You're reading: Obama joins Biden in White House meeting with Yatsenyuk, other Ukrainian officials

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Shape up, Arseniy, Ukraine is running out of chances. That was the essence of U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden’s speech to close the U.S.-Ukraine Business Forum on July 13 in Washington, D.C.

Biden mixed high praise with pointed warnings for Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to start actively curbing and punishing corruption in the nation.

Yatsenyuk sat in the audience of 150 people and took it all in.

Biden invited him to a private meeting in his office afterwards, joined by U.S. President Barack Obama. Participants said that Obama reinforced Biden’s message that the United States will continue to strongly support Ukraine, but Ukraine’s leaders need to make progress on corruption and rule of law. The meeting lasted more than an hour and, besides Yatsenyuk, was joined by Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt and other U.S. and Ukrainian officials.

In his speech, the American vice president called corruption an “affront to the dignity of the people of Ukraine,” and said: “Ukrainians know in their bones, it’s not enough to talk about changes, we have to deliver change, you have to deliver change.

“Ukraine has a strategy and new laws to fight corruption,” Biden said. “Now you have to put people in jail.”

Investigating, prosecuting and trying Ukrainian officials and ex-officials for crime and corruption at all levels, ranging from murder to multibillion-dollar theft and even smaller crimes, remains a glaring weakness of the tandem of President Petro Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk.

Biden, who visited Ukraine three times last year and made 36 calls in the last months with Poroshenko, said corruption has been the “topic of almost all of our calls.”

Failure to take action and create accountable, transparent institutions may cost Ukraine its chance to become a prosperous democracy, Biden said. To do so, he said, Yatsenyuk and other political leaders in Ukraine need to govern transparently and take into account civil society’s interests.

Ukraine

U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, Ukranian Prime Minister Arseniy Tatsenyuk and Ukranian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko attend a U.S.-Ukraine business forum at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce July 13 in Washington, DC. The conference, titled U.S.-Ukraine Business Forum: Choices for Growth, brought together business leaders from the two countries for high-level talks aiming to advance the Ukrainian economy. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP

But prosperity will not come from soldiers or activists, Biden said. “It will come from investors. Any experiment in democratization not followed by economic growth has failed.”

Transparency, rule of law, an independent media, an accountable judiciary and consistent enforcement of laws are needed. Without these institutions, business leaders are “unlikely to invest in Ukraine or anywhere else.”

“The changes being enacted now have to be real and lasting,” Biden said. “It cannot be reforms on paper. It has to be tangible for business leaders, civil society and ordinary citizens.”

Creating a Ukraine that is “unable to be bribed, coerced or intimidated,” is the goal, Biden said. “Imagine what that kind of success will mean for the rest of central and eastern Europe.”

Biden described Ukraine’s post-EuroMaidan Revolution government (which replaced ex-President Viktor Yanukokvych) as having “one last chance” and, talking to Yatsenyuk directly from the stage, said: “This is it Mr. prime minister. The next couple years, the next couple months will go a long way to telling the tale… Success in Ukraine will tell a story about what Europe will look like in the next 10 or 15 years.”

Biden also singled out two people for individual praise: Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who he asked to stand up and be recognized and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt.

He praised Jaresko for her excellent work in guiding Ukraine’s economy. “You’re doing a great job,” he said. He praised Pyatt as “the best we have in the entire foreign policy establishment.”

U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, who co-hosted the event with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in America, made it clear that the Obama administration will be supportive, but watching for results. She said her next visit (following one last September) will be to review accomplishments and “to celebrate publicly anybody progress that has been made.”

Biden, who is believed to favor supplying Ukraine with lethal weapons for help in defense against Russia’s war, did not raise the issue. U.S. President Barack Obama is against arms supplies to Ukraine.

Biden said that America would, however, continue supporting sanctions against Russia until the Kremlin follows the Minsk peace agreements in February and returns to Ukraine full control of its eastern borders by year’s end.

Biden also recounted the American aid package — $2 billion in loan guarantees with another $1 billion this year if Ukraine makes progress on reform; $470 million in direct financial aid.

He leavened his criticism by sprinkling his speech with numerous accomplishments that Ukraine has made, including cutting its consumption of Russian gas from 60 percent of its total in 2010 to 15 percent today. He urged Ukraine to keep doing so “to reduce that reliance and thereby the stranglehold that Russia has on Ukraine.”

He said that “the prime minister and I have become friends and I mean that seriously,” and said Yatsenyuk performed a difficult job “increasingly well and formed a great partnership with the president and, God willing, we will continue to do that well.”

But he frequently returned to his caveats.

“As long as you keep faith with the community, build a more democratic, just and prosperous Ukraine, you will never be alone…America will always be by your side.”

Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected]