Array ( [0] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 4109 [post_author] => 64 [post_date] => 2019-09-28 12:00:20 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-09-28 12:00:20 [post_content] =>

With Tuesday’s announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Democratic lawmakers will launch a formal impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump, the US president’s latest alleged effort to recruit a foreign government to improve his chances of election poses the greatest threat yet to his political survival. Remarkably, however, it is because of Trump’s dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, not Russian President Vladimir Putin, that he is poised to become the fourth president in American history to face impeachment.

It is remarkable because many of the president’s critics have spent the thirty-two months that he has been in office awaiting the discovery of the smoking gun proving that his 2016 presidential campaign colluded with the Russian government. In their reading of the tea leaves, Ukraine’s role was that of a potential victim of a Russian-American grand bargain, to be struck by Putin and Trump at a presidential summit meeting without notetakers present. Kiev was in most US commentators’ eyes an actor without agency simply waiting for the axe to fall,[1] first in the form of US abandonment, then in the form of a conclusive Russian takeover of the country.

Far from being helpless, Ukraine has found itself able to either aid Trump in his upcoming showdown with the House of Representatives by denying any impropriety or deliver a blow to his presidency by confirming the worst fears of House Democrats. Zelensky has so far deftly navigated the affair, emphasising[2] that hundreds of millions of dollars in defence assistance are on their way to Kiev and promising[3] to invite Trump to the Ukrainian capital. He has assured that ‘no one can put pressure on me’,[4] while his top diplomat has stressed that ‘there was no pressure’ on Zelensky to reopen Kiev’s 2014–6 Burisma investigation,[5] which Trump’s allies insist then Vice President Joe Biden intervened to shut down because of his son’s role as a paid board member. Inside the Zelensky administration, officials have been prohibited from commenting on the matter,[6] but outside the Bankova’s walls there are hints of amusement at the present state of affairs. ‘[N]ow everyone understands what we [Ukraine] are capable of’, the former foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin recently quipped on Twitter.[7]

Ukraine only found itself in the crosshairs of Trump and his allies earlier this year, after conservative commentators turned their attention to the country’s role in assisting the FBI’s investigation of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort as well as their conspiracy theory regarding Joe Biden and the Burisma investigation. Although there had been murmurs in Trumpworld about a January 2017 Politico article claiming that Ukraine’s government had hoped for, and tried to bring about, Hillary Clinton’s election in 2016,[8] there was no real indication that Trump intended to punish Kiev until this past spring. Despite his allies’ 2016 removal of a call for the sale of lethal arms to Ukraine from that year’s Republican Party platform,[9] widely cited as evidence of Trump’s pro-Russian sympathies, Trump did not attempt to abandon, confront, or strong-arm Ukraine upon taking office.

On the contrary, Trump not only continued to morally[10] and materially support Ukraine in its war with Russian-backed separatists but also presided over an increase in military aid, quantitatively[11] and qualitatively[12]. Most ironically, his administration—not Congress—even crossed a line[13] left uncrossed by the Barack Obama administration, regarded[14] as dangerous by some of its alumni, and, as mentioned above, opposed by Trump allies in 2016 in deciding to sell lethal arms to Ukraine.

When the pressure campaign finally came, it was not in the context of Trump’s failed pursuit of improved relations with Russia. Rather, Trump acted to promote his own interests, not a foreign government’s, declining to rule out the provision of hundreds of millions of dollars in defence assistance and the sale of even more lethal weapons but implicitly tying such aid to the reopening of the Burisma investigation in his July 25 call with Zelensky. A move[15] that struck some observers as yet another concession to Moscow turned out to be for purely personal (and electoral) purposes. And far from being compelled by one post-Soviet government’s possession of kompromat, Trump, unforced, gave some to another, even if Washington’s release of a rough transcript of the call diminished its utility for Kiev.

Indeed, Moscow bears so little relevance to the Trump-Zelensky affair that few members of Congress have focused on its Russian dimension in their statements, preferring to stress the aspect that is most obvious and that most closely resembles an impeachable offense: Trump’s attempt to pressure a foreign government into assisting his re-election bid. For (most) House Democrats, there is no need to play up a Russian connection when the spectre of a Trump re-election blatantly aided by a foreign government wholly suffices.[16] Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Russia is presently viewed as a greater concern in the context of a renewed European push for peace in the east than it is in the context of the Trump-Zelensky affair.[17]

That said, many aspects of the story are unsurprising, affirming what we already know about the Trump administration and its foreign policy. Trump engages in what is widely understood to be self-dealing and, to this end, freely intervenes in other countries’ domestic affairs. He is open to the recruitment of foreign governments to improve his chances of election, as his campaign was in 2016. And his administration has no qualms about withholding defence assistance and other forms of foreign aid in service of its domestic political agenda.

