A Ukrainian’s Perspective

My mother was Ukrainian as were my first words. I grew up with immigrant Ukrainian aunts and uncles and have met Ukrainians who came to the USA once the USSR disintegrated in 1991 and they were allowed to leave the country. Due to my interest in my heritage and experiences in international affairs, I suspect I have more knowledge of Ukraine than most Americans.

We hear over and over again that it is a corrupt country. Have you seen anyone in the media explain WHY it is a very corrupt country? The first Ukrainian I met after Ukraine became independent clarified why with the following exchange.

I asked her what she wanted during her stay in the USA. She replied, “A Bible.”

“Why?”

“Because it was forbidden (in Socialist/Communist Ukraine) – and we knew that anything forbidden by the government must be good since they lie about everything.”

She further explained, “My husband has an engineering degree but he works in a meat packing plant.”

Astonished, I asked, “Why, given his education?”

“Because everyone in the plant leaves work ever day with a slab of meat in their pockets.”

Naively, I remarked, “You have meat every night for dinner?”

She rolled her eyes and said, “No, but we can barter the meat for whatever we need. You see in a socialist country, the system requires you break the law to survive.”

The second key thing that seemingly is never mentioned in the media concerning Ukraine is that since the collapse of the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1991, the same Ukrainian Communists continued to run the country. The Communist bureaucracy, their “Deep State,” continues to control the media, the elections apparatus, much of the courts, and to whom the most viable government owned industries were sold. Therefore the corruption and looting of the country’s resources continued by the same leadership. They just no longer called themselves Communists. They say they are socialists.

So, before one can understand why the Democrats were in such a hurry to impeach President Trump, even before the contents of his conversation with Ukraine’s newly elected President were known, one needs to know a little about Ukraine and its newly elected President Zelensky. He is a comedic actor and had no political experience. He campaigned on a platform to clean up the corrupt bureaucratic swamp in Ukraine. He appears to be their first real non-Communist President.

Zelensky says he is for Ukraine joining NATO and the European Union. He has reintroduced criminal liability legislation to prosecute past government officials for illegal enrichment. He, like Trump, wants to know where at least one billion dollars in loans from the Obama/Biden administration went after it was sent to the chairman of Burisma’s ‘Privat Bank.’

My next installment will explain why so many on both sides of the Atlantic and many Democrats and Republicans do not want any investigations of where the billions in non-military aid given Ukraine by the Obama administration went or what the Ukrainian government interference was in the 2016 presidential campaign.

James F. Davis

Hayesville, NC