Ukraine general discussion

[PSOL]

What does the political situation look like now in Ukraine; can you give us a rundown on what the major figures and organizations are up too? How is the situation more specifically in the Far Right and Left camps; are the militias still trying to assert themselves into Ukrainian politics?

I’m utterly depressed, but even I should have known, that SOTP would have gutted everything and tore out the foundations of the Ukrainian state. Andriy, expect a lot of crime and destitution from downtrodden domestic migrants from the villages.

[PSOL]

Our government is totally incompetent. Ukraine is absolutely not ready for a pandemic.

At present, there are 3500 artificial lung ventilation devices in Ukraine, no one plans to expand their number. Zelensky promised to bring 10 million coronavirus tests from China, and now only 250 thousand rapid tests have been brought. Doctors do not test for coronavirus. In my hometown, a woman came to the hospital after visiting Italy with a dry cough and fever and was sent home because there were no tests on the ground.

Yesterday the President's Office ordered the heads of regional state administrations not to inform the population about the number of patients without approval of the President's Office. The main task set by governors is to reduce panic among the population. For 2 days no one has been reporting a new number of patients.

2 factories that were producing drugs and were already ready to produce coronavirus tests were quarantined.

It is the worst and most inefficient government in Ukrainian history. He is the worst and most ineffective President in the history of Ukraine

I think it’s high time Ukraine establishes diplomatic relations with Cuba, ijust for the help their medical services can bring to the understaffed Ukrainian health service.

[PSOL]

Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists begin prisoner swap

[PSOL]

So how have the different political players been responding to the pandemic?

[PSOL]

Well considering that Poroshenko and his donors are rich, that’s a no brainer.

Can you tell us more of these rivalries and supposed concealments? What cracks are forming in the Maiden Veteran camp?

[PSOL]

Well considering that Poroshenko and his donors are rich, that’s a no brainer.

Can you tell us more of these rivalries and supposed concealments? What cracks are forming in the Maiden Veteran camp?

Maybe, I have misspelled the word. There are no quarrels at the Maidan camp, but instead the political persecution of Maidan participants and veterans of the anti-terrorist operation has begun. About two weeks ago, a former People's Deputy, one of the "symbols of the Maidan", Yanukovych's personal enemy (Yanukovych even ordered her to be killed in 2013, but that didn't happen), Tatiana Chornovol, was handed over suspicion of premeditated murder. She is accused of setting fire to the office of the Party of Regions, resulting in the death of an employee there, though previous 2 investigations have shown he returned to the office after leaving the building

Also during the quarantine, the Verkhovna Rada, at the request of Zelensky, released Attorney General Ruslan Ryaboshapka (official version: no investigation in numerous cases, unofficial version: refusal of Ryaboshapka to sign Poroshenko's suspicion). Most human rights activists and politicial activists  were categorically unable to accept this, as Iryna Venediktova (number 3 in the list of "Servant of the People", good qfriend of Portnov and Dobkin) was appointed as a Attorney General, after whose appointment the case against Poroshenko was revived and criminal proceedings against Maidan participants began

Also, according to Zelensky's personal statement last year, they opened a case against People's Deputy Sofia Fedyna, as she recorded a video with volunteer Marusya Zvirobiy, where they criticized Zelensky's trip to Donbass without camouflage and said that it would be so easy for separatists to kill him (she is charged with the threat of murder). The corruption case was brought against Volodymyr Vyatrovich (when he was the director of the Institute of National Memory, a certain amount of money (I do not remember the exact figure) was spent on organizing the Holodomor Victims Day

And about the films of Ermak:

SOTP MP Geo Leros has released films, the total duration of which is about 48 hours, clearly seen as the brother of the head of the President's Office, Andrew Ermak, sells positions in government for a certain amount of money to various people. Leros immediately wrote statements to the SBU, NABU and other law enforcement agencies, but they did not open an investigation. Instead, the SBU (that is, Venediktova) opened an investigation against Leros himself, immediately under 6 articles of the Criminal Code (there are no legal grounds for this). Zelensky did not respond to all this

So is Ihor Kolomistoy or whatever his name is consolidating control by wiping out his rivals? Sheesh, pretty ballsy to do so during a pandemic.

