‘American democracy will work’
Visiting Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister says of impeachment
OTTAWA — The rules of American democracy will ultimately settle the Trump impeachment question, and Ukraine will be watching closely — but will keep its political distance at all costs, a senior Ukrainian official says.
“We are most interested in having a good relationship with Washington … It’s vitally necessary for our security.
“We are for stronger co-operation, but not for stronger interference,” Vasyl Bodnar, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, said in an interview Thursday after arriving in Ottawa for a weekend conference hosted by major Ukrainian Canadian diaspora groups.
“We understand that everything is dependent on the rules,” he said. “I guess American democracy will work properly to settle this problem without Ukrainian interference.”
Bodnar’s overarching message: Ukraine wants no part of the drama and doesn’t want to be seen to be interfering; but at the same time, the United States is a vital ally in Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia, and their bilateral relationship must be preserved at all costs.
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland opened the conference on Friday by returning to a theme of past speeches: she offered a thinly veiled criticism that the U.S. is undermining the “international rules-based order” under Donald Trump’s leadership, while being careful not to specifically mention Trump or the U.S.
She told delegates that
Ukraine is fighting on the front lines of the international struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, and that is why Canada is so supportive of the country.
“Ukraine is waging this fight at a moment when — and it is concerning and troubling to have to say this — but at a moment when the rules-based international order and liberal democracy more broadly are under threat,” Freeland said.
She said the threat also comes from “within our own Western alliance, among the world’s liberal democracies,” and said that Canada is the now the world’s “strongest liberal democracy.”
“All of my Canadian modesty kind of shrinks back when I say it. But do the thought experiment yourselves, and if not us, then who? We really today are that city on the hill.”
The “city on the hill” metaphor has historically been evoked as a symbol of the U.S. as a beacon of hope or leadership, a concept embraced by former Republican president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
In the interview, Bodnar addressed head-on how the new Ukrainian government has been thrust into the international spotlight after a White House whistleblower’s complaint about the July 25 telephone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ignited the American impeachment crisis.
That whistleblower complaint set off the impeachment drama now unfolding in the House of Representatives. It is hearing testimony that Trump told Zelensky he would withhold military aid to Ukraine unless he promised publicly to investigate his Democratic political rival, former vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
The whistleblower and other U.S. officials have accused Trump of using the power of his office to “to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”
It is illegal to seek or receive foreign help in U.S. elections. Trump says he did nothing wrong.
The Washington impeachment saga has proven awkward for Zelensky, a former television actor who campaigned on an anti-corruption platform that won overwhelming approval from Ukraine voters earlier this year.
The country has been invaded by Russia on its eastern flank and is struggling against the pull of the Kremlin as it tries to engage with the West.