Ukrainians Say Trump’s Defeat Means Their “Nightmare” Is Over – By Christopher Miller (Buzzfeed) / Nov 9 2020
“It’s like waking from a nightmare,” said Ukrainian anti-corruption activist Daria Kaleniuk.
On Nov. 9, 2016, Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Kyiv-based Anti-Corruption Action Center, an influential organization that has shaped Ukraine’s reform efforts, described news of Donald Trump’s shock election victory as waking up in a “terrible nightmare.”
For her and many other Ukrainians, the prospect of an American president who glorified Russian President Vladimir Putin and suggested Crimea, the southern Ukrainian peninsula annexed by the Kremlin in 2014, belonged to Moscow was terrifying.
While Trump never recognized Russia’s land grab, Kaleniuk and many other Ukrainians existed in that nightmarish state for much of his presidency as their country was dragged into the crossfire of Washington political battles, including the monthslong impeachment saga and the efforts of the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to dig up dirt about Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine.
Along the way, they also watched as the highly respected US ambassador to Kyiv, Marie Yovanovitch, was recalled and Washington’s point person for the ongoing Ukrainian–Russian war, Kurt Volker, resigned, weakening Washington’s influence in Ukraine and the region.
