WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump called Kurt Volker, the U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations, to a White House meeting for a report on first impressions about President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, after Volker attended the new Ukrainian leader’s inauguration in Kyiv on May 20.
Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s headquarters in downtown Washington on May 29, Volker said that he also met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after he returned from the Ukrainian capital.
Volker said his meetings with Trump and Pompeo showed Ukraine is an important issue for the American administration.
“There is a very clear and strong understanding that this is a moment that matters for Ukraine and we should be reaching out and engaging as much as possible,” Volker said. “Ukraine’s future is going to be determined in the next few months leading up to the parliamentary elections, and America and the West must demonstrate they are going to stand by Ukraine.”
Trump called Zelenskiy to congratulate him after his April 21 victory and Volker said a meeting between the two leaders is being seriously considered.
Volker, who spearheads America’s efforts to end Russian aggression in Ukraine, was speaking to a room packed with diplomats, political analysts, politicians, journalists and students.
He praised Ukraine’s presidential elections as free and fair with a peaceful transfer of power.
He also credited former President Petro Poroshenko with having presided over more reforms than any previous Ukrainian administration since 1991 independence and stepping down gracefully after losing the elections.
He mentioned that in the period leading up to the elections, Poroshenko “was complaining to us that we weren’t doing enough to support him” and said he told him that the U.S. “doesn’t pick people… we stand for principles and policies.”
‘Zelenskiy must stay credible’
Volker said he found Zelenskiy to be “very substantive, very knowledgeable, very detailed and he gave me a very clear commitment to changing Ukraine.”
Volker denied he had criticized Zelenskiy’s choice of Andriy Bohdan to head the presidential administration saying it was “not our place” to do so.
Bohdan is a lawyer for Ihor Kolomoisky, a notorious oligarch accused of defrauding Ukraine’s largest bank of $5.5 billion. The bank was nationalized in 2016 and the budget gap had to be filled with Ukrainian taxpayers’ money. Kolomoisky’s TV channel 1+1 broadcasted Zelenskiy’s comedy shows, bringing him fame and wealth. The channel and Kolomoisky also backed Zelenskiy’s election campaign.
Some fear Kolomoisky will try, via Bohdan, to quash attempts to retrieve the missing billions and bring the oligarch to trial.
“Our best advice to the president was that he must be credible… people now have expectations of him. He can either enhance those credentials or he can cause people to question those credentials through the appointments that he makes or actions he takes,” Volker said.
The special representative believes that how Zelenskiy behaves now will be critical to retaining popular support in the July parliamentary elections and gaining authority to fulfill his agenda.
He said Ukraine must intrinsically change its political system where currently vast wealth and immense power are concentrated in the hands of a few oligarchs.
“Corruption is not the problem, corruption is the symptom. The problem is that you have five or six people who own a disproportionate share of the economy and through that have disproportionate control over political parties, the Rada, the courts and the media,” Volker said.
That, he said, creates a fundamentally corrupt system overall which discourages the foreign investment essential for Ukraine’s development.
He suggested one step toward change would be to work closely with Brussels to ensure that Ukrainian institutions and government departments comply with European Union regulations and standards.
Another would be to offer oligarchs the chance to divest themselves of assets in return for compensation, pay a one-time tax and, and gain amnesty from prosecution. If they did not cooperate, the government should sell their assets, apply a bigger tax and prosecute them.
Such a course would not be easy and would require much effort, said Volker. “But I think something dramatic like that would need to happen as a way to really change the system.”
Russia not serious about peace talks
Volker said his talks with the Kremlin had been stalled throughout 2018, with no communication from the Russian side but he wants to try to reconnect.
However, Volker said he was not optimistic Moscow would respond positively because Russia has not made any conciliatory gestures since Zelenskiy was elected. Instead it has increased tension by distributing Russian passports to separatists in Ukraine and ignored calls for an Easter ceasefire.
“So we’re not optimistic they’re ready to engage now,” he said, and added he was concerned that Russia was content with the present, destabilizing situation, which it believes provides leverage over Kyiv and can be sustained for a long time.
He referred to a recent meeting between Secretary of State Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The Russian minister described the conflict in Donbas as a Ukrainian internal problem which he suggested Kyiv should resolve by negotiating with the Kremlin puppet Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
Volker said Moscow was completely denying any responsibility, and added: “That’s just not a serious position.”
Volker said Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin might meet in Japan next month because in addition to Ukraine, the U.S. has plenty of other disagreements with Moscow over such matters as arms control, nuclear issues, Syria, North Korea and China.
“We would like our leaders to meet and talk and cool it off a bit and find something they can do constructively, and that is not saying we don’t care about Ukraine,” said Volker.
But he said regardless of whether or not there is progress in talks with Moscow, the U.S. is determined for Ukraine to be “succeeding and a sustainable and reforming democracy and becoming part of the Western community.”
