kmu.ua.gov
U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden in a tête-à-tête with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of Ukraine.
In early December, Vice-President Biden visited Kyiv. “If Russian aggression persists, the cost imposed on Moscow will continue to rise,” Mr. Biden said on December 8 in a rare appearance by a top Western official before the Verkhovna Rada. “The U.S. will maintain pressure until Moscow fulfills its [peace deal] commitments,” he said, and “there can be no sanctions relief unless until Russia meets all of its commitments under the Minsk agreement.” Russia “is occupying sovereign Ukrainian territory” in Crimea and has violated international law by illegally seizing the Ukrainian peninsula. “The United States will never recognize” Russia’s annexation of Crimea, he underscored.
RFE/RL reported that the vice-president also told the national deputies they have “an obligation to their homeland to answer the call of history” and build a united democratic nation. “It is no exaggeration to say the hopes of freedom-loving people the world over are with you, because so much rides on your fragile experiment with democracy succeeding,” Mr. Biden said. He noted that each national deputy will be judged by future generations upon whether they put the greater good of all Ukrainian people over local interests that have divided the country. He urged Ukraine to make painful but crucial reforms to make governance more transparent, noting that “corruption eats Ukraine like cancer.” The U.S. vice-president also said elected officials must remove conflicts of interest with their private business interests – words possibly aimed at the Ukrainian president. After his meting with Mr. Poroshenko, the vice-president commented: “Ukraine is on the cusp – what happens in the next year is likely to determine the fate of the country for generations.”
In conjunction with Mr. Biden’s visit, the White House, Office of the Vice-President, announced that, “pending consultation with Congress, the White House plans to commit approximately $190 million in new assistance to support Ukraine’s ambitious reform agenda.” The assistance package aimed to help Ukraine: elevate the fight against corruption through law enforcement and justice sector reform; attract investment by streamlining regulations and transparently privatizing state-owned enterprises; promote economic growth through better trade capacity and access to capital for small- and medium-size enterprises; strengthen energy security by increasing efficiency, transparency and resilience in the energy sector; and build a long-term democratic foundation through constitutional and good-governance reforms in key sectors
The fact sheet released by the White House pointed out: “With this announcement, the United States now has committed $2 billion in loan guarantees and nearly $760 million in security, programmatic and technical assistance to Ukraine since the end of the Yanukovych regime in 2014. The proceeds of U.S. loan guarantees have helped Ukraine to stabilize its economy and protect the most vulnerable households from the impact of needed economic adjustments. The administration will continue to work with Congress and its international partners to support Ukraine as it defends its sovereignty, stabilizes its economy and advances its reform agenda.”
Ukrainian officials visit D.C.
During 2015, there were many visits to the United States of officials from Ukraine.
During a four-day visit to Washington in late January, Ukraine’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Vadym Prystayko expressed his optimism that the military and economic aid Ukraine needs to survive its current military and economic crises would soon be forthcoming from the United States, Europe and major international organizations. Speaking with journalists at the Embassy of Ukraine on January 30, at the conclusion of his visit, Mr. Prystayko said he had discussed the situation in Ukraine and the assistance it needs with U.S. officials at the White House and State Department, and at the Atlantic Council and other think tanks. As a result, he said, it was his understanding that the Obama administration will soon come to an agreement with Congress. Military aid is uppermost on Ukraine’s needs list, he said, but an estimated $15 billion financial aid package to help stabilize Ukraine’s currency and balance its budget is also important, he said.
Mr. Prystayko presented Ukraine’s position during a daylong conference at the Atlantic Council on developing a trans-Atlantic strategy for the Europe’s East. Two days later, that think tank joined with The Brookings Institution and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs in presenting a report on “Preserving Ukraine’s Independence, Resisting Russian Aggression: What the United States and NATO Must Do,” authored by eight foreign policy experts, including two former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine – Steven Pifer and John Herbst – who underscored three recommendations: The White House and Congress should commit serious funds to upgrade Ukraine’s defense capabilities, specifically providing $1 billion in military assistance this year, followed by an additional $1 billion each in the next two fiscal years. The U.S. government should alter its policy and begin providing lethal assistance to Ukraine’s military. The U.S. government should approach other NATO countries about also providing military assistance to Ukraine.
