Although it is up to the U.S. Congress how to spend the U.S. taxpayer's money, the news has caused concern over Russian investment and the future of right-wing forces.
First, corruption both in Russia and Ukraine has not been eradicated yet; hence, it is not clear in whose pockets a sizeable percentage of Russian investment will end up. Second, the very first steps made by the Orange Revolution participants in combating corruption impresses one only with their utter naivete. Having come to his home in the Sumy Region, President Yushchenko told locals how he was going to root out this evil.
"I asked your governor: "Are you going to steal?" Mr. Yushchenko said, "and he promised he would not, so I did not fire him."
Peter the Great was said to be much tougher when he used to beat his close associate, the former stableman and then a duke and an honorary member of the British Academy (illiterate, to boot), Menshikov, for thievery. Menshikov would time and again swear to God that he would stop stealing but, alas, kept on doing so. Incidentally, Menshikov became the first major Russian embezzler to keep his loot in western banks. Thus, capital flight from Russia dates back quite a ways. Sure, the Sumy Region governor is no Duke Menshikov, but neither is Yushchenko Peter the Great. Therefore, it is hard to believe that such anticorruption techniques will prevail in Ukraine.
However, there are contrary examples. The new interior minister, socialist Yuri Lutsenko, has said that he would have resolved the problem, over which the whole world has been poring for centuries, in two months or would resign, as an honest man should do in case of failure. It looks like he will resign. I have no reason to doubt the minister's integrity yet, but I have to question his competence.
Only a revolutionary dreamer can be dead sure that he would be able to reign without corruption in just two months by firing a dozen or so police generals. Any former engineer is quite capable of running any uniformed service into the ground in the above timeframe. However, I doubt he can square away a favorite and most corrupted creature of Leonid Kuchma that fast. Imagine how many happy toasts the Ukrainian mob will raise today. When an engineer, rather than a professional policeman, reshuffles law enforcers, it is always a cause for criminals to celebrate.
The campaign against dirty cops has been underway in Russia for many years now, and not a single purge has cleansed Russian police and turned big-time criminals into small fries so far. It is possible that Ukrainian revolutionaries are far more effective than Russian ones, but why do they need Boris Nemtsov, who went to pieces in Russia, as an advisor? They would better do everything themselves so as not to later say that they would have done everything right if it were not for this 'moskal' [moskal is a derogatory Ukrainian moniker for Russians].
In fact, Boris Nemtsov has hardly helped his comrades in the Union of Right Forces. SPS had had a slim chance of making it to the State Duma in the next election, but now they can kiss even that chance good-bye, given the Russians' attitude to the Ukrainian oranges.
Perhaps, all domestic liberals will move out to Ukraine and start running for the Supreme Rada. But what will Russia do then?
