WARSAW, Poland — A former Ukrainian prime minister, a former foreign minister and two former members of parliament told the Warsaw Security Forum that Russian President Vladimir Putin is as much of a threat to them and the rest of the free world as he is to Ukraine.
Putin should be contained and not appeased, the Ukrainians said in a bid to combat a revived push among some Western leaders for reconciliation with the Kremlin, which is waging hot wars in two countries — Ukraine and Syria — and which has played a destructive role around the globe, including interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Taking the stage were a cast of experienced “formers”: ex-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, ex-Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk and ex-members of parliament Hanna Hopko and Svitlana Zalishchuk at the annual event.
Yatsenyuk, who ran Ukraine’s government from 2014 until he and ex-President Petro Poroshenko had a falling out in 2016, set the tone for a panel that followed with Tarasyuk, Hopko, and Zalishchuk.
He directed remarks directly to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over his acceptance of the “Steinmeier Formula,” a roadmap put forth by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to end Russia’s war, which has cost Ukraine 13,000 lives and 7 percent of its territory, including Kremlin-occupied Donbas and Crimea.
“Mr. President, don’t fall into the Russian trap with all these different types of formulas and the Russian interpretation of the Minsk deal,” a February 2015 peace agreement that has never been implemented.
Two key pre-conditions must take place first before any elections or local autonomy is granted to Kremlin-occupied areas, Yatsenyuk said. “The key precondition is to get rid of the Russian military, which is stationed in Luhansk and Donetsk,” he said. “The other condition is (for Ukraine’s government) to take over control of the Ukraine-Russian border.”
He said that he believes Zelensky “fully understands his responsibility. I believe the president will do his best to defend Ukraine and the oath of office he took a few months ago.” He ended with a plea for Western unity. “I strongly believe we will find solutions to all the challenges we are facing.”
The panel discussion that followed was led by Michael Carpenter. He is the senior director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. He is also a former U.S. deputy assistant defense secretary in Barack Obama’s administration.
Their subjects ranged from Russia to fighting domestic corruption.
Zalishchuk, who lost a re-election bid for parliament in July, said that waging a successful fight against corruption — particularly in Ukraine’s defense sector — is vital to strengthening Ukraine’s security.
She called herself “cautiously optimistic” about the new prosecutor general, Ruslan Riaboshapka, seen as a competent reformer who has appointed key deputies also seen as honest and competent, including Vitaly Kasko and Viktor Chumak. Combined with the start of a new Anti-Corruption Court, she said Ukraine might finally have the tools to prosecute criminal cases.
“Our government, the new government, is the cleanest and probably the youngest we’ve ever had in the history of Ukraine,” she said. “It gives us a lot of hope.” Still, she said, the judicial system needs a “good reset.”
Hopko also said that deoligarchization of Ukraine’s politics, economy and media is essential. The West can help by not laundering ill-gotten gains in their banks or helping Ukraine’s oligarchs sanitize their reputation by accepting fees from them, for speaking engagements and other work.
“The No. 1 person that people are talking about is Ihor Kolomoisky,” she said, noting the billionaire oligarch’s close relationship with Zelensky, an association “that stretches back many years.” She’s troubled by the ties of the president and his team with Kolomoisky, who is accused of looting $5.5 billion from his PrivatBank before the state took it over in 2016. Kolomoisky has also taken advantage of monopoly positions in other sectors, such as oil and gas production, to gain financially at the expense of Ukrainians.
She didn’t forget exiled billionaire oligarch Dmytro Firtash, who also holds monopoly positions in fertilizer and gas distribution networks and whose companies owe the state $2 billion for natural gas received, allegations that his Group DF denies. Hopko said that Firtash’s successful manipulation of Austrian courts for the last several years to fight extradition to the United States on bribery charges shows the weakness of Western rule of law.
“He is one of the key pro-Russian oligarchs, involved in many corrupt schemes in energy sectors,” said Hopko, who decided not to seek re-election to parliament this year. Amid all the other necessary reforms, she said, “how to demolish the oligarch influence on the economy” is critical. Another “key is to support free media” that can compete against the oligarchs’ domination of TV ownership.
Tarasyuk said that Ukraine will face terrible economic consequences, including the loss of crucial International Monetary Fund loans, if Kolomoisky’s lawsuits are successful in challenging the nationalization of PrivatBank. Such a move threatens to “undermine the whole banking system in Ukraine,” he said.
“This issue of the reform of the judiciary is tied with PrivatBank’s fate,” Tarasyuk said. “Without deep and comprehensive reform of the judiciary, it’s impossible to expect fair decisions.”
Carpenter said that Ukraine has not been able to attract investors in its defense sector, partly because of corruption. He said that people are discouraged by reformer Oleksandr Danylyuk’s resignation recently as secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, but encouraged by the presence of another reformer, Aivaras Abromavicius, as CEO of UkrOboronProm, Ukraine’s state-owned defense conglomerate.
While noting that corruption scandals in the defense sector helped bring about Poroshenko’s re-election loss, Zalishchuk said she is encouraged by the appointment of Andrew Zagorodnyuk as defense minister. She said it is impossible to join NATO “without fighting corruption. It is impossible to ask soldiers to risk their lives while they see that money is being stolen by Ukrainian leaders.”
Hopko derided French President Emmanuel Macron’s declaration that he wants to see a united Europe from Lisbon, Portugal, on the west to Vladivostok, Russia on the east. “Who will move faster — Putin to Lisbon, or Macron to Vladivostok? The history gives the answers. Let’s not be naive. Let’s not have illusions.”
She said that while “Russia is killing” the Minsk peace agreement “every day,” the West is unfairly pushing for concessions from Ukraine. “We need to keep sanctions” on the Kremlin, she said.
Zalishchuk agreed, noting Russia’s murderous impunity around the globe, including supporting massacres of civilians in Syria, where Kremlin-backed Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons to put down an eight-year insurrection against the dictator. Russian and Assad-allied forces are responsible for killing 500,000 Syrians. She also noted that the Kremlin has gotten away with the killing of 298 civilians aboard the Malaysian MH17 flight, shot down over Ukraine in 2014 by a Russian military unit with a Buk missile.
“We are not the only victims of a Russian veto at the Security Council,” she said, noting the Kremlin’s power to block United Nations’ actions.
