The Impotence of the Mighty

And what about Mr. Yeltsin? He phoned Chernomyrdin and met Foreign Minister Ivanov. It seems sometimes that Yeltsin with his penchant for total control is failing to keep pace with the events he attempts to control. The most striking example of this is foreign policy. And is it not surreal when someone who holds no office, was elected nowhere, and appointed by nobody - Boris Berezovsky - announces at a press conference that "Sergei Stepashin is not his choice" and agrees to reports that he was involved in the struggle to control the government (not alone, of course, but together with Diachenko, Yumashev, and Voloshin)? In what other country is there such a gray cardinal who convenes press conferences and glows in the limelight? Only Ukraine can boast such figures, sometimes the same as in Russia.

I think that no matter how energetic Yeltsin may be today, we are dealing with a regime that is exhausting itself and only seems to be strong, one that is in fact unable to streamline its own apparatus and can only watch how its officials try to amass wealth to tide them over after they lose their posts. But the Russians are even lucky here: their presidential elections will be held only in the year 2000.

Ukraine is going to witness a similar situation in the next few months. And let us not forget that, unlike that of Yeltsin, our presidency has never - and never could have - been really strong.

It could only have seemed so.