As such, the Trump-Zelensky affair, which of course may yet fail to unseat the president, is an upset only insofar as it upends expectations regarding Trump’s dealings with Russia and Ukraine. The latter, after all, has already come closer to ousting him than the former—a far cry from the focus of Trump critics on the Mueller investigation and their view of Ukraine as a mere victim of Trump’s transactional foreign policy.

Instead, Trump’s transactional foreign policy has arguably inadvertently empowered Ukraine to shape the US president’s political future and reminded US lawmakers of the need to reaffirm and maintain support for reforms in Ukraine. And it has provided the latest evidence of what we already know to be true about his foreign policy, tendencies of his that will likely feature prominently in House Democrats’ case for impeachment.

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Photo by The Presidential Office of Ukraine, published under Creative Commons with no changes made.

[1] Christopher Miller, Anxious Ukraine Holds Its Breath Ahead of Trump-Putin Summit, RFE/RL, July 2018, https://www.rferl.org/a/anxious-ukraine-trump-putin-summit/29357195.html

[2] Kim Sengupta, Zelensky defends relationship with US after Trump accused of pushing Ukraine to meddle in 2020 election, Independent, September 2019, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-ukraine-joe-biden-military-aid-zelensky-kiev-a9111106.html

[3] Christopher Miller, Twitter post, September 2019, https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1176595764002414592

[4] Christopher Miller, Twitter post, September 2019, https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1176777713232896000

[5] Hromadske International, “Trump Did Not Pressure Zelenskyy, Ukraine Is Independent State - Foreign Minister Prystaiko, September 2019, https://en.hromadske.ua/posts/trump-did-not-pressure-zelenskyy-we-are-independent-state-prystaiko

[6] Christopher Miller, Amid Trump-Biden Tug-Of-War, Anxious Ukraine Ponders How to Proceed, RFE/RL, September 2018, https://www.rferl.org/a/amid-trump-biden-tug-of-war-anxious-ukraine-ponders-how-to-proceed/30177810.html

[7] Pavlo Klimkin, Twitter post, September 2019, https://twitter.com/PavloKlimkin/status/1176736459455422465

[8] Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern, Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire, Politico, November 2017, https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446

[9] Josh Rogin, Trump campaign guts GOP’s anti-Russia stance on Ukraine, Washington Post, July 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-campaign-guts-gops-anti-russia-stance-on-ukraine/2016/07/18/98adb3b0-4cf3-11e6-a7d8-13d06b37f256_story.html

[10] RFE/RL, ‘Crimea Must be Returned to Ukraine,’ US Tells Russia, February 2019, https://www.rferl.org/a/us-tells-russia-crimea-must-be-returned/29794421.html

[11] RFE/RL, Pentagon To Give Additional $250 Million In Military Aid to Ukraine, June 2019, https://www.rferl.org/a/pentagon-to-give-additional-250-million-in-military-aid-to-ukraine/30006853.html

[12] Financial Times, Trump to supply Ukraine military with weapons, December 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/b872e268-e7ea-11e7-bd17-521324c81e23

[13] Josh Rogin, Trump administration approves lethal arms sales to Ukraine, Washington Post, December 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/12/20/trump-administration-approves-lethal-arms-sales-to-ukraine/

[14] Charles Kupchan, Why giving Ukraine lethal weapons would be a massive mistake, Washington Post, August 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/08/07/why-giving-ukraine-lethal-weapons-would-be-a-massive-mistake/

[15] Karoun Demirjian, Josh Dawsey, Ellen Nakashima and Carol D. Leonnig, Trump ordered hold on military aid days before calling Ukrainian president, officials say, Washington Post, September 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-ordered-hold-on-military-aid-days-before-calling-ukrainian-president-officials-say/2019/09/23/df93a6ca-de38-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html

[16] Alexandra Hutzler, Nancy Pelosi says Russia ‘had a hand’ in Trump Ukraine whistleblower debacle, September 2019, https://www.newsweek.com/nancy-pelosi-says-russia-played-role-trump-ukraine-whistleblower-1461792 