The vice-chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Andriy Parubiy, came to Washington during the last week of February in an effort to convince the United States to provide the Ukrainian armed forces with lethal and defensive weapons. During his three-day visit on February 24-26, he presented his government’s case in meetings on Capitol Hill with Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman McCain, Speaker of the House Boehner and members of the Senate and House Ukrainian caucuses. He also met with Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and senior officials at the Defense Department and National Security Council, as well as with other leading Washington foreign policy experts. During a brief news conference at the Embassy of Ukraine, Mr. Parubiy stated: “Ukraine has to ascertain: are we alone or not alone. We have to find out if the country that guaranteed our security in the Budapest Memorandum is willing to back Ukraine at this difficult moment.” Ukraine needs arms assistance now, Mr. Parubiy underscored, adding that he brought with him a list of the lethal and nonlethal weapons Ukraine’s armed forces need, agreed upon by the ministries of defense and foreign affairs, and other Ukrainian government institutions.
Ukraine’s new minister of finance, Natalie Jaresko, came to Washington on March 16-17, seeking U.S. assistance in helping to get her country’s economy working normally during very difficult and uncertain times for Ukraine. The American-born minister discussed her government’s needs and plans for recovery with senior officials of the White House, the Treasury and State departments and congressmen, and later talked about them in a packed conference room at the Brookings Institution, a leading Washington think tank. Seventy years of communism, and 23 years of incomplete economic reforms, mismanagement, corruption by previous regimes, she said, “has left the country in a complex and difficult economic situation.” Ukraine’s economy and industrial output had gone down by 20 percent in 2014 and the hryvnia had depreciated by 70 percent, pushing the public sector debt to “very dangerous levels.” Ukraine is very thankful to the United States for the assistance it has provided so far, Ms. Jaresko said, but it needs additional support, in the form of financial and humanitarian assistance, military equipment “to put an end to this conflict,” and sanctions against Russia if the peace agreements are not fully implemented. “But what’s most important, from my perspective, is that we win the war of creating a reformed market economy – strong and capable – that can lead Ukraine forward,” she said.
A follow-up to that visit came in mid-April, when three top Ukrainian government officials in charge of improving their country’s economy and its international economic relations spent four days in Washington, meeting with leaders of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as officials at the U.S. Department of Commerce, to discuss Ukraine’s current financial-economic situation, its progress in reforming the economy and plans for additional reforms in the future. Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius noted at the conclusion of the visit that they were returning to Kyiv satisfied with the results. “Ukraine is high on everybody’s agenda these days,” he told members of the press at the Embassy of Ukraine on April 20. “There is a clear support for our government and our Parliament in Washington among the American politicians, businesspeople and bankers, and also among the international community.” Minister Abromavicius was accompanied to the Washington meetings by Finance Minister Jaresko and the governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, Valeriya Hontaryeva.
Four Ukrainian national deputies from the civil society movement and the Euro-Maidan Revolution of Dignity, joined by officials from Ukrainian government agencies and think tanks, brought their message of determination and hope to the Obama administration, Congress and academic and research centers in the U.S. capital during the week of April 21. The delegation included National Deputies Victor Galasiuk, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Oleksiy Skrypnyk and Oleksandr Dubinin, who represented three new political parties in Parliament, the Poroshenko Bloc, Self-Reliance Party and Radical Party, that belong to the majority coalition. Also part of the delegation were: Taras Oliinyk, first deputy head of the State Agency for E-Governance in Ukraine; Oleksiy Gridin, advisor to the Minister of Defense; Maj. Yuriy Moshkavets (ret.), director of the Center for Military Reform; and Anatoli Pinchuk, president of Ukraine Strategy, a Kyiv-based think tank.
In May, President Obama criticized Russia’s “increasingly aggressive” stance on Ukraine, as a result of which more than 6,100 people had been killed since April 2014. Speaking after meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House on May 26, Mr. Obama said, “We had a chance to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the increasingly aggressive posture that Russia has taken.” He urged Russia to “stop supporting separatists and to withdraw all its forces from eastern Ukraine,” which continued to be embroiled in sporadic fighting despite the Minsk ceasefire agreement signed in February.
