The West should offer Ukraine more aid if Ukraine intensifies strive for state reforms - Steven Pifer

“The West should offer Ukraine more aid if Ukraine applies more efforts to state reforms”, – Steven Pifer, Director of the Brookings’ Arms Control Initiative, expressed this opinion during the 10-th Kyiv Security Forum organized by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Foundation Open Ukraine.

“What Ukraine does today is, in particular, the demonstration to the West that it is a competitive and reliable country. I believe that the West should offer Ukraine more aid if Ukraine applies more efforts to state reforms. Over the past 25 years, Ukraine has done a lot, but it should not be satisfied with what has already been achieved and should continue this important and, at the same time, a very difficult work,” Steven Pifer said.

“As of today, Ukraine has done a lot in terms of reforms. However, the West expects Ukraine to apply more efforts to the fight against corruption, in particular, in the area of strengthening the Anti-Corruption Bureau. In addition, the country needs to have the pension and land reforms implemented. These are the issues that were discussed 20 years ago as well, during my first visits to Ukraine”, he added.

As regards the U.S. policy towards Ukraine, Steven Pifer noted that at this stage the U.S. state leadership representatives made it clear that the devotion to NATO would remain the U.S. basic stance, along with the support of Ukraine and constant control over the actions of Russia. In turn, as regards President Trump, he loves winners, and the task for Ukraine would be to show that it is an emerging winner, the American expert believes.

Speaking about Russia, Steven Pifer noted that, currently, it is not interested in the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

“Today, more than two years have passed since “Minsk-2” and we see no attempts of Russia to fulfill it. I wonder why Russians do nothing in this direction, as it is not difficult for them to achieve a ceasefire. And I understand that they are just afraid to do so because they understand that Ukraine can fulfill “Minsk-2” – but Russia doesn’t want it to happen. Thus Russian puts pressure on the Ukrainian authorities to prevent them from fulfilling of the Minsk agreement and to put blame on them for their failure of the agreement”, Steven Pifer noted.

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Kyiv Security Forum was launched by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Foundation Open Ukraine in 2007 is an annual international event to high-level discussions on the current issues in the Black Sea region and wider Europe. The Forum aims at increasing security cooperation between the EU and the Black Sea region, raising awareness about regional developments among key regional players, promoting the role of independent and non-governmental actors in setting the security agenda in Europe.