Serhii Plokhy and M. E. Sarotte
94 foreign affairs
quences. The misunderstood grievances of the old imperial center
had yet again dashed hopes of durable a post–Cold War order.A FESTERING WOUND
Leaving the issues of Ukraine’s security and its place in the new
international order unresolved for decades had the effect of turning
the country into a dangerous arena. It became a space where the
interests of the great powers clashed and yet no conflicts were re-
solved. It also became a place where there was money to be made
by outside consultants advising the locals on how best to outma-
neuver their opponents.
One American distinguished himself particularly in this regard:
Paul Manafort. Yanukovych became president of Ukraine in 2010 in
no small part thanks to Manafort’s management of his campaign. In
exchange, Manafort earned more from Yanukovych than the Ameri-
can ever bothered to admit to American authorities. Trump’s fateful
decision to ask Manafort to manage his own presidential campaign
brought Trump and his advisers onto the shoals of Ukraine, as well.
“Ukrainegate” began soon thereafter, when documents revealing
illicit payments to Manafort were leaked to the Ukrainian newspa-
pers. Manafort’s close ties with Yanukovych became the subject of an
fbi investigation, leading to his removal from the helm of Trump’s
presidential campaign. Manafort was put on trial in 2018 for tax eva-
sion and fraud and was sentenced by two U.S. district courts to 90
months in jail. Before disappearing behind bars, however, Manafort
and his pro-Russian Ukrainian associates appear to have planted in
Trump’s head the notion that corrupt Ukrainian officials were out to
undermine him and his presidency.
The president soon developed his own magical thinking about
Ukraine. He decided, despite the consensus of the U.S. intelligence
community, to believe not that Russia had hacked the election on his
behalf but that Ukraine had hacked it on behalf of Clinton. He also
seized on a conspiracy theory that former U.S. Vice President Joe
Biden—now a candidate for president—helped fire a corrupt Ukrai-
nian prosecutor general not, as was actually the case, to advance U.S.
anticorruption policies but to protect his son Hunter Biden. Hunter
had joined the board of Burisma, Ukraine’s largest gas-producing com-
pany, which was at the time under investigation for money laundering.
The practical result of Trump’s magical thinking was the suspension of