When Ukraine got dragged into a scandal that could end in the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump, it didn’t seem like good news — to put it mildly — for the country’s anti-corruption crusader president.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s comedian-turned-president elected by a landslide in April, had promised his supporters he would weed out rampant corruption and drain the proverbial swamp.
And yet the account released by the White House of the phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy seems to show another side of him: obsequious and ready to work with the president on his investigation of U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden. The Ukrainian press quickly dubbed him “Monica Zelenskiy.”
Things went from bad to worse when Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, abruptly resigned soon after. Following on the heels of the removal of U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was recalled for not being loyal enough to Trump, it looked like Ukraine had few allies left in Washington.
And yet, it’s not all doom and gloom for the embattled country. There are several potential silver linings for Kyiv to the political crisis playing out in Washington.
The drama unfolding in the U.S. could offer Zelenskiy a window of opportunity to seek out alternative solutions to ending the conflict.
First off, with all eyes on Ukraine, Trump is unlikely to attempt to strong-arm Zelenskiy into doing him any more favors. Congress — which unequivocally supports Ukraine over Russia — will be the one determining future policy, not the “quid pro quo” obsessed White House, and the legislative branch is likely to be more sympathetic to requests for military aid and other assistance needed to fight back against Moscow’s aggression.
If the backlash against Trump is strong enough and a Democratic nominee goes on to win the 2020 presidential election, the new administration is also likely to take a much more muscular approach to Russia and step up American support for Ukraine.
Secondly, the current turmoil may remind Ukraine it doesn’t need to compromise its principles for American support.
American help, after all, is more illusory than real. Ukraine’s dreams of NATO membership are still unlikely within the next 10 years. The Javelin anti-tank missiles the U.S. State Department recently approved for sale to Ukraine are purely defensive in nature, as Ukraine is barred from using them on the front lines in eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump in New York in September | Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
During his campaign for the presidency, Zelenskiy had pushed back against his hawkish predecessor’s purely military solution to the conflict with Russia and famously went down on his knees during a heated campaign debate to humbly apologize to the “mothers of those who had been killed in the conflict.”
Like most Ukrainians, he realizes that the answer to ending the war is more political than military. He has resumed paying pensions to those living in the “occupied regions” and has also pushed for Ukrainian media active in the region to broadcast in Russian to win back “hearts and minds.”
The drama unfolding in the U.S. could offer Zelenskiy a window of opportunity to seek out alternative solutions to ending the conflict. Zelenskiy may find he has more leeway to push to de-escalate the situation directly with the Kremlin, instead of giving in to pressure from nationalists who like to pretend that Ukraine can win against a full-scale military assault by Russia.
The recent prisoner swap with Russia, as well as Ukraine’s decision to move its troops back from the line of contact, has created fresh hope that scheduled peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Paris, under French President Emmanuel Macron’s aegis, might bear fruit later this month. A muscular peace deal that finally ends the brutal fighting is finally within sight.
It’s even possible that with Trump facing impeachment and gearing up for a major election race, the U.S. president could decide to throw his weight behind a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. It would be an opportunity to show the American public that his friendship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin can reap political dividends. That’s a big “if,” but not impossible in this present climate.
The third bright spot for Ukraine is that Zelenskiy could make a strong case for rewiring Kyiv’s allegiances to decrease its dependence on Washington and open up to an increasingly multipolar world.
It will give some Ukrainians a dark pleasure to be responsible for playing a role in the potential impeachment.
Most Ukrainians still treat Americans as “white gods” — throwing money and influence at well-connected Yanks like Paul Manafort and Hunter Biden — while condescending to the rest of the world. Seeing that America also has “feet of clay” and is an unreliable partner might encourage Ukrainians to take India, China, South America and those from the “non-white world” more seriously. At the very least, it might force them to forge alliances further afield, as its nemesis Russia has done.
There’s also chance that worldwide attention on Ukraine could provide a boost to its burgeoning tourist industry and, in turn, its struggling economy. Ryanair and other budget airlines are already flying to a number of Ukrainian cities, and people are increasingly paying attention to the country. Hollywood icon Tom Cruise was in Ukraine last week and met Zelenskiy while scouting locations for a new film.
That’s good news for the embattled nation, which has struggled to present an appealing image to potential visitors. Increased Hollywood interest in Ukraine (think HBO’s lauded “Chernobyl” documentary series) will raise the country’s profile worldwide. Kyiv could well become the next Prague or Budapest.
“I am convinced that Ukraine has all the prerequisites for becoming one of the top tourist destinations in the world,” Ukraine’s Tourism Minister Volodymyr Borodiansky wrote on Facebook as his country dominated the news cycle.
Finally, there’s the famous Ukrainian sense of irony. It will give some Ukrainians a dark pleasure to be responsible for playing a role in the potential impeachment of a president their enemies in Moscow may have helped to elect.
“Whatever happens in the history of the United States, Ukraine will remain the country that led to the impeachment of the U.S. President.” Ukraine’s former Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin joked on Twitter. “Not a very fun prospect. But now everyone knows what we are capable of.”
Vijai Maheshwari is a writer and entrepreneur based in Moscow. He tweets at @Vijaimaheshwari.