Prime Minister Yatsenyuk came to the U.S. capital on June 8-10 for talks about the crisis in Ukraine caused by Russia’s invasion; he met with U.S. government officials, congressional leaders, the International Monetary Fund and influential American organizations. The prime minister’s tight schedule included a surprise White House meeting with Vice-President Biden, who had just returned from his son’s funeral in Delaware. Mr. Yatsenyuk said he and Finance Minister Jaresko, who had also traveled to Washington, had some 30 meetings. “And the level of support expressed by the U.S. vice-president, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce – in other words, the American establishment – was unprecedented,” he said. The prime minister did not mince words in describing Ukraine’s major problem: “We are facing a real war with Russia,” he said in his address at the AJC (American Jewish Council) Global Forum 2015. “Ukraine is the only country in the world that is fighting against the Russian regular army.” The prime minister pointed out that, in so doing, “Ukraine is defending not only Ukraine. We are defending Europe and we are defending international law and order.”
Mr. Yatsenyuk was back in Washington with his delegation on July 13, for a meeting at the White House with Vice-President Biden. President Obama dropped by the meeting, expressing the U.S. government’s “unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Earlier that day Messrs. Biden and Yatsenyuk had both participated in the U.S.-Ukraine Business Forum, organized by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a large gathering of government officials and business leaders focused on improving Ukraine’s economic situation and its relations with the U.S. and the West.
According to a White House statement released after the meeting, the president and vice-president also “underscored the U.S. commitment to maintaining sanctions on Russia until it fully implements its obligations under the Minsk agreements,” which are intended to resolve Ukraine’s conflict with the Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern regions. President Obama and Vice- President Biden commended the Ukrainian government for the steps it has taken to implement its obligations under the agreements, including the submission to Ukraine’s Parliament of “draft constitutional amendments on decentralization.”
Concern about Nadiya Savchenko
There was much concern about the fate of Ms. Savchenko.
Reps. Levin, Kaptur, Fitzpatrick, Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) and Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) – all members of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus – on January 26 introduced a bipartisan resolution calling for her release. “We continue to call on Russian authorities to immediately release Nadiya Savchenko from custody. We are gravely concerned by reports of her ill health since the commencement of a hunger strike on December 14, 2014, now into its seventh week. We are equally troubled by Ms. Savchenko’s lack of access to her counsel and adequate medical attention. We demand that Russia abide by its international obligations and the rule of law, and we join the United States Department of State in calling for Nadiya Savchenko’s immediate release,” said Rep. Levin, co-chair of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus.
On February 12, a Senate resolution calling for the release of Ms. Savchenko was passed by unanimous consent. S. Res. 52, introduced on January 28, was sponsored by Helsinki Commission Senate Ranking Member Cardin, with Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Rodger Wicker (R-Miss.) as original co-sponsor. Other co-sponsors were Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Marco Rubio (R- Fla.) Observers noted that the resolution was passed within two weeks of its introduction, testifying to the concern over Lt. Savchenko’s dire situation.
The resolution condemned the government of the Russian Federation for its illegal imprisonment of Lt. Savchenko; called on Russia to immediately release her; called on the United States, its European allies and the international community to aggressively support diplomatic efforts to release Lt. Savchenko; and expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian people.” The resolution pointed out: “Nadiya Savchenko is the first-ever female fighter pilot in Ukraine’s armed forces and is an Iraqi war veteran.”
State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki on February 25 said the U.S. was “deeply concerned by today’s decision by a Russian court to continue the detention of Ukrainian Member of Parliament Nadiya Savchenko to May 13. … The United States deplores her continued ill-treatment and is deeply concerned by reports of her deteriorating health.” The U.S. called Russia’s detention and treatment of Lt. Savchenko “unacceptable” and called for her immediate release.
As Russian authorities repeatedly extended the pre-trial detention of the Ukrainian pilot, the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus yet again raised the Savchenko case, this time urging the co-chairs of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (formerly known as the Congressional Human Rights Caucus), to support her release. In their June 9 letter to the commission, Reps. Levin, Fitzpatrick, Kaptur and Pascrell wrote: “Since her capture and detention in July 2014, we have been concerned about her deteriorating condition. Savchenko has been subjected to psychiatric evaluations, solitary confinement and callous treatment by Russian authorities. She also did not receive adequate medical care, especially since her commencement of hunger strikes to protest the terms of her detention. We urge the commission to support Nadiya Savchenko’s release and facilitate passage of H. Res. 50.”
The House resolution, which was similar to the Senate resolution on the Savchenko case, was finally passed by the House of Representatives on September 22.