[17] Oleksiy Sorokin, What is the ‘Steinmeier Formula’ and why are so many Ukrainians against it?, Kyiv Post, September 2019, https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/the-steinmeier-formula-isnt-bad-its-consequences-might-be.html

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[post_title] => In the end, it's Ukraine, not Russia, that threatens to bring down Trump [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => in-the-end-its-ukraine-not-russia-that-threatens-to-bring-down-trump [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2019-09-28 12:39:08 [post_modified_gmt] => 2019-09-28 12:39:08 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://fpc.org.uk/?p=4109 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 3350 [post_author] => 64 [post_date] => 2019-05-20 09:00:20 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-05-20 09:00:20 [post_content] =>

With his inauguration today, the presidency of Volodymyr Zelensky is upon us. Zelensky, a political outsider who ran on an explicitly anti-establishment platform and ousted incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in a second round of voting that saw Zelensky receive nearly three-quarters of the national vote, has been inaugurated and is likely to set about making major policy and personnel changes upon assuming control of the Bankova. That certainty has the showman’s critics concerned, not least because of its implications for the country’s Russia policy.

After all, Zelensky’s detractors spent the final weeks of the presidential race charging that he was at best too weak and inexperienced to stand up to Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, and at worst on the same page as Putin on key issues and possibly in the pocket of the Kremlin. Poroshenko and his allies redirected their attacks toward Zelensky following the elimination of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the first round of voting, distributing anti-Zelensky campaign materials that warned of a Russian ‘revanche’ in the event of a Zelensky victory and depicted the April 21^st vote as ‘a decisive choice’ between Putin and Poroshenko. [1, 2] Poroshenko personally declared that Zelensky’s election would turn Ukraine into a Russian colony and threaten ‘the existence of the state’, while his ministers reportedly rushed to ‘safeguard NATO and Euro-Atlantic integration’ lest Zelensky attempt to turn back the clock if elected. [3, 4, 5]

Zelensky has sought to defy his opponents’ claims by taking a hawkish turn and adopting a highly confrontational stance toward Russia. Having initially emphasised the necessity of direct talks with Putin, Zelensky challenged Poroshenko and his much-vaunted national security credentials from the right when the two candidates debated each other in Kiev’s Olympic Stadium on April 19^th. [6] He charged Poroshenko with mismanaging the war effort and failing to bring the conflict to an end in his five years in office, and assailed him for being too friendly with Moscow where a more dovish candidate might have called for diplomacy and engagement with Russia and possibly even the separatist authorities – options backed by 75 percent and 55.4 percent of Ukrainians, respectively. [7]

Zelensky scrutinised and questioned Poroshenko’s interactions with Putin and implied that it was Poroshenko’s business ties to Russia, rather than Zelensky’s, that presented a liability. This, at a time when many Russian political analysts welcomed a Poroshenko defeat on the grounds that the incumbent president was impossible for the Kremlin to negotiate with. [8] Zelensky was also the first candidate to mention Putin in the debate, and Poroshenko – widely seen and sometimes derided as the war candidate to Zelensky’s peace candidate – found himself having to assert his toughness on Russia. Finally, Zelensky made sure to repeatedly praise Ukraine’s military, and while he caught flak from the military for referring to Russian-backed separatists as ‘rebels’ during the debate, voters appeared to meet Poroshenko’s repeated references to Zelensky’s alleged draft-dodging with indifference. [9] All in all, the Zelensky of the second round of voting looked nothing like the dove described by his detractors, and voters took notice.

Zelensky faced his first test as a statesman – and a Russia hawk – well before taking the reins of Ukraine’s foreign policy. Soon after his electoral triumph, the Kremlin, which declined to congratulate Zelensky, declared that it would be simplifying access to Russian citizenship for citizens of Eastern Ukraine’s two separatist republics. In comments to the Guardian, an adviser to Kremlin official Vladislav Surkov said that the announcement had been postponed until after the April 21^st vote so as to not give Poroshenko ammunition. [10] Moscow then doubled down, openly contemplating extending its controversial offer to all Ukrainian citizens. [11] In response, Zelensky targeted Moscow where it hurts: regime security. In a Facebook post written in Russian as well as Ukrainian, Zelensky, who commands considerably more good will among Russians than his predecessor, attacked the Kremlin’s domestic legitimacy, sarcastically listing the advantages of Russian citizenship: ‘the right to be arrested for peaceful protest’ and ‘the right to not have free and competitive elections’, like the one he had just won. [12]

