Today, Explained - Meanwhile in Ukraine....

Episode Date: October 3, 2019

Ukraine finds itself at the center of the American impeachment drama, but President Trump is the least of the country's worries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

you've heard about the phone call you've skimmed the partial transcript but maybe this whole time you've just wanted to hear the president say it and today is your day so i would say that president zielinski if it were me I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Bidens because nobody has any doubt that they weren't crooked. That was a crooked deal, 100 percent. Yeah, that's the sound of the president of the United States asking a foreign country to help take down his political rival from the South Lawn of the White House, no less. An impeachment inquiry is evidently not enough to deter President Donald Trump from what he really wants, dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden from Ukraine. Likewise, China should start an

investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine. We called Daria Kolonyuk in Kiev to find out what it's like for Ukrainians to find themselves in the center of an American impeachment scandal. I'm executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center. And what does that mean? We are doing watchdog work. Our government and our authorities, we expose corruption and we advocate for change. I asked her to tell me, as best she could, how this mess with Hunter Biden in Ukraine got started.

It's very important to talk about corruption. If you don't talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt? Five years ago, we had people protesting against the authoritative regime of Viktor Yanukovych. She said we had to begin with Ukraine's former president. In 2014, Ukrainians sick of corruption revolted. Viktor Yanukovych, the president, ran away to Russia. And immediately after that, we started focusing on asset recovery of process of corruption of Yanukovych.

And this is time where I have started observing Burisma. Burisma is the leading independent exploration and production company operating in the Ukrainian oil and gas market. You might recall Burisma as the company that gave Hunter Biden a cushy gig. Burisma, the company, is owned by former Minister of Natural Resources of Viktor Yanukovych. And criminal investigation against Burisma was crucially important in order to recover a million of dollars which Mykola Zlochevsky looted from Ukraine. Burisma is basically Ukrainian for shady gasoline. evidence that this money are of illicit origin. And this evidence has to be produced by Ukrainian law enforcement agency where Viktor Shokin, the tough prosecutor who Giuliani likes and

President Trump likes, had to deliver this evidence. Shokin is this prosecutor Trump likes to say Biden had fired to benefit his son Hunter, even though there's no evidence of that. And there was no will and no desire on the leadership of Viktor Shokin to pursue the case and to develop the case. It was obvious for everyone who wanted to help Ukraine to recover assets that Viktor Shokin was dumping this investigation. And therefore we were protesting. We were doing many rallies in front of Shokin office and in front of building of president of Ukraine demanding resignation of Viktor Shokin. Turns out a lot of Ukrainians wanted Shokin fired.

I was protesting. Many other organizations were protesting. We are here now to ask our president what the hell is going on. Kalinuk leads an anti-corruption watchdog NGO. We will not allow him to maintain the Soviet system of prosecution which intimidates people. And then afterwards Joe Biden came. This is the genesis of the Trump conspiracy right here. Vice President Joe Biden went to Kiev to help the new government. You have to fight the cancer of corruption.

And asked President Poroshenko to fire Shokin because he was considered by everyone as a very corrupt person who dumped many investigations, including the case on Burisma. I said, I'm telling you, you're not getting a billion dollars. I said, you're not getting a billion. I'm going to be leaving here. I think it was, six hours. I said, I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor's not fired, you're not getting the money. And therefore, we were so happy that Joe Biden came and actually made a very tough condition that either you, President Poroshenko, fire Chokin, or there will be no financial aid, one billion financial aid.

Thus far, there's just no evidence that this had anything to do with Biden's son. This was about getting rid of a divisive Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. So when I read the transcript of the phone call between President Trump and President Zelensky, and in that phone call, I heard that there was a very good guy, tough prosecutor, Shokin.

I couldn't believe that because Shokin was actually the example of one of the worst prosecutors we had and who was intimidating good people in his agency, who was dumping investigations, including Burisma investigation. So I was embarrassed to have president of the United States sending such a credit to such a corrupt prosecutor. But I understand actually now why he was doing that. It's a case that is crying out to be investigated. If it doesn't get investigated,

we just don't have equal justice in this country. And it was the narrative coming from Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani. Rudy loves this conspiracy. Biden's son took millions of dollars out of the Ukraine. Well, Joe Biden is vice president. And Joe bragged two years later that he got the prosecutor general fired. He just left out of it that the prosecutor general was investigating his son and his son's crooked boss. But the conspiracy theory which was presented by Rudy Giuliani

needs Shokin who wanted to investigate Burisma. Shokin, it appears, was not terribly interested in investigating Burisma. And here is where the conspiracy theory from Rudy Giuliani falls apart. So this White House conspiracy theory must seem kind of insane to Ukrainians who thought Shokin was totally corrupt, who thought Burisma was totally corrupt. Most of the Ukrainians don't understand what is happening and they don't understand how American system works. But I couldn't believe that the president of the United States called the president of Ukraine asking to interfere into work of law enforcement

agency in Ukraine. Because this is something that we are trying to change in Ukraine for the last five years. The idea behind our anti-corruption efforts is that law enforcement and judiciary system in Ukraine has to be free from political interference and free from oligarchic interference. And the United States was our key partner in this work. So it was very depressing for me to read that phone call transcript. I think we hear a lot about Trump's tone and his tactics during that call. How did you feel about President Zelensky's tone and his approach to dealing with President Trump?

