The Foreign Service Journal, March 2020

30 MARCH 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL ity—in favor of joining the Alliance. For example, a January 2019 survey had 46 percent in favor as opposed to 32 percent against. Clearly the war in the Donbas has forced a substantial change in the attitudes of Ukrainians about the security of their country. v The United States–Ukrainian relationship has traversed a rocky road over the last three decades. Ambassador Pifer has written an excellent history of it, The Eagle and the Trident: U.S.-Ukrainian Relations in Turbulent Times (Brookings Institution Press, 2017). He chronicles how the United States was able to persuade Ukraine to transfer nuclear weapons from its territory to Russia for elimination, but had less success in persuading the Ukrainian leadership to adopt reforms necessary to become a successful modern European state. The U.S. and Ukraine have also had disagreements over sales of sophisticated weapons and tech- nologies to regimes in Iran and Iraq, and human rights violations inside Ukraine. Yet, despite our differences, the U.S. has consistently sup- ported Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence from Russia, as well as Ukrainian territorial integrity. The Obama administra- tion winced when President Yanukovych cut a deal with Putin in early 2010 extending the Russian lease on the Sevastopol naval base in Crimea. In 2014 the Obama administration responded to the Russian invasion of Crimea with a firm set of sanctions and, eventually, military training and some nonlethal military equip- ment for Ukrainian troops fighting in the Donbas. The Trump administration went further, providing Javelin anti-tank weapon systems and other defensive systems to aid Ukraine. Most ana- lysts credit this support along with the bravery and increasing professionalism of Ukrainian soldiers for helping Ukraine stem the pro-Russian tide in the east. The overwhelming election victory of President Zelensky underscored the desire of Ukrainians of all political stripes for an end to the war in the east, for real change in the country and for integra- tion with the West. This includes many of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians living in eastern Ukraine outside Donetsk and Lugansk who voted for Zelensky, himself an easterner born in Kryvyi Rih. Most U.S. analysts believe his election represents a triumph for democracy and Ukraine’s vibrant civil society. They believe the United States should do all it can to encourage Zelensky to take the steps he promised—and which successive American administrations have sought—to build a more democratic, less corrupt and economically prosperous country. Zelensky’s election may open up an opportunity for a settle- ment in the Donbas and for Russia to extract itself from the conflict—provided the Kremlin wants to get out. The Dec. 9, 2019, meeting in Paris between Presidents Putin and Zelensky held out the promise of a lasting cease-fire and a possible politi- cal settlement, but progress will depend on how the meeting is followed up. For much of the past six years, Moscow has viewed sustaining a simmering conflict in the Donbas as a useful means of keeping pressure on the government in Kyiv and distracting it from the internal reforms it needs to pursue. Zelensky will have to negotiate carefully with the Russians. Ukrainians favor a negotiated solution to the Donbas conflict, but they do not want to compromise Ukrainian sovereignty, and they have made clear they do not want new elections in the Donbas until Russian troops are out. On the domestic front, the Ukrainian Rada has already adopted significant new reform legislation. This includes, for example, a law lifting immunity for members of the Rada, which was used for years by politicians and businessmen seeking to protect themselves from criminal charges for corruption. In addition, the new Ukrainian prosecutor general, Ruslan Ryaboshapka, is already hard at work taking on the entrenched corruption in the country. Ryaboshapka has a history of fight- ing corruption; he worked for Transparency International and, famously, resigned in protest in 2017 from the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption. Ryaboshapka has taken exception to criticism, particularly in the United States, that Ukraine is still awash in corruption A view of the Crimean Bridge, also called the Kerch Bridge, a pair of Russian- constructed parallel bridges spanning the Strait of Kerch between the Taman Peninsula of Krasnodar Krai in Russia and the Kerch Peninsula in Crimea, seen from the Kerch Peninsula in 2019. Accommodating both road and rail traffic the nearly 12-mile-long bridge is the longest bridge in Europe and the longest bridge Russia has ever built. ARTHURBONDAR