This is the time of year to be thankful for all that went right in 2017. For Ukraine, the year had notable successes and could have been much worse.
Russia’s war, still deadly, stayed enough in check for Ukraine to govern and try to build the nation in its 26th year since regaining independence.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump didn’t abandon Ukraine, as many feared he would do. Instead, American policy has remained supportive, thanks mainly to Congress and Trump’s advisers. While Trump’s adoration of Russian President Vladimir Putin is worrisome, hopefully U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller will provide some more answers in 2018.
Ukraine’s economy grew slightly, but nowhere near as much as it needs to do to keep its population in the nation.
Hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in May and winning visa-free travel to most of Europe in June were the two crowning achievements.
Eurovision showed that Ukraine can host first-class events, just like it did during the Euro 2012 football championships. Visa-free travel gave Ukrainians self-confidence by ending the humiliating and costly requirement of getting visas simply to travel abroad for short trips.
But reversals threaten on many fronts.
The year ends with protests in the streets, warnings from Western partners and ongoing obstruction in the war on corruption by President Petro Poroshenko, the ruling oligarchs and their appointed and anointed allies like Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko.
If Poroshenko loses his 2019 re-election, he has only himself to blame. He squandered the hopes of a nation that rose up and overthrew the criminal Viktor Yanukovych regime on Feb. 22, 2014, during the 100-day EuroMaidan Revolution. Instead of pursuing justice, Poroshenko cut deals to block or stall meaningful reform of the police, prosecutors and courts. The changes that occurred, including the “new” Supreme Court, were ornamental or incremental. Now Ukraine will never experience any credible investigations of those who deserve them: Yanukovych, Leonid Kuchma, Rinat Akhmetov, Ihor Kolomoisky, Gennadiy Bogolyubov, Dmytro Firtash, Yuriy Boyko, Arsen Avakov, Yuriy Lutsenko, Boris Lozhkin, Roman Nasirov, Mykola Martynenko and many other public and powerful but
tainted figures. And parliamentary immunity from prosecution remains.
The only way for Poroshenko to recover is to quickly strengthen independent anti-corruption institutions, from investigative to prosecutorial and judicial. He doesn’t have it in him: Doing so would require an aboutface that betrays the corrupt status quo and his oligarchic backers.
Instead of holding clean elections in 2019, Poroshenko is keeping in place the discredited Yanukovych-era Central Election Commission and dirty campaign financing. Instead of introducing transparency to security and defense spending, the fastest-growing segment of the state budget at $5 billion, scandals are breaking out involving the new “black hole” of private enrichment at the public expense of those close to Poroshenko or others in power.
This nation has lost at least $60 billion to corruption ($40 billion during the Yanukovych era from 2010–2014; $20 billion in bank fraud in the last decade). It continues to lose money through legalized schemes such as the senseless Rotterdam+ coal-pricing formula that unfairly enriches
domestic producers.
The oligarchs dominate Ukraine’s media, so don’t expect to hear much about reform, rule of law or strengthening the anti-corruption fight from their news outlets.
Ukrainians are losing faith. Ukraine’s political elite continue to act in their own private, often oligopolistic or monopolistic, interests. Millions of Ukrainians have emigrated abroad. More will follow.
Ukraine’s endemic corruption makes the nation more vulnerable to Russia’s war and throws the ultimate victory into doubt. Fools call for compromise, not realizing or not caring that the compromises so far
have come from the Ukrainian people, not their leaders.
That’s why 2018 is shaping up as another one of perilous uncertainty. If Ukraine’s leaders think the people will allow high corruption and low growth for much longer, they are mistaken. The hryvnia continues its slide — now at 28/$1 and likely to sink below 30/$1 next year.
There are ways to save the situation. But the West needs to ride Ukraine’s leaders hard and finally realize that no reforms will come unless Ukraine’s leaders are pushed by the nation’s friends in support
of the justice and fairness that the Ukrainian people want and deserve.
