Beyond the partisan whirlwind of impeachment hearings, the United States-Ukraine relationship remains strong. American aid continues flowing to Ukraine; the U.S. government continues to actively support President Volodymyr Zelensky’s efforts to reduce corruption and confront Russian aggression.
This effort sets America apart from the European Union, which continues to play to Putin’s interest by pushing for a peace deal that asks for far more of Ukraine than it does of Moscow.
This is not to say that Zelensky’s administration is enjoying the current battle on Capitol Hill. Nor that Zelensky enjoyed President Trump’s apparent effort to pressure him into investigating the Bidens. Still, Ukraine has good reason to be happy with the current status of U.S. relations.
For a start, where the Obama administration refused to provide Ukraine with lethal arms and refused to conduct more vigorous intelligence operations against Russia, the Trump administration has no such qualms. At the same time, motivated by continuing fury over Russia’s 2016 election-targeting campaign and an impeachment-related effort to outmaneuver Trump, Democrats are motivated to offer significant support for Ukraine.
The Russians are not helping themselves here. The report on Monday about Russian military drone attacks on Ukrainian territory outside pro-Russian-rebel-held areas serves as a reminder of Vladimir Putin’s desire to degrade Ukrainian sovereignty and obstruct peace on anyone’s terms but his own.
This has precipitated a bipartisan consensus that Zelensky deserves U.S. support and a good deal of it.
That starts with the top U.S. diplomat in Kyiv, William Taylor, who last week testified to Congress on impeachment-related matters. On Tuesday, he was back in Ukraine to congratulate Zelensky for his success in retrieving Ukrainian vessels that had been seized by Russian forces.
In another example, at a ceremony last week to celebrate the deployment of two U.S. ships for the Ukrainian military, the number two U.S. representative in Ukraine pledged that three more American ships would also be provided. And he was clear: “Our Minsk-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia fully implements the Minsk agreements and withdraws from [southeastern Ukraine]. And our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine.”
Designed to reassure Ukrainian officials that Washington partisanship is not distracting the U.S. government from supporting Ukraine, that Minsk-Crimea quote features heavily in speeches by various officials.
But the top line is this: As judged by the details of U.S. policy, U.S.-Ukrainian relations have rarely been stronger.
