KYIV - Alex Frishberg: Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you all for coming here today. I promise you that this will be an interesting presentation simply because Mr. Paskhaver has joined us. A couple of brief words of introduction about Mr. Paskhaver; he was adviser to the Ukrainian government in the old Scherbitsky times, in the good old Soviet days, and since then he has been adviser to all of the Presidents of Ukraine with the exception of Viktor Yuschenko for various reasons.

Mr. Paskhaver knows everything there is to know about the government because he has always served as an ethical, moral and philosophical compass of Ukraine. As an economist, he knows not only what is good for Ukraine, but where Ukraine should be headed if it wants to become a civilized European nation.

It is always fascinating to hear what Mr. Paskhaver has to say; especially because he is independent and has no higher authority above him. Therefore, he has always been refreshingly, often brutally, honest. This is why he has been an adviser to top level of Ukrainian government for the last 17 or 18 years.

One last comment about Mr. Paskhaver is that he also co-authored the primary privatization legislation of Ukraine back in the turbulent 1990’s. This is why he was appointed as an offi cial adviser to
the State Property Fund when small-scale, medium-scale and large-scale privatization was taking place in Ukraine. Needless to say, he knows quite a lot about privatization – and about the people who bought up factories, who are known today as oligarchs, which includes some of our glorious leaders.

As a result of his impressive background, we invited Mr. Paskhaver to share his assessment about where our current leaders have taken Ukraine over the last year and where we are headed in the nearest future. With all of this in mind, I welcome Mr. Paskhaver’s opinions.

ALEXANDER PASKHAVER: "A year has passed since a new team has started to save Ukraine, yet again. And the question has arisen, how do you characterize this glorious team? My short presentation will consist of three parts – in the [1] first part I will discuss the events and phenomena that have occurred recently; in the [2] second part I will try to put them into a general framework of legitimacy (in the context of a stage-play based on 20 years of Ukraine and its actors); and in the [3] third part I will discuss the future scenarios that may develop............"

NOTE:  TO READ THE SCRIPT OF THE ENTIRE WORKSHOP GO TO THE FOLLOWING LINK:  
http://www.usubc.org/site/recent-news/assessment-of-new-presidential-administration-trials-and-tribulations-of-the-first-year.