Back
Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The interview was recorded as part of RBC-Ukraine’s special project Ukraine: 35 years of independence. In 2014, Ukraine had only 108 thousand hryvnias in the treasury account and faced the threat of an inevitable split. However, the presence of legitimate parliamentary representation made it possible to transfer power lawfully and prevented the implementation of the Belarus scenario. The Prime Minister of Ukraine in 2014–2016, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, told RBC-Ukraine in an interview about forming a kamikaze government, consciously renouncing a presidential run, completely giving up Russian gas, and the backstage of conflicts within the coalition at the time. Key points: Threat of the Belarus scenario: The presence of a legitimate parliamentary opposition in 2014 allowed power to be transferred legally. Without this, Putin would have seized Ukraine even then. Conscious refusal of the presidency: By leading the government of a country at war, Yatsenyuk relinquished his political mandate and refused to take part in the 2014 elections in order to stabilize the economy and prevent a split in the democratic camp. Kamikaze government: Taking over the state with 108 thousand hryvnias in the treasury, burned reserves and debt of over 70 billion dollars required unpopular steps – raising tariffs and severe austerity. Energy independence: Yatsenyuk’s government completely gave up Russian gas, began diversifying nuclear fuel through Westinghouse, and laid the foundation for defeating Gazprom in the Stockholm arbitration. Political conflicts in the coalition: Poroshenko sought a single-party majority and provoked early parliamentary elections in 2014, but the People’s Front won first place, which led to confrontation within the ruling team. Informal governance: The Semiboyarshchyna (Strategy Council) served as an unwritten but civilized tool for coordinating decisions among the President, the Government and parliament. Ahead of the 35 anniversary of Ukraine’s Independence, RBC-Ukraine continues the special project Ukraine: 35 years of independence – a series of frank conversations with people who personally built the political and economic framework of our state. The guest of the new episode was the Prime Minister of Ukraine in 2014–2016, the head of the government during the most dramatic period of modern history and leader of the People’s Front party, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. In an interview with Volodymyr Kurenniy, Arseniy Yatsenyuk talked about how Ukraine avoided the Belarus scenario in 2014, how it managed to win the gas war against Gazprom, how the Association Agreement with the EU was signed, why the government became kamikaze and what Poroshenko’s cake has to do with it, as well as the backstage of coalition wars with Petro Poroshenko Bloc and the functioning of the informal Semiboyarshchyna. Below is an abridged version of the conversation; watch the full interview on RBC-Ukraine’s YouTube channel. On the 2014 elections, one of Poroshenko’s cakes and the threat of the Belarus scenario – the Revolution of Dignity, living anew, signing the Association Agreement, visa-free travel, bank collapses – these are characteristic signs of the time when Petro Poroshenko was president. But you were not just a witness; you were a direct participant in these events. Why, after Yanukovych’s flight, did society choose Poroshenko rather than someone from the Maidan leaders? – I’ll start by saying that those times have passed, and the current times will pass too. The most important thing is that the war ends and that we win this war on our terms. Photo: Yatsenyuk on the events of 2014 (RBC-Ukraine infographic) Regarding 2014: there was the Revolution of Dignity and its political representation. These were people elected by the people to the Verkhovna Rada. In 2012 the united opposition Batkivshchyna, which I led, effectively won the parliamentary elections by party lists. This is the key difference between the protests in Belarus and in Ukraine. If Belarus had had a represented political opposition, it would be a free state today. If we had no opposition that lawfully and constitutionally changed power, we would have Belarus today. And there would not have been a war then, because Ukraine would no longer exist – Putin would have seized us in 2014. Photo: Yatsenyuk on Poroshenko’s cake (RBC-Ukraine infographic) – How did it happen that Petro Poroshenko won that election in the first round? – He was elected in fair and transparent elections. The acting president at the time, Oleksandr Turchynov, and I aimed to hold elections as quickly as possible so as not to give Russia time to destabilize the situation. I wanted the election to be in one round because we needed a legitimate president. Russia spread a narrative about illegitimate power, and as prime minister I