Vitaly Portnikov. President Clinton in Kyiv

President Clinton in Kyiv - the view of the Ukrainian media
Vitaly Portnikov

Publication date: June 7, 2000

The festive tone of the visit of the President of the United States to the Ukrainian capital influenced the media of this country in a rather opposite way. Most observers in Kyiv analyze not so much the political results of the visit, but express their impressions of the show that took place on St. Michael's Square in the center of Kyiv. Even the Fakty newspaper, close to the government , reports the beginning of the American leader’s speech with unexpected irony: “The President of the United States, accompanied by two Ukrainian girls - graduates and students of the international exchange program between schoolchildren of America and Ukraine Natalia Voinorovskaya and Ekaterina Vasko - climbed onto a yellow-decorated yellow blue rostrum. It should be noted that the assembled people greeted Clinton quite stormily and joyfully, but no one shed tears of happiness or fainted."

is even more radical The opposition Internet “Ukrainian Pravda” : “When William Jefferson Clinton finally appeared, as announced by the loudspeakers in a voice “from another dimension”, people fell silent for a while. But before the speech “himself” the girls who were lucky began to talk study in America. They spoke in a trembling voice about the USA, Ukraine, friendship and democracy. The explosion of popular hatred for those “who were lucky” was an essential chord in the general song of the crowd. And here he is, finally, Billy, speaking. But the interest of the people who stood next to me begins to fade away from the very first words of the translator. General, protocol, tedious phrases, and problems with sound during translation. The main point for the listeners was no longer interesting. And when the American president uttered the historical (according to his PR managers): “Fight, you will fight,” the grandmother sitting next to me could not stand it. “They taught him, but let him be taught how to live on 70 hryvnia a month,” the Ukrainian people said quietly.”

Another author of the same publication very sarcastically comments on Bill Clinton’s speech itself: “The symbolic speech during the landmark meeting was full of traditional turns of phrase. The emotional refrain from Shevchenko’s imperishable work “Fight and you will overcome” was interesting, which Clinton performed in the original language three times. The Ukrainian people should fight for the establishment of democracy, in which, without a doubt, America will help us. “More than ever, America needs a strong, democratic Ukraine partner,” Clinton said, not forgetting to note that “we have made the world safer and averted the threat of nuclear war.” And although “communism in Ukraine has been defeated, democracy has not yet completely won.” As expected, Clinton called on Ukrainians to love foreign investors, vigorously fight corruption, develop civil society, and protect free media. In this regard, the president even promised "keep the doors to the transatlantic community open for Ukraine" .

The well-known Ukrainian political scientist Vladimir Polokhalo notes on the pages of the Den newspaper that Clinton’s arrival in Kiev is more likely related to election considerations: “Clinton’s visit to Ukraine is an attempt to demonstrate to American voters and the world as a whole the effectiveness of this concept. They say that we did not just destroy the Soviet Union, but also achieved great success in transforming the newly independent states that emerged, so our financial assistance was not in vain.

In general, Clinton did not come to Ukraine: he needs to prove before the elections that it was not in vain that they poured money into Russia, and at the same time into Ukraine. Therefore, you can be sure in advance that Clinton would not criticize Ukraine under any circumstances. He must bring some kind of achievement back to the USA. For example, confirmation from the Ukrainian side that the Chernobyl nuclear power plant will be closed by a certain date. Today Bush is ahead of Gore by several points, and Republicans constantly criticize the Democrats for their Eastern policy and for spending a lot of money supporting regimes in the CIS . "

Finally, the online newspaper UA Today blames its own elite for the ineffectiveness of the Ukrainian-American dialogue: “The United States has not decided on its attitude towards Ukraine. The discussion that unfolded around the arrival of US President Bill Clinton in Kiev highlighted several rather strange moments. The main one is neither 10 years ago, not now, a decade after Ukraine declared its independence, the United States has not yet decided on the question of how to treat our state.

Of course, Ukraine itself bears a fair share of responsibility for the torment of American experts and analysts. As soon as the United States develops any concept, say, to consider Ukraine as an unconditional partner, Ukraine throws away some kind of “knee” in the form of another corruption scandal, and it becomes somehow inconvenient to be friends with Kiev especially. But it is also unpleasant for Washington to quarrel with Kiev. Something is almost wrong - Ukrainian leaders are starting to actively travel to Russia, support violence in Chechnya and make other anti-Western gestures, which make Western geopoliticians even more uncomfortable.

Communication between the West and Ukraine increasingly resembles a forced dialogue between a sybaritic aristocrat and a certain thieving and foul-smelling, and also extremely ill-mannered, individual. On the one hand, it would be good to eradicate all this unsanitary conditions in the east of Europe, since Ukraine is of no use to the West, only problems. But the important geopolitical position obliges. A bad smell is not the worst thing that can threaten Europe from the East, and America from the West. Therefore, if nothing can be done about the smell, all that remains is to arrange supplies of deodorant and vigorously push the wind away from us . "