And I mistook what you were saying, you didn’t make any mistakes.

[PSOL]

Ukraine says still far from 'all for all' prisoner swaps with Russia

[PSOL]

Ukrainian mayor defies lockdown measures

Cherkasy mayor Anatoliy Bondarenko decided to open shops, hairdressers and restaurants on April 30 after appeals from businesses.

The move comes amid signs of growing impatience in Ukraine against lockdown measures imposed in March which the authorities say have kept infection rates lower than much of Western Europe.

The government announced a partial lifting of restrictions from May 11 but has cajoled citizens and local authorities not to let their guard down in the meantime.

[PSOL]

Ukrainian lawmaker Valerii Davydenko found shot dead in his office

What’s the initial conspiracy theory on this? A former official in the pre-Maidan government turned Poroshenko supporter turned independent has got to wrack up a sizable amount of enemies and drama, especially someone corrupt.

[PSOL]

Two days ago Zelensky and his minions tried uphold a court hearing on Poroshenko's case. They were( and still are) trying to blame him for mythical "State Treason", which, if we are to believe to them, happened in November 2018, when 3 Ukrainian gunboats tried to cross Kerch Strait, were attacked and afterwardly captured by Russian Navy. They claim that Poroshenko did this to "provoke war or crisis which would give grounds to suspend Civil Law and introduce Martial Law and usurp power". Those nutjobs are consistently ignoring the fact that Poroshenko itroduced Martial Law only in 8 out of 24 regions of the country, with numerous limitations and only for a month, so this won't break 2019 elections schedule. Elections were held in time without any fraud from Poroshenko.

People who are backing ES and Poroshenko gathered around the court building during this day and stood up until 19-00, when Poroshenko appeared from this building, gave a speech and told that court hearing is postponed until 1st of July. Crowd was really large, as my friend who were here told me that atleast 8-10 thousands visited protest.

IMO this all looks really awfully. Zelensky is a horrible president, ala Ukrainian version of Trump, and has no successes at all  since he took power after inauguration 13 months ago. Economy is in shambles, Ukraine's standing on international arene is damaged with long-lasting results, people are disapproving of him, he squandered all positive achievements of previous government and President, and now tries to intiate a witch hunt aganist a former President Poroshenko who is gaining popularity as Zelensky's approvals take a dive.

Zelensky is scared of Poroshenko. He sees him as an enemy who should be removed at any cost so that this "enemy" won't come to power once again or stop Zelensky and Kolomoiskiy dark business.

Overall, situation sucks. I hope that Zelenskiy would resign next year and we would have snap elections. I'll vote for Poroshenko again gladly. Atleast he has some vital achievemnts and is perfect on FP. Zelensky is just an oligarch puppet.

Isn’t SOTP collapsing in the polls? It seems that the way things are currently going, Zelensky is going to be voted out of office. That leaves the question of who exactly is going to get elected. Opposition Platform alienates most of the country and Poroshenko and Tymoshenko are seemingly going nowhere from the info I’m getting.

Could it be possible for a coalition government of pro-EU parties (Voice, Fatherland, European Solidarity) to try and oust SOTP? Would SOTP respond by aligning with Opposition Platform?

Welcome to the Forum by the way, always nice to have more international posters fill us in on what’s going on out there. Gives some breathing room for Andriy.

[PSOL]

Doubt about Poroshenko's future. He is still the most unpopular politician in the Country, sure, he has like 10-15% of hard supporters, but that's not enough for glorious return.

Also there are a lot of opened cases against him, though i've heard some of them were close recently. Some of them about corruption, one about his appointment of Russian citizen as Deputy Head of Foreign Intelligence, etc.

