U.S. President Joseph Biden should call his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, then quickly follow up with a personal meeting.
The U.S. administration also should:
- toughen sanctions against Russia until the Kremlin gets out of the Donbas and ultimately Crimea;
- take leadership in ending Russia’s seven-year war against Ukraine;
- increase annual military assistance for Ukraine to $500 million, a sharp increase from security assistance that has averaged nearly $300 million a year since 2014;
- bolster security in southeast Europe and the Black Sea;
- deepen Ukraine’s integration with NATO;
- stop the Russian-German Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline at all costs;
- appoint an ambassador to Kyiv as soon as possible;
- take action against major corrupt figures undermining reform in Ukraine;
- press Ukraine’s leaders to reform the courts, Prosecutor General’s Office and Security Service of Ukraine;
- encourage Ukraine to prohibit not only Russian TV but also television channels working in the Kremlin’s interests, including Inter TV, co-owned by exiled oligarch Dmytro Firtash, and others;
- champion anti-monopoly legislation to limit the influence of oligarchs on Ukraine’s economy and political system; and
- reward reform with the promise of support for new U.S. investment in Ukraine.
There’s more – a lot more – but one would have to read the entire 14-page “Biden and Ukraine: A strategy for the new administration” report published recently by the Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank promoting U.S. policies that encourage a democratic, prosperous and stable Eurasia.
The report includes an unusually comprehensive set of recommendations, coming from six co-authors with deep knowledge of Ukraine.
The creators of the report include two former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine, John Herbst and William B. Taylor; Swedish economist Anders Aslund; former U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe Daniel Fried; former U.S. ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow; and Melinda Haring, deputy director of the Atlantic Council.
Sense of urgency
The authors strive to inject a sense of renewed urgency into U.S.-Ukraine relations, which suffered during U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s four years in office.
Trump’s attempted extortion of Zelensky — temporarily withholding financial assistance while urging an investigation of his rival Biden — served as the centerpiece of Trump’s impeachment trial. The Democratic-controlled House impeached him, but the Republican-controlled Senate acquitted him, allowing Trump to serve out his term that ended on Jan. 20, 2021.
“Zelensky is keen to engage with the new Biden team and seeks recognition as a global leader,” the authors write. “The Biden administration would be wise to seize this opportunity.”
Zelensky comes in for criticism, however, for sacking a reform-minded government in March 2020, backtracking on needed reforms, and surrounding himself with an inner circle that “doesn’t seem to comprehend” how to fulfill the president’s 2019 election promises “to make Ukraine rich, end corruption, and bring peace to Ukraine.”
The Atlantic Council’s March 5, 2021, webinar outlined the major findings in the report “Biden and Ukraine: A strategy for the new administration.”
Why Ukraine is important
Lest anyone in the West diminish Ukraine’s importance, the authors provide clear historical reminders of what is at stake.
“Ending the Russian-led war in Ukraine and seeing Ukraine move beyond its oligarchic system are interlocking goals. Ukraine must win both fronts to succeed as a modern, democratic European country,” the authors write. “Ukraine’s success in its fight against Kremlin aggression is in the US national interest for at least three reasons:
- Russia’s war is against the West, not just Ukraine;
- the future of a rules-based international order depends on Russian withdrawal from Ukraine; and
- the United States has a moral commitment to both Ukraine’s fight for independence and democracy in general.”
The authors note that the Kremlin is waging a war against the West on several battlefields – military, cyber, election interference, information, economic and cultural. “In each of these domains, Russian aggression first targets Ukraine but does not end there,” the authors write. “On each of these battlefields, Ukraine is on the front line. To defend itself, the United States – and Europe – must support Ukraine’s fight on these fronts.”
The consequences of not stopping Russia’s war against Ukraine are dire – for the West and Ukraine.
“If the logjam remains, the (war in the) Donbas risks becoming a permanent stalemate that will continue to work against Ukraine’s efforts to build a prosperous, democratic society and become an integral part of the Euro-Atlantic community,” the authors note.
