Vitaly Klitschko, a top leader of the opposition in Ukraine, could help us turn the tables on Russian President Vladimir Putin, and even regain some of our sorely depleted global respect.
At 6’7”, Klitschko is the reigning World Boxing Council heavyweight champ, with a 45-2 record. The brother of another heavyweight champ, Wladimir, he’s never been knocked down.
His days in the ring waning, Klitschko’s now a member of Ukraine’s parliament and top presidential contender. When he talks, the Kiev multitudes listen — as they did last week when he advised, Mandela-like, against a violent turn in the so-far-peaceful protests against President Viktor Yanukovych.
Over the weekend, the Kiev protesters called for Yanukovych to resign and toppled a statue of Lenin, the father of the Soviet system.
The president’s cops, inspired by the best tactics of the old Eastern Bloc, predictably overreacted, clearly drawing the battle lines: Most Ukrainians think of themselves as Europeans and fear that Yanukovych will take them back to the USSR.
It all came to a boil two weeks ago, just days before Ukraine was due to sign a pact with the European Union. After negotiating that trade deal with the EU for years, Yanukovych stunned Brussels bureaucrats and Ukrainians by unilaterally suspending the talks.
The deal would’ve set Ukraine, Europe’s largest country, on a path to EU membership, while binding its economy and commerce to the West.
Which is exactly what Putin doesn’t want. He’s trying to coax several former Moscow satellite states to form a trading union to compete with the European Union. Ukraine would be the jewel in his neo-Soviet crown.
So Putin pushed, threatening to cancel natural-gas agreements and raise tariffs over imports from Ukraine if Yanukovych it signed the EU deal.
And Yanukovych, had his own concerns about about EU demands. To become truly European, Brussels told him, Ukraine must end its Putin-like habit of throwing political opponents in jail. Specifically, an old Yanukovich nemesis, opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, must (at least) be let out of prison, so she can get adequate medical treatment in Germany.
(A former prime minister, Tymoshenko was jailed by a Yanukovych-stacked court on corruption charges centering on her business activities back in the country’s wild post-Soviet days. With her famous traditional blonde braids, Tymoshenko has become a European symbol of political prosecution.)
Yanukovych feared that by freeing Tymoshenko he’d open the presidential election, expected in 2015, to real competitors. What’s next? Would he even have to let the boxer run?
After making a fortune in the ring, Klitschko announced in October that he intends to become his native country’s president. Predictably Yanukovych immediately ruled him ineligible (because the wealthy boxer maintains a residence and pays some taxes in Germany).
Regardless, the world champ shot up to the top of the polls, and still leads among all presidential wannabes. Yanukovych could feel his hold on power slipping away, so he told the EU to take a hike.
EU Foreign Affairs chief Catherine Ashton was in Geneva at the time, too busy signing away the global sanctions on Iran to mind Europe’s back yard.
Washington was also oblivious. After all, we gave in to Putin on Iran and Syria (and Snowden). And before that, on our antimissile projects in Poland and the Czech Republic. So why make a fuss over Ukraine being pulled deeper into the Russian orbit?
A question best asked of those Ukrainians who brave Kiev’s increasingly mean streets. Should we, at long last, side with them rather than forever worry about Putin’s sensitivities?
Here’s an idea: Get Michelle Obama to invite Klitschko to the White House. As a PhD in sports education, he can lecture kids about the perils of couch-potatoism. Then have the president pop in, and publicly mumble something like, Hey, buddy, you’re doing great back home.
Demonstrate, in other words, that America sides with the majority of Ukrainians.
That puts Yanukovych on notice, and also Putin.
Once Moscow realizes that we have allies in its back yard, we can start reversing a trend we launched in 2009, when President Obama turned a cold shoulder to Iran’s “green revolution.”
Who knows, perhaps even the tyrants of Tehran and Damascus may finally pay attention, and some would-be Western allies may re-examine their recent infatuation with Putin and his ilk.