Biden visits war-scarred Ukraine to reaffirm U.S. support

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Kyiv late Sunday to reassure its pro-Western leaders that Washington remains committed to Ukraine despite stepped-up efforts to work with Russia against Islamic State jihadists, according to AFP.

After arriving at around midnight, he is due to meet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko Monday and deliver a highly-anticipated address to parliament the following day, AFP reports.

"We do not know if there is any other historical precedent for a foreign official giving a speech like this," a senior U.S. administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in a teleconference with reporters.

Washington and Kyiv's EU allies support Ukraine's view of Russia being an "aggressor" that orchestrated the separatist revolt in reprisal for the February 2014 ousting of a Moscow-backed president — an assertion the Kremlin denies.

The senior U.S. official said Biden would take extra care to stress that the overtures toward Putin in the view of the fight with ISIS in no way affected the West's support for Kyiv.

"I think that is going to be a major theme of the trip — that nothing that is going on in the Middle East has changed one iota of our commitment to the Ukrainian people and to their security," the US official said.

Biden is also to discuss Ukraine’s anti-corruption measures.

The country’s Prosecutor General “has particularly fallen prey to accusations of blocking investigations and hiring workers who have since been detained with huge stashes of gold and cash in their flats,” according to AFP.

This, along with the ongoing conflict in Donbas, is souring the public's mood toward the government and helping the resurgence of Ukrainian far-right groups.

"Much more needs to be done to reform the prosecutor-general's office so that it actually enables anti-corruption efforts as opposed to standing in the way of those efforts," the U.S. official said.

"So that will be I think something that is talked about."

Analysts say the main problem rests in the government's failure to break the hold big business has enjoyed over much of Ukrainian politics for more than 20 years.

"Ukraine has 1,833 state corporations that are a persistent source of corruption," said Anders Aslund of the U.S.-based Atlantic Council.

"The government has failed to privatize one single enterprise because of deeply ingrained vested interests."

Poroshenko has taken credit for dismissing nearly 4,000 graft-tainted prosecutors. He also introduced a high-ranking official on Tuesday responsible for rooting out bribe-taking and at least partially limiting the sway of shadowy tycoons.

But some analysts remain unconvinced.

"The adoption of even the best and highest-profile decisions that 'suit Biden' only underscores the absence of a coherent strategy for reforming our country," Ukrainian political commentator Yevgeny Magda said.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Joe Biden is to meet with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, as well as the civil society activists.