Ukraine's new government has been busy. Fighting corruption, pulling troops out of Iraq, increasing foreign loans -- these are the headlines of the new policy of President Viktor Yuschenko.
So that average Ukrainians can feel a quick change for the better, obligatory military service is being reduced to one year.
ILLUSTRATION: YUSHA
Yuschenko has promised Europe its citizens will cross the Ukrainian border a good deal more easily and with far less paperwork in a matter of weeks.
The old Ukrainian ruling class headed by Yuschenko's predecessor Leonid Kuchma is, on the other hand, faced with things getting worse.
Already more than a dozen dubious privatizations of state-owned companies by the Kuchma government are slated for reversal.
The new Prime Minister Julia Timoshenko has spoken of reviewing the possibly illegal routes to private ownership taken by over 3,000 former government enterprises.
Critics of the new regime have already warned that the large number of checks, and possible return to state ownership, of properties sold by the government over the last decade could bring great harm to Ukraine's investment climate.
"In its last months the old government divided up real estate and other state properties among itself," said Volodymyr Polohalo, Kiev political scientist.
"It was a lot closer to theft than privatization," he said.
The key direction of the new government is clear. It goes above all against Rinat Akhmetov, a Donetsk steel baron who made his fortune in the Kuchma years. The richest man in the country, Akhmetov is widely considered to have actively fought against Yuschenko's election.
Ukrainian political analysts almost unanimously estimate Akhmetov's investment in Yuschenko's ultimately unsuccessful opponent, former prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, in the millions of dollars.
Yuschenko took an uncharacteristically hard tone during his first visit as president to Donetsk, sharply telling the province's gathered bureaucrats: "From this moment forward no more money will be sent to Kiev from Donetsk in briefcases or plastic bags."
Yuschenko managed less than 5 percent support in the region during the election.
Ukrainian political players across the board these days are particularly interested in the fate of the biggest steel mill in the land, Krivorizhstal. Akhmetov in concert with steel pipe baron Viktor Pinchiuk (who also is Kuchma's son-in-law) took over the plant last year in a dubious auction.
In the present government, the number of voices calling for the re-nationalization of the factory -- which produces around one-third of Ukraine's entire steel output -- is increasing.
As of yet there are few concrete steps against the members of the old regime.
Kuchma at present is out of the country, officially in the Czech Republic for a four week visit to a health spa. Prague media has speculated he is there in order to avoid a criminal prosecution in Ukraine.
Timoshenko has already suggested that Kuchma's presidential retirement package -- including for-life use of a residence, bodyguards, and vehicles at state expense -- be reviewed and drastically reduced.
The Yuschenko government is hardly unanimous in its support for a "declaration of war" against the old regime. Powerful forces are suggesting Akhmetov make "voluntary supplementary payments" to the government in exchange for their property.
The radical reformer Timoshenko, on the other hand, is calling for renationalization. Optimists hope that the reallocation really will serve the common good, and not just Yuschenko's followers.
On the streets of Kiev, so far, the new times have yet to arrive. To the anger of motorists, Yuschenko's clean government directives have not reached the capital's chronically corrupt traffic police. In spite of all hope, the populace still doubts that endemic corruption throughout the country can be eradicated root and branch any time soon.
Ukraine's countless and chronically underpaid state employees are eminently bribable. That applies to doctors, professors, judges and teachers as well. If one were to sack all the bureaucrats on the take, there would be almost no-one left in the country to do any work, Ukrainian sceptics say.
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