Business Ukraine 05/2018

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BUSINESS UKRAINE MAGAZINE 05/2018: Ukraine and Canada have enjoyed a close bond for more than a century thanks to the prominence of Canada’s large Ukrainian diaspora community. This special relationship is now moving to new levels thanks to the ongoing impact of an historic free trade agreement between the two countries signed in 2016.

Putin’s Ukraine War Derails Denuclearization Dreams US President Donald Trump achieved his wish for a headline-grabbing summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in June, but the jury is still out over the results of the meeting. Despite President Trump’s vocal attempts to suggest otherwise, the summit did not produce any dramatic denuclearization breakthroughs. This is perhaps not surprising. Indeed, when viewed from the perspective of denuclearized and dismembered Ukraine, North Korea’s reluctance to surrender its nuclear weapons is particularly easy to understand.

Ukraine emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet collapse in possession of the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal, but it did not hold onto it for long.

Under the terms of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum cosigned by America, Russia and Great Britain, Ukraine agreed to pass its arsenal over to Moscow.

In return, Kyiv received security assurances that proved worthless when Russian troops seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. As the entire Western world stood by, Ukraine was left to reflect bitterly on the folly of its nuclear disarmament. Meanwhile, insecure and ambitious nations from North Africa to the Far East looked on and drew the only logical conclusion: if you have nukes, keep them. If you don’t, get them.

International audiences have yet to digest the full implications of Russia’s Crimean invasion for the future spread of nuclear weapons. With the geopolitical focus still very much on containing a resurgent and revisionist Russia, there is a danger we are missing the far bigger proliferation picture. This is shortsighted. In all probability, Russia’s territorial ambitions do not extend beyond the limited confines of the former Soviet Union, but the ramifications of Ukraine’s denuclearization betrayal are far broader and could shape the global security agenda for years to come.

Ukraine’s plight resonates precisely because the country’s decision to relinquish its nuclear weapons voluntarily was such a landmark event in the

quest for a nuclear-free world. It was nothing less than the biggest single act of nuclear disarmament in history. This should have made Ukraine the inviolable poster boy of nonproliferation and a sacred cow of the twenty-first century’s international security architecture. Instead, the country suffered invasion at the hands of one of the three signatory nations to broker Ukraine’s historic gesture. Here was the ultimate proof that treaties and memoranda are no match for muscle. Unsurprisingly, this has succeeded in destroying the credibility of security assurances, regardless of who offers them. Nobody wants to find themselves scouring through the small print of complex legal documents as enemy tanks roll across the border.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that Putin’s Ukraine war, coupled with the failure of the Budapest Memorandum, have created an entirely new global security environment where notions of international law and collective security now play second fiddle to a more traditional reliance on military might.

This is not a climate conducive to disarmament. On the contrary, the world may currently be entering a precarious new era of nuclear proliferation.

President Trump had hoped to make the kind of denuclearization deal with North Korea that would secure his place in history. Instead, we are now far more likely to witness other countries striving to share Pyongyang’s nuclear status. When it comes to nuclear disarmament, the decisive deal actually took place back in 1994, and it turned out to be one of the most disastrous deals in history. Ukrainians are already paying a terrible price for this debacle, but they are unlikely to remain alone for long. In time, it will become painfully apparent to the rest of us that the costs of Putin’s Ukraine invasion are global.

About the author: Peter Dickinson is the publisher of Business Ukraine magazine and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council

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CANADA IN UKRAINE Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine Roman Waschuk sees the historically close bilateral relationship between Ukraine and Canada expanding beyond its traditional diaspora core as free trade breakthrough bears fruit

Few countries have deeper links to independent Ukraine than Canada, which is home to one of the world’s largest Ukrainian diaspora communities. Since taking up his post in Kyiv in October 2014, Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine Roman Waschuk has been party to some of the most significant developments in this special relationship. From free trade to military training, the Canada-Ukraine relationship has taken on a number of new dimensions in recent years that are allowing both countries to expand upon the inbuilt advantages presented by the prominence of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada.

Free Trade Breakthrough

The signing of Canada and Ukraine’s free trade agreement took place amid much fanfare in summer 2016 during an official visit to Ukraine by Canadian PM Justin Trudeau.

As star-struck Kyivites lined up to pose for selfies with the rock star Canadian political leader, many in the business community noted the wider significance of the landmark agreement. The Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) came fully into force in summer 2017 and has already made an impact of bilateral trade ties. “Over the past year, we’ve witnessed double digit growth on both sides in terms of trade. What we are now seeing is a broadening of this trade relationship, with people trying new kinds of products. Entirely new categories are appearing that did not previously exist,” says Ambassador Waschuk.

As part of efforts to help facilitate a further expansion in bilateral trade ties, the Canadian Embassy has launched the CanadaUkraine Trade and Investment Support Project (CUTIS) with a focus on five strategic industries (furniture, footwear, confectionary, textiles and IT). The Canadian government has recruited specialists from each of these sectors to come to Ukraine and offer insider guidance so that potential Ukrainian About the interviewee: Roman Waschuk is the Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine. He took partners have a better idea of the expectaup his post in Kyiv in October 2014 tions they are likely to encounter in Canada. : 10

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“The diaspora connection is very useful but it should not limit us in our aspirations. The focus now is on all of Canada and all of Ukraine” : Alongside industry-specific advice, Ukrainian

companies can also reference a guide to the Canadian market produced by the Embassy offering practical insights into everything from Canadian consumer habits to the certification requirements Ukrainian exporters are likely to encounter. “We want to make sure Ukrainian companies can come to Canada with something that is relevant for the Canadian market,” comments the ambassador.

“You read stories of Ukrainian businesses that produce goods for export only to find out that there is no actual demand in the countries they are targeting. We want to take this element of risk out of the process and spare Ukrainian companies some grief.”

Looking ahead, Ambassador Waschuk is confident that the current growth dynamic will continue. He believes this will include expansion of existing trade alongside the emergence of additional new directions. Canadian companies have recently made impressive inroads into the supply of agricultural machinery to Ukraine, and this segment looks set to expand further as Ukrainian agribusinesses seek to upgrade and modernize their operations. Less obvious avenues for cooperation include pet food imports from Canada for gourmet Kyiv cats and dogs. In the opposite direction, Ambassador Waschuk points to the rising potential of the Ukrainian manufacturing sector and says there has been a strong Canadian response to Ukrainian foodstuffs.

“People generally are pleasantly surprised at the inventiveness of Ukrainian exporters.

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The kind of flavors and combinations of the products they offer have proved interesting and new to the Canadian market.” Meanwhile, the IT sector looks set to remain at the heart of bilateral economic ties, with additional hub projects expected to cement the already strong tech links between the two countries.

G7 Leadership Role

In addition to heading up Canada’s diplomatic mission to Ukraine, Ambassador Waschuk also currently holds the rotating leadership of the G7 Support Group, an international initiative unique to Ukraine that brings together the ambassadors of G7 nations Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Japan. Established in 2015 during Germany’s Chairmanship of the G7, the G7 Support Group aims specifically to support the reform process in Ukraine. Many see it as an interesting test case and a potential model for G7 diplomacy in other geopolitical hotspots.

Since taking over responsibility for leading the initiative at the start of the year, Ambassador Waschuk says he has sought to bring a little additional structure to the G7 Support Group, with regular meetings now taking place on a biweekly basis. He sees the Support Group as a way of improving communication with the Ukrainian government and other stakeholders, while at the same time also helping to improve the clarity of the G7 message itself. “I think it is important that those Ukrainians who want to reform the

country know there is a group of nations united in support of those changes. The G7 Support Group also helps us to make sure we make sense as a group when we speak. We are able to have discussions among the G7 ambassadors before going public and thrash out different ideas so as not to confuse people with conflicting messages.”

Helping Ukraine Defend Itself

Since the outbreak of hostilities with Russia in 2014, Canada has been at the forefront of efforts to bolster Ukraine’s defense capabilities. The Canadian government’s Operation Unifier training mission to Ukraine got underway in 2015 and has so far seen hundreds of Canadian military personnel working in the country alongside their Ukrainian counterparts. What began largely as one-to-one training has since evolved into a far more value-added process of engagement involving mentoring and training for trainers, who are then able to pass the message on to far larger numbers of Ukrainian soldiers. The mission has also branched out geographically from its initial focus at the Yavoriv military base in western Ukraine, with Canadian trainers now also present at the Desna base near to Kyiv and at the Ukrainian Military Academy in Black Sea port city Odesa.

Ambassador Waschuk says Operation Unifier is now widely recognized within the Canadian military as a model for how Canada can build capacity internationally with other armed forces. He believes this is at least par- :

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Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pictured during the Canadian leader’s official visit to Ukraine in summer 2016 that saw the signing of the landmark Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement

: tially due to the right preparation. “One of the

key elements behind the success of the mission is the fact that our military has recognized the importance of looking and listening before embarking on any training. You cannot come in with preconceived notions of what you are going to encounter and expect positive results. Instead, it is crucial to see what the actual needs are on the ground and adapt your training accordingly.” This process has involved considerable cultural training prior to deployment in Ukraine, coupled with an expanding outreach program once officers arrive in the country.

Canada’s military training mission to Ukraine has proven to be a two-way street offering valuable insights into hybrid warfare for the Canadian side to take home and incorporate into their military thinking. Many of the Ukrainians currently engaged in training with their Canadian colleagues are fresh from

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the frontlines of the confrontation against hybrid Russian forces who are able to deploy some of the Kremlin’s most advanced military technologies and tactics. Speaking in late 2017, the then-commander of Operation Unifier Lieutenant-Colonel Kristopher Reeves said this made Ukraine “a battle laboratory” where it was possible to witness “the whole spectrum of hybrid warfare in action.” Ambassador Waschuk concurs, recounting how the Commander of the Canadian Army Lieutenant General Paul Wynnyk recently announced that the Canadian military has incorporated Ukrainian lessons learned from the Donbas conflict into their training scenarios. “As we have a deployment in Latvia, these are very much transferrable lessons,” he adds.

Broadening Relationship

When many people in Ukraine think of Canada, they instinctively focus on the di-

aspora and its traditionally dominant role in bilateral relations. However, the advent of free trade is now helping to broaden the horizons connecting the two countries.

Ambassador Waschuk says having such a strong Ukrainian diaspora presence in Canada remains an enormous advantage, providing large numbers of cultural and business translators capable of breaking down barriers while allowing Canadians with no personal ties to Ukraine to feel a degree of affinity for the country. Nevertheless, he sees this primarily as a platform for further growth. “The diaspora connection is very useful but it should not limit us in our aspirations. We are now concentrating efforts on activating the full potential in both our countries. This means moving beyond traditional areas to broaden the relationship.

The focus now is on all of Canada and all of Ukraine.”

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Free trade golden age dawning between Canada and Ukraine Horizon Capital CEO Lenna Koszarny on free trade, diaspora investment and Brand Ukraine country would be free of the Soviet yoke one day and that we have an obligation to preserve the Ukrainian language, culture and traditions. I vividly remember my grandfather’s Soviet dissident literature and reading “Black Deeds of the Kremlin” with him when I was nine years old. I spent my childhood in various towns and cities in Ontario as my father’s job meant we moved around a great deal, which is probably why my family is still extremely close to this day.

How long have you been active in Ukraine?

Last year was a pivotal moment in my life, marking the year that I have now spent more of my life in Ukraine than in Canada. This December, I will celebrate 25 years in Ukraine!

About the interviewee: Lenna Koszarny is Founding Partner and Chief Executive Officer at Horizon Capital Ukrainian-Canadian executive Lenna Koszarny is one of the most high-profile figures in Ukraine’s international investment community. Based in Ukraine since the early 1990s, she has seen her ancestral homeland evolve through decades of geopolitical and economic turbulence and has been a key figure in many of the most significant international investment deals in Ukraine’s recent history. She spoke to Business Ukraine magazine about her personal bond with Ukraine and explained why she believes the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement marks the dawn of a new “golden age” between the two countries.

Where did you grow up in Canada?

I was born in London, Ontario. My parents thought they were having one child and were surprised when my identical twin sister and I were born within two minutes of each other! All of my ancestors are from Ukraine. My father’s family comes from Donbas region and the family of my mother are from Kropyvnytskyi. My grandparents were all “Ostarbeiters”, forced laborers brought to Germany and Austria from their hometowns in Ukraine during WWII. After the war, they spent time in a deportation camp before being accepted by Belgium (my father’s family) and Venezuela (my mother’s family), eventually making their way to Canada in search of a better life. Even though I was born and grew up in Canada, we were a proud Ukrainian-Canadian family. Our grandparents and parents instilled in us a love for Ukraine together with a belief that the 16

What are your current roles?

I am Founding Partner and Chief Executive Officer at Horizon Capital, the leading private equity firm in Ukraine with over USD 750 million in assets under management and backed by over 40 U.S. and European institutional investors.

Beyond my role as CEO of Horizon Capital, I am also committed to improving Ukraine’s investment and business climate by serving on the boards of the American Chamber of Commerce and the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association. I also serve as Executive Vice-President of Western NIS Enterprize Fund. Additionally, I believe the Ukrainian diaspora has an enormous role to play in furthering Ukraine’s economic development and am proud to serve as a board member of the Ukrainian World Congress, uniting 20 million Ukrainians worldwide. I lead the UWC’s Economic Leadership Committee supporting Ukraine’s economic development.

What motivates you to build your career in Ukraine?

Prior to first arriving in Ukraine in August 1993 with my grandmother, I had never really considered coming to Ukraine. At that time, I had graduated from the University of Western Ontario (Richard Ivey Business School), obtained my CPA and had a successful career at Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers). During those initial three weeks in Ukraine, I fell in love with this beautiful country and its generous, talented, wonderful people. I therefore decided to join a technology fund and move to Kyiv. Many of my colleagues from 1993 are still in Ukraine today, including Daniel Bilak and Christia Maciw.

I was always committed to Ukraine and its success throughout my career here.

It is in my current role as an investor backing visionary entrepreneurs that I believe I can make the most positive impact in the country. I am proud that through the four funds managed by Horizon Capital, we have invested and catalyzed a total of USD 1.8 billion in financing for companies in Ukraine and the region, employing over 46,000 people. In addition to celebrating the success of the companies that we invest in, I am proud that we make an enormous contribution to the development of Ukraine, including attracting new institutional and foreign investors to the country, creating jobs, and expanding trade opportunities for Ukrainian companies globally, which leads to increasing the prosperity of Ukrainian citizens. All of this motivates me to work long hours, travel frequently, and to love what I do!

Since 2014, you have played a key role in many of Ukraine’s most promi-

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nent investment initiatives. What do you regard as the country’s most attractive investment attributes?

First and foremost, it’s the people – the new generation of young visionary entrepreneurs leading their companies in sectors with sustainable competitive advantages. Currently, Ukraine is attracting investor attention among those who are willing to look beyond the headlines and see opportunities with strong fundamentals such as companies led by entrepreneurs with a global reach and cost-competitive platforms powered by talented Ukrainian professionals. Today’s Ukraine is truly a nation of “brains, hands and grains”. We believe that IT, light manufacturing and food & agriculture will continue to drive Ukraine’s expanding economic prosperity.

Canada and Ukraine enjoy strong cultural connections rooted in Canada’s large Ukrainian diaspora community. How can this translate into stronger bilateral economic ties?