He added that his administration would offer all post-Soviet dissidents, not just Russians, asylum and even citizenship. Whether or not Zelensky ultimately delivers on that promise, his talk of Ukraine’s ‘mission to serve as an example of democracy for post-Soviet countries’ and ‘provide protection, asylum, and Ukrainian citizenship to all those who are prepared to fight for freedom’ and ‘battle side by side with us for our freedom and yours’ surely captured the attention of the region’s authoritarians, both inside and beyond the Kremlin. To be sure, Ukraine granted asylum and citizenship to some Russian dissidents under Poroshenko, who made one of his final acts as president the granting of citizenship to the exiled Russian lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev. [13] Still, his promotion of a particular vision of Ukrainian national identity at home limited Kiev’s soft power reach in Russia. That is likely to change under Zelensky, especially if what is effectively a democracy promotion effort continues upon his inauguration.

In this endeavour, Zelensky is certain to benefit from the fact that he appears to favour a vision of Ukrainian national identity that is markedly more inclusive than that of his predecessor and which seems to eschew the memory and other culture wars that escalated on Poroshenko’s watch. ‘When we name so many streets [and] bridges by the same name, this is not quite right’, Zelensky recently said in reference to Stepan Bandera, adding that the reverence of some Ukrainians for the nationalist leader and World War II partisan ‘is a normal and cool thing’. [14] Zelensky’s balanced approach to questions of history and identity was on full display when he celebrated Victory Day by sharing a photo of himself with two UPA and Red Army veterans, locked in a symbolic handshake. [15] Similarly, Zelensky, who has declined to unambiguously align himself with the Kiev Patriarchate’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church as Poroshenko did after its establishment last December, recently met with the heads of Ukraine’s rival Orthodox churches and arranged for Ukraine’s religious leaders to send a joint ‘message of peace’ to the residents of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. [16, 17]

Indeed, Zelensky and his advisers have signalled that some of the most divisive cultural issues pressed by Poroshenko and his allies should be put to the side in favour of more pressing – and tangible – problems like corruption. [18] That could mute at least some of the internal differences on which Moscow has capitalised in its efforts to discredit Kiev. Zelensky has also proposed targeting the hearts and minds of those living under separatist rule and ensuring that they ‘understan[d] that they are Ukrainians’ through ‘an information war’ involving the creation of an internationally broadcast Russian-language television channel. [19] That would constitute a marked departure from the Poroshenko administration’s failure to undertake ‘a serious outreach effort to those caught behind LNR and DNR lines, to make them feel that they would be fully welcomed back as citizens of Ukraine once Ukrainian sovereignty was restored’, as former US ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer described it in 2017. [20]

It is possible that internal and external pressures will cause Zelensky to change course on Russia upon entering office. Zelensky must capture the Rada in upcoming parliamentary elections while dealing with the continuing challenge from Poroshenko, who has said he will run in Ukraine’s 2024 presidential election; meanwhile, the actions of Russia and Ukraine’s Western partners will shape how he navigates Kiev’s confrontation with Moscow. In any case, Zelensky is unlikely to take a sharp turn for the dovish, with his hawkish turn since the March 31^st vote a far cry from the nightmare scenario that Zelensky sceptics painted on the campaign trail and reason enough to rethink Zelensky and his emerging Russia policy.

Photo by The Presidential Administration of Ukraine, published under Creative Commons with no changes made.

[1] Obozrevatel, ‘In Kiev, the police detained a guy for leaflets against Zelensky: the net is seething’, April 2019 https://www.obozrevatel.com/kiyany/crime/v-kieve-politsiya-zaderzhala-parnya-za-listovki-protiv-zelenskogo-set-kipit.htm.

[2] Christopher Miller, ‘Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s new campaign posters for the second-round runoff election suggest it’s a choice between the incumbent and … Putin. “April 21 – a decisive choice”’, Twitter, April 2019, https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1115659308983881728.

[3] Simon Ostrovsky, ‘Poroshenko speaking on Maidan, at perhaps his last rally there as president, warns supporters that a Zelensky presidency would mean Ukraine being a colony of Russia’, Twitter, April 2019, https://twitter.com/SimonOstrovsky/status/1119207843863744512.

