Union fell apart. History gave us Ukrainians another chance at statehood.
Today, Ukraine is, first and foremost, a product of her complicated, bloody history. We feel like a part of Europe, but may look like a part of Russia. With our thoughts, we are in the West. With our sins, we are in the East. Most people heading to Ukraine for the first time come back positively impressed, though. Kyiv is a modern European metropole with plenty to see and enjoy. A rich historical heritage, creative restaurants, hip night clubs, but, most importantly, the scent of freedom in the air make Kyiv “the new Berlin”. At least we Ukrainians like this Kyiv/Berlin comparison very much indeed.
I’ll never forget a scene I witnessed during the European football championship in Ukraine in 2012, when Kyiv crawled with fans from all over Europe. Kyiv’s main square—the famous Maidan. Ukrainian street musicians playing Pink Floyd’s “We don’t need no education; we don’t need no thought control”. And the whole crowd—Ukrainians, Swedes, English—singing along. Peaceful, full of anticipation, and a bit drunk. For me, this was the moment of truth, with Europe and Ukraine on the same page. I wished it had lasted longer. At some point, it will.
Ukraine has her problems, no question about that. As a nation that for centuries had no state, we have an elite that has no strong sense of state and is occasionally incapable of fulfilling its duties; primarily—the duty to lead. That’s one of the reasons we have a reputation of being a “corrupt country”—a reputation that I would not completely agree with, considering that during Ukraine’s two revolutions within one decade (2004 and 2014), not a single store was looted or robbed out. That’s not exactly what you expect from a “corrupt people”. Has anyone heard of such revolutions before?
This shows Ukraine’s fundamental paradox and contradiction: we are a country of decent, hard-working people who haven’t produced the right elite yet. The elite that we have right now is often clueless and indeed corrupt. A part of it infects Ukraine with its own sins, confuses her and robs her of hope, drags the nation down, instead of leading her forward. This contradiction is among a number of reasons why Ukraine hasn’t been able to make a decisive step towards the future so far, i.e., towards United Europe. Not yet.
I wrote some of the chapters of this book while watching the impeachment saga unfolding in the US. A saga that was insulting, to say the least, to most Ukrainians. If someone were playing a drinking game during the hearings and having a vodka shot every time the words “Ukraine” and “corruption” were used in the same sentence, this “someone” would be dead on the first day.
While watching, I had to think about the Netflix film “Winter on fire”—the documentary about the Euromaidan’s last days (February 2014)—when around a hundred Ukrainians died under sniper fire at Kyiv’s central square. On the 79th minute of the film, there is footage of a protester standing under the bullets and shouting into the camera: “We are not afraid to die for freedom! Freedom is for us, freedom is ours. We will win, and Ukraine will be part of Europe. Ukraine will be part of the free world! We will never be slaves! We will be free people!”
I don’t know whether this man survived the Euromaidan or not, but what he said was actually a kind of a pledge of allegiance to the free world, the most natural and sincere I’ve ever heard. I wish all the people badmouthing “the corrupt Ukrainians” could listen to this man. He is the real Ukraine, the nation that didn’t imitate or copy freedom, but re-invented it on her own—in front of the whole world while holding her ground under the bullets.
Our big neighbor to the North does all in his power to make sure things don’t change for the better for Ukraine. His big desire is for us to head back under Russia’s shadow. Since 2014, Russia has had a considerable chunk of our territory—Crimea and Donbas—occupied. It wields exclusive control over 409 km of Ukraine’s border. It conducts a proxy war in Ukraine’s East and invests billions in a propaganda war.
Over 14,000 people have died in Donbas and Crimea (no, Crimea annexation wasn’t a “bloodless takeover”). Around 1.5 million people have lost their homes. Whenever we had a chance at peace, we saw how little interest Russia had in complying. Later, I’ll try to explain how it all started and what it means in the global context.
Ukraine is one of the world’s most unknown and, dare I say, undervalued countries—even though there is barely another nation in the world whose change of direction would be so decisive for the global balance of powers. This book is my humble attempt to fill this void.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodlands
The Three Goodbyes
As a diplomat, I had the privilege to be with my country at every step of her newest history. I saw my nation grow up—and grew older with her. I chose my line of work in the mid-1990s, rather accidentally. Yet very soon I fell in love with it. “Nothing but children at this ministry”, grumbled the first Foreign Minister I worked for—Hennadiy Udovenko. At 24, I was one of the young men and women who entered the diplomatic service when it was evolving from a quasi-independent Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the so-called “Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic” into a diplomatic service of a newly independent, free, democratic country. It was like a jump into cold water. From the get-go, we had to meet our more experienced foreign colleagues, prepare talking points, write speeches, and had many other responsibilities usually entrusted to senior diplomats. Yet, as they say, young age is a temporary flaw. We learned on the job, we got more experienced, we shaped and co-created Ukraine’s new diplomacy. In many ways, we are Ukraine’s diplomacy now.
Whether I chose the job, or the job chose me—I never regretted it for a second. Diplomacy is not only an honorable and noble trade, but also a way to see the world and to meet amazing, remarkable people. On top of that, it just so happened that in the course of my career I was lucky enough to enjoy more freedom than is usually granted to a public servant. I lived my freedom to the fullest and pushed the envelope to the farthest as a columnist for Dzerkalo Tyzhnya (DT), Ukraine’s central weekly newspaper. Yes, in Ukraine it is possible to be a “crossbreed”: a diplomat and a journalist at the same time. Not very often, but it happens. Some of the chapters in this book are based on my DT articles from 2015 to 2020.
As a diplomat, you get to live many lives. Being posted to a new country, diving into it, getting to know it, and—very often—falling in love with it, is like getting born into a new reality. However, leaving it is a bit like dying. If you are good at this job, you leave a part of your heart in every country where you serve. It’s not always easy. Every transition (and the job is full of them) is tough both on you and your family—yet doubly so if you are Ukrainian. Being a Ukrainian diplomat in the last three decades has meant doing a job of constant change amid a time of constant change. They say living in a time of change is a curse. Well, it surely wasn’t a picnic, but in the end, it was a privilege, a chance to make a difference with your life.
In 2021, Ukraine celebrates her 30th birthday. The “children” who entered the diplomatic service in the mid-1990s are in their late 40s or early 50s now, myself included. Ukrainian diplomacy (along with the military forces and intelligence service) has grown into one of the key institutions that cement the country’s independence. If professor Timothy Snyder is right in stressing the importance of state institutions in defending freedom (and I think he is!), Ukraine’s diplomacy has also been instrumental in upholding Ukraine’s freedom. At least, it chose freedom and democracy over unfreedom and autocracy every time it had to choose.
In this job, you learn to say goodbye—to countries, friends, habits. However, sometimes, at least for a short time, you have to say goodbye to the job itself. I did it three times. For the first time, very swiftly and dramatically—when I and three colleagues of mine at Ukraine’s embassy in
