President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has taken his first official trip abroad, spending June 4–5 in Brussels meeting with European Union leaders.
His message to them was clear: Ukraine’s foreign policy and commitment to European integration will not change during his five-year term.
Zelenskiy also assured EU diplomats and creditors that the Ukrainian government is not considering defaulting on its international debt — contrary to the suggestion of his former business partner, billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.
Finally, he sent a message to both critics and allies: He is not going to be soft on Russia. Some of his opponents in Ukraine have tried to portray him as weak, incompetent, or even pro-Russian.
The trip gave the president a chance to reassure European leaders of his pro-Western bona fides: support for joining the EU and NATO, tougher sanctions against Moscow, and efforts to free Ukrainian prisoners in Russia.
“Not only Ukraine needs the European Union as a guarantor of its success as an independent and prosperous state, but also the European Union needs a democratic, friendly, stable, strong Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said on June 5.
European integration
The visit to Brussels was Zelenskiy’s debut on the international diplomatic scene.
And the new Ukrainian leader — a former comedic actor without political experience who took office less than three weeks ago — stuck to a script largely written by his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, who had secured the EU-Ukraine association agreement and visa-free travel for Ukrainians to the Schengen zone.
“Ukraine will continue its path to the EU. European integration is the guarantee of Ukraine’s independence,” Zelenskiy said at a press briefing after his meeting with Donald Tusk, president of the European Council.
Zelenskiy said that the priorities for his five-year term will be making anti-corruption agencies work effectively, judiciary reform, e-government, and bringing Ukrainians’ living standards up to the EU level.
But the visit was not just about setting an agenda. It was also about introductions. Zelenskiy received a warm welcome from top EU officials. They agreed that the next EU-Ukraine summit will take place in Kyiv on July 8.
During a photo op with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, a reporter asked Juncker: “Are you missing Poroshenko?”
He replied: “I have a new one.”
Zelenskiy jokingly added in English: “I’m better. The new one is better (than) the old one.”
NATO referendum
Much to the dissatisfaction of the media, Zelenskiy opted not to hold any press conferences. He only appeared before the press to make formal statements after a meeting with Tusk and took two questions from journalists after a joint press briefing with Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of NATO. All other meetings were reported by his press service.
However, Zelenskiy did give one interview to a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Ukrainian Service reporter in a very unusual setting: during his morning workout on the second day of his visit to the EU capital.
Dressed in his gym clothes and pumping the pedals of a stationary bike, he promised that Ukraine will join NATO, but that the decision will be made through a national referendum.
“We need to inform each Ukrainian about what NATO is, that it is not terrible. And when Ukrainians are ready, we will put this issue to a referendum, and Ukraine will definitely be in NATO,” he said.
Speaking at a briefing with NATO’s Stoltenberg a day earlier, Zelenskiy expressed hope that his presidency will help improve Ukraine-NATO relations and renew dialogue between them.
“We look forward to NATO in Ukraine. We need all the existing mechanisms that will help us on this path and any other one that the alliance will be ready to offer,” Zelenskiy said.
But the primary goal now is to focus on internal improvements that will bring Ukraine closer to NATO standards, Zelenskiy said.
“Proper implementation of the law on national security is my first task,” Zelenskiy said, adding to the list reforming the state security service, intelligence agencies, the defense industry, and democratic civilian control over the defense sector.
Russia has strongly opposed NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia, two former Soviet states that have drifted away from Moscow’s orbit and have sought membership in the western military alliance.
Defying the worst predictions of his opponents, Zelenskiy sent a strong signal: He will not capitulate to Russia, which has occupied parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and its Crimean peninsula and waged a war that has taken the lives of some 13,000 people.
In Brussels, he called on the EU to increase sanctions against Russia, where dozens of Ukrainian political prisoners and prisoners of war are held. Despite a ruling by the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, Moscow has refused to release 24 Ukrainian sailors captured in an attack on Ukrainian navy vessels last November.
“We are ready to negotiate with Russia. We are ready to implement the Minsk peace agreements,” Zelenskiy said, referring to a series of peace negotiations based in the Belarusian capital.
Before his visit to Brussels, Zelenskiy reappointed ex-President Leonid Kuchma to lead the Ukraine delegation to the Minsk talks and tasked him with Kyiv’s priorities for negotiations with Moscow: a ceasefire, a prisoner swap, and humanitarian relief.
The NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (R) and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy give a press conference after their bilateral meeting at the Nato headquarters in Brussels on June 4, 2019. (AFP)
Default on debt
Zelenskiy also had to assure wary European diplomats that he is not in thrall to billionaire oligarch Kolomoisky and he was not going to take the oligarch’s advice on defaulting on Ukraine’s foreign debt.
“These are rumors. These are elaborate campaigns that have nothing in common with my official position,” Zelenskiy said during his meeting with Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission’s vice-president, on June 4.
The oligarch’s latest interview with the Financial Times, in which he advised the new president to follow Greece’s example and default on the country’s external debt, agitated foreign creditors like EU banks and the International Monetary Fund.
Zelenskiy’s entertainment business has been in long-time partnership with Kolomoisky’s television channel 1+1, which played a role in the success of the comedian’s election campaign by providing prime airtime to his shows. The two men also shared some business partners.
Concerns over the oligarch’s suspected influence over the president increased when Kolomoisky returned to Ukraine after two years in self-imposed exile and Zelenskiy appointed the oligarch’s lawyer, Andriy Bohdan, as his chief of staff.
Some speculated that Kolomoisky supported Zelenskiy’s presidential bid to serve his own commercial interests in Ukraine, particularly regaining control of PrivatBank, previously owned by the oligarch and his business partner Gennadiy Boholyubov.
The Ukrainian government nationalized PrivatBank in 2016 after an independent audit revealed the bank had been used to embezzle $5.5 billion in the span of a decade.
Kolomoisky and the National Bank of Ukraine filed a number of lawsuits against each other in Ukraine, London, and, most recently, in the American state of Delaware. The Ukrainian government is trying to recover some of the stolen funds, and Kolomoisky has challenged the legitimacy of PrivatBank’s nationalization. Up until his appointment as chief of staff, Bohdan represented Kolomoisky in the PrivatBank case.
Zelenskiy used his Brussels trip to send the message that he won’t be protecting Kolomoisky’s interests.
“Regarding PrivatBank, I protect only the state, only citizens,” Zelenskiy said in Brussels. “I am not interested in the games of former owners in courts. I am not going to be on their side.”
