the last book I ever read (Serhy Yekelchyk's Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know, excerpt thirteen)

from Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know by Serhy Yekelchyk:

In the election held on July 21, 2019, Servant of the People won an outright majority in the parliament by securing 254 seats of 450, and for the first time in the history of independent Ukraine, the winning party did not need to join any coalitions. The pro-Russian opposition, now organized as the tandem of the Opposition Platform and the new party For Life, came second with 43 seats; followed by Tymoshenko’s Fatherland with 26, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc with 25, and the new party Voice with 20. It is telling that the Servant of the People won in both colleges: it received 124 seats of the 225 awarded based on the nationwide vote for party lists and 130 seats of the 199 in the first-by-the-post territorial electoral districts. (The total number of the latter was also 225, but 26 were in areas not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities.)

the last book I ever read (Serhy Yekelchyk's Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know, excerpt twelve)

from Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know by Serhy Yekelchyk:

All the calculations and strategies that these main players had developed for the campaign were confounded on New Year’s Eve, when the popular comedian Volodymyr Zelensky announced on television his intention to participate in the election. Zelensky represented the direct opposite of establishment candidates—he had zero political experience and the mien of an honest everyman. A successful entrepreneur, he rose to fame as the star of an unpretentious Russian-language comedy television show, but he also possessed the Charlie Chaplin–like charisma of a “little man” refusing to accept this world’s injustices. The latter came out clearly in a television series called Servant of the People, where Zelensky played a lowly history teacher who accidentally becomes the president and attempts to build a more equitable Ukraine. The runaway success of this series gave Zelensky and his supporters the idea of transitioning into politics, and early secret polling showed that he could do very well in an election. Zelensky’s open acknowledgment of being Jewish did not hurt his popularity at all, contradicting the stereotype of Ukrainian anti-Semitism.

By the beginning of March, Zelensky’s candidacy came to dominate the polls, leaving all others to fight over a place in the run-offs. Shrewdly, he and his advisors delayed until the last moment the release of any platform, which meant that voters ascribed to him the intentions of his popular television persona. Zelensky did not speak against the Ukrainian language and culture but downplayed such issues by stressing that peace and reforms had to take precedence. He managed to undercut his main rivals by attracting voters from across the ethno-linguistic spectrum—both Ukrainian-and Russian-speakers, who, for quite different reasons, felt disillusioned with Poroshenko and his traditional opponents. Meanwhile, Poroshenko had to use all his considerable powers as president and oligarchical owner of two television channels to secure second place in the race. He campaigned on the slogan, “The army, the language, and faith,” but even during the de facto war with Russia, such a narrowly national-patriotic program appealed to only a small sector of the electorate. Poroshenko’s unsuccessful attempt to introduce martial law after the Russians captured Ukrainian navy boats in the Strait of Kerch in November 2018 undermined his posture as commander-in-chief. Erupting just before the election, a corruption scandal over military acquisitions involving his longtime business partner, then serving as deputy chairman of the Council of National Security and Defense, made the president’s slogans about the army ring hollow.

the last book I ever read (Serhy Yekelchyk's Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know, excerpt eleven)

from Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know by Serhy Yekelchyk:

In this context, Biden’s micro-management of Ukrainian politics was nothing out of the ordinary. When an independent Ukrainian parliamentarian with KGB and Russian connections released to the public in May 2020 audio clips from 2015 and 2016, purported to be from Biden’s (and then Secretary of State John Kerry’s) phone calls with President Poroshenko, there was nothing there even close to the “favor” Trump asked of Zelensky in July. What stood out in these tapes was how closely the United States was involved in forcing the various Ukrainian reformist parties to work together, as well as in pushing through major anti-corruption measures. Although the tapes confirm the well-known story of Biden making US $1 billion in American loan guarantees conditional on the removal of the then Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in 2016, Biden never denied this and, in fact, spoke repeatedly of this episode.

Although Poroshenko saw Shokin as a reliable ally, the Ukrainian public disagreed, giving him a stunning negative rating of 73.2 percent in a February 2016 poll. By then, the US ambassador, EU representatives, the IMF, and leading Ukrainian anti-corruption groups denounced Shokin for blocking decisive anti-corruption measures and the much-needed reform of the prosecution system. His own deputy resigned because of the alleged corruption and politicking in the Prosecutor General’s Office. Biden’s 2016 ultimatum to Poroshenko was thus completely in line with the opinion of Western diplomats and the Ukrainian public. Shokin was forced to resign, not because he was investigating the wrong people, but because he was not investigating them with sufficient vigor. Nobody in Ukraine protested his removal.

the last book I ever read (Serhy Yekelchyk's Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know, excerpt ten)

from Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know by Serhy Yekelchyk:

As a US senator, Joe Biden has cultivated an interest in European affairs and, more specifically, in the Soviet Union and its successor states. Between 2001 and 2009 he served three times as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Biden’s foreign policy experience was one of the reasons that Barack Obama picked him as running mate in 2008.

