Maidan

Oksana,

Please forgive my delay in responding.  I have been back and forth between Kharkiv and Kyiv during this past week, or preparing for back-and-forth to Kyiv.  Things are happening very quickly now in Ukraine, as I�m sure you probably understand.  I beg you forbearance,  and truly appreciate your kind remarks.  I will answer your questions, and concerns, in serial order.

I�m more Germanic/American background than Anglo/American.  I also have Anglo/Irish blood, but that's as close as I come to Anglo.

Should the time ever arrive that a nice Ukrainian girl is brave enough to deal with my life on a daily basis without too much worry, I would be delighted to have a Ukrainian wife.  My being the political animal that I am, marriage to a nice Ukrainian girl who has the strength to deal with my unrelenting �assertiveness� (and that�s putting it mildly) toward freedom and human decency would be for me a private gift from God.  

I�ve done as much as I can for Russia.  I understand that FSB does not take kindly to anyone doing things for Russian citizens to make the lives of ordinary Russian citizens better.  Nothing has changed since Chekist/NKVD/KGB days in that regard.  People like me don�t fit in regardless of nationality, but with a US passport I�m not so easily shot, imprisoned, or disappeared.  So be it.  I will never shut up, and that alone drives half of FSB crazy while encouraging the other half.  

In Ukraine, it encourages seventy percent of SBU (my estimate, which I�m willing to discuss once again with SBU over beer and a good meal as long as they�re paying), and irritates the remainder.  The (Russian) woman I loved most recently was once an FSB agent, but she couldn�t get anything past me.  So now we�re apart, I remain single, and now insist even to God on a Ukrainian wife.

I hope that answers that part of questions.

Next, regarding investing in Ukraine, for the moment I agree with your advisors. This is the time to let things settle down and stabilize a bit.  Ukraine is in the midst of an extraordinary transition, the likes of which the modern world has rarely seen.  I daresay that almost nobody on earth knows what to make of what just happened in Ukraine via the Orange Revolution.  To me, even now, having been here through all of it and encouraging it on a strictly personal level quite some time before it came to pass, Ukraine�s revolution stands in my mind as one of the rarest of miracles.  While in Kharkiv�s tent camp, local militsia and SBU both questioned me as to why I was there.  I told them that I was watching history in the making, and they understood.  They not only did not give me any problems, they also made sure that I was absolutely safe and protected.  They knew and I knew and everyone in the tent camp knew what was going on and why I was there and why ALL of us were there (on the Orange side, at least) : solidarity among people insisting on honesty and freedom with the same passion in all of our souls.  It made no difference where we were born, most in Ukraine and me in the US.  We ALL understood, and stood shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm and hand in hand.  It was during that time that I knew I would take a Ukrainian wife, and no other, at some point if ever.  

It was just after that time that I grasped the new investment potential in Ukraine: give things a little time to settle down and stabilize, start small and grow.  I am certain that Ukraine will prove to be among the very best investment climates in the world.  I say this from very, very hard work, careful examination, tough experience, and with abiding, passionate love FROM most Ukrainians along the way � excluding former government entities in general, and government entities in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in particular.  

I respectfully suggest that if Kyiv continues to ignore ARC, problems such as the recent Russian naval invasion of Feodosia will not only increase but will also become routine policy of Russia toward Crimea and where possible upward to the rest of Ukraine, eastern flank first.  I know how Russian foreign policy thinking is going in Kremlin�s near-abroad hopes, and I know extremely well who controls it: Russian FSB.  At such time as this threat is effectively and finally countered and stopped, Ukraine will then become a safe investment climate with predictable, reliable investment calculations heading full speed to solid European integration.  Kremlin will remain quite active in trying to prevent that because Russia (Moscow) cannot qualify until such questions as Ryazan are finally and clearly answered once and for all.  Kremlin believes the Ryazan question has quietly disappeared.  

It has not.  

Until the time that Ukraine fully shakes off Russian provocation (and US hegemony, to be clear and fair), I must agree with your investment advisors: be very careful, start small and do litmus testing, and look to grow your investments on that basis.  

Regarding growth in Georgia, take one guess as to who is actively impeding and interfering in Georgia�s new democracy � despite Georgia�s increasing insistence that they get their military bases OUT of Georgia, so far to no avail.

Kremlin has not surrendered its near-abroad policy, nor its hopes for continuation of CIS, nor its provocation in northern Georgia, nor its provocation on the north-eastern slice of Moldova.  I say this will full awareness and acknowledgment of my own government�s adventurous hegemony in this same region of the world.  

And I say this: Ukraine is Ukraine, and Ukraine has clearly demonstrated beyond any doubt that she is neither US nor Russian.  Once both of those sides are gently pressed clear to that understanding, then Ukraine will emerge and manifest her enormous economic, political, social � and above all, spiritual � potential.

We are watching a miracle continuing, a miracle in the making, Oksana.  I believe we should consider ourselves very, very fortunate even to be aware of it.  Patience is the watchword for investment, with due caution, but also with due hope.  I�ve already bet my life on that.

With very best wishes and regards,

Terry Hallman

Kharkiv, Ukraine