A visit to Mariupol shows why the country elected an outsider comedian—and the hard task he faces
April 25, 2019
Adam O’Neal
The morning of Ukraine’s presidential election, Lyudmyla Razumova stood in the kitchen of her new house, less than a mile from the front line of a five-year war between Russia-backed separatists [ed. Russia led forces] and Ukrainian forces. Holding her infant grandson, who smiled as he occasionally spit up, she explained how violence has upended life in this coastal village.
In 2016 Russian artillery shells struck Ms. Lyudmyla’s property, leaving her old house and a detached garage damaged and burning. Despite living among military checkpoints and minefields, she refused to leave. “I have lived here for 44 years—my whole life,” Ms. Lyudmyla said. “My parents and grandparents lived here.”
Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky won the presidency, trouncing incumbent Petro Poroshenko by nearly 50 points. Ms. Lyudmyla wouldn’t tell me whom she supported. What she most wants is direct aid and an end to the war. Such fatigue is widespread in the Donetsk region, where 87% of voters picked Mr. Zelensky.
Some 13,000 people have been killed since Russian forces and sympathetic locals stormed eastern Ukraine in 2014 and declared sham republics. The war mostly faded from American headlines as it became a bloody stalemate: It produces a steady stream of military and civilian casualties but the fundamentals don’t change. Countless Ukrainians lack basic necessities like gas, electricity and running water. Land mines have produced more than 1,000 casualties since 2014 and will put innocents at risk for years to come.
The Kremlin promotes the idea that Russian-speaking Ukrainians naturally welcome a return to Moscow’s orbit, but a visit to Eastern Ukraine tells a different story.
Mariupol, a gritty port city of about 450,000, is easily within range of Russian artillery and rockets. The town is filled with architectural and industrial reminders of the Soviet Union’s painful domination. Many residents, influenced by Russian media, blame the region’s ills on Kiev. Some believe that a 2015 Russian rocket attack on the city, which killed 30 civilians and wounded more than 100, was carried out by the Ukrainian military. Twice in only a few hours locals hurled verbal abuse at the Ukrainian soldiers I traveled with.
Yet, without coercion, Mariupol remains firmly Ukrainian. On election day voters filled a polling station inside a primary school. Anton Smolyaninov, a 20-year-old student, voted for Mr. Poroshenko but came with a Zelensky-supporting friend. Some 57% of Donetsk residents voted—a few points below the national turnout but not bad for a war-torn region. Despite their well-founded gripes about the national government, the people here realize their future lies with Kiev, not Moscow.
Mariupol also shows flashes of economic dynamism. Oligarch-owned steel mills dominate the local economy, but they don’t represent the city’s future. Small and medium-size businesses, often started by veterans, help drive growth. Khalabuda, a co-working space and community center opened after the war broke out, offers foreign-language courses and training in computer skills. Some of Mariupol’s restaurants and bars wouldn’t look out of place in Madrid or Berlin, and one pizza shop even delivers to soldiers on the front line. Vibrant civil-society groups have helped make the local government one of Ukraine’s most transparent.
A free and economically successful Ukraine terrifies Vladimir Putin because it would show millions of impoverished Russians a plausible alternative to his gangster government. That’s why he has made economic warfare central to his strategy in Ukraine. Mariupol port director Aleksandr Oleynik estimates the war and Russian harassment of sea traffic have cost the facility nearly $225 million: “I see threats for the whole country if there is no rigorous political reaction to Russia’s actions.”
Mr. Putin’s opening shot at President-elect Zelensky came Wednesday, when Moscow announced that Ukrainians living in contested regions would more easily be able to obtain Russian passports. Mr. Zelensky called the move counterproductive and Russia an “aggressor state.” Mr. Putin will try deadlier provocations if he senses weakness from the untested leader.
The Trump administration’s 2018 delivery of shoulder-fired Javelin antitank missiles saved lives by containing Russian armor, but there are other ways for the West to make Mr. Putin pay a higher price for escalation. Ukrainian soldiers told me they could gain tactical advantages from more Javelins, small-caliber mortars, night-vision equipment, modern communications gear and drones.
Yet, when it comes to lobbying the West for military aid and continued sanctions against Russia, Kiev can get in its own way. Ukraine loses an estimated 30% of its defense-procurement budget to corruption. The country will never join the West’s prized institutions if it can’t end widespread graft and clean up its judiciary. Entrepreneur Andrey Stavnitser has said foreign investors are more concerned about Ukrainian courts than the war.
“You don’t need thousands of people in jail,” he suggested. “You need a few hundred, but the right names.” He thinks a determined government could root out most corruption within a year: “The thing is that fighting corruption in Ukraine is like fishing on the Discovery Channel. They catch, they film, and then they release.” Little wonder only 9% of Ukrainians are confident in their national government, according to a 2018 Gallup survey.
Ukraine has made progress during Mr. Poroshenko’s five years in office. Overhauls of government procurement and health care, while unfinished, are major victories. But the president never lived up to the Euromaidan reform movement that lifted him into office. This failure was a large part of Mr. Zelensky’s winning campaign argument.
Ruslan Ryaboshapka, who advises Mr. Zelensky on anticorruption issues, said he expected him to release more detailed plans within the coming weeks. For now the president-elect promises to appoint independent leaders and introduce a raft of reforms to the country’s corruption-fighting bodies. Cynics in the business, diplomatic and political communities say they’ve heard this before and don’t expect much to change. It’s easy to agree with them—and to hope they’re wrong.