Economic woes
Despite progress in creating macroeconomic stability, and despite Russia’s war and occupation of 7 percent of Ukrainian territory, Ukrainians are suffering. “Ukraine has become the poorest country in Europe, even poorer than Moldova,” the six co-authors lament.
Ukraine can move to higher annual economic growth rates of 7 percent, but not until it establishes “far better governance and sound protection of property rights that Ukraine lacks,” the report underscores.
The consequences of corruption and poor governance are clear: Foreign direct investment in Ukraine slumped to 0.2 percent of the gross domestic product in 2020.
“Foreigners dare not invest in Ukraine because they fear their property will be stolen,” the authors write. “Only oligarchs invest in Ukraine today, but even they are cautious, fearing attacks from competing oligarchs.”
Judicial system ‘is fundamental problem’
“The judicial system does not function,” the authors write. “Worst of all is the high court, the Constitutional Court. Eleven of its 15 appointed judges consistently vote for corruption.”
Even the best-functioning branch of the court system – the Supreme Court – consists of 25 percent of justices who have failed a required integrity test as part of the selection process.
“This is the most transparent and qualified court in Ukraine,” the report concludes. “The problem is that the rest of the court system has not been reformed.”
Prosecutors, SBU
The General Prosecutor’s Office and the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, compound the weakness and corruption of the courts.
“With the firing of the prosecutor general and his team in March 2020, prosecutors have reverted to their old habit of ignoring high-ranking criminals and prosecuting reformers instead,” the authors write. “The SBU remains unreformed. While its counterintelligence might be praiseworthy, its large economic crime and corruption department is a major corporate raider.”
Bad attitude to Western aid
Noting that the International Monetary Fund has frozen lending to Ukraine, the authors lament the tendency of the Ukrainian government “to view international donors as cash machines, offering cheap credit, while it is reluctant to pursue reforms that would improve Ukraine’s economic growth rate because it is subservient to vested interests with little interest in national growth.”
Kremlin to blame
But none of Ukraine’s shortcomings should obscure the fundamental problem for international security: The Kremlin – and Vladimir Putin in particular — do not recognize Ukraine, a former Soviet republic dominated by Russia since the mid-17th century, as a truly independent nation.
“Putin, his team, and many Russians seem to accept Ukrainian independence only in the context of its close association with and ultimate subordination to Moscow,” the authors conclude.
Putin’s kleptocracy and Ukraine’s aspiring democracy are fundamentally incompatible.
“As was true of the Soviet Union, the logic of Kremlin defensiveness pushes it to try to keep successful democratic models of development away from Russia,” the report notes. “Such models cannot be permitted to take root in Ukraine or Belarus, core brother nations in the Russian nationalist view, since this would set a dangerous precedent for Russia itself.”
Putin’s fixation on controlling Ukraine even triggered the EuroMaidan Revolution that in 2014 toppled the presidency of Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych.
“The proximate cause of Yanukovych’s fall was his decision to suddenly walk back, at Putin’s insistence, his public commitment to seek an association agreement with the European Union,” the authors note. “Putin blamed the United States. But the cause was Putin’s own Ukraine policy, which seeks to keep Ukraine corrupt, pliable, and, therefore, poor. What Putin wants in Ukraine is not good for Ukraine. The logic of empire and the logic of Putinism keep Russia and Ukraine at odds.”
Biden team ‘uniquely qualified’
“The big objectives of US policy have been the same since 2014: to help Ukraine defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty in the face of Kremlin aggression and to help Ukraine undertake the reforms needed to become a nation of laws with a growing and prosperous economy,” the report notes. “The Biden team is uniquely qualified to pursue these objectives successfully … As vice president, Biden was a hands-on policymaker for Ukraine. Now, as president, he will not have the time for that, but he should reach out to Zelensky, first by phone and then in an early meeting. Establishing a president-to-president understanding will facilitate policy dealings at lower levels and increase U.S. clout in Kyiv, which will prove important as it works with Ukraine on difficult reform issues.”