The process has started already with the signing of the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement in July 2016, coming into force in August 2017. As a Canadian of Ukrainian descent, it was truly an honor for me to participate as a member of the 12-person delegation accompanying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during his three-day visit to Ukraine in 2016. This is the beginning of what we foresee as a “golden age” for economic ties between both countries. Business is driven by people and it all starts with relationships, networks and mutually-beneficial opportunities. After investing in Ukraine in the 1990s, members of Canada’s Ukrainian diaspora are once again considering business opportunities in the country, both in startups and mature companies. What attracts them is the “generational shift” in today’s Ukraine, with the emergence of a new generation of progressive young company founders and entrepreneurs they are comfortable developing partnerships with. The diaspora has always backed Ukraine but this requires trust, transparency and sharing in the profits of the business they build together. The more success stories that come out of this reset in economic ties, the more new opportunities will arise. I always urge all of my Canadian and Ukrainian business colleagues to bear in mind that they are ambassadors of their respective countries and to make sure that they hold themselves to the highest standards. Otherwise, they may be the reason for halting the reset in economic relations that has begun. At the same time, it is important to stress that it is not just the diaspora viewing Ukraine as a land of opportunity.

Canadian companies beyond the diaspora are also drawn to the “brains, hands and grains” that Ukraine and its people offer.

You have been intimately involved in efforts to raise Ukraine’s international profile and improve outside perceptions of the country. Based on your personal experience, what do you regard as the key current strengths and weaknesses of Brand Ukraine?

People are what stands behind the national brand and much of the strength www.bunews.com.ua

in Brand Ukraine depends on the new generation of Ukrainians. This means startups, fashion, culture and more. I am proud that Brand Ukraine is currently coming into its own. It is significant that according to Brand Finance, in the space of just one year from 2015 to 2016, the country moved from the bottom five worst performing brands in the world to the top five best performing. This remarkable turnaround is entirely due to the efforts of the people of Ukraine and the business, government and civic society ambassadors who are traveling the globe to spread the message about the transformation in progress in Ukraine. I have travelled to more than 25 countries myself and reached out to over 300 investors to communicate my belief that Ukraine offers a groundfloor opportunity for international investment. I urge investors to come to Ukraine and see for themselves. This week alone, I will be presenting to investors in Europe, speaking at the Copenhagen Reform Conference, and presenting Ukraine in a seven-minute speech at SuperReturn in Amsterdam, a conference for private equity investors. I will then be flying to Lviv to speak at IT Jazz and Canada House before participating in a ceremony to mark the launch of Lviv’s IT Park. I was proud to be a member of the Ukraine House Organizing Committee in Davos in January this year and for Horizon Capital to sponsor a panel during this historic event. The mission behind Ukraine House was to amplify Ukraine’s voice on the global stage. In particular, this means the voice of the new generation that is powering Ukrainian startups and IT companies. I am hopeful that our joint efforts to shine a spotlight on the creativity, innovative spirit and opportunities that Ukraine offers will result in a paradigm shift in investor perceptions of our wonderful country and its talented people.

Your professional life brings you into contact with people from across the globe who are considering investment opportunities in Ukraine. What are your top tips for Ukrainian companies and individuals looking to attract international investment?

I have only one tip. Trust and reputation take years to build and can be destroyed in five seconds. At the end of the day, reputation is all that we have.

Make sure you treasure it and value it. If you do so, you will attract investors who will back you.

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Canadian investment can drive Ukraine’s economic upgrade Daniel Bilak: Canada can help Ukraine capitalize on its “brains and grains” strengths Few Canadians have been in Ukraine longer than Daniel Bilak. He is currently Director of the Ukrainian government’s investment promotion office UkraineInvest and Chief investment advisor to the Prime Minister, but Bilak first arrived in the then-Soviet Republic of Ukraine in spring 1991 as part of a legal reform fact-finding delegation. He then served as an official observer during the decisive independence referendum of December 1991. This experience of Ukraine during the dawn of independence was to prove the start of an involvement with his ancestral homeland that has come to define the Canadian’s professional career.

Born and raised in the Toronto area with Ukrainian roots on both sides of his family tree, Bilak says his Ukrainian identity has always been central to his sense of self. “Growing up, my Ukrainian heritage was a source of considerable pride, especially given the contributions of Ukrainians to the Canadian national narrative. My childhood neighborhood was very diverse with kids from all kinds of backgrounds. We all shared a deep connection with Canada and everybody knew about Ukraine,” he reflects.

Bilak took up his current post in November 2016 and has since become a prominent figure in the drive to attract much-needed international investment to Ukraine. He spoke to Business Ukraine magazine about the Canada-Ukraine relationship and explained why the advent of free trade may take economic ties to a new level.

Family and political ties between Ukraine and Canada have traditionally been strong but this has not always been the case in terms of economic ties. Why do you think bilateral economic relations have not been more robust since 1991?

You can look at volumes of trade and so on, but this does not necessarily tell the whole story. It is only natural that Canadian companies tend to look primarily to their immediate neighbors for opportunities, but many large Canadian businesses are also active in Ukraine and this Canadian presence is growing. The recent free trade agreement is a genuine watershed moment in the relationship. Bilateral trade is up around 60% this year and, given the scale of the tariff reductions on both sides, we can expect this trend to continue. It is a pretty good deal all round.

What impact do you see the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) having on bilateral economic relations?

It will open up new opportunities while strengthening existing directions like the already strong cooperation in the IT sphere. In many ways, CUFTA is recognition of a pre-existing economic relationship that not everyone was necessarily aware of, but which had been evolving over many years.

Canada has always punched above its weight in Ukraine.

Which sectors of the economy do you think offer the most room for growth in Canada-Ukraine economic relations?

The Ukrainian energy industry, both in terms of alternative energy and the more traditional oil

and gas sectors, is particularly appealing to Canadian companies. In terms of agriculture, Canadian companies have the knowhow to help Ukraine move up the value chain and start producing more value-added products. Canada will continue to play a key role in the impressive evolution of Ukraine’s IT industry, helping the country to build on its enormous intellectual resources and capitalize on Ukraine’s growing AI and high-tech competitiveness.

The Revolution of Dignity generated a massive market correction in the economy where we are shifting from a post-Soviet model to an agile fitfor-purpose approach necessary to compete globally in the twenty-first century. The goal is the creation of an innovation economy that plays to Ukraine’s natural strengths in machine-building, manufacturing and agri-food. Canada has the tools to help this happen and to benefit from the process.

What are the most common questions you receive from Canadians who are interested in exploring business and investment opportunities in Ukraine?

Many potential investors remain concerned about corruption-related issues such as property rights. When it comes to corruption, there is a tendency to focus exclusively on whether anyone is going to jail, but people should also consider the progress made in preventing corruption through institutional changes. Since 2014, transparency has improved dramatically in government procurement, VAT refunds and the energy sector. It is important for potential Canadian investors to understand that the work of building a modern country only began four years ago. More reforms have taken place in these past four years than the previous twenty-three. What we have now is probably the most pro-business government in Ukraine’s independent history. This is the largest emerging market in Europe, which represents a major opportunity. Companies that are already active in Ukraine are making money, often lots of money. Now is the time to get into the market.

The large Ukrainian diaspora in Canada gives Ukraine a higher profile and greater levels of familiarity among Canadian audiences than the country enjoys elsewhere in the world. What role can this enhanced “brand recognition” play in promoting the growth of bilateral economic ties between Canada and Ukraine?

The impression Canadians have of Ukraine tends to be much more positive than the image of the country in other parts of the world. It is definitely a case of the glass being half-full rather than half-empty. This is the diaspora’s great achievement and also reflects the fact that most Canadians grow up in close proximity to aspects of Ukrainian culture and identity. These perceptions go a long way to countering the overwhelmingly negative coverage of Ukraine that we continue to see in the international media.

What is your message to Canadians who may be looking at Ukraine as a potential investment destination?

Don’t be afraid - invest in Ukraine now!

About the interviewee: Daniel Bilak is Director of the Ukrainian government’s investment promotion office UkraineInvest and Chief investment advisor to the Prime Minister

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Introducing ICBAC: the International Council of Business Associations and Chambers in Ukraine

The International Council of Business Associations and Chambers in Ukraine (ICBAC) brings together the following organizations: British-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie Franco-Ukrainienne Chinese Commerce Association German-Ukrainian Chamber of Industry and Commerce International Turkish-Ukrainian Business Association Ukrainian-Austrian Association Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry U.S.-Ukraine Business Council

ICBAC aims to: • Strengthen and deepen business dialogue with the Ukrainian government • Represent and protect the business interests of international and local investors • Create the conditions for the further growth of the Ukrainian economy

2018 General Secretary: Alexander Markus, Chairman of the German-Ukrainian Chamber of Industry and Commerce

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Contact email: icbac@ukraine.ahk.de

Ukrainian-Austrian Association

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Canadian company bets big

on Ukrainian renewables TIU Canada unveiled Nikopol solar plant in early 2018 amid plans further investments TIU Canada is one of the first companies to have taken advantage of the opportunities presented by the recently inked Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA). The Canadian company’s first Ukrainian solar energy plant, which is located in southern Ukrainian city Nikopol, began construction in summer 2017 and started operations in January 2018.

The company has already invested in the region of EUR 11 million in Ukraine and intends to break ground on their next phase of solar projects in Ukraine this summer, in addition to the existing 11mw power plant in Nikopol. Officials say plans may evolve further dependent on Ukraine’s www.bunews.com.ua

market conditions and the political outlook in the country. Business Ukraine magazine spoke to TIU Canada CEO Michael Yurkovich and TIU Canada COO Hani Tabsh about the company’s further plans in Ukraine and discussed the added investor appeal created by CUFTA. The first TIU Canada solar plant began operations in January 2018 in the southern Ukrainian city of Nikopol. Has performance so far lived up to your expectations?

Yes, we are happy and are ahead of expectations.

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: What are your plans for further investments in the Ukrainian renewables sector?

We will invest what we promised in 2018 and will then revisit the market in the first half of 2019. We may do a few more projects before the renewable tariffs are reduced and the sector is shut down for investment.

TIU Canada is a pioneer among a growing number of international investors moving into the Ukrainian solar energy sector. What makes the Ukrainian renewables market an attractive investment option?

There are a number of factors converging to make the sector appealing for international investment. These include solar conditions in Ukraine, the sophistication and skill of Ukrainian engineering companies, access to international logistics hubs, and the power supply deficit in the wholesale energy market that Ukraine must address in order to attract manufacturing and technology jobs.

What role did the advent of the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement play in your thinking when you first opted to enter the Ukrainian market, and how important a factor will it be going forward?

Canada actually had a free trade agreement with Ukraine in place since 1993, however this only covered grains and cereals. The CUFTA (2016) expanded the areas of interest and cooperation so that institutional investors could look at the rest of the Ukraine economy on an “apples to apples” basis with other global investment opportunities. The signing of the CUFTA subsequently led to Israel, Dubai, Croatia, China and Japan starting or accelerating their own free trade dialogues with Ukraine, so we are pleased with how CUFTA has put Ukraine on the radar screen for both governments and institutional investors. We have seen a significant increase in institutional interest in Ukraine since CUFTA, by a clear double in terms of new names and research inquirers into the country’s economy and new venture companies, particularly by venture capital and pension funds. For Ukraine’s currency and inflation to stabilize, foreign investment is essential. It is the key to making the country great.

Your investment in Nikopol is one of the largest FDI projects in the region.

What do you see as the key impacts for the local community?

The impacts on Nikopol are numerous. These include generating tax revenues that can help support civic redevelopment and infrastructure improvements.

Our investment provides a case study and reference for subsequent joint ventures and foreign direct investment. TIU Canada’s presence also creates seasonal jobs during construction and permanent positions post-construction including in the fields of electrical engineering and civil engineering, which can act as gateway jobs for highly paid labor, increasing the average wage in Nikopol and improving the wealth of the community.

Based on your experience of working with regional Ukrainian authorities on a major investment project, what tips would you share with Canadians who may also be considering investments in Ukraine?

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Make sure you understand the local community needs and address their concerns about your project early and clearly. We were blessed to have good bench strength in this area, with a strong government relations team and experienced advisers who worked for 40 years on oil issues with “First Nations” in Alberta.

Applying First Nations case studies to Ukraine is a very important lesson, as Ukraine has a right to play a role in community development. Due diligence is also key. Any potential investor must be certain all contracts and land titles can be proven. Do not skimp on legal support and be sure counterparts are comfortable moving law to English courts. Be sure you have your money and check that the banks you work with are sound. Liquidity and hard currency are important factors in your business strategy.

Local talent can play a vital role. Be sure you can verify all certificates and local contractor track records together with education qualifications. Ethics and accountability to investors are important, as Canadian foreign investors are held to Canadian standards. Do not compromise in order to get the deal done.

About the interviewees: TIU Canada CEO Michael Yurkovich (left) and TIU Canada COO Hani Tabsh (right) pictured at the official groundbreaking ceremony of the company’s Nikopol solar power plant in summer 2017

Bringing Canadian and Ukrainian businesses together Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce is at the heart of efforts to build on CUFTA opportunities The Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce (CUCC) dates back to 1993. Today the CUCC unites over 250 member companies evenly split between the two countries. It is at the center of bilateral economic activities as trade ties reach new levels thanks to implementation of the CanadaUkraine Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA).

Increasing Engagement

The media coverage generated by CUFTA has helped to attract the interest of new companies on both the Canadian and Ukrainian sides, as have the efforts of the CUCC and initiatives by the Canadian government such as the Canada-Ukraine Trade and Investment Support project (CUTIS).

There are currently an unprecedented number of events taking place in both Canada and Ukraine to highlight the opportunities of bilateral trade, while Ukrainian companies are able to participate in Canadian industry events thanks to support from the CUCC, the CUTIS project and partners such as the Conference Board of Canada.

This heightened activity is bearing fruit. Prominent recent developments have included pioneering Canadian investment in the Ukrainian renewable energy sector. Meanwhile, one of Ukraine’s largest agricultural groups has received major Canadian investment. Bilateral cooperation remains strong in the IT and high-tech sectors, with significant progress evident in the defense and aviation industries. In a welcome sign that ties are moving to a new level, Ukraine’s national carrier UIA recently launched a direct flight service linking Kyiv with Toronto.

Showcasing Ukrainian Exporters

The Canadian government’s CUTIS project, which is supported by CUCC, focuses on five key sectors (furniture, footwear, confectionary, textiles and IT). In recent months, Ukrainian companies have presented their confectionaries at the SIAL Show in Montreal and taken the “Best New Exhibitor” award at the annual Canadian Furniture Show in Toronto. In early June, a special Ukraine Country Market Presentation sponsored by the CUCC at Canada’s Global Petroleum Show in Alberta made a significant impression and sparked considerable interest from Canadian and inter-

national industry executives. The event featured the participation of Ukrainian MP Olga Bielkova, the Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Committee for the Energy Complex and Nuclear Energy and Safety, along with Deron Bilous, the Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Alberta, who underscored the importance of energy sector cooperation between Canada and Ukraine.

The success of these appearances underlines the competitiveness of Ukrainian products and industries, along with their ability to generate interest among Canadian audiences.

Another area where there is huge scope for

the further development of bilateral ties is the sphere of manufacturing. Ukraine’s convenient location on the EU border and free trade access to European Union markets makes it ideally positioned for manufacturing, while Canada has the knowhow, both in terms of technologies and marketing, to bring significant additional value.

Some see similar opportunities in the opposite direction, with CUFTA offering possibilities for Ukrainian exports to enter North American markets. There is also already growing interest in the production of private label or in-house products for major retail chains.

About the authors: Zenon Potoczny is the President of the CUCC. Yuriy Kryvosheya is a member of the CUCC Board. Emma Turos is CUCC Managing Director for Ukraine. They can be contacted via: ukraine@cucc.ca or +38-044-4958551.

