The Obama administration took way too long to recognize the global threat posed by Russia’s menacing dictator Vladimir Putin, who is guilty of war crimes, murder of political opponents and massive human rights abuses. We hope it’s not too late for the Kremlin’s victims, including Ukraine, which has had 10,000 people killed in Putin’s war since 2014.
In belated admission of one of his many foreign policy shortcomings during eight years in office, U.S. President Barack Obama made mention of Ukraine in his Jan. 18 final White House press conference as president. He also urged his successor, Donald Trump, to keep the heat on Russia until it ends its three-year war against Ukraine. His representative to the United Nations, Samantha Power, on Jan. 17 devoted her farewell address to warning the world about the Russian threat, as did U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Obama dispatched Biden for his sixth visit to Ukraine as vice president on Jan. 16. His tenure amounted to a consolation prize for Ukraine, since Obama didn’t bother to visit the nation during his presidency, the first since Ronald Reagan not to do so.
Biden has admirably represented America’s principled yet weak policy on Ukraine. In his Jan. 16 statement in Kyiv, he showed that he grasps the situation clearly. He rightly didn’t come to heap praise on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at all. Instead, he made it abundantly clear he came to support the Ukrainian people.
We like the “ifs” in his speech the best, because they served as a warning for Poroshenko and Ukraine’s political leaders that the days of unconditional support for them in Russia’s war is over – if they ever existed at all.
“If you continue carrying your progress forward, then not only will you continue to build a more open, more democratic, more prosperous future that the Ukrainian people deserve, you will keep the international community united behind you in that effort,” Biden said.
And later in the speech: “And if you can continue to make progress, Mr. President, if you keep doing the hard work and making the difficult choices to put Ukraine first, I promise you the American people will stand with you. This next year is going to be a very, very telling year – a very telling year.”
The message seems clear enough to us: Clean up your act on corruption or risk losing international support.
It is gratifying that Biden doesn’t stop at condemning Russia and also frequently takes Ukraine’s leaders to task for not combating corruption.
The Donald Trump era poses many dangers for Ukraine. One of the worst of them is that the new administration will simply ignore Ukraine.
Considering Trump’s fond embrace of Putin, it’s likely that Ukraine will not see a U.S. president or vice president on its soil for many years.
