As Ukraine celebrates the 26th year of its independence, the whole country seems to be marking time. At the front in the Donbas, Russia’s war on Ukraine is a deadly stalemate — while soldiers die every week in clashes, the front line remains largely unmoving.
Around the negotiating table in Minsk, peace talks to end the Kremlin’s military intervention and restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity are going round in circles, according to the U.S. special envoy on Ukraine, Kurt Volker.
In Kyiv, it’s politics as usual, almost as it was before the EuroMaidan Revolution, with a powerful president lording over what is still, at its core, an oligarchical system. The country’s leader, who was elected in May 2014 with a mandate to implement sweeping change, now seems to be doing all in his power to prevent it.
The reform of the police service was largely cosmetic, and judicial reform is being sabotaged. Health reform faces stiff opposition. The foreigners who came into government to help Ukraine have almost all left, their efforts stymied.
But, in the words of the country’s stirring national anthem, “Ukraine has not yet perished.” There is still hope for progress in several areas.
First, the United States may well start to provide Ukraine with defensive weapons. Far from destabilizing the military situation in the country, such a move would make further Russian aggression less likely by raising the cost of military action by Russia’s proxy forces to an unacceptably high level. And as the years go by, Ukraine’s defenses get stronger, and Russia options grow fewer. Its military is already entangled in another theater, in Syria, and the Kremlin is spending billions to support the parts of Ukraine it has invaded. Sooner or later, the Kremlin will have to do a deal, we believe — and it will be sooner if Ukraine gets those U.S. weapons.
Second, despite the efforts of Ukraine’s leaders, the newly created National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine is making slight but significant progress in tackling endemic corruption.
Third, Ukraine’s economy has returned to growth, and the World Bank predicts a rise of 3.5 percent in the country’s GDP in 2018. If there are more efforts to reform, and no escalation in the war, the news this time next year could be much better.