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Building on Historic Ties The current period of enhanced free trade opportunities is allowing Ukraine and Canada to build on the long history of close ties between the two countries. For 125 years, Canada and Ukraine have shared a unique bond. This uniqueness is rooted in the fact that virtually every Ukrainian knows about Canada, while every citizen of Canada knows about Ukraine.

The key challenge in recent years has been to translate this historic closeness into more tangible business opportunities. Awareness efforts related to CUFTA have helped to inform the Canadian business community of the opportunities on offer in Ukraine. Projects like CUTIS help to identify investment opportunities in Ukraine while educating Ukrainian exporters on how to

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capture a share of the Canadian market.

All this builds on the strong foundations created by the unique diaspora ties binding Canada and Ukraine. The CUFTA agreement itself was to a significant degree the result of lobbying that began with the diaspora, while organizations like the CUCC, the Ukrainian World Congress, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the Canada Ukraine Foundation and many others have supported Ukraine and the development of its economy since the country gained independence in 1991. The 1.3 million strong Ukrainian diaspora in Canada is a significant export market in itself, but it is also a powerful promoter of Ukrainian interests, both in Canada and globally.

Looking ahead, there is reason for particular

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“The 1.3 million strong Ukrainian diaspora in Canada is a significant export market in itself, but it is also a powerful promoter of Ukrainian interests, both in Canada and globally� optimism due to the diversified and sustainable nature of the expansion we are now witnessing in bilateral economic ties. While current trade figures indicate room for further growth, they reflect real investment of a fundamental nature that will create a better business climate in Ukraine and generate longterm perspectives. This means the bilateral trade and investment calendar of events will remain busy for the coming years. Highlights for the second half of 2018 include a business forum to reflect upon the first year of CUFTA, which is likely to take place in Toronto in October. As Ukraine and Canada draw closer, CUCC will remain involved in the process of building bridges and strengthening ties between the two business communities.

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Canadian cooperation enhances Ukraine’s international reputation Yuriy Kryvosheya: Growing Canadian investment can help make Ukraine more globally attractive

that go beyond the current double-digit expansion in trade, albeit from an admittedly low pre-CUFTA base. “Ever since independence, Canada has always led the way in terms of support for Ukraine. This support is now growing and is accompanied by greater business engagement,” he comments.

As the bilateral relationship moves to the next level, Kryvosheya believes the diaspora ties and familiarity that bind the two countries can play an important role in encouraging the kind of longer-term thinking that not all of the investors currently looking at Ukraine necessarily share. “One of the biggest advantages of this historic relationship is that Canadian investors tend to enter the Ukrainian market with a long-term perspective in mind. This gives Ukrainian partners the chance to plan strategically instead of focusing on short-term objectives. There is a sense that Canadian investors arriving today will still be here tomorrow.”

Canadian Compliance Kudos

About the interviewee: Yuriy Kryvosheya is President and Managing Partner of PSJC Toronto-Kyiv, Co-founding Partner of Yakaboo e-commerce business, and member of the board at the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce As the President and Managing Partner of PSJC Toronto-Kyiv and board member of the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce, Yuriy Kryvosheya is very much involved in the growing bilateral business community as Canada and Ukraine look to build on the recent free trade breakthrough between the two countries. Meanwhile, the TorontoKyiv Complex he manages in central Kyiv serves as a business bridge between the two countries, providing a vantage point on strengthening bilateral ties reflected in the Canada and Toronto flags that enjoy pride of place alongside their Ukraine and Kyiv counterparts outside the complex. Kryvosheya explained to Business Ukraine magazine why he believes the advantages of expanding economic ties between Canada and Ukraine extend far beyond the immediate impact of additional investment dollars.

Fruits of Free Trade

Since the summer 2016 signing of the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA), Kryvosheya has noted a significant upswing in bilateral interaction. There are now markedly more delegations and a growing range of promotional activities as companies on both sides seek to take advantage of the new opportunities presented by the free trade breakthrough. He identifies a number of reasons for optimism 26

The other key advantage he identifies is reputational. Canada generally ranks among the world’s leading nations in surveys assessing compliance. In a world where international compliance expectations are currently on the rise, this makes Canadian companies demanding but desirable partners. “The trend in the international business environment is towards greater regulation and tougher compliance.

Canada is well ahead of the curve,” says Kryvosheya. “This makes the reputational aspect of relations particularly important for Canadian investors, while creating challenges for potential Ukrainian partners who will have little choice but to adhere to compliance obligations themselves.” This means the strengthening relationship between the two countries will likely improve Ukraine’s business climate while enhancing its reputation among other international investors. Kryvosheya likens the process to the health benefits of a well-regimented gym workout regime. Canada, he notes with a smile, is an “excellent personal trainer”.

Selling Brand Ukraine

Now would certainly be a fortuitous time for Ukraine to receive a reputational boost from closer associations with Canadian compliance excellence. Ukraine’s star is already rising steadily if unspectacularly on international radars, but Kryvosheya argues that both the Ukrainian authorities and individual Ukrainian businesspeople could be doing much more to promote the country as an investment destination. A regular attendee of global investment events, he notes improving awareness of the country’s possibilities and talks of a thaw in attitudes, but also stresses the need to make Ukraine heard above the din of the crowded international marketplace. “A few years ago, it was common to encounter people who would tell me, “It’s an amazing project and we would love to work with you, but Ukraine.”

Over the past eighteen months or so, this somewhat frustrating “but

Enticing Investors to Kyiv

Kryvosheya argues that one of the best ways to promote Ukrainian investment is to entice as many business leaders as possible to the country in order to let them see for themselves. This belief in partially based on the enthusiastic reactions he regularly encounters among visiting Canadian delegations, and was emphatically reinforced during the May 2018 Champions League Final festivities in Kyiv. The Holiday Inn hotel within the Toronto-Kyiv Complex hosted large numbers of corporate guests attending the match, with many visiting Kyiv for the first time and expressing what Kryvosheya describes as “positive shock” at the dynamism and entrepreneurial vibe they encountered while in the Ukrainian capital.

Meanwhile, for the past two years the Toronto-Kyiv Complex has played host to Kyiv Art Week, attracting the participation of dozens of galleries from across Ukraine and various European capitals including Berlin,

Warsaw and Copenhagen. Like the Champions League Final, this contemporary art event does not place the focus specifically on business but does attract executive-level audiences who might well go on to become investors in the country. “Many of the gallery owners confessed to me that they were initially skeptical about the value of coming to Ukraine,” says Kryvosheya. “However, they have all now added Kyiv to their annual calendars and are encouraging their peers to do likewise.

Some even referred to Kyiv as “The New Berlin” and raved about the startup culture of the city.”

canada in ukraine

Ukraine” message has changed and we are now even seeing conservative investors take a more active interest.”

Kryvosheya points to a number of recent deals involving Canadian institutional investors, arguing that they are clear indicators of an increasing international willingness to view Ukraine as a destination for strategic investment. This, he points out, will encourage other major financial groups to follow suit. Nevertheless, Kryvosheya cautions against assumptions that Ukraine’s merits will sell themselves. “We need to be better at communicating and much more proactive when it comes to promoting the country. Ukraine has a compelling investment narrative but it is not necessarily reaching international audiences. In this competitive environment, every reputable Ukrainian business figure needs to become an informal ambassador. If not out of patriotism, then out of necessity. International investors have a huge range of options open to them and need to hear compelling arguments explaining why Ukraine is a good choice. The process is similar to peeling a cabbage. Before you get to the core of any investment project, you first have to go layer by layer explaining the various macro aspects of the Ukrainian market.”

Strategic Partnership

This focus on positive first impressions is a long way away from the kind of downbeat narratives more typically associated with Ukraine.

Kryvosheya acknowledges that he has a more optimistic outlook than many, but makes no apologies for talking up Ukraine’s ability to attract international investment. “Not a single one of the many doomsday predictions for the Ukrainian economy since 2014 has actually come true,” he says. “There has been no collapse, no default. On the contrary, GDP growth figures and other key economic statistics have actually been better than expected. If the country has performed this well during a major crisis period, it does not take much imagination to see the possibilities going forward.”

He is equally dismissive of those who point to the relatively low levels of bilateral trade between Canada and Ukraine as evidence that the importance of the recent free trade agreement is exaggerated. “There will always be naysayers and so it’s no surprise to see critics underestimating the importance of cooperation with Canada. They fail to recognize the fundamental benefits it brings for Ukraine,” says Kryvosheya. “Despite the relatively low starting point in trade volumes, current growth trends send out a strong message, as does the support coming from both governments. What we are witnessing now is sustainable growth on solid foundations. Ukraine can be proud of having Canada as a strategic partner, and this partnership can only boost Ukraine’s own international reputation.”

Yuriy Kryvosheya (second right) with Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce President Zenon Potoczny (third left) and Alberta Minister of Economic Development and Trade Deron Bilous (center) pictured in Kyiv together with Ukrainian officials, parliamentarians, business representatives and members of an official Alberta delegation in October 2017

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Meet the Canadian helping

Ukraine to communicate

Luc Chenier has been at the forefront of efforts to revitalize post-Maidan Ukraine’s international branding

In good company: Luc Chenier pictured at the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos where he joined the Klitschko brothers at Ukraine House to launch the CR8UA Creative Video Project to help promote Ukrainian creativity to global audiences You could say that Luc Chenier is a minority within a minority. Unlike most of his fellow Canadians in Ukraine, Chenier does not hail from the country’s 1.3 million-strong Ukrainian diaspora. In fact, he is a French-Canadian who had no prior connection to Ukraine when he first arrived in the country as an advertising industry executive in the summer of 2000. This lack of any ancestral ties has not prevented Chenier from falling in love with Ukraine – or from making a major contribution to the rebranding of the country on the international stage.

As he sits down with Business Ukraine magazine on a sunny June afternoon at one of central Kyiv’s heaving summer terraces, the always dapper Canadian communications expert is grumbling about the bureaucratic challenges and other random absurdities of working with 28

Ukrainian government ministries. However, it soon becomes clear that he would not have it any other way. “I feel so lucky to live in Kyiv,” he reflects. “If you have the balls, the strength, and the smarts, you can be anything you want to be in this city. I am very much aware of the fact that I would not necessarily have so much freedom elsewhere to do what I want to do. This market will support you if you are tough and credible.”

Right now, this means developing his own boutique communications consultancy named “Plan C”. With typical pop culture panache, Chenier likens his role to that of the iconic Mr. Wolf character played by Harvey Keitel in Quentin Tarantino’s 1990s cult classic “Pulp Fiction”.

“I’m the person you call when you need to bring your communications strategy up to an international level in a hurry. Why wait for plan A and

sense of Ukraine’s core values. That’s only really possible if you immerse yourself in a culture for an extended period as I have done in Ukraine.”

Chenier’s Ukrainian Odyssey is now in its eighteenth year, albeit with stints in Moscow and back in Canada sandwiched somewhere in the middle. Having first arrived in the country to take up a role as creative director at what was then one of Ukraine’s top advertising agencies, he has since enjoyed a range of career developments.

The French Canadian’s most public role was as CEO of the Englishlanguage newspaper The Kyiv Post, a position he held for just over a year and a half starting in summer 2016. His position at the helm of Ukraine’s venerable English-language newspaper of record allowed Chenier to boost his profile further while pioneering a number of initiatives including video content and event hosting. His videos during the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv proved particularly popular and helped encourage him to take up vlogging (“video blogging”) more seriously as an additional dimension to his communications work, with Leopolis Jazz Festival among his first clients. However, despite enjoying success in the advertising and publishing worlds, Chenier has concluded that he is most comfortable acting as his own boss in an entrepreneurial role. “When all is said and done, I’m here to build my own dream. While I am very grateful for the opportunity I had with the Kyiv Post, I currently feel like I am going back to my roots and doing what suits me best.”

Chenier says he is now looking forward to supporting Ukraine’s further efforts to develop a more coherent and attractive international brand. As far as the Canadian is concerned, this is anything but an afterthought in Ukraine’s post-Maidan journey. On the contrary, he believes a lack of communication skills remains one of the major barriers preventing the country from achieving its goals of Euro-Atlantic integration and greater economic prosperity. “Ukraine has incredible amounts of potential but there is a world of difference between potential and the kind of concrete benefits you can expect to come from greater clarity. Once Ukraine learns how to communicate effectively with the outside world, the difference will be stunning.” He hopes to witness this process from the inside and plans to continue working in Kyiv for many years to come. Chenier says the lifestyle on offer in the Ukrainian capital can compete with the best the Western world has to offer, but also emphasizes his emotional engagement to a country that has given him some life-changing opportunities. “I’ve been able to do things in Ukraine that are beyond my wildest dreams.

It really is a blessing. How can I not continue to invest in Ukraine when Ukraine has invested so much in me?”

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plan B to fail when you can go straight to Plan C?” he quips. Chenier’s client list already includes the Canadian and Ukrainian governments along with private sector big hitters like Horizon Capital, Western NIS Enterprise Fund and a number of VIP personal accounts both in Ukraine and the United States that he remains tight-lipped over.

Much of Chenier’s most prominent work has focused on international campaigns designed to raise Ukraine’s profile and rebrand the country in the wake of the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. Ever since gaining independence in 1991, Ukraine has suffered from a lack of international brand recognition made worse by negative associations with specific disasters like Chornobyl and lingering misconceptions of the country as a component part of Russia. Until 2014, successive Ukrainian governments largely ignored these branding problems. However, as Russian hybrid forces fanned out across Crimea and eastern Ukraine accompanied by a barrage of disinformation, it became painfully obvious that international ignorance about the realities of modern Ukraine had made the country uniquely vulnerable to Russian information warfare.

The Ukrainian government has responded to this rude awakening by embarking on the country’s first credible brand-building efforts since the fall of the Soviet Union, and Chenier has been involved in the process from the very beginning. He is currently working with the Ministry of Agriculture on a campaign to promote Ukraine’s potentially world-beating organic foodstuffs. Prior to this, he was the driving force behind a series of promotional videos collectively entitled “Ukraine – Open for U” which aimed to highlight Ukraine’s ample charms in areas as diverse as the tourism, infrastructure and agriculture sectors. Such efforts are relatively standard fare in the world of international country brand promotion, but the initiative represented a quantum leap for post-Soviet Ukraine.

The response to the “Ukraine – Open for U” campaign was overwhelmingly positive. International audiences welcomed new perspectives on the country that went beyond the usual media stereotypes, while many in Ukraine itself cheered depictions of the country that felt far closer to their own experience than the war-torn and dysfunctional scarecrow more commonly seen in the international headlines. “A lot of people have been surprised to learn that so much of Ukraine’s key messaging was actually done by a foreigner like me,” says Chenier. “It means a lot to me personally when I hear people say, “He really gets us. He understands our mentality.” At the end of the day, if these campaigns have enjoyed any success at all, I think it is down to the fact that I tried to blend my Western skillset and understanding of international expectations with my instinctive

“I’ve been able to do things in Ukraine that are beyond my wildest dreams. How can I not continue to invest in Ukraine when Ukraine has invested so much in me?”

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Ukraine’s original Canadian logistics and postal pioneer Meest Group was the first major Canadian investment into independent Ukraine in 1992 Canada-based Meest Group was the first major Canadian investment in independent Ukraine. The Group first entered the Ukrainian market in 1992 as a joint venture with Rosan Business. Meest Group has since created thousands of jobs in Ukraine as the company has expanded in a variety of directions. Initially, Meest Group focused on the postal and logistics sector and deliveries between North America and addresses in newly independent Ukraine.

The company’s scope of services soon expanded, leading to the creation of the entire Meest Financial and Industrial Group.

