Editor’s Note: This feature separates Ukraine’s friends from its enemies. The Order of Yaroslav the Wise has been given since 1995 for distinguished service to the nation. It is named after the Kyivan Rus leader from 1019-1054, when the medieval empire reached its zenith. The Order of Lenin was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union, whose demise Russian President Vladimir Putin mourns. It is named after Vladimir Lenin, whose corpse still rots on the Kremlin’s Red Square, more than a century after the October Revolution he led.
Friend: Burak Pehlivan
The chairman of the Turkish-Ukrainian Business Association has dedicated more than a decade of his professional life to bolstering the economies of both nations. His dynamism and energy have created a robust business association of 200 members and growing, among 700 Turkish businesses in Ukraine. More importantly, Turkey is Ukraine’s fifth-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade expected to hit $6 billion in 2021. It ranks behind only China, Russia, Poland, and Germany.
“I believe if Turkey has prosperous, economically strong, peaceful neighbor countries, it means Turkish citizens would be more prosperous too,” Pehlivan explained.
Pehlivan also understands the importance of a free press, encouraging his members to advertise liberally in the Kyiv Post for its annual edition celebrating Turkish Republic Day on Oct. 29.
“The Kyiv Post is one of the most-read English-language newspapers in Eastern Europe and is popular for foreign expats, foreign investors, English-speaking Ukrainians. Considering the Kyiv Post’s popularity, and the big number of diversified Turkish businesses and international companies who makes business or investment via Turkey to Ukraine, it is a logical result to see so many Turkish advertisements in the Kyiv Post.”
That’s the kind of support that independent journalism needs in Ukraine!
Foe: Joseph Biden
The U.S. president is way better than Donald Trump. But still, Joe Biden is disappointing. We hope he changes course and can become one of Ukraine’s best friends again, as many considered him in the past.
But as president, he helped unleash the Kremlin’s energy weapon by refusing sanctions against the parent company and CEO of the Russian-German Nord Stream 2 pipeline, allowing the misguided project that bypasses Ukraine to go forward. The Kremlin has used its stranglehold over European natural gas supplies to deplete reserves and drive up the price to record levels, all the while gradually achieving its eventual goal by 2025 of squeezing Ukraine entirely out of gas transit, at a cost to the nation of at least $1.5 billion annually. The national security costs could be even higher.
Biden also refuses to get tough with Vladimir Putin on ongoing cyberattacks against Western targets.
He inspires little confidence when it comes to defending Ukraine, rarely mentioning Russia’s ongoing war and showing little inclination to ramp up military aid significantly or to increase pressure on the Kremlin to get out of Ukraine. As Ukraine endures another bout of Kremlin saber-rattling, we remember his misguided response to the last Russian escalation — a June 16, 2021, summit with Putin, giving the kleptocratic killer the legitimacy he doesn’t deserve.
Considering that Biden visited Ukraine six times as Barack Obama’s vice president, Ukraine expected more from him, expected at least some kind of active interest. He hasn’t even bothered to name an ambassador to the country. The weakness at the top trickles all the way down the ranks of U.S. diplomacy, putting Ukraine far down the list of American priorities. And then there was the horrifying spectacle last week of U.S. charge d’affaires Kristina Kvien being photographed with indicted embezzlement suspect Hennady Trukhanov, who freakishly still is the mayor of Odesa, the city from which he allegedly stole millions of dollars. How could the head of the U.S. mission even end up in the same room as the gangster mayor? What was the embassy thinking?
America is the world’s most powerful nation and has been on Ukraine’s side throughout its 30 years of independence, despite the endemic corruption that makes Kyiv a frustrating ally. The hope is that Biden will move back into the friend camp with a more robust foreign policy that seriously curbs the Kremlin, one of the biggest menaces to the free world today and a direct threat to the Ukrainian nation.