I can't  post any links, but rn his approval is 18% and climbing up. I think he will reach 30% by next year's  summer, and 30% means that he would be certainly electable. Atleast he will manage to go into 2nd  round. Currently, there alot of people being disillusioned by Ze. Each day this number will grow.

Most of the cases opened aganist him  is a blatant fraud. Even Ze's  appointed judges refuse to work with those cases often.

P.S. Я уверен, что если в следующем  году будут внеочередные, и во второй тур выйдут Порох и Бойко, то Порох сможет повторить Гровера  Кливленда.

Но с тем, что происходит в мире, до этого надо еще дожить как-то, хе-хе.....

18% is not much. Wasn't his approval rating around the same before 2019 election?

Yeah, in some time Zelensky will be as unpopular as Poroshenko during his presidency. But no way Petr will be his main opponent, people still remember his term, i predict another centrist-populist will emerge and crush Zelensky

In 5 years, Ukraine will undergo a massive reassessment of Poroshenko's contributions to the development of Ukrainian statehood, and after people are totally disappointed in Zelensky, Petro will look like a real leader in the eyes of Ukrainians.

I honestly don’t see that happening. It seems that pro-Russian Oligarchs will get the better hand on convincing voters that the turn to the NATO and EU was a horrible idea, and leads to a sort of neutral approach that balances Ukraine’s foreign policy once the Opposition Platform rises in the polls. That, or the anti-Russian oligarchs double down and shifts the country’s media to maximum coping through some closet neofascist movement some time in the next few cycles. Similar to the QAnon stuff over here.

Poroshenko’s time is done in Ukrainian politics, it’s been done since he lost the election to a professional comedian with no idea how to run a country.

[PSOL]

Glad to see SOTP imploding

Who woulda thought an inexperienced comedian would be an awful President.

The Ukrainian people were subjugated to so much stress and lies, especially since 2014, that they were willing to accept anything that was going to bring change for the sake of change. They didn’t have the comfort or know how from such stress to accurately reflect on just how much of a clown show things actually were.

The people themselves were fooled into supporting an incompetent oligarchic puppet that said what sounded nice over the various sullied, more predictable oligarchic puppets. So no, I can’t see why anyone should blame the voters and not the people and institutions that brought the Ukrainian people here.

[PSOL]

Glad to see SOTP imploding

Who woulda thought an inexperienced comedian would be an awful President.

The Ukrainian people were subjugated to so much stress and lies, especially since 2014, that they were willing to accept anything that was going to bring change for the sake of change. They didn’t have the comfort or know how from such stress to accurately reflect on just how much of a clown show things actually were.

The people themselves were fooled into supporting an incompetent oligarchic puppet that said what sounded nice over the various sullied, more predictable oligarchic puppets. So no, I can’t see why anyone should blame the voters and not the people and institutions that brought the Ukrainian people here.

I'm not blaming anyone, I'm just commenting on the ineptness of SOTP.

I mean the sarcastic connotations of “who woulda thought” does sounds like a bit like you blaming the voters tbh.

[PSOL]

Glad to see SOTP imploding

Who woulda thought an inexperienced comedian would be an awful President.

The Ukrainian people were subjugated to so much stress and lies, especially since 2014, that they were willing to accept anything that was going to bring change for the sake of change. They didn’t have the comfort or know how from such stress to accurately reflect on just how much of a clown show things actually were.

The people themselves were fooled into supporting an incompetent oligarchic puppet that said what sounded nice over the various sullied, more predictable oligarchic puppets. So no, I can’t see why anyone should blame the voters and not the people and institutions that brought the Ukrainian people here.

PSOL, unfortunately, I can not agree with you. Ukrainian voters are most to blame for Zelensky becoming president.

People either did not want to or could not (in most cases not know how) to analyze the situation. During the campaign, Zelensky made many, many odious statements, after which normal, intelligent voters would never have voted for him, but Ukrainians did not want to see Poroshenko's achievements and allowed Kolomoisky's TV channels to manipulate them.