In addition to its business activities, Meest Group has been at the forefront of promoting a culture of corporate social responsibility inside Ukraine. The Group set up the Meest Hope charitable foundation in 1998 that provides support for children’s homes across Ukraine. Other initiatives have included the creation of the Fourth Wave international NGO, which is a member of the Ukrainian World Congress. Since 2015, Meest Group has actively supported volunteer initiatives designed to provide help for veterans of Ukraine’s ATO military operations in the east of the country.

For many years, Meest Group has offering support for the Galichanka Club for Ukrainians with disabilities, while also backing FC Carpathians sports club. The company has been prominent in its support of the World Vyshyvanka Day initiative, creating embroidery for babies born on this day not only in Ukraine itself but also all over the world. This year, the company has provided backing for the Milky Way cycling initiative involving a team of volunteers cycling over 10,000KM across Canada and the United States of America. This ambitious undertaking aims to raise awareness of Ukraine and improve the country’s image among North American audiences, while also raising funds for those who have suffered due to the war in the Donbas.

The Group now has ambitious plans for 30

About the author: Rostyslav Kisil is the founder and president of Meest Group further expansion. Meest officials say the Group has become a reliable and convenient bridge between Ukraine and countries around the world, helping Ukrainian businesses to enter international markets while also facilitating investment flows in the opposite direction by enabling companies to more easily access Ukrainian markets. With the Ukrainian business community increasingly looking to expand its global horizons and develop presences in new international markets, Meest Group is in a good position to play an important role as this process gains momentum. Meest

Group founder and president Rostyslav Kisil spoke to Business Ukraine magazine about the story behind the Group and his vision for its future development.

Rostyslav Kisil on Meest Group

It all started back in 1988, when I first experienced life with the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada and saw how a normal, welldeveloped capitalist country lives. My mentality, which had been brainwashed

by Soviet propaganda prior to my arrival in Canada, completely changed and I soon decided to open my own business. My idea

was to help the Canadian diaspora provide aid and engage in closer contact with friends and relatives still living in Ukraine.

In fact, that is how the brand name came to life. “Meest”, or “bridge”, symbolizes the idea of connecting things. The philosophy of the company is all about bridging borders and overcoming barriers. The company experienced rapid success and established itself in both the Canadian and Ukrainian markets. Soon afterwards, we expanded into other countries.

Currently we work in 20 countries and develop our own innovative postal-logistics solutions in order to connect people throughout the world. You will find many different nationalities and countries among our employees and customers.

Nevertheless, we are still devoted to our traditional values, including strong connections and cooperation with Ukrainians worldwide.

The Meest Group is a pioneer in the postal and logistics industry and we work tirelessly to maintain our reputation. We have always had a reputation for innovation at Meest Group. For example, we created Ukraine’s first independent private TV studio, the first company in Ukraine to work with property privatization, and our Rosan enterprise was the first private postal company in Ukraine to receive membership in the Universal Postal Union. For more than a quarter of a century, we have successfully worked alongside the national postal service and in cooperation with the postal services of many other countries including Poland, Estonia, and Germany. The Meest Express postal and logistics operator became a leader in express delivery services after its formation in 2005 and currently ranks as one of Ukraine’s 50 most expensive brands. Meest Tour opened in 1997. Today, www.bunews.com.ua

it is one of the leading travel agencies for Canadian, American, and other Western tourists coming to Ukraine. Our Rosanpak plastic wrap and packaging company is also one of the leaders in its industry.

We are now actively developing and promoting an innovative new Ukrainian project – myMeest. This is an online shopping delivery service for online shops across the world. We soon expect to expand this service to countries across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Caucasus region. We are also developing our own system of money transfer that will work in Ukraine, Poland, Canada, the US, and other countries. We provide top-notch and exclusive delivery services to Ukrainians for globally recognized brands like Next, Lamoda, YesSport, Rozetka, and Allo.

With Meest Express, we can meet even the tightest of deadlines to deliver purchases from nearly anywhere in the world.

The secret ingredients behind the success and sustainability of Meest Group include having the right ideas and the right people, consistency of purpose, and a little bit of luck. Meest Group is truly a big family where every employee has an opportunity to pursue professional development and personal fulfilment. Each employee is a shareholder and we are always ready to consider any suggestion for corporate development that any member of our team might offer. As we continue to expand, our stocks continue to grow. As the company gains worth, so too do the employees.

For me, this is how you measure success – when employees are as invested in the future of the company as senior management.

Thousands of people work for the Meest Group across Ukraine and in 20 countries around the world. Whatever we are do-

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“I was lucky enough to be in Canada in 1988. While this timing was fortunate, success also requires business management skills, commitment and accountability” ing, I cannot accept being second or third best. I always want to keep going until we can become the market leader. This is the corporate philosophy behind the success of Meest Group. However, you also need to be in the right place at the right time. I was lucky enough to be in Canada in 1988.

While this timing was fortunate, success also requires business management skills, commitment, and accountability.

It is my goal to lead Meest Group to a global leadership position in the international postal logistics market for those with ties to Ukraine. Over the past 28 years of work, we have built a concrete foundation and became a trusted service in many countries. We have earned recognition for our commitment to a number of core principles: proximity to clients, simplicity of reception, moderate service pricing, and constant implementation of the latest technologies in e-commerce and postal logistics. We have created a trusted bridge between Ukraine and dozens of countries worldwide, where we help Ukrainian businesses enter international markets and assist foreign companies to invest in Ukraine. The objective now is to consolidate this position further.

Meest Group at a Glance 30 years on the global market 25 years in Ukraine First private international mail service in Ukraine First Canadian investment in independent Ukraine First courier service in Ukraine

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Canadian diaspora aid initiatives Charitable efforts have been a key feature of Canadian diaspora support for Ukraine since 1991

Ever since Canada first recognized Ukrainian independence in 1991, Canada’s Ukrainian diaspora has been at the forefront of efforts to provide aid and support for Ukraine as the country made its way through challenging decades of post-Soviet transition. This aid has been particularly important in times of crisis such as during Ukraine’s two post-Soviet Maidan revolutions and the ongoing undeclared war with Russia. Since 2014, members of the Canadian diaspora have been particularly active in providing aid to the country’s defenders as well as victims of Russia’s military interventions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. At the height of the crisis in 201415, Canadian diaspora activists were able to supply essential military equipment including basic items of clothing and medical kit to frontline troops, many of whom had departed for the front as volunteers with very little equipment. Aid efforts have also focused on support for the approximately one and a half million Ukrainians who have been left internally displaced by the conflict.

One of the many organizations working to provide regular aid deliveries from Canada to Ukraine is the Vancouver branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Social Services. Headed by Ukrainian Canadian Social Services – Vancouver president Roman Sawycky, the group works with Canada-based group Rotary World Help to collect and deliver medical equipment to Ukrainian hospitals. Sawycky, who is also a member of the board at the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce, 32

has been at the helm of the organization for the past two years. During this period, he has overseen the delivery of ten containers of medical supplies to Ukraine. According to Rotary World Help estimates, the contents of each container has an average value of approximately USD 300,000, meaning that aid worth around USD 3 million has reached Ukrainian hospitals via this channel since 2016.

Volunteers at Ukrainian Canadian Social Services – Vancouver try to make sure their aid deliveries reach as many different regions in Ukraine as possible, with supplies from the last ten containers going to thirty different hospitals located across the country. Deliveries can range from sophisticated medical equipment for use in laser therapy to bedding and other more basic supplies.

Roman Sawycky was one of the first members of the Canadian diaspora to visit independent Ukraine in 1991. He ended up working in Ukraine for 25 years, actively participating in both the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013-14 Revolution of Dignity. His involvement in aid efforts to support Ukrainian healthcare was first inspired by personal exposure to Ukraine’s often poorly funded and undersupplied hospitals. The aid he and his colleagues at the Ukrainian Canadian Social Services – Vancouver branch are able to supply is the result of donations from within the community, enabling them to provide everything free of charge while also covering all shipping expenses.

Ulf Schneider Founder and Managing Partner

We provide our international clients with the back office services they need to expand their business into or within Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Poland and Germany. Our services include market entry support, accounting outsourcing, tax consulting, import, ERP systems and support in legal matters with a focus on migration, labor and corporate law. Contact us to receive your individual offer.

www.schneider-group.com

Contact person | Kateryna Kotenko +380 / 44 / 490 55 28 | kyiv@schneider-group.com

Teaching Ukrainian Children English

About the author: Andy Hunder, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, Member of the National Reforms Council under the President of Ukraine, and Treasurer of AmChams in Europe Executive Committee.

“Do you love your job?”, I was asked by a 11-yearold boy sat in the middle row of the classroom in Dnipro last week. I was a volunteer in the eastern Ukrainian city, renowned for being a space and rocket industry powerhouse, teaching kids English. This was part of GoCamp – the biggest civil project in Ukraine that inspires and educates a new generation of Ukrainians to speak English and break cultural barriers. Learning foreign languages has the power to change lives. Ukraine is forming its brand on the international arena, and social projects like GoCamp contribute to this process, making Ukraine ever more interesting for tourists and investors.

GoCamp provides children with the opportunity to learn English with international volunteers, who dedicate their time teaching kids. GoCamp is a social organization that I became a part of this summer. Ambassadors, business leaders and international volunteers have signed up to teaching Ukrainian kids English across the country. I was assigned with teaching 11-yearolds in Dnipro. I was inspired by the kids’ passion and desire to learn English.

Lingua franca opens doors of opportunities “One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way’ the psycholinguist Frank Smith, once said. English dominates the world as no language ever has. It’s considered to be a lingua franca across the globe. Not only is it the world’s most widely used language – it’s the language of business and trade. Research shows that cross-border business communication is most often conducted in English, which is why so many international companies expect employees to be fluent in English. The numbers speak for themselves.

More than 400 million people speak English as a first language worldwide. English is an official language in 53 countries. 86% of the internet is in English. It’s important for socializing. It builds bridges between cultures, and grants access to other forms of entertainment. It helps children to discover different cultures and find new friends. Knowing English increases the chances of getting an interesting and well-paid job in a multinational company. For these reasons and more, it has become necessary for Ukrainian children to learn English.

English is the language of opportunity. It provides opportunities for education, travel, and business.

English helps children integrate into new environments quickly and smoothly. The GoCamp experience was truly valuable – seeing children’s eyes full of interest, passion, and desire to learn something new was priceless.

As to the question from the boy sat in the middle row, I replied using a quote from Steve Jobs, that is painted in big letters on my office wall: “The only way to do great work is to love what you do”.

If you would like to find out more details on how you can volunteer and teach English with GoCamp, please contact Yuliana Chyzhova, AmCham Ukraine Senior Communications Coordinator, at ychyzhova@chamber.ua

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Expert view Tomasz Kluszczynski Senior Principal IQVIA Central and Eastern Europe

Yulia Zvigintseva Head of the Chamber Healthcare Marketing HUB Associate Director, IQVIA Ukraine

Oleksii Savin Consulting Principal IQVIA Ukraine and CIS

KEY TRENDS RESHAPING GLOBAL PHARMA The Global pharmaceutical industry is projected to slow down to 3-6% growth over the 2018-2021 period, while the industry is projected to total 1,4 trillion USD by 2021. The lower rate of growth has caused the sources and structures of growth to differ significantly across the regions: in the U.S. and Europe growth is driven by specialization and innovative medicine, while more basic sources of growth are behind pharmerging markets (including Ukraine) are growing primarily in traditional indications covering basic needs.

In the meantime, all pharmaceutical markets are changing significantly, expressing five common trends that will shape the industry in during the next five years. We discussed these 5 key trends during the last Chamber Healthcare Marketing HUB Session: Biologics – Biologics remains one of the key industry-drivers that significantly outgrows the overall market. U.S. Biologics are now covering indications traditionally treated by small molecules. Top-tier biologics are beginning to lose their product exclusivity, creating huge potential for a surge of biosimilars in Europe.

Innovation drive - The proliferation of approvals for new molecules is leading to a wave of innovation. Immuno-Oncology, cell, and gene therapies and novel application technologies are at the forefront of this wave of innovation. How-

ever all players are experiencing growing price pressure from payers as they try to contain budgets.

Regulatory challenges - Payers across the globe are focused on managing therapy costs using novel mechanisms, such as collaborative purchasing (i.e. across EU states), innovative and mutually-beneficial agreements, tracking of real world treatment performance, payback schemes, and increasing emphasis on drug-cost value.

Digital health – Digital solutions are being used across on patients, starting from clinical trials and real-world evidence studies to condition monitoring, symptom onset, and well-being and prevention.

Commercial model – The change drives a need to shift the companies towards smaller, more tech-savvy and skill-diverse representatives who would drive the value forward - from focusing promotions on primary physicians to specialty, key-opinion leaders and payers, from focusing on the product to innovative solutions, from taking a one2many approach to taking a tailed customercentric approach.

The Chamber Healthcare Marketing HUB was established to share new strategies, global trends, and local opinions, and to improve access to healthcare and innovative solutions for Ukraine’s population and governmental institutions.

THE GOLD STANDARD OF QUALITY IN MEDICINE

Sam Aganov, Ph.D., M.B.A. Healthcare Executive Founder and CEO of Doctor Sam Medical Network

Although there are many quality accreditation systems around the globe, the honor of setting a gold standard for medicine belongs to the Joint Commission (which has operated in the United States and Canada since the beginning of the 20th century), and the Joint Commission International (which has operated in more than 100 countries around the world since 2000s). Any healthcare organization in the United States aspires to secure Joint Commission accreditation and as of now, well over 20,000 organizations are accredited by the Joint Commission.

In 1994, Joint Commission International (JCI) was formed with the goal to expand the Joint Commission’s standards of excellence in medical care to the international community. From that moment on, JCI was focused on improving patient safety and the quality of global healthcare by offering education, publications, advisory services, and internationally reputable accreditation and certification.

Despite the apparent complexity of JCI’s system of standards, the process of getting GoldSeal accreditation is simple and transparent; all the standards, in addition to policy requirements, guidelines to meeting standards, procedures for meeting standards, and measurable ele-

ments for each standard are clearly defined in are clearly defined in the Manual. The whole process – from submitting an application to welcoming JCI surveyors in your healthcare organization – takes about 6 months.

During the on-site visit, the JCI survey team checks the organization’s standard operating procedures, policies, and guidelines. They conduct numerous interviews with medical staff (physicians and nurses), administration, supportive staff, and even patients. They also conduct a site survey (a detailed walk-through of the entire organization). Based on the results, the surveyors rank each quality standard by “met,” “partially met,” or “not met.” Within 10 days, the decision is made and communicated to the healthcare organization.

There is absolutely no reason why high-quality medical care cannot be offered in Ukraine. All we really need is to set a goal to raise the quality of our healthcare solutions to the rigid but fair standards of the JCI Gold Seal, and to work hard to achieve that goal.

After all, when clinics and hospitals hold themselves accountable to the highest quality standards, patients win.

Expert view TRANSPARENT PROCUREMENT OF MEDICINES: NO LONGER JUST A DREAM

Borys Danevych Co-Chair of the Chamber Healthcare Committee Partner Marchenko Danevych, Head of Life Sciences

For years, a lot of healthcare system decision-makers had been motivated by kickbacks/corruption linked with public tenders.

In 2015, activists/NGOs, supported by some MPs, have advocated for the transformation of the National Procurement System and for the corruption-free procurement of medicines. Following tough discussions and a challenging transition period, the MoH managed to outsource centralized procurement to experienced global procurers until March 31, 2019. Although this transformation faced strong opposition from local distributors – who advocate for the past system and who blame the government for supply delays – it has had the following positive effects on decision-makers: • Tenders became more transparent - global pharmaceutical companies are finally directly supplying products to international organizations, along with the local players.

