Ukraine
Why does the United States prioritize Ukraine's survival and evolution into a modern market democracy? Why does Ukraine matter so much to the USA?
There are post-Soviet states with stronger democracies and market economies than Ukraine. There are also post-Soviet states that have slipped into dictatorship without much fanfare from the United States. Ukraine isn't the most promising nor the most oppressed. It is, instead, the post-Soviet state that is most on the fence. It is the post-Soviet state where international intervention is most likely to decide whether it becomes a free country or a dictatorship.
Twice in recent history, Ukraine nearly tipped into dictatorship only to see its own common people stand up in massive nationwide protests and pull their system back from the brink. In 2004, President Leonid Kuchma and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych tried to drag their country into dictatorship, and the people rose up to throw them out of office in the Orange Revolution. They saved themselves from dictatorship, but did not reform their constitutional system to prevent future wanna-be dictators.
This was a classic example of a post-Soviet "color revolution," which replaces one ruling party with another without deeper reforms to the system of government. The 'color' is just the symbolism of the new party placed into power. The new party is never a dream come true perfect solution, but only not a dictator and therefore good enough for now.
Russia used the Orange Revolution as an excuse to occupy Crimea. Putin claimed it was to protect ethnic Russians in the area, but Ukraine maintains that ethnic Russians were not at risk. Putin just took the opportunity to reduce Ukraine's control over their own country.
The second time their people pulled them back from the brink of dictatorship was in the winter when 2013 turned into 2014. President Viktor Yanukovych was elected to balance the interests of Europe and Russia to keep Ukraine independent of both, but diplomacy collapsed on the essential agreement with Europe and the people took to the street protesting the slip towards domination by Russia. President Yanukovych cracked down brutally on these Euromaidan Protests. Police shot into crowds with rubber bullets, and then with live ammunition. But the people objected even more aggressively to this brutality. Resistance to the crackdown overtook the treaty as the dominant reason for the protests. The name changed from Euromaidan to just Maidan (pronounced "my dawn").
Then Yanukovych went too far. Parliament was simply told to vote or a bill without having a chance to read it, with threats of career death or even violence if they didn't. Once they'd been forced to pass it, it came out that it was a sweeping constitutional reform that made protests illegal, eroded rights of the accused, centralized power... it was exactly the change that would bring about dictatorship. The protests exploded into the Revolution of Dignity.
It was no longer just a color revolution, to replace the party in charge or about political ideology. Protestors from the left, center, and right all allied together, demanding the removal of the dictatorial constitutional reforms. More than that, a positive philosophy of 'dignity' began to arise, an ethical roadmap to becoming a truly free and independent country. The Ukrainian people wanted more than merely to prevent dictatorship, but also to escape the limbo between dictatorship and freedom. Like the American Revolution, they sought a new birth of freedom and independence, where the state is subservient to the people and the constitution closed the door against dictatorship forever.
The protestors for dignity overwhelmed the police who served the dictatorial reforms in Kyiv, so much so that the police abandoned the city. President Yanukovych fled the country, and was missing for weeks before turning up in Russia. Those who accused him of pushing for subservience to Russia saw in this confirmation of every accusation against him. Russia further confirmed this view by annexing Crimea entirely and occupying the far eastern parts of Ukraine, including the Donbas region. Clearly, they wanted Ukraine to be a dictatorship so they could rule Kyiv from Moscow.
But the people, by rising up this way, got what they wanted. The illegal and dictatorial reforms were rolled back, and the constitutional system of 2004 restored. New elections were held, and a new President chosen. For the second time, dictatorship had been avoided. International observers who had expected the Revolution of Dignity to devolve into a Reign of Terror like the 1799 French Revolution did were discredited when peace returned to Ukraine. The new President and Prime Minister worked to enact reforms that would establish impartial law and order (modeled after the United States), to eliminate authoritarian relics of Ukraine's Soviet past, and to push forward the new mandate of Dignity.
Though strong reforms were made, some Ukrainian people were disappointed with the pace of reform. They also wanted to see the previous regime that had almost dragged the nation into dictatorship tried for their crimes, but the Prosecutor General's Office wasn't prosecuting any of them. There was also very little done about the long-standing (and, among post-Soviet states, very common) problem of oligarchs, vastly rich owners of privatized national services, operating largely above the law and using their wealth and power to amass ever more wealth and power. Oligarchs like Mykola Zlochevsky, current CEO of Ukraine's formerly-nationalized oil and gas firm, technically had investigations pending against them, but criminal charges never came down. No one was arrested. No warrants were served. No news came out of the Prosecutor General's office at all. Was any real investigation happening at all?
