Ukraine's Election Is Irrelevant

The Ukrainian presidential election is less than a month away. To say there's worldwide anticipation would be an understatement. U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt has called it "the most important election in the history of independent Ukraine." The U.S. is sending $11.4 million to Ukraine for the sole purpose of ensuring the integrity of the vote, while Russia is doing everything it can to drum up enough unrest to thwart it—despite the fact that 85 percent of Ukrainians say they plan on going to the polls. But the truth is that a successful presidential election is, as Kennan Institute Director Matthew Rojansky put it, “an almost irrelevant question” when it comes to stopping the crisis. Come May 26, Ukraine could be in an even worse position than it is now.