U.S. working on new Ukraine Cabinet emerging next week, leak reveals

An audio recording leaked on the Internet on Feb. 7 of a secretly recorded conversation between U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland. She revealed her expectation that a new Cabinet of Ministers will be formed early next week with the prime minister being Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the parliamentary faction chair of the Fatherland party, Ukraine’s top opposition party.

The recording revealed that Nuland has lost confidence in the EU leadership to help resolve Ukraine’s political crisis, instead recruiting United Nations officials to serve as third-party mediators. She refers to UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry arriving in Ukraine on Feb. 10 or 11 “to help glue this thing,” referring to the formation of the new government. Serry was the first Dutch ambassador to Ukraine. “We’ve got to do something to make it stick together because you can be pretty sure if it does start to gain altitude, the Russians will be there to torpedo it,” Pyatt responded.

The diplomats discuss the forming of a new government with Arseniy Yatsenyuk, chair of the opposition Fatherland parliamentary faction, serving as prime minister under President Viktor Yanukovych. “I think ‘Yats’ is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience,” Nuland said. “What he needs is for ‘Klitsch’ and Tiahnybok to be on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week,” she said. “’Klitsch’ going in, he’s going to be at that level, working for Yatsenyuk. It’s not going to work.”

Pyatt refers to “troubles in the marriage” when referring to Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) Chair Vitali Klitshcko, which refers to the partnership between the three opposition parties rather than his personal life. Nuland responds that he shouldn’t serve in the new government. Pyatt refers to the need for Klitschko “to do his political homework,” yet at the same time stresses the need for the moderate democrats “to stay together,” with the ppotential problems in the opposition being Oleh Tiahnybok and the nationalists in his Freedom party. “I’m sure that’s what Yanukovych is calculating on in all of this,” he said.

U.S. White House Spokesman Jay Carney said on Feb. 7 that the Russian government played a role in the leak, without implicating it directly for the interception. “The video was first noted and tweeted out by the Russian government,” he said. “I think it says something about Russia’s role.” State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki also cited the Russian role. “Certainly, we think this is a new low in Russian tradecraft, in terms of publicizing, posting,” she said. “I don’t have any other independent details about the origin of the YouTube video.”

Zenon Zawada: While Nuland’s off-color phrase is drawing much attention, the important information here is the possible emergence of a Cabinet led by Yatsenyuk. We see this project being a success only if Yanukovych, by some miraculous turn of events, commits to signing the EU Association Agreement and pursuing significant reforms in favor of Euro-integration. If Yanukovych remains interested in renewing the Russian deal, Yatsenyuk’s government will be undermined, a prospect that Pyatt is already preparing safeguards against.

The recording also reveals that the U.S. favors Yatsenyuk as a capable politician over Klitschko, which comes as no surprise since he has served various ministerial posts. Yet Klitschko is more popular than Yatsenyuk, which is likely the source of tension, as mentioned by Pyatt. Yet that’s no surprise either. Their inability to take advantage of the protest momentum of the last two months proves that they don’t work well together. They’ve bungled many political opportunities to remove this government, including the failed parliamentary vote to dismiss the Cabinet in early December and the inability to form a new parliamentary coalition to introduce legislative measures to remove Yanukovych from the presidency.

The Russians have long been suspected in making secret recordings in Ukraine that led to political instability. The ugly end to the presidency of Leonid Kuchma was prompted by the release of the voluminous “Melnychenko” tapes in 2000, which revealed the various antics and corruption of the Kuchma administration, including comments that reveal the president’s intention of harming a journalist, who was later murdered. Yet we don’t think this leak will affect the efforts underway to form the new government next week. Of greater concern is whether the new government is viable, which at this point (with the current players mentioned) looks very fragile to us.