Bloomberg: The West has supported the wrong person in Ukraine

Photo: Facebook / Petro Poroshenko

Today it is becoming extremely clear that American politicians of the time of Obama supported the wrong person in Ukraine. In an effort to consolidate his power, President Poroshenko today is pushing aside the anti-corruption institutions that he was forced to create at the request of Ukraine’s western allies.

Such an opinion in his column for Bloomberg expressed journalist Leonid Bershidsky.

Poroshenko, who briefly held the post of Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, seemed to be a more sophisticated and practical politician than his predecessor, overthrown by President Viktor Yanukovych. In addition, he tolerably speaks English. Poroshenko and his first prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, knew that the US State Department and Vice President Joe Biden, whom the Obama administration appointed as its authorized representative for Ukraine, wanted to hear from them. Therefore, when Ukraine emerged from the revolutionary chaos, where it ended up in January and February 2014, the United States, and with them, the European Union supported Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk as the new leaders of Ukraine. Having enlisted such support, as well as promises to provide serious technical assistance and loans to the IMF, these people won the elections, representing the image of supporters of the West and those leaders who would lead Ukraine to Europe. But in practice it turned out that they are more concerned about their own interests.

When Ukraine was in dire need of Western money, Poroshenko and his political allies fulfilled the conditions for providing assistance. Among other things, the Ukrainian parliament voted to create an independent National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), which was supposed to investigate corruption, and also appointed a special anti-corruption prosecutor.

However, over time it became clear that although NABU and the prosecutor make loud statements and investigate hundreds of cases (today there are about 400), it is very difficult for them to support the accusations, because the unreformed basically judicial system is resisting them. The European and American allies of Ukraine demanded the creation of a special anti-corruption court. However, Poroshenko rather coolly reacted to this idea, noting that such an institution exists in a few countries. Despite the constant demands of the West, which are supported by a group of young pro-Western legislators, Poroshenko has not yet submitted a draft law on this court, although the Venice Commission analyzing the laws for the EU gave detailed recommendations on how this bill should look.

At the same time, Poroshenko’s close associate, Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko, began an open war against NABU. Last week, an employee of the anti-corruption bureau was detained, trying to transfer a bribe to an official from the migration service. After that, a search was conducted at the headquarters of NABU. The head of the anti-corruption committee Artem Sytnik said in response that the bribe was transferred as part of a special operation, which Lutsenko was not aware of. This did not stop the prosecutor general, who continued to attack Sytnik and his bureau, accusing them of conducting illegal operations, as well as unauthorized cooperation with the US Federal Bureau of Investigations.

Officially Poroshenko did not side with Lutsenko. However, he condemned all this quarrel.

“There is so much noise and screaming in it, so many feathers are flying that sometimes it resembles some kind of Latin American carnival. It would be funny if it were not so sad, ”he said.

However, the United States in this conflict openly sided with the NABU. On Monday, the State Department issued a statement in which it condemned "the breakdown of corruption investigations in high areas, the arrest of employees of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, and the confiscation of secret NABU documents." The State Department quoted the words of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said: “It makes no sense for Ukraine to fight for its body in the Donbas if it has given its soul to corruption. Anti-corruption institutions need to be supported, funded and protected. ”

However, it seems that Poroshenko has other plans.

Photo: Facebook / Petro Poroshenko

This year, Ukraine returned the IMF 270 million dollars more than it received from it. Against the background of modest economic growth, there was a stabilization of public finances. At the rate Bloomberg, the growth rate this year should be 2%. At the same time, the West has taken a clear position on the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Today, as never before, chances are high that the United States will deliver lethal weapons to Ukraine. Poroshenko clearly came to the conclusion that he will not be deprived of Western political support, as long as he stands in anti-Russian positions. And besides that, he does not have a strong need for financial assistance on a strict schedule. As long as Western leaders see Ukraine as a bulwark of resistance to Russia, it can behave inside the country in the same way as all other Ukrainian politicians of the old school, for whom there were no boundaries between power, money and brutal force.

Poroshenko’s tough actions against the main opponent, the former president of Georgia and the former governor of the Odessa region, Mikhail Saakashvili, show that the Ukrainian president can be as ruthless as Yanukovych. After an unsuccessful attempt to expel anti-corruption troublemaker Saakashvili from the territory of Ukraine, allegedly for fraudulently acquiring Ukrainian citizenship, law enforcement agencies of the country began to pursue and deport the allies of this Georgian politician. Finance Minister Alexander Danilyuk, who helped Saakashvili create an analytical center in Kiev, currently under investigation for financial violations, accused law enforcement agencies of “putting pressure on business and on those who want to change the country.” Danyluk himself is under investigation for tax evasion.

On Tuesday, investigators came with a search into Saakashvili’s Kiev apartment, and the former governor stood on the roof of his eight-story building for several minutes, threatening to jump off if they didn’t leave him alone. Then, Saakashvili was held for several hours in an unmarked police car near his house, and hundreds of his supporters prevented this car from leaving. Then the police released Saakashvili, and at the time of this writing, he was holding a rally in front of the Ukrainian parliament.

Today, even the most active Western supporters of the post-revolutionary Ukrainian government have realized that something is wrong with Poroshenko.

"Apparently, President Poroshenko refused to fight against corruption, from the desire for economic development and from financing the EU and the IMF," economist Anders Oslund, who had been optimistic about Ukrainian reforms, recently tweeted.

However, without the support of the West, Poroshenko would have achieved nothing and would not protect the non-transparent, corrupt and backward political system of Ukraine today. No friendly pressure will change it. If Ukrainians shake off their indifference and do with it what they did to Yanukovych, or do not re-elect him in 2019, this error should not be repeated. In Ukraine, it is not easy to find a young, principled and sincerely interested in European policy orientation. But there are such people. Otherwise, Western politicians and analysts will continue to be amazed, looking at how another representative of the old elite suddenly became very much like Yanukovych.

Translation of the article prepared edition Inosmi.

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