Since the U.S. House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, the Kyiv Post has received a lot of questions on how Ukrainians feel about the scandal in Washington.
Often, these questions come from American and European journalists or friends and family in the West.
“Surely, Ukrainians must not be thrilled by the idea that Trump allegedly tried to shake down their leader to dig up dirt on a political rival,” they say.
Or: “This must be extremely interesting to the Ukrainian public, just like it is to us.”
These are reasonable assumptions. But they are also often wrong.
Yes, there are Ukrainians who care deeply about this story and are following it with great interest. But, for the majority of people, it’s just one political story among many — and a distinctly American one.
As an American journalist in Kyiv, I have the odd opportunity of watching from afar as impeachment unfolds in DC and experiencing the Ukrainian view of the story.
So when an Italian radio station asked me last week how Ukrainians perceive the scandal (and I couldn’t find a Ukrainian colleague willing to go on the air), I gave them a simple explanation: impeachment here is a lot like “Game of Thrones.”
Let me explain: “Game of Thrones” is a very complicated television series. It’s also one I don’t watch, and find rather incomprehensible. But I understand what it’s about: a bunch of people fighting and fornicating each other for power.
One of my colleagues, on the other hand, is a huge fan, and she often sends me “Game of Thrones” memes on Facebook. Truth be told, I understand less than half of them — and she claims to only send me ones that are funny for a general audience.
If impeachment is “Game of Thrones,” then fans are those who follow the scandal closely. Memes are the news stories about impeachment reported in Ukraine. And me? Well, in this metaphor I’m the average (or perhaps a bit below average) Ukrainian viewer. I have a job that keeps me plenty busy, a partner, friends and other TV shows that seem more relevant to my life than the clashes and trysts of a bunch of evil kings and dragons. Sure, I understand that “Game of Thrones” is culturally significant. But, at this point, it’s a bit late for me to get up to speed.
Don’t get me wrong. There are indeed Ukrainians who follow impeachment closely and are knowledgeable about it. (I’m pretty sure Zelensky is basically running a “Game of Thrones” film study in the presidential office at this point.)
But most Ukrainians face some pretty steep entry barriers.
Like “Game of Thrones,” the impeachment inquiry is extremely convoluted. You need to know a lot to understand what’s going on. You need to read multiple news articles or, ideally, testimony transcripts — and the documents and most comprehensive coverage are in English.
To understand impeachment, you also need to evaluate the key characters: Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, State Department official George Kent and many others. What do you think of them? Are they positive figures or negative? Are they doing good or sowing chaos globally?
For Americans, political views tend to help out here. If you’re a Democrat, you likely feel one way about Trump and efforts to remove him from office. If you’re a Republican (and not an avid critic of Trump), you probably feel the opposite. Your party affiliation may also shape your evaluation of the work of non-partisan officials like Kent and Yovanovitch — although, in normal times, it probably shouldn’t.
If you have trouble understanding why this could be difficult for Ukrainians, try looking at it from the other side. As Kyiv Post readers, you likely know more about the dodgy former Ukrainian prosecutors general Viktor Shokin and Yuriy Lutsenko — two other figures in the impeachment saga — than the average American. But what if you didn’t read KP? Would you actually be able to evaluate their roles to Ukraine?
Moreover, the corrupt practices at the center of the impeachment inquiry are likely more familiar to Ukrainians than to Americans. And the Ukrainians involved in the Trump/Ukraine saga are, in most cases, hardly individuals with high degrees of credibility among their countrymen. If your politicians have long abused the powers vested in them for personal gain, why should you be shocked when an American president does the same?
Despite the centrality of Ukraine in this saga, impeachment is fundamentally an American story. Yes, the diplomats and officials testifying frequently invoke Ukraine, but for the most part Ukraine is off-screen. Often it seems to not even have a speaking role — and the country’s leadership likely prefers it that way. The last thing Kyiv needs is to be forced to choose between the Democratic and Republican parties and damage bipartisan support for Ukraine in the U.S. government.
Ukrainians also live in a country with vast amounts of breaking political news, critical economic issues under discussion every day, contentious protests and a war in its east. You can understand why an impeachment inquiry in DC — even one that deals with Ukraine — might seem a bit distant to many Ukrainians.
For Americans, the dominant sense from the impeachment saga is “Winter is coming” — effectively the slogan of Game of Thrones. With each new testimony, document release or development, we eagerly await more information. For Democrats, “winter” is the new revelations of wrongdoing by Trump that may potentially drive him from office. For many Republicans, it’s the next hyperpartisan effort to unseat a legitimately elected American president.
But, for Ukrainians, winter already came. And went. Many times — under authoritarian President Leonid Kuchma, during the Orange Revolution of 2004-2005, under kleptocratic President Viktor Yanukovych, during the EuroMaidan Revolution of 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea and launched war in Donbas. The country has been through a lot. Some of it was quite bloody, and the most dramatic events didn’t take place in an official inquiry in the legislature.
I am very glad that impeachment isn’t going to turn into America’s real-life Red Wedding. But in a country with the turbulent history of Ukraine, that also makes for difficult, confusing and sometimes tedious viewing.
The Trump impeachment saga is an important story for Ukraine. But don’t expect it to be a hit series.
