Working indefatigably as mentor,
guide and intellectual match-maker, has been Valentin Yakushik, a Professor of
Political Science at the University of Kiev-Mohyla Academy. Kiev-Mohyla is one of Ukraine’s leading universities,
with faculty and staff who were among the leaders of protest on the Maidan,Independence Square,
that freezing winter two years ago when the Orange Revolution took place. On our study tour, we met some of the students who had been
there, some disappointed in the consequences of the revolution, all still
wanting to see Ukraine transformed.
But Valentin had not been among the crowds on the Maidan. He fears that Ukrainian nationalism could divide Ukraine, neglecting the legitimate aspirations of those who speak Russian, primarily in the east of the country, especially around Donetsk. This is the territory of the Party of the Regions, led by Victor Yanukovich, who was denied the Presidency by the Orange Revolution, but is now Prime Minister after the elections earlier this year. Valentin thinks the present coalition of Our Ukraine, the ‘Orange’ party of President Yushchenko, with Victor Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions, is just what is needed to pull the country together.