• The prices for some products decreased, creating savings that enabled healthcare system decision-makers to procure additional volume.

• New products (registered through a simplified procedure) were procured.

The new MoH team demonstrated an ability to hear critics and improve performance in 2017/2018.

In anticipation of the 2019 elections, populists are protesting for the elimination of outsourcing.

Before the Parliament voted for healthcare reform in October 2017, the Government planned to establish a “Centralized Procurement Agency” to take over centralized procurement after the MoH’s agreement ends March 31, 2019. But with the commenced reform, the plans have to be revised thoughtfully. The reform is transforming the basis of the healthcare system – financial motivation of healthcare service-providers has changed. They are interested in establishing a new system of performance-based financing, where service-providers are paid for quantity and eventually quality of the services they actually provide. The reform broadly concerns public funding of medicines and devices.

Prompt development and implementation of a solid action plan addressing the following questions is crucial: • Which products will be reimbursed and when (without procurement through tenders)?

• Which strategic products still need to be procured (through centralized procedures)?

• How will the reimbursement/procurement be linked to other elements of the reform?

Until all these questions are answered, the international industry expects either prolongment of procurement through international organizations or of any other solutions mitigating the risk of returning to the ugly past of corrupt tenders.

The Chamber Healthcare Committee has been dynamically developing for many years within the Chamber. It aims to establish a competitive landscape for the development of the healthcare sector by supporting the initiatives of Presidential Administration, Parliament, and Government of Ukraine as well as by contributing to the formation of transparent and efficient regulatory system.

The Healthcare Committee was initially created for driving Pharmaceutical-companies issues. Within the development of the Committee we started to work with Healthcare Hardware & Medical Devices Manufacturers. Last year we launched the Healthcare Marketing HUB as an experience-sharing platform for marketing specialists. Two new directions were launched this year: one for Health & Medical Services Providers and one for Healthcare Supply Chain Providers.

The Chamber Healthcare Committee developed a roadmap, called “Vision 2020,” for developing Ukraine’s Pharmaceutical Sector. It follows Ukraine’s current healthcare reform guidelines.

We permanently work directly with the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, in particular the Minister of Health of Ukraine and all Deputy Ministers of Health of Ukraine, the Administration of President

of Ukraine, representatives of the Expert Committee on Selection and Use of Essential Medicines, the State Expert Center of Ukraine, various International organizations, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, and all bodies involved in Ukraine’s healthcare sector.

We consider the Chamber Healthcare Committee as a partner to the government. Respecting and working directly with stakeholders is really important to us, which is why all our activities are conducted in a constructive, solution-oriented way.

THE CHAMBER HEALTHCARE COMMITTEE

Inna Markus Chamber Junior Policy Officer (Healthcare issues) imarkus@chamber.ua

Maxim Proskurov Chamber Senior Policy Officer (Healthcare issues) mproskurov@chamber.ua

B2G Dialogue MEETING WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF THE U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE OFFICE & U.S. EMBASSY Chamber Members were delighted to welcome Betsy Hafner, Deputy Assistant of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) for Russia and Eurasia; Christine Brown, Technical Barriers to Trade Expert, USTR Office; JP Schutte, Counselor for Economic Affairs, U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, and other representatives from the U.S. Embassy. Multi-sectoral discussion covered the current state of affairs in customs and trade facilitation, IPR, healthcare, agriculture, and the seeds sectors.

PANEL DISCUSSION “MACROECONOMIC OUTLOOK & FORECAST FOR UKRAINE” AmCham Ukraine jointly with Member Company Visa held a benchmark event for the business community called “Macroeconomic Outlook & Forecast for Ukraine”. The participants received an overview about what to expect from Ukraine’s economy in Q3 2018, and received updates on key macroeconomic indicators such as, inflation forecasts, dynamics of foreign currency exchange indexes, and investment trends.

NEXT STEPS ON UNLOCKING KEY SECTORS OF ECONOMY: PRESENTATION OF RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE NATIONAL INVESTMENT COUNCIL UNDER THE PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE Dmytro Shymkiv, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine and Yuliya Kovaliv, Head of the Office of the National Investment Council under the President of Ukraine, delivered a presentation that covered the following areas: IT, agriculture, infrastructure, energy – upstream and renewables.

MEETING WITH STANISLAV SHEVCHUK, HEAD OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF UKRAINE Chamber Members met with Stanislav Shevchuk, Head of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, to discuss a new mechanism of constitutional complaint that allows to ensure the rule of law and to protect constitutional rights. Stanislav Shevchuk noted that there is cooperation between the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the Supreme Court of Ukraine aimed at ensuring the unity of judicial practice.

B2G Dialogue CONFERENCE “NEW WASTE MANAGEMENT POLICY – THE PATH TO CIRCULAR ECONOMY” The event was organized by the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine in cooperation with the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, the EU Delegation to Ukraine, EU funded projects (Twinning, Support to Ukraine in approximation of the EU environmental acquis, Better Regulation Delivery Office), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and DESPRO - Swiss-Ukrainian project “Decentralization Support in Ukraine”.

The event was devoted to discussing the next steps on implementing the National Waste Management Strategy of Ukraine, prospects of moving towards the circular economy, and EU waste management policies.

AGRICULTURAL COMMITTEE MEETING WITH THE LEADERSHIP OF UKRZALIZNYTSYA Chamber Agricultural Committee Members had a dynamic discussion with Ukrzaliznytsya leadership about its initiative to close some grain railway stations. As a result, to continue further dialogue the business community will prepare the updated rating of grain railway stations that discusses the expediency or inexpediency of their closure.

MEETING WITH ROMAN ILYK, DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH OF UKRAINE The meeting was devoted to discussing the National Program “Affordable Medicines”, peculiarities of its regional implementation, and Ministry of Health of Ukraine plans to broaden the list of reimbursed medicinal products within the nosologies and International Nonproprietary Names (INNs).

“WELCOME TO ODESA” REGIONAL OUTREACH BUSINESS TRIP The Chamber Hospitality & Tourism Working Group organized “Welcome to Odesa,” a business trip to explore the best sites of Odesa, enjoy networking cocktails, and meet with the leadership of Odesa City Council, in particular Pavlo Vulgelman, Deputy Mayor of Odesa, and Alona Diachenko, Head of the Department of Culture and Tourism.

WELDI Business Breakfast: “How to Network More Effectively” Networking and developing business relations can generate a variety of opportunities. Olena Makeieva, PhD and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Audit Company “Aksonova and Associates”, member of GENEVA Group International, advisor in PWC - shared her specific networking tips during the session of Women’s Executives Leadership Development Initiative by AmCham Ukraine.

PREMIUM SPONSOR

Kyiv must invite the world to visit

Champions League Final success should encourage Kyiv to host as many global events as possible

About the interviewee: Irantha Duwage is the Chief Operating Officer of DBI Hotel Management Group When hotelier Irantha Duwage first arrived in Ukraine on the eve of the country’s Euro 2012 international debut, the Ukrainian hospitality industry was still in many ways struggling to make the transition away from Soviet service standards towards twenty-first century expectations. Fast forward six years and the transformation is significant if not quite complete. Although still beyond the boundaries of the European mainstream, Ukraine is now emerging as an exciting and attractive tourism destination. Meanwhile, a dramatic upgrade in service culture accompanied by a newfound sense of swagger have seen Kyiv christened in many quarters as “The New Berlin”.

The challenge now is translating Ukraine’s abundant potential into a tourism industry worthy of Europe’s largest country.

Building on Champions League Success

When Duwage sits down with Business Ukraine magazine in late June, the talk is still of the Ukrainian capital’s successful hosting of the 2018 UEFA Champions League Final, an event that provided the hospitality sector with 46

a welcome boost while also offering a window onto exactly what Kyiv is capable of. “It was the most successful event ever held in the city,” he says matter-of-factly. “Kyiv was ready and the whole city performed well, from the hotels to the municipal authorities. Even the police were great. Everyone should take a bow.”

Despite widespread negative press coverage of price hikes on the eve of the big match, Duwage calls the criticism overblown and argues that you would find the same issues in any major city hosting a top tier global event.

“It’s the same in Berlin and London, so why make such a fuss about Kyiv?

Any city where demand outstrips supply sevenfold is going to experience similar price fluctuations.”

He is more interested in focusing on the huge potential that the Champions League Final helped highlight, and believes that such showcases are a great way to promote the Ukrainian capital on the international stage. “I think it is now clear that Kyiv is perfectly capable of hosting any of the world’s top events. This needs to be the priority going forward. The Ukrainian authori-

Tourism Industry Optimism

Duwage’s optimistic outlook is not solely in response to the considerable positive vibes generated by the recent UEFA Champions League Final. He sees indications of encouraging market trends in his own role as Chief Operating Officer of DBI Hotel Management Group, which is experiencing strong demand for their services in Ukraine. DBI currently manages the Ramada Encore Hotel, which Kyiv’s largest international hotel in terms of number of beds, as well as Number 21 Hotel in the Ukrainian capital’s riverside Podil district. Meanwhile, it has three new projects currently under development in Kyiv, Odesa and Lviv, all of which will be part of the “Moi” brand, with plans envisaging around 300 beds in each hotel. Duwage says DBI has seen a marked rise in inquiries for new projects over the past year, but he prefers to adopt a selective approach. The hotelier is presently only interested in projects that offer a six-year return on investment and says he pays particular attention to how well any proposed hotel idea fits into the specifics of the fast-evolving Ukrainian market.

This anecdotal evidence of rising investor interest in the Ukrainian hospitality sector is a further indication of an industry that is slowly but surely finding its feet. However, concrete appraisals of the Ukrainian tourism industry’s health are generally somewhat harder to come by. Ukraine’s official state statistics on tourism currently point to rising numbers of visitors, but they do not provide a particularly helpful picture. Instead, the practice of including all international border traffic means millions of Moldovans and Belarusians top the list, although it is highly unlikely that these visitors are actually tourists in the traditional sense.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of other reasons to believe that the Ukrainian tourism sector is finally making progress. Hotel occupancy rates are on the rise this year, with Kyiv hotels already comfortably above 50% occupancy ahead of the summer tourism high season. Airport passenger traffic continues to grow at impressive rates across the country, with Kyiv’s Boryspil International Airport recently named as Europe’s third biggest gainer over the past year. These growing passenger numbers are in step with the arrival of new airlines and the return of some who stopped Kyiv flights during the peak crisis years of 2014-15. Qatar Airways was one of the most eye-catching additions of the past year, launching a Kyiv-Doha service in August 2017 before announcing a doubling of flights within a matter of weeks on order to cope

with excess demand. Increasing numbers of tourists are also very much evident throughout the downtown area of the Ukrainian capital, where groups of foreign visitors are now the rule rather than the exception.

Connecting Kyiv

Duwage hopes this is just the beginning. He speaks with obvious animation about the “revolution” taking place in Ukraine’s service sector and says Kyiv alone now has fifteen or twenty restaurants that can compete with anything most major European cities have to offer. “We’ve certainly come a long way from the old days where you used to feel that you were disturbing the service staff,” he jokes.

One of the key shortcomings remains promotion. Duwage is a longtime supporter of greater government engagement in the tourism sector and believes the country would benefit enormously from a fully-fledged tourism authority. In parallel to this, he says the state should be looking to create a more attractive investment climate for hotel projects that would entice many of the global players who are already looking at Ukraine with interest. “Ukraine has a lot going for it in terms of appeal but the country currently lacks a clear tourism strategy. Not enough effort is going into attracting investors or promoting the national brand. Relatively speaking, it does not cost so much to launch promotional campaigns across Europe.”

Like many industry observers, Duwage already has one eye on the autumn arrival of Ryanair flights. The budget carrier will begin low-cost services linking Kyiv to ten EU destinations, with most seeing this as a watershed moment for the Ukrainian capital’s tourism sector. Since the currency devaluations of 2014-15, Kyiv has been widely acknowledged as one Europe’s cheapest capital cities, but relatively expensive flights have served to dampen the positive impression made by this otherwise persuasive selling point. With more lowcost flights connecting Kyiv to destinations across Europe, a rise in visitor numbers is almost inevitable. In addition to the arrival of international budget airlines like Ryanair, Duwage also identifies the need for better domestic connections that would allow more Ukrainians to fly from regional capitals like Kharkiv or Dnipro to Kyiv for the weekend without spending hundreds of dollars on tickets.

With so much room for growth, Duwage believes Kyiv is capable of delivering rising occupancy rates at existing hotels while also accommodating the arrival of new hotels. He remains convinced that the Ukrainian capital’s chances of achieving these goals depend heavily on the ability of the authorities to take a leadership role in setting the agenda and approaching the development of the tourism industry as a strategic priority. “At the end of the day, you have to invest money to make money,” observes Duwage. “It is a sensible investment from Ukraine’s point of view. After all, tourism is a great way to boost an economy.”

hotel industry

ties should try to attract as many major events as possible, whether they are sports championships or cultural events. We could have regattas on the river and major international music festivals here in Kyiv, just as Lviv has its annual jazz festival. It would be a great way to highlight Ukraine’s culture of hospitality and Kyiv’s tourism appeal. Event organizers will find the city attractive not just because it is cheap, but because it also has so much to offer.”

“It is now clear Kyiv is perfectly capable of hosting the world’s top events. It is a great way to highlight Ukraine’s culture of hospitality and Kyiv’s tourism appeal”

www.bunews.com.ua

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legal

Corporate bonds can help Ukrainian businesses grow Ukraine offers favorable corporate bond conditions but lack of awareness holds market back

About the author: Sergey Vaskov is Managing Partner of ESKA Capital leasing company Corporate bonds are an investment instrument with considerable potential to become one of the key drivers powering Ukraine’s continued economic recovery. They can provide businesses operating in Ukraine with the resources to fuel development at a time when bank lending remains almost completely frozen. For investors, corporate bonds create the opportunity to preserve available funds and even earn despite the fact that deposit rates have fallen below the level of inflation in the country.

There have been relatively few corporate bond issues so far in Ukraine.

TASCOMBANK and Idea Bank have placed corporate bonds, while more recently Ukrposhta and ESKA Capital have joined them. The most attractive securities for private investors have a three to five year maturity and quarterly or semi-annual coupon payments.

A general lack of awareness means that it is difficult for many companies to place their bonds under the current market conditions. These securities have not yet acquired the reputation that they deserve among investors. Large corporations can always resort to investment banks.

Medium-sized businesses, meanwhile, might want to consider the option of investing in a public awareness campaign.

Part of the reason for the current failure of the corporate bonds market to take off in Ukraine is the lack of media support. In most cases, the name of the company itself is not enough to guarantee success. On the contrary, it is difficult for both large and medium-sized businesses to generate market interest. At present, the market desperately needs success stories. The more bonds that are successfully placed, the easier it will become. There is little reason to doubt that all these efforts will pay off once people become more aware of the potential this avenue offers.

To cite one specific example, the volume of ESKA Capital’s first bond issue, which started on 15 March 2018, was UAH 30 million, which represents a relatively small amount. This costs the company a little more than the price of a hypothetical bank loan. However, the purpose is not limited to the attraction of financial resources for development. This bond issue should show investors, both private and institutional (insurance companies, pension funds, etc.), that they can invest money in the company. It will be profitable, and all debt obligations will be repaid on time.

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Today, rates on corporate bonds in the Ukrainian market can reach 1820%. This is much higher than the present inflation rate in the country, which last year was 13.7%. It is also higher than the rates on OVGZ, the government debt securities of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, which is 14.5%-16.5% per annum. Is Ukrainian business capable of servicing such interest? Yes, if it is already a sustainable enterprise and not a startup. Such companies issue corporate bonds in order to get funds to expand one of their activities. At the same time, the debt burden is distributed among all directions, including those that area already successfully operating.

