Last week brought some shock, disbelief, and tension to Ukraine – U.S. relations.
The cycle of destructive events has gained momentum with a controversial judge pursuing a Victor Shokin vs. Joseph Biden case to member of parliament Andriy Derkach coming out with “his” Petro Poroshenko-Biden recordings to ultimately President Volodymyr Zelensky addressing this in his May 20 press conference to mark his first year in power. To those who did not follow this closely: Zelensky appeared condoning and praising the investigation of Poroshenko-Biden conversations, relations. He has hinted that there might be more phone calls, information coming out, and uttered the word of treason.
Certain elements of this story were in play all along, but the most important thing was for the Ukrainian president to stay out of this play. He is not going to get applause for this his new role if, indeed, he intends to play it, clumsily, as it seems, except, of course, from enemies of Ukraine.
Well, nothing is truly lost so far. This is not irreversible. There is surely time and space to prevent this from going too far, to make it better before it gets worse. Zelensky should clear the air, distance himself from criminal investigations, and clarify that this, in any case, has nothing to do with him believing that there was any wrongdoing by Biden or American administration, for that matter. In other words, he should go back to what he was doing for many months now – keep away from the U.S. political process, its elections, preventing Ukraine from becoming a player in any of those. This has been the only right approach, which was praised by many level-headed people on both sides of the Atlantic.
The roots of this go back, of course, to, at least, 2016 when Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign has sustained a blow when its one-time chair Paul Manafort got entangled in a scandal, and later on, an investigation, for his involvement with Ukraine as a top political adviser to ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, raking in millions of dollars in fees that led to his conviction on tax evasion.
Also, Ukraine appeared to be betting on Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, then. This has led to Trump’s grievance with Ukraine after he has won the elections. The Poroshenko administration has received its share of Trump’s pressure, including his overtures to Kyiv to help get Manafort off the hook. By that time Manafort’s faith was in the hands of U.S. justice, so this did not help: he landed in jail. (He is now out, but not quite free, though, due to our strange COVID-19 times.)
2019 was a show year for Trump and his attempts to make Ukraine do his bidding. As the 2020 election got closer, Biden appeared as the main contender and Zelensky came to power in Ukraine.
This has led to the unprecedented pressure on Kyiv and thus “UkraineGate” or “BidenGate” operation was in force. Zelensky and his inner circle has dealt with this with mixed results. On one hand, they have done their best to drag things out without giving in to Trump’s demands. On the other, they appeared to be caving in at one point. Once that Trump’s plot got exposed, Kyiv regained some breathing space.
We keep this in mind as we look at the remarks on May 20th. Zelenskiy has seemingly entered the dangerous territory of appearing willing to be a factor in American politics after all. Was this something he did not want or something that he has planned? Was this a deliberate play or was Zelenskiy simply blinded too much by his hatred of Poroshenko to not notice how he has threaded into these muddy waters? We might know more soon but either way he should stop right now before more serious damage is done to our strategic relations with America.
If president, indeed, was masterfully trapped, he should draw a lesson and get out of his predicament. Too many questions linger, of course. What is the provenance of the tapes? Is there a “hand of Moscow” here? What is the role of Kolomoyski, who has had his reasons to be upset with both Zelenskiy and U.S. of late, and whose media resources have engaged in an anti-American frenzy for the last few days? If, indeed, Zelenskiy, who is, after all, not experienced in the art of political machinations, manipulations and back-stabbing, was set up, there is a way out.
If, however, Zelenskiy persists in line with his May 20 remarks, this gets more problematic. There is nothing to gain here either for him or for Ukraine. The theory that he was somehow pushed into this by Trump or his surrogates again is not very convincing. They might enjoy more mudslinging with Biden being a target, but this would hardly make traction for them on the bigger scale of current American politics. There are no sticks that one might apply to make Zelensky go that way. There are no visible immediate carrots, either: Ukraine enjoys U.S. support which is stable, based on strategic thinking and institutional inertia. It is even more immune to any threats after the scandal of 2019 and the impeachment hearings. To bet on Trump winning in 2020 and then delivering certain “goods” to Kiyv (if that is the thinking) would be tremendously naive.
The bottom line here is clear as a day: Zelensky should stay true to the course he was on in the last months – staying out of American politics. He should strive to repair the bad taste of distrust between Kyiv and Washington generated in the last few days. Acting contrary to this would prove self-defeating and humiliating to him personally, damaging to Ukraine-U.S. relations and ultimately harmful to Ukraine’s reputation and interests.
Volodymyr Dubovyk is associate professor of international relations at Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University
