Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
What Business is Really Like in Ukraine
A Response to James Brooke James Brooke truly believes that investors should sink their money into Ukraine. He couldn’t be more wrong. Every roulette table in Las Vegas is more promising than Ukraine. I know from personal experience; I lived in Kyiv for five years and knew a few dozen foreigners who invested in Ukraine.To be fair, Brooke...
Memo to Ukrainian Government: Privatization Can Succeed if You Get Out of Way
On July 18, Ukraine’s most recent attempt at privatization came to a disappointing conclusion. Odesa’s petrochemical plant, OPZ, was placed up for auction, but after the government set a minimum price of $520 million, no qualified bidders came forward. As a consequence, the state still owns the enterprise, which continues to impose...
In Ukraine, Two Steps Forward and One Step Back: Procurement Reform Advances, Slowly
Many changes have occurred in Ukraine since the Euromaidan, but the country still struggles mightily with corruption. Those efforts are symbolized in the ongoing fight to reform Ukraine’s corrupt procurement practices.For years, links between government officials and Ukraine’s “pharma mafia” resulted in the theft of approximately $100...
Saakashvili in Odesa: When Making Waves is Not Enough
A year after my Atlantic Council blog post on Mikheil Saakashvili’s first fifty days as Odesa oblast governor, it’s time to reexamine his record. The results are mixed: his brisk and spectacular first wins soon hit the skids. The Presidential Administration’s promised support evaporated in late 2015 and Saakashvili’s many...
Trump’s Dangerous Bromance with Putin Is a National Security Threat
Russia’s recent hacking attacks on the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the party’s fundraising committee for candidates for the US House of Representatives reflect Moscow’s view that it is in a state of political war with the United States, if not the West. Efforts to take down Western political...
How the International Media Enables Russian Aggression in Ukraine
If anyone had attempted to report on “German-backed forces” in Nazi-occupied France or “pro-Soviet forces” during the Prague Spring, they would have been dismissed as either hopelessly misinformed or deeply disingenuous. While local collaborators and convenient euphemisms were plentiful in both instances, there was never...
What Trade Policy Does Ukraine Need Now?
At the informal ministerial meeting of the Eastern Partnership in Kyiv on July 11-12, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin proposed that the six members of the Eastern Partnership (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine) form a single economic space or free trade area. This is implausible. Ukraine does need to open...
Trump Embraces Putin and Alienates Rust Belt Voters with Eastern European Roots
Hillary Clinton’s campaign bus rattles over potholes and bumps in the US Rust Belt while Donald Trump flits around on his private jet.Such optics never seem to hurt Trump or, conversely, to help Hillary, but much depends on voters in the Rust Belt, notably in Ohio and Pennsylvania.Trump may be a master of branding but his cobranding with...
NATO’s Trump Card
As strange as it seems, both US President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump seem to agree on one thing: European allies don’t spend enough on defense and they need to seriously step up. How they both frame this message is where Obama the statesman and Trump the salesman differ.Since Russia’s annexation of...
Ukraine’s Deadly Profession: Three Journalists Attacked in July
On July 20, investigative journalist Pavel Sheremet was assassinated in Kyiv. Sheremet hosted a morning show at Radio Vesti and was a top reporter at Ukrainska Pravda. A crusading journalist and native of Minsk, Belarus, he had already been expelled from both Belarus and Russia. He was killed by a car bomb.It would be easy to dismiss...