This picture best illustrates the presidential election:


Where Poroshenko is slowly building a ladder:
1. Army
2. Faith
3. Language
4. Tomos
5. Decentralization
and more

And Zelensky easily ascended the throne thanks to TV channels
"News One"
"1 + 1"
"Ours"
"112 Ukraine"
"Inter"

This just strengthens my argument. Zelenskiy had an entire news channel acting as a mouthpiece in blasting good PR about him, along with stations being more favorable to him than the other candidates. Why then are you blaming the Ukrainian people, whose only sources of news are clearly biased, and not the oligarchs owning the vast majority of news programs in Ukraine feeding a clown’s campaign?

[PSOL]

Uh, come on, guys. Zelensky is awful president, but Poroshenko wasn't Lee Kuan Yew either, just another corrupt east european politician. And he has TV support before 2019 election as well: "1+1" was pro-Zelensky, but Fifth Channel and Pryamoi were very pro-Poroshenko. Pinchuk's and Achmetov's channels were neutral.

New SMC polling research, by the way.
https://smc.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020-06-22-PR.pdf

For the first time in my memory Zelensky has negative approval ratings
Approve/Disapprove
41.3/50.2%

Voting intentions
SOTP 30.5%
Opposition Party "For Life" 18.6%
European Solidarity 12%
Fatherland 9.7%
Others less than 5%.

European Solidarity (party of Poroshenko) now leads in West Ukraine, OP (pro-russian) leads in Donbass and is near-second with SOTP in East and South. SOTP with comfortable lead in Central Ukraine, European Solidarity, OP, and Fatherland all around 10%

Imagine saying that Poroshenko is corrupt, while his net worth shrank  by 40% comparing to 2014. Guy literally gave away millions to Army, for example, buying AA defense assets  around Kyiv in 2014.

All Ukrainian oligarchs lost huge amounts of their net worth after EuroMaidan, that doesn’t mean anything really. And him investing in protecting his remaining assets isn’t exactly altruistic of him either.

[PSOL]

Children of soldiers have privileges during universities admission. As for this measure - i think great move from government. Demographic situation in Ukraine is terrible, and Country needs young people from LDNR.

Why does Ukraine need people from the LDPR who hate Ukraine and all Ukrainian, who want this state not to exist? People who are patriots have long ago left these territories, so it is not necessarily to talk about the patriots of Ukraine in LDPR

And about Poroshenko's corruption. He was corrupt, but he wasn't as corrupt as Zelensky and Tymoshenko. And Poroshenko is, easily, the least corrupt politician in Ukraine

In Syria, pensions and payments to government employees were still ongoing even after being taken over by the myriad of groups in the Civil War. It’s about not relinquishing the view that that territory, along with its people, is still Ukrainian.

[PSOL]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1288149082247180288

[PSOL]

Why Opossition Plataform has gone up in the polls and do they have an ideology other than "Rusia not bad"?

Rating of "Opposition Platform" is rising because rating of SOTP is falling. In 2019, most of the pro-Russian electorate voted for Zelensky and SOTP, and now that people are disappointed in Zelensky, the pro-Russian electorate is returning to the OPFL.

In OPLF the main ideology is:
× Europe and USA are bad, Russia is good
× we need Russian as a second state language
× we don't need Ukrainian language at all
× we don't need our autocephalous church
× we have civil war in Ukraine
× Poroshenko is the worst because he is pro-NATO, pro-EU and he is a Ukrainian patriot. Basically all

What's roughly SOTP's floor / OPFL's ceiling?

I bet the SOTP won't get even 3% in the next election in 2024. There is no ideology in this party, and there have been so many scandals in recent months that it is difficult to count. People are very quickly disappointed in it.

