Ukrainian interest. Straightforward Biden, surfaced Yanukovych, and premonition of visa-free regime

The U.S. Vice President has given several master classes to the Ukrainian politicians. Viktor Yanukovych has forgotten how to say anything beyond the Kremlin’s instructions. The officials in Kyiv look forward to Ukraine getting a visa-free regime with the EU.

Joe Biden, who seems to have the Ukrainian issue as one of his responsibilities in the Obama administration, has paid another visit to Kyiv. The talks behind closed doors with the country's leadership were a prelude to Biden’s public address at the Verkhovna Rada’s session hall. Managing to evade unnecessary moralizing, he explained quite specifically to Ukraine’s political elite that they should not miss their chance to create a successful state. The U.S. official’s speech full of messages shaped with understanding of the Ukrainian problems, complete with the vectors to resolve them, proved to be one of the most powerful addresses performed in the Rada in recent years. And it's not about an impressive sum Biden pledged the U.S. would allocate for fighting corruption and strengthening the security, but in the clarity in underlining the facts the Ukrainians are aware of.

"Uncle Joe" pledged increased cost of Russian aggression against Ukraine, but he also called for the official Kyiv to fully implement the Minsk agreements. However, it is not quite clear, how to accomplish this task, as further concessions to the pro-Russian militants will be perceived by Ukrainian society extremely ambiguously. It should be noted that several recent meetings in the framework of the Tripartite Group in the capital of Belarus brought little to no results, while the tension on the contact line in Donbas remains.

Russia responded to Biden’s Kyiv speech asymmetrically, trying to balance it with the interview with Ukraine’s ousted president Viktor Yanukovych. The ex-president, who has not been pampering the public, neither with regular interviews, nor with the diversity of thoughts, threatened to return to the Ukrainian politics. He noted that his communication with certain politicians has intensified. However, Yanukovych chose not to disclose the names of his confidants.

Yanukovych threatened to return to the Ukrainian politics / twitter.com/ggatehouse

However, dealing with the fugitive Ukrainian president is not the main problem the Kremlin is currently facing. A demonstrative escalation of relations with Turkey continues, while the situation is further worsened with the falling oil prices: a barrel has killed the psychological $40 barrier and continued its dramatic drop. Moscow still has enough resources to feed the illusion of Russia as a superpower, but the space for foreign policy maneuvers is being gradually narrowed. Therefore, Putin and his team are trying to achieve the lifting of the Western sanctions in a tense under-the-table struggle. They are well aware of the weak links in the European chain, and try to exert additional pressure on them.

It is also important for Kyiv to show rapprochement with the EU / if.gov.ua

While Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko expressed confidence that the EU will extend sanctions against Russia, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin both predict that Ukraine will get a visa-free regime with the European Union as early as next year. Such an intangible asset will demonstrate Ukraine’s rapprochement with the EU, and it will not cost the EU much. It’s also important for the official Kyiv to show rapprochement with the European family of nations, at least to compensate for the virtual absence of reforms which would be visible to the eye of a regular Ukrainian citizen.

Yevgeny Magda

UNIAN in Google News