I was disappointed as well. He was trying to agree with everything President Trump was telling to him. And there was only one message from him, which I can understand. He asked for help in war with Russia. He asked for javelins as he, at that time, already understood that there's something wrong with military aid, which was scheduled to be sent to Ukraine, but was stopped at a certain moment. Right. President Zelensky was in this awkward position because he needs something from President Trump. And we kind of saw him in that awkward position again last week at the United Nations General Assembly when they gave this joint press conference. And he was asked if he was pressured by President Trump in front of President Trump. And he said no, because, of course, he had to say no. In other words, no pressure. The way how he said that at the UN assembly was very telling, because first he said...

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be involved to... Vibory elections. Elections. Elections of USA. I think that President Zelensky was trying to avoid taking and picking sides in American political battle. Ukrainian journalists and Ukrainian citizens care about war and how to end war and achieve peace. And this is the key topic now in Ukraine. It's like we are living in parallel worlds.

So the perception of the scandal in the United States and in Ukraine is absolutely different. Because we have different problems. You have war, you have Trump. And for President Zelensky to end war, he had to deal with Trump. So I can understand him. More on that war in a minute. This is Today Explained. Here's a fun fact for your dinner conversation tonight if all the world's billionaires formed a country it'd be the eighth largest economy in the world there are more billionaires right now

than there have ever been and on the latest episode of Vox's Netflix series Explained, they're going to explain how globalization and capitalism made that happen. For someone with, you know, just two billion dollars, a trip on a private jet is like taking a New York City subway ride. A Lamborghini is like buying a little bicycle. And buying a private island is like a down payment on a house. Billionaires, they're so relatable. Find out other ways billionaires are relatable in the latest episode of Vox's Netflix series, Explained. You can just search for it on Netflix

or you can go to netflix.com slash explained. Daria, tell me about the conflict between Ukraine and Russia right now. There is not a conflict. There is war. Russia occupied Ukrainian territories. Specifically, Russia occupied in 2014 Crimea, the peninsula in the Black Sea. It's a huge territory in Ukraine. And decided that it's now Russia, not Ukraine. It violated all international standards and international peace order. Second, Russia occupied also parts of Ukrainian territories on the east

of Ukraine, where they are providing military assistance, weapons, and sometimes even soldiers to the group of peoples whom they call rebels. And then they started taking over government buildings, setting up their own sort of independent republic. And these people are shooting every day into the territory of Ukraine, which is controlled by Ukrainian military. Soldiers are literally dying in this war. We have one million internally displaced people who lived in these occupied territories but had to run away from their homes mr trump began supplying weapons to ukraine two years ago in its fight against russian-backed separatists the war there now is in its sixth year with thousands dead and no signs of an end in sight what is russia's goal, to just acquire as much territory as it can?

Russian goal is to control Ukraine and prevent Ukraine from succeeding as the independent state where democracy is flourishing, where there are jobs, where there are investments, where there is rule of law, where there is no corruption. Because if Ukraine will be successful, then there is a huge danger for entire Russian Empire to collapse and there will be huge danger for Putin and Kremlin to lose its power so Russia treats Ukraine as the younger brother who they have to control and that Ukraine Ukraine doesn't have a right to decide where to go. So how important is the United States' relationship with Ukraine right now? How important is U.S. military aid, which President Trump withheld in Ukraine's war with Russia?

This is of existential importance because we need military aid, financial aid and weapon in order to make sure that our soldiers are able to defend our territory. And second, we need strong political backup and support from the United States, who guaranteed our sovereignty back in 1994. And Ukraine voluntarily gave up all its nuclear weapon in exchange for guarantees from the United States, United Kingdom and Russia that our sovereignty and territory will be protected if someone attacks us. Ukraine's decision will permit the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom to extend formal security assurances to Ukraine. But out of these three guarantors, Russia attacked us and occupied our territories,

and we rely now on the United Kingdom and the United States to help us defend our territory and fight back. Therefore, it is important that the United States keeps sanctions against the Russian regime and against Russian oligarchs and against the Russian economy. It is important that the United States is not letting Russia back to the international organizations like G7. It's the group of states where Russia used to be,

but it was kicked off G7 because of war in Ukraine. And there were the most recent messages from President Trump that Russia has to be returned to G8. It's come up. Should we put Russia back in? We spend a lot of time talking about Russia at those meetings and they're not there. I think it would be a good thing if Russia were there. Do Ukrainians feel like that the U.S. support is now flagging under President Trump because he wants to have a friendlier relationship with Putin? Ukrainians are very much disappointed with every leader on the West who thinks that it is possible to talk to Putin and it is possible to be friends with Putin because Putin understands only language of power. I can see that. Has this whistleblower scandal in the United States affected directly Ukraine's war with Russia? It has direct impact because in order to win war with Russia, we need bipartisan support of the United States. And right now there are negotiations actually on the possible peace deal on the

occupied territories in Ukraine on the east. And there is a risk that Ukraine could be forced to accept back these occupied territories, providing amnesty to terrorists, which were murdering people and killing our soldiers. And this could also trigger lifting sanctions against Russia. war with Russia, a war that's killed something like 13,000 Ukrainians, according to the United Nations, the whole world is focused on a phone call President Trump had with your president. How's that feel? It feels very bad. We feel lonely. We feel lonely. And we kind of understand that everyone has its own interests, but Ukrainians have to mobilize ourselves and defend our country. But unfortunately, we didn't manage yet to build Ukraine as a strong country.

We want to do that. And the reason why everyone now talks about this phone call and Ukrainian corruption is because we are fighting with corruption, because we are exposing the networks of oligarchs and tycoons with ties, the United States was our key supporter. I hope that the United States will continue to be the key supporter of Ukraine and Ukrainian reformers. And I believe in American institutions which can resist interference and pressure. Daria Kolonyuk is the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kiev, Ukraine. I'm Sean Ramos-Firm, and this is Ukraine Explained.