Both of those issues are rather false. Of course, Ukraine is caught between a deadly trap, east and to the west.
Nevertheless, Poroshenko has not clearly been able to articulate a fundamental question, which is that Ukraine ultimately has to establish an agenda to sort out its own problems and only then with the assistance of all of its neighbors.
DAVID SPEEDIE: I'd like to get back to that, Richard, because I know you've written about this recently, but a little bit more focus on Mr. Poroshenko.
He seems a bit of an enigma, to say the least. What we know about him is, he's a billionaire. He runs the largest confectionery-manufacturing company in Ukraine.
He is an experienced politician. I just found out that he served as foreign minister under Mrs. Tymoshenko when she was prime minister, so he's an experienced politician but is unaffiliated with any party at the moment. The BBC reported that he had worked with some degree of harmony, or at least accommodation, with both pro-European and pro-Russian camps. He is close to former president Yushchenko.
This is a bit of, as you say, an enigmatic figure to say the least.
Most importantly, he has said that his first visit would be to the Donbas in the East, the region that you both outlined as being a problematical proposition for him at this point. Yet he's also spoken of the bandits who are in control there.
Speak a little to this complicated person, because he's largely unknown, of course, in the west.
RICHARD SAKWA: Certainly. He has been a part of almost every single government and every single party formation for the last decade and a half. He's certainly a well run-in insider of the elite, which is an advantage on the one side, because he knows how things work. He knows who's who and what's what.
However, by that very element, he is somebody who has been part of the establishment, which has led, if you like, or allowed the country to drift into this split within society, within the vision of what the Ukrainian state should look like, what the policies should be.
He has both advantages and disadvantages. The question is now whether he can articulate a positive vision to bring together, and indeed establish genuine dialogue with all the social forces and not externalize it. In Donbas, of course, he is faced with a huge challenge in Donetsk itself and at the airport.
But nonetheless, simply to say, "Look, these people, we don't like their methods," he could say, "But we understand that they want to be heard, that they feel that they've been excluded from the model of statehood for so long. Let's bring them in. Let's establish a genuine constitutional process." Not specific policies so much even at this point, because policies that can be given today can be taken away tomorrow.
But they have to be deeply entrenched in a genuine, inclusive constitutional process. I think that Poroshenko has the strength and ability to do it, but he has to get moving fast, in other words, to lever his overwhelming electoral victory, which I think was a very good thing indeed for establishing any kind of strong base to move forwards. But he has to move and not to be diverted.
And there's endless external forces whispering in his ear, you've got to do this in the other. He's now really got to show himself to be able to articulate a liberal, a democratic, and a patriotic, inclusive vision of Ukrainian statehood.
DAVID SPEEDIE: Nicolai, I think you agree with that, because in an interview you gave yesterday, I think, to RIA Novosti in Moscow, you spoke on the one hand of Poroshenko perhaps trying to control the private militias who are at work in the East and are certainly part of the problem, and making a commitment to some degree of autonomy.
Yet you also said that another option for him "would be to pursue full military victory in the East against the so-called terrorists formed by some form of de facto occupation." This sounds like a sort of tough, hit-the-ground-running problem.
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