On Zelensky's failure. It's worse than you knew

[Joseph Tracy]

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/28/zelensky-celebrity-populist-pinochet-neoliberal/ <https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/28/zelensky-celebrity-populist-pinochet-neoliberal/>


Information from ethnic Ukrainian scholar and one-time journalist, Natalie Baldwin, about actual Zelensky actions in office,  his plummet in post election popularity,  and his increasingly violent and aggressive authritarian assault on courts, press, labor, political opposition combined with the rise in Neoloberla polocies directed by non Ukrainians.

Quotes:
" On the eve of the invasion, however, his approval rating had sunk to 31 percent <https://abtc.ng/volodymyr-zelensky-approval-rating-2022/> due to the pursuit of deeply unpopular policies.”….."up to 72% of Ukrainians did not support his land reform, the flagship of Zelensky’s neoliberal program. After his party approved it despite people’s indignation, Zelensky’s rating fell from 73 percent in Spring 2019 to 23 percent in January 2022. The reason is simple: a deep sense of betrayal.”
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"Throughout the campaign, the idea of “progress” highlighted by Zelensky was never linked to privatization, land sales, budget cuts, etc. Only after Zelensky had consolidated his presidential power by establishing full control over the legislative and executive branches of power did he make it clear that the “normalization” and “civilization” of Ukraine meant the privatization of land and state/public property, the deregulation of labor relations, a reduction of power for trade unions, an increase in utility tariffs, and so on.”
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"Yes, the Maidan change of power in 2014 marked the beginning of a completely new era in the history of Ukraine in terms of Western influence on its sovereign decisions. To be sure, since Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, this influence has always existed. American Chamber of Commerce, Center for US-Ukraine relations, US-Ukraine Business Council, European Business Association, IMF, EBDR, WTO, the EU—all these lobbying and regulating institutions have been significantly affect[ing] Ukrainian political decisions.

However, never in the pre-Maidan history of Ukraine had the country appointed foreign citizens to top ministerial posts—this became possible only after the Maidan. In 2014, Natalie Jaresko—a citizen of the US—was appointed Ukraine’s Minister of Finance, Aivaras Abromavičius—a citizen of Lithuania—became Ukraine’s Minister of Economy and Trade, Alexander Kvitashvili—a citizen of Georgia—the Minister of Healthcare. In 2016, Ulana Suprun—a citizen of the US—was appointed the acting Minister of Healthcare. Other foreigners assumed offices of lower ranks. Needless to say, all these appointments resulted not from the will of Ukrainians but from the recommendations of the global neoliberal institutions, which is not surprising given that the Maidan itself was not supported by half of Ukraine’s population."

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"In early February 2021, first three oppositional television channels—NewsOne, Zik, and 112 Ukraine—were shut down. Another oppositional channel Nash was banned in the beginning of 2022, before the beginning of the war. After the war broke out, in March, dozens of independent journalists, bloggers, and analysts were arrested; most of them are of leftist views. In April, television channels of right-wing leaning—Channel 5 and Pryamiy—were shut down as well. Moreover, Zelensky signed a decree obliging all Ukrainian channels to broadcast a single telethon, presenting only one pro-governmental view on the war.

All these developments are unprecedented for the history of independent Ukraine. Zelensky’s proponents argue that all the arrests and media bans should be written off for military expediency, ignoring the fact that the first media closures happened one year before the Russian invasion. As for me, Zelensky only uses this war to strengthen dictatorial tendencies within his regime of government, which started being formed right after Zelensky came to power—when he created a party machine to control the parliament and rubber-stamp neoliberal reforms without regard to public mood."

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"The Constitution of Ukraine states that The Council of National Security and Defense is a coordinating body: it “co-ordinates and controls the activity of bodies of executive power in the sphere of national security and defense.” This has nothing to do with prosecuting political opponents and confiscating their property—something NSDC has been doing since 2021. It goes without saying that this know-how of Zelensky’s regime is unconstitutional—only courts may decide on who is guilty or not and confiscate property. But the problem is that Ukrainian courts turned out to be unprepared to serve as Zelensky’s puppets. After the head of Ukraine’s Constitutional Court Oleksandr Tupytskyi called Zelensky’s unconstitutional reforms a “coup,” Zelensky had nothing to do but to rely on NSDC to push forward his unpopular policies. What about the “dissident” Tupytskyi?  On March 27, 2021—also in violation of the Ukrainian Constitution—Zelensky signed a decree canceling his appointment as a judge of the court.
 "It is under Avakov’s patronage in 2014 [that] nationalistic punitive battalions were created to be sent to Donbass for suppressing people’s resistance against the Maidan. Myrotvorets has been part of the general strategy of intimidating the opponents of the coup. Any “enemy of the people”—anybody who dares to express publicly anti-Maidan views or challenge Ukraine’s nationalistic agenda—may occur on this website. The addresses of Oles Buzina, a famous publicist [journalist], shot dead by nationalists near his apartment building in Kyiv, and Oleg Kalashnikov, an oppositional deputy killed by nationalists in his house, were also on Myrotvorets, which helped the killers to find their victims. The names of the murderers are well known; however, they are not imprisoned because in contemporary Ukraine, whose political life is controlled by radicals, they are considered heroes.

The site was not shut down even after an international scandal when Myrotvorets published the personal data of well-known foreign politicians, including the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. But, in contrast to Mr. Schröder residing in Germany, thousands of Ukrainians whose data are on Myrotvorets, cannot feel safe. All those arrested in March 2022 had been on Myrotvorets as well. Some of them I know personally – Yuri Tkachev, the editor of Odessa newspaper Timer and Dmitry Dzhangirov, the editor of Capital, a YouTube channel."

Many of those whose names are on Myrotvorets, managed to flee Ukraine after the Maidan; some were able to do it after mass arrests this March. One of them is Tarik Nezalezhko, Dzhangirov’s colleague. On April 12, 2022, already being safe outside of Ukraine, he made a post on YouTube, calling Ukraine’s Security Service “Gestapo” and giving advice to his viewers on how to avoid being captured by its agents.

That said, Ukraine is not a democratic country. The more I observe what is going on there, the more I think about the modernization path of Augusto Pinochet, who, as a matter of fact, is admired by our neoliberals. For a long period of time, the crimes of Pinochet’s regime had not been investigated. But in the end, humanity discovered the truth. I only hope that in Ukraine this will happen earlier."

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The current war is a prolongation of the war of 2014, which started when Kiev sent troops to Donbass to suppress anti-Maidan rebellion under the premise of the so-called “anti-terrorist operation.” The acknowledgement of this broader context does not presuppose the approval of Russia’s “military operation,” but it implies the acknowledgement that Ukraine is also responsible for what is going on. Framing the issue of the current war in terms of a fight of civilization against barbarism or democracy against autocracy is nothing else but manipulation,