had to travel the world and prove the legitimacy of our government. We had a joke about Poroshenko’s election. I said: Petro, during the whole Maidan you brought one Roshen cake, and effectively with that one cake you were supported for the presidency. But seriously – he was lawfully elected president. – But you, Klitschko, Tyahnybok consciously stepped aside. Why did you decide not to run? – I didn’t just step aside. When I was elected prime minister of a country at war (Crimea had been annexed seven days earlier), I relinquished my political mandate and announced from the parliamentary tribune that this would be a kamikaze government. It was a fully conscious political decision. My non-participation had two goals: to stabilize the situation in the country and to prevent internal political confrontation within the democratic forces. If I had run, I would have been running an election campaign instead of saving the state. From today’s perspective I can say I would have won that election, but the country had to be saved. Vitali Klitschko ran for mayor of Kyiv as part of a political agreement with Poroshenko. On the bullet in the forehead, Maidan and the drama of 2014 – There are many memes about you, but the most famous: A bullet in the forehead is a bullet in the forehead. Do you remember that moment? – I remember that time very well. It was the hardest, most terrible period. The smell of death hung in the air on Maidan. When they wanted to storm the Presidential Administration, I went out and said: People, I will not let them shoot you there. I understood their plan: to provoke a massacre and show the world that we were mutineers. I carried the responsibility for human lives. Now some find it funny, especially those who were not on Maidan and did not see those deaths. Current times are a million times more dramatic, but back then we were acting on constant adrenaline. And memes are a sign that a politician has not yet left the stage. On intrigues in the coalition, the People’s Front’s victory and Poroshenko’s fight – In the parliamentary elections of 2014, the People’s Front took first place, overtaking the Petro Poroshenko Bloc. How do you remember that period of a parliamentary-presidential republic? – The People’s Front team: Oleksandr Turchynov, Arsen Avakov, Andriy Parubiy – that was a model national-patriotic team. And we won first place. It was truly an exemplary period for the parliamentary-presidential form of government. I really did not want to repeat the Orange Team’s experience, when all the dear friends fell out. That was my personal trauma from my time as speaker: you quarrel and a third comes. And Yanukovych came. – So you tried to prevent a conflict? – Volodymyr Zelenskyy was not the first who wanted early parliamentary elections. The first was Petro Poroshenko. In 2014 I come to parliament to vote on laws for the IMF tranche – the treasury is empty, there is nothing to pay for gas and pensions, the war had begun. And suddenly there is chaos in the hall: Tyahnybok and Klitschko run out to announce their exit from the coalition. Petro Oleksiyovych quietly called them behind closed doors to break the coalition because he wanted a single-party majority of 40%. But Poroshenko lost the parliamentary elections to me. After that, he and his team decided to wage a tough fight against me personally and against the People’s Front. I warned him: You will be next, that’s a one-move game. But I didn’t go public with it because Russian aggression was ongoing, and personal pride could have destroyed the state. There were personnel mistakes too. I was too loyal, approving people under his quotas, and they acted in narrow political interests. Take, for example, then Minister of Energy Volodymyr Demchyshyn. I told him directly at a government meeting: Volodya, you will go to prison, nobody will cover you! On the kamikaze government, 108 thousand in the treasury and the break with Gazprom Photo: Yatsenyuk on 108 thousand in the treasury (RBC-Ukraine infographic) – You made decisions for which the public seldom thanks you: raising tariffs, strict austerity, devaluation, bank collapses. Did you feel like a doctor without anesthesia? – I certainly didn’t give anesthesia, but I said – I will cure you. You will walk, your blood pressure will be normal, but the medicine is bitter. I warned from the tribune that this was a kamikaze government and only hard work awaited. The situation was catastrophic: on the single treasury account for the whole country there remained 108 thousand hryvnias! Yanukovych burned the foreign exchange reserves from 34 to 15 billion dollars. Debts exceeded 70 billion. There was no gas, no contract, Energoatom was fully dependent on Rosatom, there was no army. What we managed to do: Gas independence: we completely gave up Russian gas, switched to reverse flows from Europe and laid the foundation for an unprecedented victory over Gazprom