As vice president between 2009 and 2017, Biden visited Ukraine six times, sometimes making a brief stop on a larger tour of Europe or the United States’ strategic allies in Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The Obama administration saw Ukraine, together with the Republic of Georgia, as the two keystone states in the region; both also experienced Russian aggression. To Ukrainian politicians and the public at large, Biden’s frequent visits symbolized American commitment to building a strong, independent Ukraine free of corruption and rule by cronyism. During one trip to Ukraine, in February 2014, Biden witnessed the revolution on the Maidan entering its crucial stage. All of this made him popular with patriotic Ukrainians, who realized nonetheless that their fight for freedom enjoyed bipartisan support in the United States. The late Republican senator John McCain also visited often and spoke even more strongly in support of the EuroMaidan; there is now a street in the Ukrainian capital named after him.

the last book I ever read (Serhy Yekelchyk's Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know, excerpt nine)

from Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know by Serhy Yekelchyk:

When the news broke in Ukraine, the public likewise focused more on the Ukrainian politicians who were implicated, especially the ones still prominent in public life. The then head of the Central Electoral Commission, Mykhailo Okhendovsky, was the only one to be officially charged, although in the end his case did not go to trial, as was common in cases of political figures. In early June, Leshchenko testified at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, but then the summer began and with it, the dead season in Ukrainian politics. In mid-August Leshchenko broke some sensational news that was immediately confirmed by the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau: The black ledger also listed the American lobbyist and political consultant Paul Manafort. He was well known in Ukraine as a long-serving advisor to Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions. Manafort was credited with rebuilding Yanukovych’s image inside Ukraine after his defeat in the Orange Revolution of 2004–2005, as well as making him more acceptable to American decision makers during his tenure as president from 2010. Little was known at the time about his role during the EuroMaidan Revolution; subsequently, messages allegedly hacked from his daughter’s phone in 2017 seemed to suggest that he had proposed a violent scenario to end the revolution after a staged provocation, 10 but he was also involved in early attempts to rebuild the pro-Russian forces into a viable opposition after the EuroMaidan Revolution. Not only did Manafort work for the discredited Yanukovych and other pro-Russian forces in Ukraine but also he had known connections to Russian oligarchs. His account in the black ledger was also one of the largest, with a total of US $ 12.7 million recorded between 2007 and 2012. (Two prominent businessmen who sat in parliament as members of Yanukovych’s party signed as intermediaries on these disbursements.)

For all the right reasons that patriotic Ukrainians had to dislike Manafort, the timing of Leshchenko’s revelation was highly suspicious. Since June 2016 Manafort had been the manager of Trump’s presidential campaign, and the release of any compromising material on him was bound to harm it. It is also telling that the announcement came from someone better known as a controversial investigative journalist than a politician, although the head of the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency conveniently confirmed Leshchenko’s words right away, adding that a name in the ledger in and of itself did not prove anything. The ever-present factionalism in Ukrainian politics and Leshchenko’s reputation as a loose cannon cast some doubt on conspiracy theories presenting this affair as Ukraine’s state policy of interference in the US elections. But even if one accepts the view that the Ukrainian authorities sought plausible denial by allowing Leshchenko to break the story, Manafort’s transgressions were very real, and concealing this information about his entries in the black ledger would have constituted interference as well, benefiting the Trump camp. The Poroshenko administration found itself in a predicament, and its strategy of issuing only a limited confirmation of Leshchenko’s story from the technically independent National Anti-Corruption Bureau was likely the safest choice. Doing so meant leaving this matter up to the American justice system.

the last book I ever read (Serhy Yekelchyk's Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know, excerpt eight)

from Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know by Serhy Yekelchyk:

Since President Yanukovych’s last-minute reversal on concluding this agreement was the last straw that unleashed the revolt, the new Ukrainian authorities sought to sign it as quickly as possible. The Association Agreement does not offer Ukraine a clear accession path to the European Union, as many media commentators have assumed. Its tangible benefits for Ukraine include free trade with the European Union and, at some unspecified point in the future, visa-free travel for Ukrainian citizens. In the long run, the treaty committed Ukraine to aligning its legislation and production standards with that of the European Union, a process to be supported by Western funding.

The Russian government objected to Ukraine’s agreement with the European Union on ideological and geopolitical grounds, but advanced an economic argument as its primary reservation. Because Ukraine also had free trade with Russia, European goods could enter Russia through Ukraine with no tariffs being collected on either border. Expressing concern over lost revenues and damage to the economy, Russia threatened retaliatory economic measures. The European leaders paid attention, not so much because of this threat, as because Russia had just annexed the Crimea. As a result, Ukraine and the European Union took the unusual step of dividing the Association Agreement into two parts, general political and economic, and then signing each part separately. In order to provide symbolic closure to the EuroMaidan Revolution, Prime Minister Yatseniuk went to Brussels on March 21, 2014, to sign the mostly declarative political clauses.

the last book I ever read (Serhy Yekelchyk's Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know, excerpt seven)

from Ukraine: What Everyone Needs To Know by Serhy Yekelchyk:

The new cabinet was sworn in on December 2, 2014, just as the first Minsk ceasefire collapsed and fierce fighting resumed in the Donbas. During the next two months, the hryvnia went over a cliff, causing the population to empty supermarket shelves. The government desperately needed the next installment of the IMF loan, but it was only after some painful military defeats and a second Minsk agreement in February 2015 that it could push through some austerity measures, making the funding possible. On March 2 the parliament approved measures that would see household energy bills triple and also reduce some categories of state pensions. The IMF immediately disbursed US $5 billion with another US $5 billion promised within a year, an announcement that halted the hryvnia’s free-fall. Yet, all sides understood that Ukraine needed a lasting peace to start serious economic reforms.