The Kyiv Post posed four questions to some of the 400 participants of the 5th annual Tiger Conference on Nov. 29 in the Hilton Kyiv Hotel. The theme “Ukraine: Vision 2020” focused on how the nation can reach its many economic, political and security goals by 2020. Among them are to create a new economy to shed its reliance on raw materials, improve its defense forces enough to join the NATO alliance and recover the billions of dollars stolen during the 2010-2014 administration of President Viktor Yanukovych. Other goals include: living longer and healthier lives; becoming one of the top 20 nations for incoming investment or ease of doing business; increasing agricultural production; boosting the information technology sector; the ability to travel without visas to European Union nations and many others.
What should Ukraine do to recover its stolen money?
Kostiantyn Likarchuk, Partner at Kinstellar
“I am deeply convinced that the stolen money would not be recovered by Ukraine because, first of all, time for collecting the evidential base to return these assets has expired. Secondly, it is almost impossible to return the money with such a management we currently have at the Prosecutor General’s Office and in the Justice Ministry. Besides, we have corruption and those people whose assets Ukraine wants to recover pay bribes for this not to happen. To recover this stolen money, I think that the only option is to delegate this function to professionals. I mean to conduct tenders among law firms. And of course, Prosecutor
Olesya Zaluska, Export strategy manager, Ukraine’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade
“We should realize that we should do active things to recover the assets. We have to make a plan, to define objectives, tasks and then pursue these objectives together with the inter-ministerial coordination and interaction. And it is very important that civil society keeps an eye on this, pushes Ukrainian government to do active things.”
What should Ukraine do to protect itself?
Nataliya Kozachenko, Managing director of Vasant Connect Limited
“I think in terms of security we have to somehow build a dialogue with Russia. I love Ukraine and I don’t approve of Russia’s actions, but I am quite pragmatic. I feel very sad that Ukrainian people die. I don’t think that confrontation is a solution while on the one side we have to develop proper strategy, and on the other side at the same time we have to work on resolving the conflict in a diplomatic way. I think it should be a combination of diplomatic and non-diplomatic actions. We should put emotions aside, and we have to put our focus on what is our real goal. We have to deliver our messages always keeping that in mind. We don’t have a moral right to behave in a way which actually hinders Ukraine even though in a short term it may sound very patriotic. Being patriotic does not mean to always speak your mind. I think we also have to be tactical so we have to play this game in a very sophisticated way, suitable for modern world.”
Giorgi Kalandadze, Chief specialist of Patriot training center“
“I think that the main goal for Ukraine is to develop its economy. In the future, Ukraine has to be ready to fight against Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. It is good news is that the Defense Ministry will get financing from the state budget equal to five percent of the country’s GDP (gross domestic product). And the thing is that our defense depends on the state of economy.”
What are Ukraine’s main goals in the next four years?
John Lough, Associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House
“I think first of all Ukraine has to continue investing into effective law enforcement, deepening its contacts with NATO and ensuring that there is greater standardization and making itself compatible with other NATO armies or other NATO countries. That is probably the best way Ukraine can defend itself at the time. And there are other models around, like the ones that northern countries have done such as Sweden and Finland, I am sure they are studied in Ukraine, and we are talking about the transformation process that is supposed to be 10–20 years but If progress is made in those areas I think that defense of Ukraine will be different from what it is today.”
Georgiy Erman, Liga.net news website journalist
“First of all, we have to preserve internal political stability. I think that nowadays Ukraine’s main threats come from within the country, because there is large disappointment in the society. Society is not satisfied with how the fight against corruption is going. We have economic problems. We also have to resolve social problems because primarily the war affects the vulnerable population. We have to build an army, and we have to fulfil at last these slogans about fight against corruption.”
Anna Pushkaryova, Georgia director at Eurofast
“When taking into account the Georgian experience, Ukraine should fight corruption first of all and to ensure the transparent business conditions to attract foreign investment. That in the end will lead to increasing people’s well-being.”
Luc Jacobs, Ambassador of Belgium in Ukraine
“I think Ukraine has at least two main threats – military threats, the Russian aggression. And the other threat comes from inside, it’s a huge challenge. And Ukraine is indeed succeeding in fight against endemic corruption. I think on the military side Ukraine has proved in the past years that it is indeed capable of containing the military threats that it has a lot of support from its partners. And in terms of the fight against corruption and providing more transparent and more business friendly climate which is absolutely important for getting its economy going again, I think important progress has been made but there is still a long way to go.”
Robert Homans, Managing partner of Aperio Associates
“I think that Ukraine should continue doing the same thing it does now. I mean that when the crisis started in 2014 Ukraine had only 600 combat ready troops, now we have almost 100,000 of them. So Ukraine should keep doing what it has been doing recently.”
Alexandra Vihristyuk, Head of Marketing, AZBI
“First of all, we have to define our own values, and to resist big influences from Europe and Russia. Ukraine has to cherish its identity and to stand for its interests.”
Will Ukraine become the new economy by 2020, or will it stay a supplier of the raw materials?
Galyna Zagorodniuk, Partner at DLA Piper Ukraine LLC
“Nobody can say, if to be honest. I am hoping for better. For now, the situation is bad, it could have been much better. But if to speak of what we have really achieved during last two years… Well, I agree with (Tiger Conference moderator) Daniel Bilak, who said that we started building new Ukraine not 25, but two years ago. And during these two years we achieved a lot.”
Volodymyr Chepovy, President of the Ukrainian Business Association
“Definitely, we are almost there. There are interesting programs. We won’t give up without a fight, we will do everything necessary and will be there in 2020.”
Olena Tregub, International assistance director at Ukraine’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade
“There is such issue as external donors’ investments – it’s an official economic support that we receive from the international financial institutions, from foreign governments, it’s grants and credits – we have more than $10 billion of them in our portfolio now. Everyone comes to us for advice in which direction to invest. They ask our state: “Do you have your strategy?”… Unfortunately, in the meantime the state responds: “No we don’t. Invest wherever you want to.” The state has to be ready to answer, it must have vision how we can become the new economy. Our state has problems with strategic planning. The positive thing is that we started realizing this. Currently we are working on the development plan for the next four years.”
Oleksandr Khomiak, Managing Partner at Argos Legal
“We are at the stage of choosing where we are heading to. Everything depends on us. The current tendency implies that we will be a supplier of raw materials, but it depends on whether we will be able to change that by 2020. We have to be a civil society. Everyone has to do something. It doesn’t matter what exactly a person is doing, just something that makes the life of that person easier. For example, to help with development of the park in the neighborhood, to follow what the local authority is doing, to wonder what the local administration spends money on, what contractors are building the road, and to report if something is wrong. To be active.”
Vladyslav Rashkovan, Partner at SD Capital
“I think it depends. I think the risk to become a failed state is pretty high, and we need to do everything possible not to let that happen. Lots has to be done for that. I think that one of the main tasks is to become more serious towards the reforms in the country. What is now happening looks more like some counterrevolution. And it was predictable. But the question is how you will handle it – will you step back and wait another seven or 10 years for the next window of opportunities to open, or you will try to create one now through uniting and, again, more serious attitude when it comes to reforms. Current authorities are able to do that.”