[4] Michael Colborne, ‘OK. In an interview, Poroshenko says that his defeat in the elections April 21 would carry "extreme risks" and would be "a threat to the existence of the state.”’, Twitter, April 2019, https://twitter.com/ColborneMichael/status/1116019112948457473.

[5] Jack Laurenson, ‘Deputy prime minister: Cabinet moving to safeguard NATO and Euro-Atlantic integration’, Kyiv Post, April 2019, https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/deputy-prime-minister-cabinet-moving-to-safeguard-nato-and-euro-atlantic-integration.html.

[6] Bermet Talant, ‘Zelenskiy reveals plans to end war with Russia, fight corruption’, Kyiv Post, April 2019, https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/zelenskiy-reveals-plans-to-end-war-with-russia-fight-corruption.html.

[7] Sociological Group ‘Rating’, ‘Ukraine today: challenges and prospects’, May 2019, http://ratinggroup.ua/ru/research/ukraine/ukraina_segodnya_vyzovy_i_perspektivy.html.

[8] Svetlana Bocharova, Elena Mukhametshina, and Varvara Podrugina, ‘Whose victory in Ukraine’s presidential election would Russia benefit from? The opinions of political scientists’, Vedomosti, March 2019, https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2019/03/29/797676-prezidenta-ukraini-vigodna-rossii.

[9] General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces‏, ‘«We do not have «rebels». We have Russian aggression» - reminder of the President of Ukraine – Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Armed Forces of Ukraine will not forget and will not forgive about that. Never!!!’, Twitter, April 2019, https://twitter.com/GeneralStaffUA/status/1119343936261193728.

[10] Andrew Roth, ‘Russia tests Ukraine’s new president with passports for breakaway regions’, The Guardian, April 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/24/russia-passports-ukrainians-breakaway-regions-decree-ukraine.

[11] The Moscow Times, ‘Putin says Russians and Ukrainians would benefit from shared citizenship’, April 2019, https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/04/29/putin-says-russians-and-ukrainians-would-benefit-from-shared-citizenship-a65424.

[12] Volodymyr Zelensky, Facebook post, April 2019,https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2236347569948940&id=100007211555008.

[13] Ilya Ponomarev, ‘Нарешті, це трапилось! Сьогодні, чинний президент України - Петро Порошенко, в останній робочий день своєї каденції, підписав указ про надання мені українського громадянства, згідно державного інтересу. Я сказав... https://www.facebook.com/iponomarev/posts/10157301964690802 …’, Twitter, May 2019, https://twitter.com/iponomarev/status/1129376237355524096.

[14] Sam Sokol, ‘With two Jews in the country’s top jobs, what is next for Ukraine?’, The Jewish Chronicle, April 2019, https://www.thejc.com/comment/analysis/with-two-jews-in-the-country-s-top-jobs-what-is-next-for-ukraine-zelensky-groysman-poroshenko-1.483338.

[15] Yaroslav Trofimov, ‘Ukrainian President-elect Zelensky uses quite an image for his Victory Day message: a Soviet WWII veteran whose only grandson was killed by the Russians in Donbas and a former clandestine member of the Ukrainian Insurgent Armey that was targeting Soviet troops in the 1940s.’, Twitter, May 2019,https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1126207425642672134.

[16] Fabrice Deprez, ‘President-elect Zelensky met with the head of the former Kyiv Patriarchate, the leader of the newly founded Ukrainian orthodox Church but also with the head of the Moscow Patriarchate. Another indication Zelensky is looking to distance himself from Poroshenko's governing style’, Twitter, May 2019, https://twitter.com/fabrice_deprez/status/1123509794562818048.

[17] Volodymyr Zelensky, Facebook post, May 2019, https://www.facebook.com/zelenskiy95/videos/vb.100007211555008/2246423268941370.

[18] Unian, ‘Advisor to Zelensky names president-elect’s priorities for first 100 days in office’, May 2019, https://www.unian.info/politics/10545822-advisor-to-zelensky-names-president-elect-s-priorities-for-first-100-days-in-office.html.

[19] Interfax Ukraine, ‘Zelensky suggests waging information “war” for Donbas, launching special intl Russian-language channel’, March 2019, https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/574963.html.

[20] Steven Pifer, ‘Deepening division in Donbas’, Brookings Institution, May 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/05/02/deepening-division-in-donbas/.

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