The visit to Ukraine by high-level US officials — roving ambassador for the newly independent states, Stephen Sestanovich and senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the US National Security Council Mark Medish — has ended with a belief that the parliamentary crisis will not keep Ukraine, and the Yushchenko team in particular, from carrying out real reforms.
It is obvious that the guests wanted to see with their own eyes to what extent it is realistic to implement what the Ukrainian President promised during his December visit to Washington. At that time, addressing the Ukrainian-US joint commission, Leonid Kuchma presented to US President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore his plan of economic reforms in Ukraine. The US leadership, after hearing for an umpteenth time the assurances of improvements in Ukraine, decided as follows: we believe in this but set a reform control target of six months. Now that a third of this time period has lapsed, the United States apparently wants to hear from its own representatives some forecasts about Ukraine in the year 2000.
“Now is a time of a strategic opportunity for Ukraine. The time to carry out the reforms so often postponed in strategic fields,” Mr. Medish said at a briefing for journalists. Both he and Mr. Sestanovich spoke about Ukraine only in an elated tone, claiming that parliamentary crises and corruption are typical problems for countries on the way to democracy. The former, Mr. Sestanovich noted, has no impact at all on the relations between Ukraine, the US, and other states and international institutions unless the crisis hampers the implementation of the reforms Kyiv plans. As to controlling corruption, an issue obviously discussed by the American guests and Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Yevhen Marchuk, the US roving ambassador said: “This is a problem both the US and other countries take seriously. It is already good that your Deputies speak openly about this issue.”
It seems that the top US officials are leaving Ukraine with a really good opinion of the Viktor Yushchenko team. However, Messrs. Medish and Sestanovich failed to meet the premier himself due to his illness. The Americans gained an impression that Mr. Yushchenko has a strong and highly-skilled staff at his disposal. “We need no unnecessary debates, we know what to do. All we have to discuss is how to do it,” the guests heard from the Premier’s representative. This self-confidence can only please the US leadership which has been helping Ukraine for so many years to carry out reforms. But Washington would like Kyiv not only to pronounce words but also implement what it thought up. After all, this is what the guests came for.