Protestors across Ukraine (but especially in Kyiv) had been calling for the prosecution of Yanukovych's criminal regime all along. But by summer of 2015, they wanted the Prosecutor General replaced with someone who would actually prosecute the oligarchs and former regime, too. Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin became a symbol of government's willingness to protect government officials from prosecution for even the most serious of crimes. By September, international diplomats from the EU, UK, and USA had joined the protestors' calls for Shokin to be replaced with a real prosecutor, someone who would enforce the law fairly, along with general anti-corruption measures.
In October, the US State Department called on the White House to lend some authority to the diplomatic anti-corruption efforts. Then-President Obama decided he was too busy to take a trip to Eastern Europe, and tapped his Vice President to answer the State Department's call. The State Department sent Vice President Joe Biden his instructions in November, including specific instructions for him to demand that Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin be replaced. Armed with these instructions, Biden visited Ukraine in December of 2015, and issued them an ultimatum: remove Viktor Shokin and establish genuine equality under the law even for the elites, or the United States would withhold the military aid that helped keep Russia at bay. Biden returned to the United States, with his efforts praised by the US State Department as exactly what was needed. Viktor Shokin was still in office at this time, but members of Ukraine's parliament were picking up the call to have him removed.
Around this time, Shokin fired a deputy and tried to scapegoat him for lack of results in prosecuting oligarchs and the Yanukovych regime. This was obvious scapegoating, Shokin acting desperate to keep his job. The fired deputy became a whistleblower, exposing Shokin's plan of taking bribes from oligarchs in exchange for not actually working on the investigations against them.
Finally, on March 29th, 2016, the Ukrainian parliament voted to formally dismiss Shokin from office. Joe Biden later bragged that they fired Shokin "within days" after his visit, but in reality it took about three and a half months.
This is the true story of why Biden pressured Ukraine to fire Viktor Shokin as Prosecutor General, told from Ukraine's point of view.
Republicans have spun this story into one of Joe Biden getting Shokin fired purely to protect his son, Hunter Biden, who was then an employee of the oligarch-owned oil and gas company Burisma. But 1) Biden was only following the State Department's orders to him (issued November 2015) and the wishes of the Ukrainian people for equality under the law, 2) Shokin's removal was making investigation of Burisma possible, and 3) it's never been proven that Joe Biden even knew that Hunter worked for Burisma at the time. The only Ukrainian person who has defended Republicans' conspiracy theory at all is Viktor Shokin himself, and he needs it to be true in order to preserve his personal reputation. He has the strongest reasons to lie.
Congressional Republicans investigated these allegations thoroughly, even after the new Prosecutor General publicly reassured everyone that his office had no evidence implicating Hunter Biden in any crime whatsoever. Hunter Biden's name isn't even mentioned in their file on the investigation into Burisma, and Hunter didn't work there yet when the investigation was opened.
In all their investigations, House Republicans found exactly one piece of evidence for their story: the FBI had a statement from an unknown source claiming that Joe Biden had demanded a $15 million bribe from oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, CEO of Burisma. Both Biden and Zlochevsky deny this ever occurred, it's unclear who made the claim, and even in their statement to the FBI they make clear that they didn't personally witness the alleged bribe. They just heard about it from another unknown source. This only amounts to a rumor, not to any real evidence.
The historical story of why Shokin had to go is already complete and comprehensible. No conspiracy story is needed to make it make sense, and no evidence justifies the conspiracy story. Looking at any of this from Ukraine's point of view quickly makes clear that the conspiracy story is too based on myths about Ukraine that only Americans believe and that Ukrainians overwhelmingly know to be false.
Why does Ukraine's survival matter so much to the USA? Because they're going through what we went through: a battle to be free of an oppressive empire that believes they own you. A quest to build a government dedicated to a new doctrine of human freedom and success. The promise that Ukraine holds is precious to all who wish humanity to live well. America knows what it's like to fight a revolutionary war for principles like those. That is why we're sending them billions of dollars of our military surplus, and paying US defense contractors to build us new materiel to replace the aid we've sent. We know what it is to be on the edge of the world, holding the promise of future generations and fighting for its survival. It's our defining story.
God bless America, and God bless the heroes of Ukraine!
