Thank you.
This question is quite complex. It could take an entire day to only begin to provide a response. It would be better for me to continue in English.
Yes, Ukraine is such a special and challenging example, particularly for Canadians.
Given the reality that you're all aware of around this table, of the very strong and dynamic Canadian Ukrainian diaspora—about 1.2 million people, I think, is the figure that we use—that one could argue was a big factor in fuelling Canada's particular national version of the optimism I was describing earlier, the fall of the Soviet Union offered many Ukrainian Canadians the idea that their homeland would at last become free and could get out from under the Russian yoke and join the western community of nations. It was intoxicating, and it has helped to fuel our very sincere commitment to working with Ukraine to do everything we can to help it on the path of reform.
There, too, of course—and the examples you were giving underline this—it has proved to be rather challenging, even to the point, as you say, of “reform fatigue”. I think there remains such genuine cause for optimism when one is speaking about Ukraine, yet at the same time, the challenges are so serious.
We talk in terms of the optimism. There is the enduring legacy of the dynamism that we saw in the streets, not only at the time of Maidan in 2013 and 2014, but before that, of course, in the Orange Revolution, demonstrating the commitment of a good number of the people in Ukraine to achieve that better life, and a better life quite explicitly in contradistinction to the life represented by that big power to the east, Russia.
I was always struck by what some of you may recall at the time just after Yanukovych fled in February of 2014. The mob, or what have you, broke down the gates of one of his palaces—literally, palaces—in the environs of Kiev, I think, and there was television footage of gold-plated bathroom fixtures and little pens of pheasants. It was the most opulent, disgusting display of corruption writ large. Since then, for those youths—particularly the youths, but also the older people—who were out on the streets of Maidan risking bullets, it manifested that here was the future that they did not want: to live in a country where the leaders live like this while there are these challenges.
From that vantage point, it is a source of optimism that, again, through their being in the streets and efforts since then, the Ukrainian people are very much.... In fact, I was in Brussels a few weeks ago and had a lunch with a number of specialists on the region. We had a bit of a discussion, and I took their word for it. One can say that for Ukraine—in part again because of history and the fact that for so long the western part of the country was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and wasn't always part of the Russian sphere—one can talk of the capacity for Ukraine to be a western country.
These are all grounds for optimism. But despite all these grounds for optimism, despite the sincerity of the people's desire ultimately to join the European Union, to live a life of dignity, democracy, and open markets, there is in Ukraine, as I was saying in my earlier answer, the historical legacy of all that time they were a part of the Russian empire, followed more relevantly, I'd say, by the experience under Soviet rule.
While there are very strong elements committed to reform and change, as I was just describing, we are equally running into the perseverance of fundamental attitudes toward governance, politics, and civil society that are much more Soviet. The notion that it's about getting yourself to the trough and getting as much as possible for yourself and your family, and this abstract thing called civil society can go hang, makes it very difficult.
Last but certainly not least, there is the reality of the very active Russian pressure and what is going on in the east. The annexation of Crimea I would almost put separately. That is a terrible development for international relations in general, and for the Ukrainian state itself. But in terms of the pernicious impact of Russia on Ukrainian politics, it's what they're up to in the east that really brings that home.
The Russian decision to support the separatists and actively intervene militarily was, in part, driven by the concern about what implications a Ukraine that was successfully reforming, and indeed had real prospects of entering NATO and the European Union, would have further east and for the regime there. The pressure of the developments in the east—the need to fight a war, let alone the economic impact—is hugely compounding the challenges that Ukraine is facing and, as you said, leading to reform fatigue.
I would hope that it's your impression, having been there.... I'm sure you met with at least some local activists, who are more articulate than I am and obviously more passionate because it's their country, and you heard directly the importance of our absolutely staying engaged and continuing, being absolutely cold-eyed and realistic about the prospects—how difficult this challenge is, how long our time horizon is—but nevertheless absolutely staying engaged. That's what we have to do.