Today on the homepage, we publish Part III of my Ukraine journal. I spend a little time on the new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, elected last April. He is an extraordinary figure, a populist par excellence. He had had no political experience whatsoever. He was a television entertainer — known by people throughout the country. In a series, he played an ordinary Joe who happened to get elected president. In real life, Zelensky won the presidency with nearly 75 percent of the vote.
Vitaly Portnikov, one of Ukraine’s leading journalists, says that his country has a “low political culture.” I will address this matter in Part IV tomorrow.
As I explain in today’s installment, I’ve talked with many people in Ukraine: pro-Zelensky and anti-Zelensky. All of them, however, have a degree of sympathy for the president: because he is in a daunting position. It’s hard enough to be president of Ukraine, given the war with Russia, etc. — but he has also been thrust into America’s current political drama.
A Ukrainian president cannot afford to be at odds with Republicans or Democrats. He needs the support of the United States, period. This support is vital to Ukraine.
Two days ago, President Trump had a meeting with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, in the Oval Office. As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the next day, “This is an important moment. The very fact that the Russian minister was received by the U.S. president is an important point, of course.” Indeed. It is very rare for a foreign minister to gain an Oval Office meeting with the president. A foreign minister is not a head of state or government, after all.
So far, Ukraine’s president has been denied a White House meeting. This is painful and bewildering to many Ukrainians. Ukraine is our democratic ally.
I would like to publish two letters from readers — the first relating to Viktor Yushchenko, whom I wrote about in Part II of my journal. I was discussing the Orange Revolution, in 2004. One of the presidential candidates that year, I said, had been poisoned. That was Viktor Yushchenko. I continued,
The poisoning did not kill him, quite — but it disfigured his face beyond recognition.
Yushchenko had a lot to endure. He had been known as an exceptionally handsome figure — he still is. And, yes, he survived the poisoning. But it sought to take away his sense of identity, his well-being, his security. He gave a tremendous example of physical courage and mental courage.
I saw him at Davos in January 2005, at the height of his disfigurement. (Over the years — with steady medical attention — Yushchenko’s looks returned to almost normal.) He was hard to look at. But he carried himself with tremendous dignity, and, honestly, you never saw a more noble face.
Yushchenko was president of Ukraine from 2005 to 2010. In the first two years of his presidency, he underwent 26 surgeries under anesthesia. A doctor was amazed that he could even sit. Yushchenko had to change his shirt several times a day, because of bleeding.
Opinions vary as to the quality of his presidency. But no one can gainsay the man’s courage. The Orange Revolution was bloodless, or nonviolent — except for Yushchenko.
A reader of ours says that Yushchenko’s achievements in office are unsung, or certainly under-sung:
In his first two or three years, Yushchenko increased direct foreign investment by 425 percent, from $8.4 billion to $36.5 billion; doubled GDP to $140 billion; doubled exports from $32.7 billion to $67 billion; doubled wages; quadrupled pensions; created 3.7 million jobs; obtained EU recognition of Ukraine as a market economy; obtained U.S. recognition of the same; got Jackson-Vanik restrictions lifted; got the Ukrainian education system accepted into the Bologna Process; initiated anonymous university entrance exams; established freedom of the press and held free elections; got the Holodomor recognized; and so on.
He did all this with powers vastly reduced by the constitutional reform of 2004, which increased the powers of the prime minister — who was a populist strongly opposed to serious economic reforms. And he did it while undergoing character assassination from the oligarch-owned media.
The reader adds that it is in the Kremlin’s interest to discredit the “color revolutions,” including the Orange.
Finally, a note from a member of the U.S. armed forces:
Hello, sir,
. . . I am a third-generation American, half Italian, half Ukrainian. Even with the Italian half, I consider myself one of the many in the Ukrainian diaspora. I was raised on stories of the oppression that my Ukrainian ancestors and relatives faced. When I went to college, Ukraine became my area of focus. I graduated with a degree in history and wrote my senior thesis on the Holodomor and why it should be recognized as a genocide. . . .
The diaspora I have found is amazing. I once saw a woman at an airport wearing a tryzub around her neck. [This is the Ukrainian coat of arms.] I lifted my sleeve to show her my tattoo and we smiled, with a strange sense of understanding. . . .
Here in the military, a fellow officer I met was actually an immigrant from Ukraine. One night in the field, he saw my tattoo and we got to talking, for hours. He knew little about Ukrainian history, but he knew about modern day-to-day experiences that were foreign to me.
My point, sir, is that the Ukrainian diaspora is a small but proud community, and as Ukraine has found its way into the news [for better or worse], there is an opportunity to inform people about important matters. . . .
Again, Part III of my journal is here.