Nevertheless, the investor, as in any other instance, must thoroughly examine the company that issues the securities before diving in. Firstly, it is necessary to find out how long the company has been working in the market. It is crucial to chart and assess the progress of the company up to the present period. Who are the people that run the business? What kind of people are they, what is their background? How long have they been working in this company and what are their professional histories prior to managing this business? Finding the answers to these and other questions typically raised by investors should not cause difficulties. A company in which you can invest money must be open to such inquiries.

It should provide free access to all financial reporting. Its credit history should be impeccable.

The outlook for the market in which the company operates also matters. For example, it is preferable to invest in a business that is involved in modernizing the Ukrainian economy. At present, there is an urgent need to update the automotive and agricultural industries. The energy market is also very interesting for investors, as is the Ukrainian retail market. An attractive business would be one that works in these priority fields while showing good progress and, accordingly, needs additional funds. On the other hand, it might not be such a good idea to get involved in the construction industry, because property prices have declined in recent years and concerns remain over the market.

Any financial instrument comes with risks. In Ukraine, even bank deposits can be very risky instruments. More than half of the country’s banks have disappeared in the last four years. In light of these market realities, the unavailability of the Individual Deposits Guarantee Fund (FGVFL) in the corporate bonds segment should not overly affect investor thinking.

In addition, tangible income is obtainable when investing in bonds valued at over UAH 200,000. This is the figure at which state guarantees for bank deposits are limited to today. Ukraine’s state regulator (National Securities and Stock Market Commission or NSSMC) has already done a lot to protect investments. The market is clear of garbage securities.

Issuers undergo careful screening to prevent fraud. Work continues on additional legislation that will further protect investor rights.

For many Ukrainian businesses, corporate bonds are far from the easiest way to attract additional resources today. Not many investors know about this option and this general lack of awareness continues to constitute a major barrier. Nevertheless, without domestic investment, Ukrainian businesses will not be able to grow stronger, and the broader Ukrainian economy will struggle to reach the kind of growth rates that will transform the country. Corporate bonds could be part of the solution.

opinion

European human rights and

Ukrainian land sale reform

Why international court rulings are not the solution to Ukraine’s controversial moratorium

About the author: Vitaliy Skotsyk is Chairman of the Agrarian Party of Ukraine For some reason, it has become something of a tradition in Ukraine for people to leap to premature conclusions without properly digesting the facts. This can lead to wild speculation and manipulations of public opinion. This is particularly true when it comes to highly controversial issues such as the ongoing moratorium on Ukrainian agricultural land sales.

At first glance, public opinion on this issue appears to be clear, with a survey conducted by USAID’s AgroInvest project finding that a clear majority of almost 70% of Ukrainians oppose the lifting of the moratorium. However, the issue remains close to the top of the Ukrainian political agenda and subject to all manner of claims. The debate around land sales received a new prompt in May 2018 when The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in favor of Ukrainian complainants Zelenchuk and Tsytsyura in a decision recognizing that the moratorium on the sale of agricultural land violates their right as Ukrainian citizens to dispose of their property as they see fit. This is a right guaranteed by both the European Convention on Human Rights and the Constitution of Ukraine.

This ECHR ruling generated a wide range of contradictory opinions and commentaries in the Ukrainian media, ranging from “the ECHR has obliged Ukraine to lift the moratorium” to “this is a politically motivated decision in favor of international corporations”. Others simply shrugged as if it were of no consequence.

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In reality, the ECHR decision does not oblige Ukraine to lift its moratorium. The decision merely serves as a reminder to the Ukrainian authorities that replacing the moratorium with an effective model for the domestic agricultural land market is long overdue. The court ruling does not identify any new model and it is up to Ukraine to choose the right fit for the country.

In the opinion of ECHR judges as reflected in their decision, the problem lies in the legislative situation as a whole and does not only apply to the two applicants in this specific case. Accordingly, Ukraine should take measures at the legislative level that would create a fairer balance between the interests of individual landowners and society as a whole. Nevertheless, the court decision emphasizes that this does not necessitate the immediate creation of an unlimited agricultural land market, and the state is free to choose which measures to take in order to remedy the situation.

As they mull this issue, Ukraine’s current leaders would be wise to move away from abstract reflections on the common good in order to think about the specific rights of each citizen as defined in the Ukrainian Constitution. While the ECHR ruling is not in any way binding, it should be a source of shame or at least embarrassment to get such a public dressing down in Strasbourg.

Ukraine’s moratorium on the sale of agricultural land has been in place for more than 15 years. Since 2014, the seemingly new, seemingly democratic, and seemingly pro-European authorities have repeatedly renewed the moratorium. We continue to await the creation of the legal, institutional and financial prerequisites for the emergence of a full-fledged land market.

Attempts by representatives of the Ukrainian government to justify themselves appear rather unconvincing. They claim to be working on the issue but there is little concrete sign of progress. On 22 May, Ukraine’s parliament adopted the first reading of a draft law amending the Land Code of Ukraine along with some legislative acts addressing corruption abuses in the field of land administration of state and communal property. Some have sought to portray

this as a sign of progress, but the legislation in question actually addresses specific categories and conditions. It cannot therefore conceivably become a comprehensive solution to the land issue. Additionally, Ukraine’s legislative experience is full of examples where bills undergo such drastic revision between the first and second readings that they become unrecognizable.

So on reflection, it is true to say there is some legislative movement on land sale reform, but it is so slow that it is almost imperceptible.

Is there any chance that the ECHR decision could speed up the process? There are significant reasons to doubt this. While the court found that the rights of the applicants had been violated and even awarded EUR 3,000 to each applicant for costs and expenses, it also stressed that “it would normally make no such awards in future cases of this type” and would take its own finding of a violation as “sufficient just satisfaction”. This undermines the claims of some commentators who have argued that we will now see seven million owners of Ukrainian agricultural land plots scrambling to complain to the ECHR for the restoration of their rights.

Nor is the ECHR stance the only obstacle to greater numbers of Ukrainians following the example of complainants Zelenchuk and Tsytsyura. It is perfectly possible for more Ukrainians to pursue the international route and file a complaint with the ECHR once they have exhausted all legal means to restore their violated property rights in their own country. However, in practical terms, they may find that such a route through the Ukrainian judicial system may take years rather than months to navigate.

During any Ukrainian legal examinations, judges may take the recent ECHR ruling into consideration, but they will administer justice within the existing domestic legislative framework.

This brings us back to the starting point and the actions, or rather the inactions, of the state authorities. Regardless of any verdicts handed down by the European Court of Human Rights, it remains up to the Ukrainian legislative and executive powers to disentangle the complex issue of agricultural land sales.

www.bunews.com.ua

opinion

Why I chose to return to Ukraine Lisa Yasko says the chance to be part of Ukrainian history was simply too good to miss

About the author: Lisa Yasko (Lisa.yasko@gmail.com) is the founder of the Yellow Blue Strategy initiative I am the first Ukrainian to graduate with a Master of Public Policy Degree from the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government.

Since returning to Ukraine last year, people often ask me why I came back and did not choose to stay in the UK. This line of questioning provokes many reflections about my mission in life. I came back to Ukraine because I feel a deep calling to be part of Ukrainian history.

During my time in the UK, in addition to my studies I also served as president of the Oxford University Ukrainian Society. I then spent the summer of 2017 working for the British government at the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. This provided me with a new understanding of public policy, international relations, good governance, and communications. I now aim to apply these skills and knowledge in Ukraine.

Since coming home to Ukraine, I have founded my own initiative called “Yellow Blue Strategy”. In May 2018, I came together with friends and colleagues with similar international university backgrounds to launch this initiative with the first in a series of planned coffee mornings and poetry evenings. These events are bilingual, taking place in Ukrainian and English. The aim to encourage crosscultural dialogue by sharing knowledge and ideas about Ukraine among representatives of business, civil society, the Ukrainian civil service, expats living in Ukraine, and graduates from the world’s leading universities.

To encourage more people to join in, we decided to organize events with a highly sociable format that mixes entertainment with intellectual discussions. You come for a coffee in the morning and enjoy live music while participating in thoughtful conversations about many of the most important issues facing Ukraine. We also plan evening events where participants can network with a real cross-section of Ukrainian society and get a feel for the mood of the country in an informal environment. We hope our format of events will prove an enticingly refreshing way to start or end your day.

Our goals for the coming months include organizing a Ukrainian Winter Ball and a Ukrainian Studies Week. Moreover, we have ambitious plans to start public policy advisory consultancy projects 52

that will allow us to apply our understanding of Ukraine alongside our international experience. Some of us who are involved in Yellow Blue Strategy have managed to acquire a degree of international expertise in public policy work. We believe that it is crucial for the new Ukraine to recognize the importance of a good evidence-based public policy and communications strategy at every level of the state apparatus.

You may ask what drives me. Why am I such an optimist when it comes to Ukraine? I prefer to see myself as a realist who recognizes the challenges and sees the unique opportunities in today’s Ukraine.

Spending a year reflecting on Ukraine from far away while studying in Oxford allowed me to identity advantages and opportunities that I had never previously considered. If you know what you are looking for, you can see evidence of these advantages every day as you walk along the streets of Kyiv or talk to ordinary Ukrainians.

The thing that strikes me most of all is the spirit of freedom that shapes Ukrainian society. This struggle for freedom defines Ukrainian history and has found its expression in the way people feel free to say whatever they want. If something undermines our sense of freedom, our spirit of rebellion awakens immediately as if something has stirred deep in our DNA. Alongside this love of freedom, Ukrainian society also boasts a disarming sense of authenticity and honesty. Ukrainians are very straightforward when it comes to expressing ourselves.

Today’s Ukraine is a remarkably dynamic society where change is the norm, providing the promise of social mobility and fresh opportunities as the country embraces a new direction. Yes, there are many challenges that Ukraine still needs to resolve. It is not necessarily easy to see the bigger picture when you are focusing on these day-to-day problems, but I believe the developments taking place in the country become more evident once you adopt a broader perspective. In Kyiv, we see more young people than ever entering the senior ranks of government, business, and the cultural world. Meanwhile, the fashion, creativity and clubbing scenes in the Ukrainian capital are so vibrant that the city is gaining a reputation as “The New Berlin”. Young Ukrainians who are part of the first fully post-independence generation appreciate that it is up to them to build a better country. More and more young people are taking this responsibility upon themselves.

I am thrilled to see growing numbers of foreign friends visiting Ukraine. Some even decide to live and work here, including my closest friend from Oxford University, who is now working for an international organization in Ukraine. I personally know of numerous Oxbridge graduates who have recently moved to Ukraine because they see the country as a place imbued with freedom and opportunities.

I have been lucky to travel throughout the Western world and interact with many brilliant minds, and I can honestly say that Ukraine offers a vibrancy and dynamism that is unique in today’s world. The ability to create history is in our hands. For me, Ukraine is a land of freedom and opportunities. Building a better Ukraine is my drive, my mission and my dream.

Inside Putin’s Ukraine War New book explores why the Kremlin is prepared to risk everything to prevent the loss of Ukraine Since the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine in spring 2014, relations between Moscow and the Western world have entered into a downward spiral that many regard as a new Cold War. This deteriorating security climate has placed the troubled relationship between Russia and Ukraine at the very center of the global geopolitical debate for the first time ever. A timely new book by academics Taras Kuzio and Paul D’Anieri entitled “The Sources of Russia’s Great Power Politics – Ukraine and the Challenge to the European Order” provides important insights into this previously overlooked relationship while also seeking to explain why Russia views the democratization of Ukraine as an existential threat to its own authoritarian model.

Kuzio and D’Anieri’s analysis argues that the current crisis has deep roots in post-Soviet Russia’s refusal to come to terms with an independent Ukrainian state. They identify a number of key issues in the relationship such as Moscow’s view of Ukraine’s Orange and Euromaidan revolutions as Western conspiracies, before exploring the underlying reasons for Kremlin’s apparent inability to understand that most Russian-speaking Ukrainians do not want to rejoin Russia. The authors reach the conclusion that in Moscow’s eyes, Ukraine is simply too important to the process of rebuilding a sphere of influence within the former Soviet space and to re-establishing Russia as a great power on the global stage.

Co-author Paul Anieri spoke to Business Ukraine magazine about the impact of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict on international perceptions of the post-Soviet region, and explained why he is not particularly optimistic about the chances of a lasting peace emerging without dangerous compromises from Ukraine and the West.

Your new book seeks to explore the historic origins of the current RussiaUkraine conflict. Prior to the outbreak of hostilities in 2014, the theme of Russian imperial policies towards Ukraine had traditionally received very little academic attention. Given the size of Ukraine and its strategic importance for European security, why do you think this subject has not previously been a focus of greater study?

For a long time, scholars paid very little attention to Ukraine because in the Soviet era we assumed that everything important happened in Moscow.

Partly as a result of that legacy, many scholars have much less familiarity with Ukraine. To some extent, that tendency has endured in the post-Soviet era. Ukraine is not alone in this respect. It is also the case that many people felt the relationship between Russia and Ukraine was relatively unimportant when compared to other matters in international politics or even other issues involving Russia itself, such as its relationship with the EU, NATO and the US, or its turbulent domestic politics. Moreover, it was reasonable to believe that the disputes between Ukraine and Russia would continue to be 54

addressed peacefully and so were not urgent. Finally, we must acknowledge that there has long been some degree of “Ukraine fatigue” throughout the Western world, firstly during the 1990s when Ukraine never quite managed to embrace reform, and again after the 2004 Orange Revolution, when there was a great deal of unrealized hope in the West for Ukraine to make a dramatic transformation.

To what extent has the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict been a wake-up call for experts and academics who previously favored Russocentric approaches to the study of the region?

The impact has been mixed. Some people who previously focused disproportionately on Russia have studied this conflict and learned a great deal more about Ukraine in the process, while also dramatically revising their understanding of the Putin regime. Others have retained or even reinforced their Russocentrism, essentially adopting the Russian government position on the causes of the conflict. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and intervention in the Donbas sent a signal that Russia now rejects what many consider the most basic rule of the game in post-Cold War Europe: disagreements are not resolved by force.

Moreover, Russia now appears to be a “revisionist power” in a broader sense, in that it seems to be trying to overturn the existing order in both Europe and globally. Its intervention in domestic politics all over the world reinforces that view. Those realizations have certainly been a wake-up call for many people who previously considered Russia to be essentially a conservative power rather than a revisionist one.

Despite those concerns, there is still a strong desire among some business leaders, policy makers, and academics to get back to business as usual with Russia. That desire leads to proposed solutions for the conflict that would accept the annexation of Crimea, adopt Russia’s position on eastern Ukraine, and reach some kind of deal with Russia that would keep Ukraine outside of Western institutions. Essentially, this would mean returning to the old world order in which the “great powers” get to decide what happens to the less powerful countries of Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Your book places Ukraine firmly at the center of the current confrontation between Russia and the West. Why is the Kremlin prepared to risk so much over Ukraine?

The attack on Ukraine was an opportunity for Putin to kill several important birds with one stone: he regained coveted territory, undermined Ukraine’s stability semi-permanently via the ongoing conflict, received a huge boost in popularity for his re-election campaign, and forced the West to reckon with : a resurgent Russia.

interview “The Face of War� portrait of Vladimir Putin produced

by Ukrainian artist Daria Marchenko using bullet shells collected from the eastern Ukrainian warzone www.bunews.com.ua

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Russia’s Worst Nightmare? Many regard Putin’s war in Ukraine as an attempt to prevent Ukraine from decisively breaking with Moscow and moving towards eventual NATO and EU membership

: Our book points to several reasons why Russian policymakers view Ukraine

as so crucial. Ukraine is very important to Russia’s sense of its own national identity. Every country has myths about its origins, and in Russia’s story, medieval Kyiv was the first Russian city. It was where the early Russians adopted Christianity. If Kyiv is not Russian, then Russia’s origin story needs to be completely rewritten. More recently, Ukraine was an integral part of the Soviet Union, as Soviet leaders Khrushchev and Brezhnev, among many others, hailed from Ukraine. For many in Moscow, Ukraine is still very much part of the historic Russian heartlands.

