The future is bright for Ukraine – but first Zelensky must face down the oligarchs, the west and Russia

He has a mountain to climb, but the country’s new leader has shown good sense so far

Five years ago, the English-language media around the world could not get enough of Ukraine. Its heroic young people were laying down their lives for a European future on the same square in Kiev where their elders had braved the winter cold a decade before in what became known as the Orange Revolution. The president fled, his only legacy being the estate bought with his ill-gotten gains, which now provides an entertaining day out for his fellow-countrymen.

Big bad Russia exploited the chaos to snatch Crimea, then helped foment pro-Moscow resistance in the southeast. Ukraine elected a new president, assistance flooded in from the EU and Nato and the IMF, and – well – the rest was, for the west, a bit of a disappointment. Corruption continued, political reform stuttered, there was no resolution to the armed conflict.

Which may help to explain why what has happened in Ukraine since the start of this year has received less exposure – I would say, a lot less – than its due. In these five months, Ukraine has held a keenly contested election that was judged by international observers to be free and fair. The winner, who beat the incumbent president by a landslide, was a complete political outsider, who is also a lawyer, a media mogul and a television comedian. Volodymyr Zelensky, whose first language is Russian and who is of Jewish background, was inaugurated this week. The man he defeated, Petro Poroshenko – and who had conceded without a fuss – smiled benevolently as his successor took office.

Now there are many reasons other than western disappointment as to why Ukraine might not have received the coverage that, in my view, it merited. They include the general jostling for news attention from such dramas as Venezuela, the escalating tension between the US and Iran, Trump generally in the United States, where we are watching the first skirmishes before the 2020 election, and in the UK – well, it’s all Brexit all the time. Plus there were the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka at Easter, which knocked Ukraine’s presidential election clean out of the international news.

But might the difference also be that the narratives of 2004 and 2014 – according to which plucky Ukraine was successfully defying Russia in its pursuit of a European future – rather suited us, while the narrative of spring 2019 maybe not so much? After all, the European Union and the west generally have invested an enormous amount of financial and political capital in Ukraine over the past five years. They had reached a fairly comfortable modus vivendi with Poroshenko and were expecting, until quite a late stage, five more years of the same. Suddenly it is, or it could be, all change.

A corollary of this is that, in so far as Zelensky’s rise has been considered in any detail outside Ukraine, it is invariably with a strong streak of pessimism. Difficulties, even failure, were being forecast before he had begun. And it is true that in many respects he faces an uphill struggle.

One reason, though not the only reason why people voted for him, was disillusionment, even anger, with what they saw as the lack of progress during Poroshenko’s five years. So Zelensky has raised expectations – and these could easily be dashed. People in different parts of Ukraine also voted for him for different reasons – in the east, his pledge to try to end the armed conflict was paramount; in the west of the country, it was more his profile as a modern, outward-looking leader committed to Ukraine’s European future. It may not be possible to please everyone.

Then there is the likely resistance from vested interests. These start with the oligarchs – those businesspeople who made money in the wake of the Soviet collapse and used it to exert political influence. Unlike in Russia, where Putin clipped their wings almost as soon as he came to power, oligarchs have ruled the roost in Ukraine, with regional power bases, even private militias. Zelensky has vowed to change this – despite claims that he enjoys the protection of an oligarch in the shape of Ihor Kolomoyskyi (who is reported to have returned to Ukraine this week from exile in Israel).

After the oligarchs come those who worked with or for Poroshenko and still-influential politicians, such as Yuliya Tymoshenko, MPs and others with a stake in the existing political system. Some have also drawn a parallel with Armenia, where an outsider, Nikol Pashinyan, led a peaceful revolution a year ago and now, as elected president, faces obstruction from the old regime or, as some say, the “deep state”. Zelensky could also face popular discontent if the economy deteriorates or if, say, there were a flare-up with Russia.

Any or all of these could pose insurmountable obstacles. But Zelensky also has a lot going for him, which tends to be minimised or ignored. He is young, energetic and plugged into modern communications, which is partly how he won the election. He may be a novice politician, but he is not naïve or ill-informed about Ukrainian reality. He ran successful media businesses, and his hit television show, Servant of the People, which brought him to national prominence as a fictional president, resonated with the public precisely because it reflected their own lives.

He also seems to have a shrewd appraisal of where power lies, and a plan. His first act was to announce parliamentary elections ahead of time, and to replace the head of the armed forces. In winning the election so convincingly, Zelensky also overcame his country’s east-west divide, appealing to those with Ukrainian and Russian as their first language, and the many who straddle both. His inaugural speech – delivered, incidentally, mostly in Ukrainian – set out clear priorities, starting with a ceasefire in the east, and played to Ukrainians’ better selves. Rather than having the presidential portrait on their walls, he said, officials should have pictures of their children and consider their future when they took decisions.

Of Ukraine, he also said this: “We must become the Icelanders in soccer, the Israelis in the defence of their native land, the Japanese in technology, and the Swiss in the ability to live with each other in harmony, despite all the differences.” And this underlines something else. It is not only Zelensky who has a lot going for him; despite its poverty, its corruption and its many other faults, Ukraine does, too.

It has a strong sense of national identity that has only been strengthened by the conflict with Russia. It has ancient roots; its own history (distinct from Russia’s), its own language (including its own names for the calendar months which reflect the agrarian year, rather than the Roman names common elsewhere). It has huge economic, especially agricultural, potential, and an original, sometimes quirky sense of style, reflected in a new chain of shops – Vse Svoi (all our own) – selling only Ukrainian designs and brands.

If Zelensky can capitalise on all this, and stay honest, he may lay the foundations for a modern Ukraine, that is neither a client of the west, nor an enemy of Russia, but its own country, in its own place. For that to happen, however, it is not just Ukraine that will need to take greater responsibility, nor Russia that will have to recognise Ukraine as a grown-up, independent country, but Europe and the west that will need to stop trying to claim Ukraine as “ours”.