 After over two months of constant wrangling between Ukraine's president and prime minister, on March 21 the parliament confirmed two new ministers, both worthy of comment.
As someone who has followed Ukrainian politics closely since 1991, initially from afar and for the last 12 years as a permanent resident of the country, I long ago developed my own theory of Ukrainian evolution. And that theory is that major progress on a western-looking true independence will come only when an entirely new generation of really post-Soviet leaders takes the top political leadership positions.
My view is that Arseny Yatsenyuk is one of the first and certainly one of the brightest of that new generation. With a doctorate in law and economics and just 33 years old, he has already served as economy minister of the autonomous republic of Crimea and later economy minister of Ukraine. In addition, he served a very successful term as acting chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, and more recently was first deputy head of the presidential administration.
Now, Yatsenyuk has been thrust into a real snake pit, the position of foreign minister, where he must shepherd Ukraine's international relations during a period when the president and the prime minister are in almost constant conflict about what the nation's foreign policies should be.
The job will be a challenge, but it will help Yatsenyuk round out his political skills to go along side his high technical qualifications.
Also approved was Anatoly Kinakh, a former prime minister, as economy minister. Kinakh has over the years developed a reputation for intelligence, competence and honesty in a wide range of positions. However, no one ever uttered the word, "charisma" in the same sentence with Kinakh's name, and his public speaking style suggests that it is patterned on Leonid Brezhnev's infamous monotone. Having said that, Kinakh may be the right man in the right job at the right time.
I choose to think of these two appointments as a part of the long process of bringing Ukraine back to serious progress toward European integration, and at least a small step back from subservience to the unbearable bear to the east.
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