In the present era, Ukraine has become a direct threat to Putin’s rule because the emergence of a democratic Ukraine undermines Putin’s argument that democracy cannot succeed in Russia. Ukraine’s two anti-authoritarian postSoviet revolutions created a dangerous precedent for overturning authoritarianism inside Russia itself. Russia’s security concerns are also significant, though we argue that Russia set its sights on regaining Ukraine long before there was talk of Ukraine joining NATO. Russian leaders perceived Russia as having lost one disagreement after another with the West since the end of the Cold War, not only with the eastward spread of European institutions, but in Yugoslavia and elsewhere. Ukraine was the red line.

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Many observers have portrayed the hybrid war techniques employed by Russia in Ukraine as innovative but you argue that in many ways they are an extension of tactics first developed in the Soviet era. To what extent is Putin’s use of hybrid warfare a novelty?

Some of the techniques Russia is currently applying are new. However, many of the tactics Putin has employed against Ukraine, including falsehoods, assassinations, cultivating the support of minority parties and so on, are actually long-established and time-tested Soviet techniques. Indeed, the Soviets used many of these tactics precisely against Ukrainian nationalism in the past. For example, several Ukrainian nationalists were among those assassinated by Soviet agents in Western Europe during the Cold War, long before the cases we have seen recently in the UK. Similarly, painting Ukrainian nationalism as synonymous with fascism was a tactic used consistently throughout the Soviet period. Other techniques, such as using Russian forces to back separatist movements in order to create “frozen conflicts”, emerged in the early post-Soviet era.

There have also been some genuine innovations. Putin has taken advantage of newer technologies, especially social media, and deployed them in ways that the Soviets could not have imagined. He has figured out how tactics

One of the themes you address in your book is the issue of Russian and Western influence in Ukraine from 1991 onwards. What advantages did Russia and the West each enjoy when it came to gaining ground in postSoviet Ukraine, and what proved the most decisive factors in this contest?

Russia had three huge advantages in 1991. Firstly, it began the post-Soviet era already deeply embedded in the Ukrainian elite and Ukrainian institutions. For example, when Ukraine became independent, the Ukrainian part of the Soviet KGB simply became the Security Service of Ukraine.

While there were some efforts to root out Russian agents, the reality was that the Security Service of Ukraine came into being with the Russian successor to the KGB already enjoying complete penetration. The same was true of other Ukrainian bureaucracies. Rather than eroding with time, this Russian influence actually increased when former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych appointed several Russian citizens to high positions in the security apparatus after taking office in 2010.

Secondly, Russia had (and still has) incredible economic power over Ukraine, especially in the field of energy. Repeatedly throughout the postSoviet era, Russia has shut off the gas supply to Ukraine or threatened to do so. This is not only damaging to Ukraine’s economy, but makes Ukrainian leaders facing elections understandably wary of doing anything that might irritate Russia. The gas trade also corrupted the Ukrainian elite so thoroughly that it made it much easier for Russia to exert influence.

Thirdly, after 1991 Russia continued to provide much of the television coverage watched by Ukrainian audiences, and was the location where most Western news reporting on Ukraine came from. Due to this dominant position in the information sphere, when “information warfare” became an important factor in 2014, Russia was already in the driver’s seat. The Kremlin was in the ideal position to influence opinion inside Ukraine and to shape how the West viewed the deteriorating relationship between Russia and Ukraine.

The West had one enormous advantage to counter all of this. The West’s political and economic models are highly attractive, while Russia’s is not. This was to prove decisive. Economically and politically, Ukrainians wanted to join Europe, not Russia. Whereas Russia had to use coercion to force Ukraine to align with Moscow, Ukraine begged the EU and NATO for deeper connections, with these Western organizations resisting and demanding reforms in return for integration. For all of Russia’s advantages, it could not match this “soft power,” and so finally it chose to deploy military force. www.bunews.com.ua

Based on your studies of the current conflict and knowledge of Russo-Ukrainian relations, what could a future peace plan look like and what will it take for progress towards peace to take place?

The positions of the two sides are currently incompatible, so any progress will depend on dramatic change in someone’s position. In the short term, the best we can hope for is a real ceasefire that would stop the steady occurrence of casualties along the contact line. While many dismiss the idea of a “frozen conflict” as a negative outcome, it is still preferable to the ongoing killing and is probably a necessary first step towards any further agreement.

One big problem for Ukraine (and for the West) is that any compromise would undermine some very important principles by legitimizing Russia’s takeover of Crimea and the idea that Ukraine’s sovereignty should be limited to appease Russia. For the West and for the EU in particular, that would be a dangerous precedent because it would discredit the rules against the use of force and encourage the practice of big states cutting deals over the heads of smaller states. Those rules have succeeded in preserving peace and prosperity in Western Europe since 1945. In this context, many observers understandably regard the idea of a “new Yalta” as especially threatening to states occupied by the Soviets after WWII. However, there are signs that the Trump administration might accept just such a deal. Meanwhile, many European elites also hope to get beyond conflict with Russia, so the appeasement of Russia at Ukraine’s expense is a real possibility. Ukraine’s resistance to reform also does not help inspire Western support. In sum, because Russia seems unlikely to moderate its position, progress towards peace will rely on Ukraine and the West making concessions. That means compromising important principles and hoping that such concessions appease Russia rather than convincing the Kremlin that it can get away with more. If the West defends its principles, we can expect to face a long-term term conflict with Russia. The Cold War only ended when far-reaching change took place in Moscow and Putin seems determined to make sure that does not happen again.

interview

used to fight autocracy could also work against the new government in Ukraine. There is one particularly significant innovation in Putin’s information warfare tactics. The Soviet Union usually had a clearly defined alternative position to promote via its propaganda. In other words, Soviet propaganda was still based on the notion of a single truth. In contrast, Russian propaganda today is post-modern. It argues that there are multiple truths, each as valid as the next. Rather than putting out an alternative story and defending it, Russia puts out so many alternative stories that it seems to the uncritical reader that it is simply impossible to know the truth. The Russian response to the shooting down of flight MH17 was a prime example.

Russia did not advance an alternative theory of the shootdown and defend it. Instead, it proliferated numerous theories around the internet and the news outlets it controlled, feeding the notion that it was impossible to know what really happened to the plane and therefore making it easy for those who wanted to believe Russia was innocent to stick with that position. We see these same tactics exploited now in democracies throughout the Western world.

About the interviewee: Paul D’Anieri is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside

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Defeating disinformation through education The ultimate antidote to the fake news epidemic may well be greater media literacy

Long before “fake news” became a household term around the world, Ukraine found itself in late 2013 on the frontlines of a complex multilayered disinformation war. Although propaganda has existed for centuries, it has never before been delivered with the same speed, sophistication and reach as it does in today’s technologically interconnected multimedia world. As Vassily Gatov, a researcher of Russian media rightfully noted: “If the greatest battle of the twentieth century was the battle for freedom of information against censorship, then the greatest battle in the twenty-first century will concern the abuse of freedom of information and the use of information as a weapon by authoritarian rulers and aggressive non-state actors.”

Beyond Debunking

In this battle, solutions addressing both the “supply” side and the “demand” side are necessary. This means ensuring a vibrant and independent media environment while also educating citizens to consume information critically. Too often, efforts to counter disinformation tend to focus exclusively on the supply side. Independent media that debunk myths, create fact-based content, and conduct investigative reporting play an essential role in the broader struggle but they cannot win this battle alone. Citizens need to learn how to value good content and they need to know how to identify it within the flood of information constantly flowing at them. This requires the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction.

Global education systems have not evolved at the same speed as technology, leaving citizens poorly equipped to navigate through the diversified new media space we find ourselves in today. At the same time, most people like to think they cannot be manipulated. Sadly, the available evidence suggests this confidence is misplaced. According to Pew Research Center, 23% of US adults have shared a made-up story, knowingly or unknowingly. With the advent of the internet and social media, individual citizens are now “news” outlets themselves, underscoring the importance of training citizens on media literacy techniques so they do not spread false information.

Empowering Audiences

To address this critical issue and with funding support from Canada, IREX created “Learn to Discern”, a media literacy project designed

to equip citizens with the skills to distinguish fact from fiction and empower them to make up their own minds about important issues without being manipulated. Traditional approaches to teaching media literacy skills have not evolved with the rapidly changing information space. Today’s media landscape includes disinformation of increasing sophistication. It is often colorful, emotionally charged, and slickly packaged in different formats. Together with our partners at the Academy of Ukrainian Press and StopFake, we set out to create a new media literacy curriculum to address these challenges and provide very practical skills that change how people consume media and absorb information in their daily lives. The objective of the Learn to Discern initiative is not to tell people what to read or watch, but rather to teach them how to consume information wisely.

It is all about introducing healthy media consumption habits, so that the next time participants have a strong emotional reaction to something they read, they will pause before pressing the “share” button and ask themselves: who is benefiting from this and who wants me to have this level of emotional reaction?

Learn to Discern’s methodology encourages critical self-reflection and behavior changes, not simply academic exercises to dissect news articles. It takes into account three critical factors that influence how people consume information today. Firstly, avoiding emotional manipulation. In the Internet age, emotional manipulation through media has significantly worsened. Gone are the days of easily verifiable media ownership when a few professional outlets produced content.

Today’s market is clogged with chatbots, trolls and online memes that are designed to create confusion, chaos and scandal. IREX has found that most available media literacy courses, by and large, fail to address this evolution and are not properly equipping citizens with techniques for recognizing their own emotional reactions so that they can read and consume news more critically.

Secondly, we set out to teach audiences how to watch rather than what to watch. Consumers now pick the format of media such a TV, radio, podcasts and social media that best fits their lifestyle. It is virtually impossible to encourage people to restrict their information consumption to specific news sources known to be more credible. At the same time, because of the cognitive shortcuts we all use such as confirma-

“Independent media that debunk myths and conduct investigative reporting play an essential role in the broader struggle but they cannot win this battle alone”

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Ukrainian Outreach

Over a nine-month period, we trained over 15,000 people in 14 eastern, southern and central regions of Ukraine. The Learn to Discern initiative reached people of all ages, genders, and professional backgrounds through peer networks. Ninety-one percent of those who underwent training reported sharing their media literacy skills with an average of six friends, relatives or colleagues, expanding the training’s indirect impact to 90,000 people.

Person training was complemented by a Learn to Discern video game and distance learning course to ensure that the project reached an even wider range of audiences. At the same time, IREX launched a public service announcement calling for responsible, deliberative information consumption while drawing an analogy to checking the

About the author: Mehri Druckman is Director of Programs at IREX Ukraine

ingredients on a nutritional label when we purchase food, which reached 20.7 million people.

In late fall of 2017, 18 months after the project ended in Ukraine, we evaluated the long-term impact of the program using a stratified random sample of 200 participants and comparing the results to a 200-person control group matched for gender, age, region, and education level. The results showed that Learn to Discern participants had statistically significant higher levels of disinformation analysis skills, greater knowledge of the news media environment, and a stronger sense of agency over the media sources they consumed.

Importantly, they were also more likely to consult a wider range of news sources. Compared to the control group, L2D participants were 28% more likely to demonstrate sophisticated knowledge of the news media industry, 25% more likely to selfreport checking multiple news sources, and 13% more likely to correctly identify and critically analyze a fake news story.

Currently IREX is adapting the Learn to Discern methodology for use in other countries around the world that are at high risk of disinformation tactics. In Ukraine, with the support of the embassies of the United States and United Kingdom, IREX is now integrating the Learn to Discern methodology into 50 schools in the cities of Ternopil, Chernihiv, Mariupol and Dnipro so that the next generation of Ukrainians is better equipped with skills to avoid becoming victims of disinformation manipulation.

media

tion bias, people choose news based on what supports their preexisting opinions and values. Therefore, media literacy training cannot realistically hope to tell people what to consume, but it can train them on how to consume regardless of what type of media people chose.

The third key objective is to adapt to diverse media consumption habits. Different segments of audiences get their information in very different ways. Some listen to the radio, some watch TV, some get news through social media and podcasts. How disinformation manifests itself looks different in each of these formats, so media literacy training must be tailored to different groups of people or it simply will not be relevant to an individual’s media consumption habits.

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tourism

Exploring Andriyivskiy Uzviz The Ukrainian capital’s most iconic street is full of secrets and alive with legends

Khreschatyk is officially Kyiv’s main street. However, if you are looking for the street that best captures the ancient spirit and fairytale elegance of the Ukrainian capital, then all roads lead to Andriyivskiy Uzviz. This cobbled and meandering avenue winds down from the historic heart of medieval Kyiv to the riverside Podil district that once served as the commercial heart of the entire Kyiv Rus state. As Andriyivskiy Uzviz twists and turns on its way towards the Dnipro River, the street offers an intoxicating tour of Kyiv history.

The origins of Andriyivskiy Uzviz remain intertwined with the mythmaking underpinning the founding of Kyiv itself. According to one popular version, the street takes its name from St. Andrew the Apostle, who visited the hillside in the first century and prophesized the emergence of a great Christian city. Legend has it that at the time, virtually the entire area lay beneath a vast inland sea, with only a few hilltops emerging above the water level. When St. Andrew erected a wooden cross on the high point where St. Andrew’s Church currently stands, the waters dramatically subsided to their current levels, leaving the Dnipro River flowing far below and creating the distinctive hillside panorama that has served as Kyiv’s calling card for the intervening two millennia.

The church built on the site of this legendary visitation remains one of Kyiv’s most photogenic landmarks and the central feature of the Andriyivskiy Uzviz architectural ensemble. St. Andrew’s Church dates back to the mid-eighteenth century and is the work of Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli, who designed it for Russian Empress Elizaveta Petrovna. The church is a masterpiece of the baroque style and is reminiscent of Rastrelli’s many imperial palaces including the Ukrainian capital’s own Mariyinskiy Palace, which sits some distance further along the Kyiv hills.

St. Andrew’s Church is notable for the absence of a bell tower. This lack of bells is often linked to the superstitious belief that the ringing of church bells at this site would cause the ancient inland sea previously vanquished by St. Andrew

to miraculously return, thus flooding Podil and Left Bank Kyiv (while no doubt playing havoc with flight schedules at Boryspil International Airport). Other significantly more plausible explanations for this absence of bells also exist.

Notably, as the church was to be a personal place of worship for Empress Elizaveta, it actually had no need for bells to call the congregation to prayer.

The many individual legends of Andriyivskiy Uzviz could comfortably fill an entire book, but there are a few landmarks of particular interest. Those looking to learn more about the street would do well to begin at the “Museum of One Street” (2b Andriyivskiy Uzviz). As the name suggests, this quirky and awardwinning museum offers a detailed history of Andriyivskiy Uzviz, including some great images depicting the street during different epochs. It is a treasure trove of information and boasts over 6,500 exhibits.

The Bulgakov Museum (13 Andriyivskiy Uzviz) is the former family home of Kyiv-born Russian-language literary great Mikhail Bulgakov. It serves as the principle backdrop to the action in his celebrated novel “The White Guard”, which recounts the drama and mayhem in the Ukrainian capital in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution. Today it is an eerie and atmospheric museum dedicated to the writer and his legacy, with whitewashed exhibits adding to the somewhat ghostly atmosphere of his former residence.

