Tillerson pleased with the Ukrainians, saying that the Minsk process is the only hope for peace in Eastern Ukraine came into effect, the first step is to make Russia. The Ukrainian President said in response that he’s not just happy, but “extremely pleased” with the visit Tillerson.
“We are extremely pleased with the level of cooperation with our American partners,” — said the President Petro Poroshenko.
And to some extent that he has. Here need to remind that the Vice-President in the Obama administration, Joe Biden, and Secretary of state John Kerry after the revolution (in Ukraine) in 2014, visited Kiev many times in a year, and they are constantly assured that the US supports Ukraine. And Tillerson last Sunday visited Kiev for the first time, although a few days will already be six months from that day, as a tramp entered the White house.
You can take another dimension of the Russian-Ukrainian rivalry in the struggle for the conquest of the location of Americans in the days of the tramp. Here we can note that at the time, as Poroshenko first met with trump face-to-face three weeks ago, Putin has won in intensity. Besides trump and Poroshenko spoke to each other in 35 minutes, and Poroshenko had to sneak into the White house almost through the back door, but the meeting, trump and Putin last Friday lasted 2 hours and 16 minutes. And trump has met Putin with open arms, saying that he was honoured to meet with the Russian President. So who won in the fight for location of the United States — Poroshenko or Putin? It is difficult to say. It’s the same if you compare sprint and run long distances. This is a different discipline. But we focus on Putin.
In spite of that, Ukrainians have become accustomed to that life — a piece striped, and that no one gives a guarantee. Because the Ukrainians have quite a lot of experience on the part that in spite of everything to consider as good news that in fact are bad. The first line of the anthem of Ukraine expresses the difficult situation of the state and contains some minor tuning fork. It reads: “Ukraine Has not yet perished (SIC — approx. ed.)”. Or in translation: “Still alive Ukraine (SIC — approx. ed.)”
No, the election of Donald trump for President of the United States was not disastrous for Ukraine, although on Sunday, the tramp, when he reached home after meetings in Hamburg, was able to report the following on Twitter:
“It is time to move forward and to work constructively with Russia!”
A tweet appeared around the same time when Tillerson met in Kiev with Poroshenko. But how big are the prospects for a constructive cooperation of trump and Putin? And if possible constructive cooperation to the lifting of sanctions against Russia imposed over the annexation of Crimea and support for the war in Eastern Ukraine? And Putin wants the lifting of sanctions.
Looks like Trump and Putin enjoyed in the company of each other in Hamburg last weekend. In addition, they look like leaders. Both prefer to play alone, not in teams. The unpredictability and impulsiveness — part of the strategy of both, and trump, sometimes very tense relationship with reality.
But due to the private interests of the two countries large-scale cooperation is unlikely. This particularly applies to Ukraine. Confusion around contacts with Russia trump and a campaign headquarters trump hinder rapprochement with Russia is much stronger than it would without this mess. The ability of trump to appear in person accommodating toward Putin’s Russia destroyed the underestimation of what U.S. intelligence calls Russia’s interference in the American electoral campaign to ensure the victory of trump.
In fact, trump is largely in the hands and feet bound in its policy towards Russia, and thus in his policy towards Ukraine, too. Visit Tillerson is good news for Ukraine, which is almost three years is in a state of undeclared war with Russia, a war that claimed over 10 thousand lives.
Although it took a long time before Tillerson finally came to visit last Sunday he was greeted with rejoicing. And this means that the first line of the Ukrainian national anthem proved once again that it is all true: “alive Ukraine”.
