Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
Putin Transformed from Stubborn Holdout to Star at G20
At the G-20 meeting in Antalya, Turkey, on November 16, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin proposed that Russia could restructure the $3 billion Eurobond that he lent former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in December 2013. It comes due on December 20.This was a sudden change of policy. Until that moment, the Kremlin had insisted on...
The Economics of Rebellion in Eastern Ukraine
New research demonstrates why the conflict has not spread beyond Donetsk and Luhansk In April 2014, angry mobs and armed men stormed administrative buildings and police stations in eastern Ukraine, waving Russian flags and proclaiming the establishment of “Peoples’ Republics” in Donetsk and Luhansk. At the time, some observers...
Winning Energy Battle Just as Important as Fight in Eastern Ukraine
The West has focused on Ukraine’s two existential crises: the war in the east and Ukraine’s troubled economy. It’s understandable, but now is the time for Ukraine to press hard on energy reform because Russia uses energy to exert influence over Ukraine and the energy sector has been a black hole of corruption in the country.Gas...
Slowly But Surely Kyiv Comes Around
How has Ukraine changed since the Euromaidan Revolution?In attempting to answer this question, I’ve used the governance-related categories in Freedom House’s Nations in Transit study, which tracks the reform record of post-Communist countries in Europe and Eurasia, and supplemented them with a few of my own. (Full disclosure:...
Will Saakashvili’s Defeat in Odesa Be His Ukrainian Waterloo?
Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov trounced Solidarity Party’s Sasha Borovik by 53-26 percent in Ukraine’s local elections October 25. Observers reported carousel voting, multiple voting lists, exit poll workers agitating for candidates, and a suspiciously slow vote count.The race for Odesa mayor was a proxy war between Oblast Governor...
A Close (and Surprisingly Positive) Encounter with Odesa’s New Police
The reorganization and reform of Ukraine’s catastrophically corrupt police force was the top priority when President Petro Poroshenko appointed Eka Zguladze first deputy Interior Minister of Ukraine. Poroshenko wants to emulate the relative success that Georgia’s Rose Revolution reformers garnered in modernizing their small...
Failing on the Ukrainian Battlefield, Russia Turns to Terrorism
To understand how Russia conducts its foreign policy, simply look at what the Kremlin accuses everyone else of doing. Unlike the Soviet Union, which operated under a coherent ideology, the Russian government under President Vladimir Putin seems to believe that everybody is a cynical power player, and that the West is simply hypocritical about it....
Judiciary Reforms Take a Major Step Forward in Ukraine
While Ukraine’s eastern front falls quiet, a different campaign rages in the conference rooms of Kyiv. The administration of President Petro Poroshenko is overhauling the Ukrainian state, amending everything from the constitution to the tax code. The most important reform may be the creation of an independent judiciary. As Anders Åslund...
Expert Panel Identifies Ways to Defeat Corruption in Ukraine
A top Citibank executive and one of Ukraine’s most popular rock stars were among five luminaries who offered their suggestions Monday for cleaning up the endemic corruption that has long strangled the Ukrainian economy and kept foreign investors away.The five appeared on a November 9 panel titled “Securing Ukraine’s Future:...
Ukraine Needs Responsible Public Finances Now
With increasing surprise, I follow the Ukrainian discussion about public finances. Strangely, some prominent Ukrainians seem to think that taxes and public expenditures have no relationship to one another, arguing that public expenditures should be increased and taxes should be cut. But that is called populism, the disease Ukraine has suffered...