OPFL can reach 30%. I think this is the biggest number they can get. The days when pro-Russian parties could get more than 50% are long gone

To say that SOTP can collapse so quickly is wishful thinking, considering how much backing they have in the media. Unless 1+1 is somehow shut down or loses all credibility in Ukraine, then there’s very little chance it fully loses all of their seats in the next election. However, the election after that and the building political fallout could finally end their presence in parliament.

Is there any chance that if SOTP fails to garner a majority, will they form a coalition government with OPFL? Has anyone hinted at a possibility for it to happen or not?

[PSOL]

Yes Andriy, I’m very interested in hearing how badly Zelenskiy and his merry band are f•••ing up.

[PSOL]

Kolomoisky bought US property with embezzled funds

[PSOL]

Did Ihor get his bank back?

[PSOL]

Ukraine has a right to defend itself, just as the rightful representative of the Ukrainian people, the Black Army, did against the Tsar and Bolsheviks—but the options here are not war or Ukrainian annihilation. The recent flexing and insanity since 2014 can end if the EuroMaidan putsch government resigns (The US can make them), stops the electoral suppression, and hosts a free and fair election free from any oligarchic influence. No Ukrainian wants this hellscape to go any longer, and the US government supporting the current militias and oligarchs will cause blowback once there are millions of dollars worth of weapons sold on the black market to terrorist groups around the world.

[PSOL]

Ukraine has a right to defend itself, just as the rightful representative of the Ukrainian people, the Black Army, did against the Tsar and Bolsheviks—but the options here are not war or Ukrainian annihilation. The recent flexing and insanity since 2014 can end if the EuroMaidan putsch government resigns (The US can make them), stops the electoral suppression, and hosts a free and fair election free from any oligarchic influence. No Ukrainian wants this hellscape to go any longer, and the US government supporting the current militias and oligarchs will cause blowback once there are millions of dollars worth of weapons sold on the black market to terrorist groups around the world.

You know, PSOL, every election in Ukraine was fair and free. Each since independence (excluding Round 2 of 2004, when the results were falsified in favor of Yanukovych, resulting in the Orange Revolution). In 1999, Kuchma's main rival, Chornovil, was killed. Of course, the latter would have won if he had been alive, but in reality Kuchma defeated Symonenko without any falsifications. The 2014 elections were completely fair and transparent. As for 2019, I cannot deny that the influence of the oligarchs took place, but it was rather a manipulation of voters' opinions through slander against Poroshenko. The elections of that year were fair and free.

As for Euromaidan, it was not a coup, and the Nazis did not come to power as a result, as is popularly believed. The power that was established after the Euromaidan was absolutely legitimate, and Poroshenko became the first President to take care, first of all, of the country and then of himself, and not the other way around, as everyone before and after him did.

I never said this, nor have I believed it since the creation of this thread.

EuroMaidan was a US-backed coup that has led to the state financing fascist groups to routinely harass and attack opponents of the new regime. As bad as Yanukovich was, the dominant faction on the streets were those willing to sell Ukraine to the highest bidder to the EU and NATO bloc, not anyone who cares about the people.

The severe entrenchment of Ukrainian oligarchs from the chaos and insanity of the news media in fooling the people to vote in for austerity freaks and for some to join fascist militias to fight not just Russia, but hidden columns in Ukraine threatening the Ukrainian “race”. This cannot be compared to the regulatory control in the EU and even the United States.

For the United States to give the Mobotu and Shah treatment to the current clown administration and allow for an interim government to take control is the best course of action to preserve the current boundaries of the state of Ukraine and for the mismanagement to stop. Peace is still possible here. Prosperity and freedom for your people is still possible here.

[PSOL]

How are labor unions and workers rights viewed in post-2014 Ukraine? Has there been any sweeping legislation put forth by each prime minister that changed the local dynamic aside from the mass privatization and lustration?

[PSOL]

So NATO is getting involved, then yeah, I doubt conflict arises this time. Eventually the time will be that Russia will invade Ukraine and perhaps the Baltics, but I doubt it happens now.