The street has a large number of memorial plaques and monuments ranging from a statue of Kyiv Rus ruler Yaroslav the Wise to a seated depiction of Bulgakov close to his former home. Perhaps the most iconic monument is a street-level depiction of the stars from the Soviet-era romantic comedy “Chasing Two Hares”. The plot of this much-loved movie revolves around the antics of roguish dandy Kyiv barber Svirid Golokhvosty, who is seeking to secure a generous dowry by marrying Pronya Prokopovna. The monument depicts the act of proposal and is a popular spot for Kyiv selfies. According to local tradition, those who rub the hand of the lady will become lucky in love.

Come and enjoy a gastronomic tour of the best Ukrainian cuisine at “Za Dvoma Zaytsami” restaurant Address: 34 Andriyivskiy Uzviz Reservations: +38-044-279-79-72

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Ukrainian Davos in Kaniv Natalia Zabolotna hopes her new forum can help create a model for regional rejuvenation in the central Ukrainian town more famous as Taras Shevchenko’s iconic last resting place How can Ukraine overcome decades of misrule while healing the wounds of the Soviet past and catching up with the country’s European neighbors? In early July, a collection of international journalists, diplomats, business leaders and thinkers will join their Ukrainian colleagues in the central Ukrainian town of Kaniv in a bid to wrestle with these weighty issues at the augural Ukrainian ID Forum. This ambitious event is 62

the brainchild of Natalia Zabolotna, who hopes it can grow to become a Ukrainian Davos while also providing a model for the much-needed rejuvenation of provincial Ukraine.

Reinventing Ukraine

Zabolotna is no stranger to ambitious undertakings. A fashion conscious socialite and ultra-savvy manager, she has an impressive

record of groundbreaking initiatives in the cultural sphere that stretches back almost two decades. Most famously, she is widely credited with transforming the cavernous Art Arsenal complex in central Kyiv from a derelict industrial junkyard into the country’s premier cultural venue.

Zabolotna first appeared on Ukraine’s cultural radar in the early years of the millennium

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: when she took charge of Kyiv’s Ukraine House, which at the time was still more commonly associated with its former Soviet-era role as the Ukrainian capital’s Lenin Museum. By utilizing the considerable kudos of Ukraine’s contemporary art scene, Zabolotna was able to reshape the venue’s public profile and align it with the changes taking place elsewhere in Ukrainian society as the country hurtled towards the national awakening of the 2004 Orange Revolution.

Zabolotna’s star continued to rise in the aftermath of the revolution. She received an invitation to manage the development of the Art Arsenal complex, a flagship project personally championed by newly elected Ukrainian President and Orange Revolution hero Viktor Yushchenko as part of his bid to reshape the way Ukrainians saw themselves.

Zabolotna’s task was to reinvent the sprawling former military factory space and turn it into a symbol of Ukraine’s cultural revival and national identity. She was to prove so successful in this undertaking that in 2011 Ukrainian newspaper “The Day” named Zabolotna “Person of the Year”, an unheard-of achievement for somebody active in the largely neglected cultural sphere of Ukrainian public life. Such was her status that when she finally lost her position at Art Arsenal in 2016, Zabolotna’s removal provoked a major political backlash and sparked a fierce national debate.

Wanted: Rural Revival

Since her departure from Art Arsenal, Zabolotna has headed up the Ukrainian Humanitarian Development Foundation, which is the organization behind the upcoming event in Kaniv. She sees the central Ukrainian town as in many ways the ideal place to start a conversation about Ukraine’s future. Best known as the last resting place of Ukrainian national bard Taras Shevchenko, Kaniv was a site of pilgrimage during the Soviet era that attracted upwards of 150,000 visitors every month. Schoolchildren from across Soviet Ukraine would travel to Kaniv to see the tomb of Shevchenko and traipse dutifully through the accompanying museum with its kitsch exhibits of Shevchenko memorabilia donated from across the USSR. The experience of visiting Kaniv during her own school years left a lasting impression on Zabolotna.

Memories of this childhood trip have helped to convince her that the town could yet provide inspiration for the revival of Ukraine’s stagnating countryside.

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Few who have visited Kaniv would question the town’s ability to impress with its natural splendor. Perched high above the majestic Dnipro River, it is a picture postcard representation of traditional agrarian Ukraine and the physical manifestation of Taras Shevchenko’s most patriotic poetry. During his lifetime, Shevchenko wrote the celebrated poem “Zapovit” (“My Testament”), in which he asked to be buried “…in my beloved Ukraine, upon a grave mound high, amid the spreading plain, so that the fields and boundless steppes, the Dnipro’s plunging shore, my eyes could see.” This description is a perfect fit for Kaniv and it is easy to see why the town became the site for Shevchenko’s tomb in the mid-nineteenth century.

Zabolotna says today’s Kaniv remains “the soul of Ukraine”, but it is a soul in desperate need of spiritual and material nourishment.

Like most small towns in rural Ukraine, Kaniv is struggling with economic inertia and suffering from a host of associated social ills. Metaphors for this post-Soviet malaise abound. The town has an impressively modern river port terminal that attracts almost zero river traffic. Somewhat bizarrely, Kaniv is also home to Ukraine’s largest heliport.

Both of these infrastructure white elephants are monuments to failed Yanukovych era regeneration efforts. In this sense, they serve as reminders that throwing money at the problems of small-town Ukraine will not necessarily prove effective.

Instead, Zabolotna champions a more diverse approach to the entire issue of regional revival. Above all, she believes Ukraine needs to rethink its approach to the place of culture in the community if the country as a whole is to overcome the huge transitional challenges it currently faces. “Now is the time to think about investing in the human capital of the nation,” she says. “At present, Ukraine has no strategy and the humanitarian sphere continues to suffer from chronic neglect. Over the past twenty-six years of independence, an entire generation of Ukraiwww.bunews.com.ua

nians has grown up without any humanitarian opportunities except for the wealthy few. Most of this generation has not had the chance to engage in organized sports, arts or cultural activities, while at the same time beer, cigarettes and recreational drugs have become ever more freely available. We do not necessarily comprehend the extent of this degradation from our viewpoint within the privileged world of downtown Kyiv, but once you enter the suburbs of the city or travel out into the villages, the scale of the disaster soon becomes apparent.”

For inspiration, Zabolotna points to the experience of countries like Iceland, where a comprehensive youth program in recent decades was able to transform teenage delinquency rates and boost the economy. “The world is full of examples for us to learn from.

The most important thing for the Ukrainian government to appreciate is that it would be much cheaper for them to invest in sports facilities and community centers than to cover the costs of future health problems and rising crime levels associated with social breakdown.” This call to invest in the next generation of Ukrainians will be one of the key messages at the Ukrainian ID Forum in Kaniv.

Ukrainian Davos

The mix of humanitarian and economic elements on the Ukrainian ID Forum agenda reflects Zabolotna’s conviction that the two are heavily interdependent. Besides, she notes, the last thing Ukraine needs is yet another traditional business forum. With a wry smile, Zabolotna recounts a recent conversation she had with an EU ambassador who observed that Kyiv already hosts an incredible number of investment forums without actually attracting any investment. “We need to look beyond the existing formulas if we are to make a genuine impact on Ukraine’s future,” she says.

“I am convinced that there can never be a successful business environment in any country

coming soon

“We tend to associate Kaniv almost exclusively with Shevchenko’s tomb but we should not only see it as a city of the dead.

Instead, it is time to bring Kaniv back to life” suffering from a humanitarian default. Our goal is to create an independent platform that will help us to develop an effective strategy for the development of the country. Business can only flourish when society as a whole is healthy and vibrant.”

With typically unabashed ambition, Zabolotna says she takes her inspiration from Switzerland’s Davos, which rose from relative obscurity as the venue of the annual World Economic Forum. She also points to the impact of the Guggenheim Museum on the economic and social wellbeing of Bilbao in Spain as evidence of the role high profile cultural initiatives can have on a city’s status.

The Ukrainian ID Forum is only part of her vision for Kaniv, with a parallel open-air music festival dubbed “Sheva Fest” designed to attract young Ukrainians to the town while the forum is underway nearby.

Ultimately, she dreams of transforming Kaniv into a tourism focus capable of hosting millions of Ukrainian visitors each year along with members of the vast international Ukrainian diaspora. Before that can happen, she recognizes that she needs to stimulate the construction of the kind of hotel and recreational infrastructure capable of complementing the town’s ample natural charms. The result would be a small but significant economic miracle that could inspire similar change in forgotten towns and rural backwaters throughout Ukraine. “I can envisage Kaniv as a future hub for a Ukrainian Silicon Valley, or as a special economic zone,” says Zabolotna. “With enough effort, it is entirely possible to repeat the success stories of places like Davos and Bilbao in Kaniv and then replicate these results around the country. If we want to make this a reality, we must begin by first giving people a reason to travel to Kaniv. The public still associates the town almost exclusively with Shevchenko’s tomb but we should not see Kaniv as a city of the dead. Instead, it is time to bring Kaniv back to life.”

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Turkish Community Hosts Traditional Ramadan Dinner Ukraine’s vibrant Turkish business community welcomed friends and colleagues to the InterContinental Hotel in downtown Kyiv in early June for a traditional Ramadan iftar dinner. The expanded format of the event compared to previous annual Ramadan dinners served to highlight the growing size of the Turkish business com-

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munity in Ukraine, which has grown markedly in recent years to become one of the largest in the country. Turkish-Ukrainian Business Association TUID served as the host of the annual Ramadan dinner, with TUID president Burak Pehlivan on hand to welcome guests alongside Turkish Ambassador to Ukraine Yonet C. Tezel.

Ukrainian Etho-Art at the Shevchenko Museum Art lovers embarked on a colorful journey through the world of Ukrainian folklore legends in June as the National Taras Shevchenko Museum in Kyiv played host to an exhibition of artworks by Oleksiy Potapenko. The painter offers an engaging artistic exploration of Ukrainian folk motifs in bright and striking styles that utilizes ancient ethnic emblems and imagery to reflect the timeless charm of Ukrai-

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nian identity. “I first met the painter in Chernihiv in 2010 and was immediately impressed. He has a brilliant ability to talk about complex matters in a disarmingly simple manner via his art. It is thanks to his paintings that I have become closer to Ukraine and gained a better understanding of my own roots,� explained exhibition curator Lesia Kocherhina.

2018 Ukrainian Shopping Center Awards Ukraine’s leading retail industry professionals and real estate developers gathered at Kyiv’s Fairmont Grand Hotel in early summer for the 2018 Shopping Center Awards organized by Ukrainian Real Estate Club and EuropaProperty.com. Over 20 shopping centers participated in the awards, reflecting the growing vibrancy of Ukraine’s retail sector as new complexes open for business and consumer confidence returns to the market. This year’s winners came from across the country and included Kyiv’s Gulliver (Best Facades), Kharkiv’s French Boulevard (Best Interiors), Kyiv’s Lavina Mall (Best Food Court), and Odesa’s Riviera (Most FamilyFriendly Mall). Meanwhile, Arricano Real Estate took the annual award for Best Management Company.

Blockchain Technology Conference in Kyiv Kyiv’s Hilton Hotel welcomed crypto currency experts and blockchain specialists from across Ukraine and around the globe in May as the venue played host to the inaugural NEXT BLOCK conference. Ukraine currently boasts one of the world’s most dynamic crypto currency and blockchain startup scenes, making the Ukrainian capital the ideal location for a major industry

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gathering of this nature. Organized by Krypton Events, the conference brought together over 500 experts who engaged in a wide range of discussions led by world-renowned industry figures including Bobby Lee and Simon Cocking. In line with the fashionable theme of the event, guests also enjoyed stylish afterhours networking at the conference’s official FTV Coin Deluxe Party.

networking events

International Networking with a Spectacular Dnipro Backdrop Kyiv’s business community gathered at CHI Restaurant in mid-June for an evening of Fryday networking on the venue’s sensational summer terrace overlooking the Dnipro River. Panoramic views of lush

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greenery rolling down to the ancient river added an exotic aspect to the ambience of the evening, with guests from a number of countries enjoying a cooling escape from the heat of the Ukrainian summer.

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Panoramic Kyiv Networking Members of Kyiv’s international business community enjoyed drinks and stunning views of the Kyiv summer skyline from the terrace of one of the Ukrainian capital’s leading Asian restaurants Guramma in mid-June. The event was hosted by The Big Meet, with Sam Kearley on hand to welcome guests and lead the summertime festivities.

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networking events

Musical Picnic Fun in Shevchenko Park

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Kyiv celebrated the start of the summer cultural season with a stylish open-air concert in Shevchenko Park dedicated to France. This musical happening in elegantly Gallic “Picnic� format was part of a new initiative by Citronelle restaurant owner Maria Didkovska that will include a series of similar concerts in Shevchenko Park and other open-air Kyiv venues throughout summer and early autumn 2018.

This inaugural concert featured music from the Fantastic Chamber Orchestra led by virtuoso violinist Miroslava Kotorovich, followed by the Kyiv Saxophone Quartet under the guidance of Yuriy Vasilevich.

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sport

Italian icon Ravanelli to manage in Ukrainian Premier League

Newly promoted Ukrainian Premier League football team Arsenal Kyiv made arguably the signing of the close season when they unveiled Italian legend Fabrizio Ravanelli as the club’s new manager in late June. This is only the second managerial role of Ravanelli’s career following an underwhelming five-month stint in charge of French Ligue 1 side Ajaccio in 2013 that saw him lead the club to just one win in thirteen games before his tenure was abruptly cut short. Nevertheless, memories of the Italian’s illustrious playing career will be enough to excite Ukrainian football fans old enough to remember Ravanelli as a star striker with Juventus, Middlesbrough and Marseilles in his 1990s heyday.

Nicknamed “The White Feather” due to his distinctive grey hair, Ravanelli gained iconic status for a trademark goal celebration that involved pulling his shirt over his head and exposing his abdomen while extending both arms as he wheeled away in triumph. Much to Ravanelli’s chagrin, the widely copied celebration led to a rule change by FIFA outlawing the removal of shirts by players celebrating goals.

The most successful period of Ravanelli’s career came while he was with Italian giants Juventus, where he won the UEFA Cup in 1993 and the Champions League in 1996. Ravanelli went on to attain celebrity status in Britain following his summer 1996 transfer to English Premier League club Middlesbrough, where he quickly established himself as a fan favorite at a time when big-name foreign players were still something of a novelty in the English game.

Ravanelli’s appointment as manager of Arsenal Kyiv has a random quality about it that seems to have caught everyone by surprise. The club has a complex history of name changes and troubled former owners, having resumed operations relatively recently following a period in administration that began in 2013. Now under the direction of club co-owner and former Croatian footballer Ivica Piric, Arsenal Kyiv won promotion to the Ukrainian Premier League as the 2017-18 League 1 champions.

At his unveiling, Ravanelli freely admitted to knowing little about Ukrainian football beyond the exploits of Andriy Shevchenko and the country’s top two club sides Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk. The 49-year-old Italian said he was attracted to the position due to the scale of Arsenal Kyiv’s ambitions. He signed an initial one-year contract with the club despite acknowledging his wife’s disappointment at his decision. “My wife wasn’t very happy about this, but she knows how important it is for me,” he commented.

Arsenal Kyiv are not the only obscure post-Soviet football club to unveil an unlikely twentieth century icon during the 2018 summer break. In May, Dinamo Brest of the Belarusian Premier League presented Argentine legend Diego Maradona as the club’s new Chairman. The Hand of God megastar, regarded by many as the greatest footballer of all time, has reportedly signed a three-year contract that will keep him in Belarus until 2021.

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