Tomorrow the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko starts his visit to the USA; the visit will last till April 2nd. Poroshenko will participate in the summit on nuclear security and talk to the heads of several countries. There is no information that the Ukrainian President will meet his American colleague.
Sergey Mikheyev, a political analyst, thinks that the American pressure on Poroshenko is a key factor in the situation in Ukraine, but he doesn’t believe that Washington wants to change Kiev’s position: “If we see the real actions of Poroshenko in order to change the Constitution, to implement those points which are recorded in the Minsk Agreement, if we will see a real change of the position of the Verkhovna Rada about the electoral law, that is, not an attempt to simulate this process, but an attempt to implement it in the form in which it was originally conceived, then some conclusions can be drawn. I am skeptical about this.”
According to the expert, for Poroshenko personally to complete the implementation of the Minsk agreements one hundred percent is an extremely problematic format for a variety of reasons: “Firstly, he is criticized inside Ukraine that the implementation of the Minsk agreements is a betrayal of the national interests. Secondly, it will be necessary to change the Constitution. Thirdly, it will be necessary to sit at the negotiating table with the Donetsk and Luhansk representatives, which the Ukrainian side categorically refuses doing. If Washington now puts pressure on for the actual implementation of the Minsk agreements, it will have to reject many of the words and positions that it has held until recently.”
However, such a radical change in position will not pass unnoticed in the political arena in Ukraine. “Rumors that a new coalition is being created, which will agree on the candidacy of the prime minister, relate to Poroshenko's visit to the United States. Ukraine needs money. Without a government, this money will not be allocated. I think that Poroshenko has gone for quite specific things. He must reassure that everything is fine with the government, a coalition has been created, the Prime Minister will be some person, everything will be fine: “So give us money.” Maybe the Americans will hold talks with him about the intensification of the Minsk agreements. I think that we will see, unfortunately, another round of simulations. We will see how close this simulation will be to the actual Minsk agreement. Of course, it would be nice if the Americans change the position of Poroshenko, but personally I am skeptical about this,” Mikheyev stated.
