US Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer in his speech (in Ukrainian) at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy on October 3 officially said farewell to Ukraine to which, as he confessed, he would like to return. Though the diplomatic note for the interference into the internal affairs of the state given Pifer last week after publication of the letter under his signature to President Kuchma on his concern about the delay in budget reform could have also evoked different emotions. Pifer said on this occasion that the latest statements of the Ukrainian leaders have convinced the Americans that the government and Administration of the President are working on the budget reform and Ukraine continues to move along the path of reform. The Ambassador kept his peace as to who had misinformed him and how. He recognized that the main reason of his interest in the budget process is the wish for reforms to continue. “We have been inspired by the words that the replacement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs will not mean any change of Ukraine’s foreign policy course,” said Pifer on Tarasiuk’s replacement.
As his biggest failure in Ukraine Pifer considers the “underdeveloped state” of the Ukrainian-American economic relations. “The Ukrainian people are worthy of success at the beginning of twenty-first century,” said Pifer in his farewell. In his opinion, success will come when the Soviet attitudes toward everything are overcome, when corruption is rooted out, when truly independent media start to exist (before the Ambassador’s speech the information was released to public on the US Embassy granting $24,000 to Ukrayinska pravda). And when Ukraine starts thinking about the possibilities to double, or even to triple the production of its own natural gas. Ambassador Pifer will be remembered as perhaps the most relaxed and plain talking of the foreign diplomatic corps represented in Kiev. His preaching and critical statements have often made us think about the constraints of Ukraine’s of real possibilities. And of the real contents of strategic partnership.
However, practically all Kyiv’s political and quasi-political religious, military, and diplomatic beau monde gathered to say good-bye to Pifer at the farewell party in his Kyiv residence. This week the new, already the fourth US Ambassador to Ukraine, Carlos Pascual, will begin his duties.