in the Stockholm arbitration. Nuclear diversification: we signed a contract with Westinghouse, destroying Rosatom’s monopoly. Finance: for the first time in history we reduced the state’s net debt by 4 billion dollars. Reforms: we launched the Prozorro system, tax reform, decentralization (together with Volodymyr Groysman) and introduced strict accountability for bank owners. Defense: we allocated 5% of GDP to finance the Armed Forces of Ukraine. On signing the Association Agreement with the EU, visa-free travel and the conversation with Merkel – You signed the political part of the Association Agreement with the EU. How did those negotiations happen? – When I arrived at the European Council meeting in Brussels, European partners cautiously hinted that signing the entire Agreement should be postponed. I asked them: How do I return to Kyiv and explain to millions of Ukrainians and to the Heavenly Hundred, who gave their lives for the European choice, that we signed nothing? Angela Merkel, David Cameron and Donald Tusk took a break. They returned with the idea to split the agreement: sign the political part first, and the economic part later. That’s what we did. And by the end of 2015 our government had fully met all 102 criteria to receive visa-free travel. On resignation, media harassment and the mysterious Semiboyarshchyna – Why did you voluntarily resign in April 2016? – It was the first case in Ukraine’s history when a prime minister resigned voluntarily. The reason was paralysis of the ruling coalition. Ministers from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc stopped coming to government meetings. The whole media machine worked against me: the channels of Medvedchuk, Inter of Firtash and Lyovochkin, the MP Onyshchenko, who later admitted to the British press that he spent 30 million dollars on my removal. Clinging to the chair amid an artificial crisis would have meant destroying the country. But we preserved the coalition so as not to allow early elections. And before my resignation the parliament revoked its own political decision declaring the government’s work unsatisfactory. – During that period there was much talk about an informal coordination body – the so-called Semiboyarshchyna or Strategy Council. How did it actually work? – Meetings were held in the President’s office around a round table. There were not no-names but state leaders: Poroshenko, me, Turchynov, Avakov, Lutsenko, Parubiy, later Groysman. It was an unwritten institute of democracy – a mechanism for coordinating decisions among the executive, legislative branches and the President. We went through everything: from the parliamentary agenda to government meetings. Poroshenko was a workaholic and liked to call such meetings at 2–3 o’clock at night. On constitutional reform, refusing to run in the 2019 elections and the Wall project – On the eve of the 2019 elections there were rumors about a proposal to cut the President’s powers and move to a parliamentary republic. Is that true? – I advocated for a clear delineation of powers between the President, the Government and the Parliament. The President should be a nationally elected Supreme Commander with clear constitutional functions, without duplicating the government’s work. The President should not appoint members of the Antimonopoly Committee or the National Commission for Energy and Utilities Regulation, and the prime minister should not command the army. But this concerned institutional reform, not saving specific surnames. – Why did you and the People’s Front refuse to participate in the 2019 elections? – What’s the point of participating in elections you cannot win? Just to become a marginal or to sit in parliament with 10 deputies? Being a statistician is not my style. If you can’t form a government or a strong opposition, there is no point. – If we recall the Wall project – building a border with Russia – why did so much negativity arise around it? – That was my communication mistake – I underestimated the information machine. It seemed obvious to me that it was about engineering and fortifying the border: anti-tank ditches, observation towers, control measures against smuggling and weapons. But people imagined in their minds a Chinese wall or an iron dome and expected a concrete wall. – How do you assess that period today? Was it a bright or dark time? – It was a magnificent, dramatic historical time when the people rose up for their rights and won their state. We did not let Putin destroy Ukraine in 2014, we created the Armed Forces and the foundations that allowed us to hold out in 2022. The struggle continues, it is long-term. And our main goal today is to win this war and preserve Ukraine.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Арсеній Яценюк: Я не хотів повторити досвід Помаранчевої команди, всі "любі друзі" пересварилися". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: RBC-Ukraine.
