Kiev Will Try To Please Trump

Political analyst Viktor Pirozhenko on how the Ukrainian political class will build a relationship with the new administration in Washington.

Deputy of the Ukrainian Parliament Nadiya Savchenko wrote a post on her Facebook page calling on the future President of the United States Donald Trump to maintain and strengthen sanctions against Russia. In fact, she had earlier foreshadowed similar sentiments, but Kiev officials already made similar requests of the new administration.

They definitely will follow, because all Kiev foreign policy is built on simple-minded, destructive assumptions: to lobby the West to continue the anti-Russian sanctions and to beg the West for aid and loans.

The change in United States foreign policy with President-elect Trump will include a change in relations with Kiev, as well as the internal political processes in Ukraine itself, which could seriously change interactions between Kiev and Washington, as well as the balance of political forces within the Kiev regime.

In general, the situation developing in Ukraine is leading to early parliamentary elections with the possible promotion to president in 2019: the former head of the Odessa Regional Administration Mikheil Saakashvili.

The U.S. already formulated a specific request for a new pro-American oriented political force, which would have been the result of the political “Maidan call” of the first wave. Washington, in the face of the end of the Obama administration, completely refused to trust in Poroshenko, Yatsenuk-Avakov and the inner circle.

Donald Trump, based on his foreign policy concepts, will likely significantly reduce the United States’ active participation in indoctrinating ideological foreign policy actions, as the Obama administration acted in Ukraine.

During his election campaign, Trump had promised to transform the foreign policy of the United States to “self-sufficiency.” In doing so, he has already threatened the European Union with assuming the large responsibility of Ukraine.

In this situation in Ukraine, the number of those wishing to show that the change of the corrupt leader Poroshenko and “The Popular Front” to the new “pro-American” power was just to enable the West to save money on aid to Ukraine increased. Implementation of Trump’s foreign policy, not paradoxically, will give Saakashvili and those oriented in the pro-American group in Kiev an additional argument for the new administration and a powerful lever of pressure on Poroshenko and his inner circle. We will soon see how Trump will respond to these arguments.

In addition, Sakaashvili and his party “Hvilya” (“Wave”) will become the new pro-Western stake in Ukraine and will seek the conventional “group Leschenko-Nayem,” which is the core of the “Democratic Alliance,” as well the identifying party of many pro-Western opinion leaders and influential officials in Kiev and in the region.

The unwillingness of Washington to destabilize the general sociopolitical situation in Ukraine, to the extent that it could be out of United States’ control, is keeping Americans from removing President Poroshenko from his position. Poroshenko remains, but in this situation the role and importance of those pro-American political forces will grow, which will thoroughly oversee the corrupt head of state.

Considering Washington’s creation of Ukrainian-American colonies within the Ukrainian government, Washington functions in the same manner – with a lack of professionalism in public administration, indulgence in corruption, use of gray financial schemes in the economy, theft of the budget, improper use of external loans, etc.

At this moment, the anti-Poroshenko and pro-American forces in the Ukrainian politics remain fragmented, although they understand the need for union.

The problem is that “young reformers,” who positioned the Obama administration in Ukraine as the third (except “Bloc of Poroshenko” and “the Home Front”) pro-American force, appear to have had strained relations with future U.S. President Trump.

Deputies Sergei Leschenko and Mustafa Nayem – the favorites of Joe Biden and Viktoria Nuland – openly played up the Hillary Clinton campaign, but Leshenko personally initiated the scandal with “the ledger” of the Party of Regions, which forced Paul Manafort – the head of Donald Trump’s election campaign staff – to resign. The only chance is for them to leave under the patronage of Saakashvili, which is the only force in the Kiev regime not to “light up” the anti-Trump campaign.

Saakashvili and his party, the Democratic Alliance, and also “the Fatherland” of Yulia Timoshenko and “Opposition Bloc,” are interested in early parliamentary elections and obviously will promote them. The resignation of Saakashvili, his hasty party construction and his seizure of political activity are clear indicators to Poroshenko’s competitors that no one is willing to wait until 2019. So, the conference of the party “Democratic Alliance,” will ultimately determine the program and will choose the leadership. He is trying somehow to define “Hvilya.”

Trump’s willingness to support early parliamentary elections is currently unknown. However, Poroshenko’s competitors, evidently, are expecting their activity to influence the Trump administration and put the need to support these elections at the forefront.

Some of Poroshenko’s competition viewed the change in power in the United States not only as a challenge but also as a “window of opportunity.” Taking these political developments into consideration, the probability increases for changes in the alignment of political forces and early parliamentary elections.