Ukrainiana

Janukowytsch Does Deutschland

The land of beer and sausages has supplied a sizzling update to Yanukovych’s catalogue of faux pas. Pravda picks on the following episodes, in which Yanukovych

1. Bowed prematurely during the anthem ceremony with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

2. Rebuffed Merkel’s gastronomical niceties with, “I didn’t come here to dine, but to tell you about Ukraine.”

3. Put words in Merkel's mouth on Ukraine’s EU accession prospects.

4. Misspelled the name of former German President Richard von Weizsäcker as “Richard von Weizer…Weizer-berg.”

5. Projected a Boratish sense of humor, “Sitting here between two Alexanders, Kwaśniewski and Rahr, I can make a wish according to Ukrainian tradition. Whether it will come true I will tell you later.”

Scheiße! The German tour was off to a bad start when Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung came out with a scathing op-ed “Von der Marionette zum Lenker” (From Puppet to Chief) by Konrad Schuller. It wrought havoc on a soapy article “Janukowytsch für Neutralität der Ukraine” (Yanukovych for a Neutral Ukraine) published earlier in Die Welt by Russian-speaking political pundit Alexander Rahr.

Pravda quotes Yanukovych as saying, “Rahr is an interesting analyst and expert, and we’ve invited him to cooperate.” Well, well, well, Paul Manafort seems to have hired a German subcontractor for his reputation laundering operation in Ukraine.

Perhaps, there’s an opening position for boxing legend and former Orange Revolution fixture Vitaliy Klychko? (He happens to be the darling of Germans by virtue of having launched his career there.) How else should we interpret his increasingly frequent public appearances in close proximity to Herr Janukowytsch?