Why did Ukraine become a key reference point of American political struggles?

In recent years, Ukraine has emerged as the most prominent test case of American support for democracy and liberal economic reforms worldwide. A combination of several factors has made Ukraine and the United States mutually important political symbols.

As the second most populous and economically important Soviet republic after Russia, Ukraine's geopolitical choice after the Soviet collapse in 1991 held major significance. It took American policymakers some time to orient themselves in the confusing world of post-Soviet politics and to realize Ukraine's strategic importance. Once they understood, by the mid-1990s, that an independent Ukraine was crucial for preventing an increasingly assertive Russia from reclaiming its Soviet-era control of East-Central Europe, they made Ukraine the focus of American attention in the region.

However, the United States helped to conclude one important international agreement before this “rediscovery” of Ukraine was complete. Because Ukraine had inherited from the Soviet Union the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal, over which it had no opera­tional control, the United States and other major nuclear powers applied pressure to have the Ukrainian authorities surrender it to Russia, where it would be dismantled under Western supervision. In Budapest in 1994, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, which guaranteed the security and territorial integrity of Ukraine, the latter in turn committing to the destruction of its nuclear stockpiles and the policy of nuclear non-proliferation. Subsequently, France and China also endorsed the Budapest Memorandum. Thus, the United States became a guarantor of Ukrainian sovereignty.

Once American economic assistance to Ukraine began in earnest in the mid-1990s, it always had bipartisan support and was pursued by Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

The developments in Ukraine at the start of the new millennium changed this unhealthy equilibrium of the United States supporting, for strategic reasons, yet another corrupt regime. The birth of a mass protest movement in Ukraine against the muzzling of the press and parliamentary manipulations made it impossible for the West to keep talking about the promotion of democracy there without taking a stand. With the public release of secret recordings made in the president's office, the Ukrainian leadership lost face and no longer had the credibility to sit at the same table with its Western partners. Now dealing with a Ukraine enveloped by social discontent and its government drifting in the direction of authoritarianism—and Russia—American policymakers had no choice but to side with the opposition. The moment to make a stand came in 2004, when the government's flagrant attempt to steal the election resulted in massive non-violent rallies in the Ukrainian capital. The Americans' refusal to recognize the falsified results and the efforts of interna­tional intermediaries contributed greatly to the peaceful resolution of the conflict.

This also meant that the United States and the West, in general, now also played an important symbolic role in Ukraine as both promoters and models of democracy and economic transparency. Their failure to live up to this example would undermine the re­formist forces in Ukraine and push the Ukrainian elites in the direc­tion of the authoritarian and corrupt regime in Russia that presents itself as opposed to Western values. American administrations, even when they seemed aware of this symbolic role, did not do enough to support their diplomats in Ukraine, nor did they push strongly enough for political and economic reforms in the country.

In 2013, when another Ukrainian president tried, in a stunning political U-turn, to reverse the country's course on coopera­tion with the European Union and the West, a popular revolu­tion unfolded once again in the center of the Ukrainian capital. Sensing support from Russia, this time the authorities did not give up easily until the escalating violence resulted in a signifi­cant number of casualties, the overwhelming majority of them on the protesters' side. With the officials of the old regime making off to Russia, the Ukrainian parliament installed a new government, which the United States and their Western partners supported. But Russia took this opportunity to annex the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and to start a war in the borderland region of the Donbas, which it tried to present as an internal Ukrainian con­flict, the involvement of Russian tanks, artillery, and soldiers notwithstanding.

With the outbreak of Russian aggression in 2014, Ukraine be­came, for the United States and their Western partners, something more than a strategically important country whose security the West guaranteed and where they supported, albeit insufficiently, demo­cratic and market reforms. The Russian annexation of the Crimea and the Russian-sponsored war in the Donbas highlighted Russia's brazen violation of international treaties and an open challenge to a world order based on the rule of law rather than the right of the strong. The American response would not only strongly influ­ence the conduct of international politics but would also reflect on America's own commitment to transparency and due process in supporting its allies, such as Ukraine.

Instead, the reaction in Washington was mixed. Although the Trump administration reversed the ban on the delivery of lethal weapons to Ukraine instituted under Obama, it has also tried to em­broil the Ukrainian authorities in precisely the kind of political deals they wanted to leave behind. These Ukrainian authorities were also new, because the Ukraine that emerged from the revolution and on­going war in the Donbas proved its capacity for democratic renewal by holding free and fair elections.

This unfair perception has caused Ukraine to become a metaphor in American politics rather than a real country needing America's positive example and support as it fights for its sovereignty and the well-being of its citizens. In the decades since the collapse of com­munism, Ukraine has been important for the West for a variety of reasons and its importance has only increased in the new millen­nium. But the West has also stood for something in the Ukrainian political imagination: the rule of law, observance of human rights, struggle against corruption, and political transparency. It can inspire Ukrainians—and the rest of the world—only if it stays true to these principles.