his return is a campaign to reduce the influence of oligarchs. During an address to the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine on May 6, Mr. Poroshenko warned the biggest oligarchs – singling out Mr. Firtash in particular – not to fight his attempts to enhance national security by nationalizing strategic assets in the energy sector. “I guarantee that no one will end up in the Forbes ratings anymore by skimming off the top of state monopolies and the traditionally corrupt environment in the gas sector,” he said, pointing out that he had signed a bill this week reforming the nation’s gas sector.