March 13, 2021

For as long as Donald Trump was president, Ukraine was at the center of America’s partisan political brawls. President Joe Biden is now trying to shift the U.S. focus on Ukraine away from domestic politics and back onto Kyiv’s anti-corruption efforts — a push he helped initiate as vice president.

In his early days in office, Biden has been keeping the Eastern European ally at arm's-length, hoping that the toxic fumes from the previous administration will subside. At the same time, he is quietly pushing for further reforms in a country he spent years getting to know as vice president, and one that is a critical front in the west’s efforts to contain Russia.

Trump’s four years in office did serious damage to diplomatic relations between Washington and Kyiv. Biden’s anti-corruption initiatives in Ukraine, and his son’s financial entanglements there, were weaponized by Trump’s allies in both his first impeachment trial and during the 2020 election. In both instances, Republicans tried to paint the now-president as corruptly using Ukraine for personal financial gain, dragging the former Soviet republic of 43 million people into the center of domestic U.S. political turmoil.

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https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/13/biden-ukraine-kyiv-putin-475546