Article / I write about Vitali Klitschko and his dream of a democratic Ukraine.
Last Thursday I sat in a packed Columbia University auditorium listening to a speech by the current WBC world heavyweight champion, Vitali Klitschko. Klitschko towered over the podium (which seemed almost toy-like beneath him). He is the first boxing world champion with a Ph.D., but he was not with us to talk about sports—he came to Columbia because he’s a politician. His party, the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, bears the clever acronym UDAR, which means “hit” or “punch” in both Ukrainian and Russian. Its goal, says Klitschko, is to modernize Ukraine.
Read the article in Construction.