Not too long ago, two different headlines evoked a story that happened over five years ago. First, Ukraine’s Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) filed a court case against Olena Lukash, the former Minister of Justice during Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency, and Olha Stefanishyna, the current Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration.
The second event occurred overseas and, at first, seemed to have no immediate connection to Ukraine. U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat, and his wife were accused of bribery on 22 September. Menendez allegedly provided confidential information to the U.S. government to facilitate secret aid to the Egyptians in exchange for approximately $480,000 in cash, gold, and a luxury car. Menendez temporarily stepped down as the head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations but continues to deny any wrongdoing.
Those two events brought up a rather unpleasant story. The story about Ukraine becoming an integral part of U.S. election campaigns. In May 2018, three U.S. senators, including Menendez, sent a letter to the then Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Yuriy Lutsenko. The letter contained four questions. In brief, U.S. senators wanted to know if the Ukrainian government was interfering in favour of the sitting U.S. President at the time, Donald Trump. Before that, The New York Times reported that Lutsenko was hindering the investigation of four criminal cases related to Paul Manafort, Trump’s political consultant. All these cases were related to the time when Manafort worked for the Ukrainian Party of Regions and Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s ex-president. Three of the cases were directly linked to Manafort’s activities and involved Western lobbyists hired to improve the reputation of the Party of Regions in the West. The fourth case didn’t explicitly connect to Manafort then and was referred to as the ‘Lukash case’. In December 2013, after the start of the Euromaidan protests, Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice, then headed by Olena Lukash, allocated 2,5 million hryvnias to analyse specific parts of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU. This task was outsourced to a group of lawyers and the LLC European Legal Group. Only in September 2023 have the SAP prosecutors filed this particular case to court.
Five years ago, in May 2018, there were talks of Yuriy Lutsenko, then Prosecutor General, withdrawing four cases from the Department of Special Investigations, led by Serhiy Horbatyuk, who investigated crimes related to the Maidan events; in exchange for this, Trump allegedly provided Ukraine with Javelins. The fact that Lutsenko did actually withdraw the cases was true. However, firstly, with regard to economic crimes investigations, dubious things were happening in the Prosecutor General’s Office under Lutsenko. Secondly, the presence of the ‘Lukash case’ among those four cases at that time did not fit into the story of ‘whitewashing Manafort at Trump’s direct order’.
There is another explanation for these events. The election campaign in the U.S. was nearing, and everything related to Ukraine at that time was incorporated into the logic of the U.S. elections. Soon, there was an attempt to impeach Trump, and Ukraine would become part of the accusations against him. Trump was accused of exerting pressure on the Ukrainian government, albeit for different reasons. He allegedly insisted on investigating the activities of Hunter Biden (the son of current President Joe Biden, who worked for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma). On the other hand, Trump’s team accused Democrats and Biden himself of pressuring Ukrainian authorities, claiming that they did so to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections (related explicitly to Manafort). One can argue about the mistakes of various Ukrainian politicians and whether they intended to interfere in American politics. But Ukraine was undoubtedly dragged into those elections. The New York Times publications and the letters from senators were just the first steps. Afterwards, a storm began, and there was no calm harbour for Ukraine.
Risks for Ukraine
The U.S. will once again hold presidential elections in 2024. For Ukraine, the situation will be way more complicated than five years ago. A full-scale war is ongoing. Nevertheless, the role imposed on us seems to be the same. The Joe Biden administration needs to prove to its voters that its actions are successful and justified. One of its key undertakings was the support of Ukraine, both militarily and financially.
The best course of action would have been to provide Ukraine with all the means and tools to defeat Russia on the battlefield once and for all. However, common sense is not always a key political factor. It’s been a year since the U.S. military experts, including U.S. army generals, first urged the president to provide Ukraine with ATACMS missiles. Finally, after Biden announced his decision to provide Ukraine with a ‘small batch’ of missiles in late September, there are reports of Ukraine using ATACMS against Russian targets. Everyone must have followed Ukraine’s saga of getting F-16s from the U.S. and the allies, but they are yet to arrive in Ukraine.
It seems that Washington no longer considers Ukraine’s victory in the Russian-Ukrainian war plausible before the U.S. elections in November 2024. Instead, there is a growing focus regarding the need for various reforms in Ukraine. On 25 September, Ukrainian online magazine Ukrainska Pravda published a letter addressed to the Ukrainian government and the Office of the President. The letter’s immediate author is Mike Pyle, who has been appointed by the White House to oversee Ukraine’s reconstruction. The letter itself doesn’t contain anything sensational. It appears to be a brief summary of the well-needed reforms, similar to those prepared by various international organisations while preparing financial aid to Ukraine. There are even some humorous blunders, suggesting the authors didn’t spend much time preparing this letter, such as misspelling Supreme Court as ‘the Supreme Court of Ukraine’, a title that was changed during judicial reforms of Ukraine’s former president, Petro Poroshenko.
Each of the reforms mentioned in the letter has a specific deadline for its implementation. It was these deadlines that caused a significant uproar. The text appears to be a list of non-negotiable demands. While it’s not explicitly indicated in the letter, it’s not difficult to guess what would happen in case of non-compliance. Ukraine largely depends on the funds provided by Western governments. Regarding military aid, it is safe to say Ukraine fully depends on Western supplies. U.S. Embassy in Ukraine was quick to reassure that this was not a list of demands but rather a document to be discussed. However, the tendency is obvious: Ukraine will be subjected to more demands in exchange for continued assistance.
These demands will be less relevant to Ukrainian realities and more relevant to the domestic policies of the sponsor states. As such, this is not a problem. Ukrainians have proven before that passing necessary laws and holding elections in Kyiv is something they can easily handle. What’s worrying, though, is that in the next elections, the White House will try to sell Ukraine to its voters, and not as ‘the country that defeated Russia’, but as ‘the country that aspires to democracy’. In that case, Ukraine may be requested to hold its own elections, so the U.S. voters will be told, “Hey, look, they are so democratic, they even held elections amidst a brutal war”.
Talk of elections in Ukraine suddenly emerged this summer, prompted by Ukraine’s Western partners. First, Tiny Kox, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), made bizarre remarks about holding elections during martial law. He later clarified that his words were misunderstood, though. In late August, Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham came to Kyiv and outright said in a briefing: next year, you will have elections. While according to the electoral experts, there is no existing model for holding elections during wartime, the talks will continue. In Ukraine, there are obviously interested parties, particularly political lobbyists and party employees, who earn their living during campaigns. But they are unlikely to have the final say in this matter.
Suppose U.S. lobbyists tie potential Ukrainian elections to the upcoming U.S. elections. In that case, it will become ‘a little step’ for them and a significant problem for us. The U.S. will need to demonstrate the very fact of voting as such. However, fair, democratic elections are not just about changing faces. Their critical function is to legitimise the country’s governance. Elections transform those in power (anyone in power, for that matter) into legitimate authorities. At the moment, it’s impossible to ensure that every Ukrainian citizen, especially the servicemen, those who defend Ukraine and the mere possibility to vote, can participate. Military personnel in the trenches will not be able to vote because no one will deliver and collect a ballot box from them. If the military men do not vote, the entire legitimacy of the elected authorities will be seriously undermined. In Ukraine, tensions between the civilian population and the servicemen have already been escalating. Elections will quickly transform these tensions into deep societal divisions. If elections are held, those members of Ukrainian society who are sacrificing less will be electing the game rules for those who are sacrificing more. This absolutely should not happen, even if it means displeasing certain members of the U.S. political parties.
