As newly sworn-in U.S. President Donald Trump made his inauguration address in Washington, he promised to break with the foreign policy of outgoing President Barack Obama. Nowhere is the threatening ambiguity of that promise being felt more acutely than in Ukraine, which was a priority of the Obama administration and which continues to fight a proxy war with Russia in the east of the country that by conservative estimates has claimed some 10,000 lives.
During his last week in office former Vice President Joe Biden was in Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for his fifth trip to the country since the Maidan protests that ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. Throughout his tenure at the White House, Biden played the unofficial role of the administration’s special envoy to Ukraine, and since the 2016 election, has worked to instill Ukraine’s importance on the new administration. Asked if he thought his efforts were successful, Biden responded only that “hope spring eternal.”
