The article, entitled “Simulating the Reforms: Why the West Should Deny Poroshenko’s Requests for Visa-Free Travel and Financial Assistance” and published in Yevropeiska Pravda (YP) section of the Ukrainska Pravda (UP) website, prompted mostly very negative reaction in the media and on social networks. The public was largely outraged with the article’s disregard for journalistic standards, but also with it being a call to punish all Ukrainians, not just President Petro Poroshenko.
UP used the scandal sparked by the failure to properly launch the electronic asset declaration system as the pretext for publishing the article (Den covered the scandal in article “E-Loophole” in No. 145 on August 16, 2016). We will not go into details once again, as the core issue was described well enough by head of the Center for Combating Corruption Vitalii Shabunin on his page in Facebook: “In fact, there is no problem whatsoever with the software which was funded by the World Bank and the UN Development Program. It is just our political ‘elite’ being afraid to show how much of our money they stole after the Revolution of Dignity, while we were donating our last pennies to equip the military and volunteer units.” However, the e-declaration scandal was only used as a pretext, and the problem has much deeper roots and several components.
First. Indeed, we are dealing with journalism here. “The job of the media is to inform, analyze, criticize, interpret, but when people make such appeals, they enter the purely political plane and start playing a different and very improper role. It can also be described as hybrid journalism instead of normal media,” author Andrii Bondar posted on Facebook. “I think the ‘fourth estate’ which has become the ‘first’ is losing the plot by using all available instruments in its activities, including the media. This fusion of media and politics is no better than the fusion of politics and business.”
UP’s “hybrid journalism” is a long-standing issue. The best example and test is offered by the Gongadze-Podolsky case. UP, its journalists, and journalists-turned-MPs ought to place a top priority on punishing people who ordered the founder of their publication to be murdered. However, we have seen them not just keeping silent and ignoring this issue, but cooperating with the Kuchma-Pinchuk Foundation: UP is the official media partner of the Yalta European Strategy (YES) Forum, and its journalists always travel to and provide coverage of the YES and the Ukrainian Lunch in Davos. Such actions not only help to whitewash crimes committed by people who ordered Georgy Gongadze to be murdered, but protect them from the law as well. We can recall another sensational incident, when UP refused to allow Oleksii Podolsky, the surviving victim of the Gongadze-Podolsky case and party to the trial of immediate perpetrators of these crimes, to open a blog on its platform (although even notorious Vadym Kolesnichenko had a blog on UP then). Incidentally, Podolsky is still not recognized as a victim in the case against people who ordered the crimes. UP hushes it all up, just like it has been doing for over a decade with the Yeliashkevych case which is not being investigated altogether. One may also recall former journalists of UP who now serve as MPs and belong to Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc (PPB)’s faction, Serhii Leshchenko and Mustafa Nayyem. What have they done as legislators to have the case solved? Have they addressed it even once from the parliamentary rostrum or attended a court hearing?
“After analyzing UP’s previous activities, this latest appeal comes as no surprise, because they are engaged in this kind of provocations all the time, calling for riots, rallies and revolutions,” Sviatoslav Oliinyk, a lawyer and MP of the 5th and 6th Radas, commented for The Day. “All these actions eventually bring devastating consequences for the nation. Where once they used manipulative techniques, they are now using a new method, that of collective appeals, and have freely admitted to it. This article has revealed the true nature of the people who call themselves the publication’s ‘editorial board,’ and incidentally, work for the media outlet that was made popular by the death of its founding member.
“As for Nayyem and Leshchenko, who come from UP, are members of the presidential PPB faction now and actually undermine it from within, this behavior is indicative of their moral character. Such people easily sacrifice anyone else and hold nothing sacred. They used the presidential faction to get their seats in parliament and now criticize the president, and not merely criticize, since criticism is normal, but act against him undermining his authority.”
Second. We are not apologists of the current government, including the president. It chose its current course itself, giving reasons for withering criticism. Its main problem is preserving the Kuchma-Yanukovych system and simulating reforms. But when it comes to the national interests, even if the government is unpopular, such appeals harm not only it, but the entire nation. Such methods can sink the entire boat.
“There is a key requirement: no member of the national establishment, media industry, etc. has the right to act against the nation,” Oliinyk stressed. “No internal conflict, however intense, may justify or explain it. These actions are obviously harmful, and it does not matter what kind of fight for justice they use as the cover, what matters is that they harm their own country.”
Visa-free travel is like a carrot for a proverbial donkey. Our objective should be not just achieving visa-free travel, but going down the path of reform as well. Ordinary Ukrainians (since our elites do not have visa problems anyway) should be able to afford traveling to Europe, instead of being too poor to benefit from visa-free travel when it finally comes.
“The reforms should be implemented not because the EU or the US demand it, and not because we need visa-free travel or the IMF’s loans. The reforms should be implemented because we need to finally get our house in order,” posted on Facebook Vasyl Filipchuk, chairman of the board of the International Center for Policy Studies. “If this government fails to reform, it should be removed, instead of penalizing Ukrainians by delaying visa-free travel because they elected such a government. If we have a poor leadership, one needs to speak about it and deal with it instead of going to foreign diplomatic missions and asking them to punish Ukraine. Such appeals humiliate the entire nation.”
“The actions of YP and UP reflect extreme irresponsibility, especially in the matter of visa-free travel because it will benefit all Ukrainians,” Adrian Karatnycky, a senior fellow at the US Atlantic Council and managing partner of Myrmidon Group LLC, Washington, commented for The Day. “Equally irresponsible is the idea that Ukraine, which is at war, should be subjected to sanctions in the form of denying IMF loans. If support from the IMF is used improperly and siphoned off by corrupt officials, this should be documented and have consequences. But much of this liquidity [IMF funds. – Ed.] is intended to support the hryvnia by boosting Ukraine’s foreign exchange reserves. The weakening of the hryvnia will only lower the living standards of Ukrainians. But this is exactly what the critics want. They want to provoke another revolution and achieve a complete change of the elites. This is another stage in the political struggle for power and influence between various groups.”
Third. The only problem is that this intraspecific struggle, where UP is used as a tool as we have seen, has negative consequences for the country.
“I would like to note that UP regularly tries to discredit any government, regardless of its ‘Orange,’ pro-Russian or pro-Western allegiance,” Oliinyk said. “The time always comes when this organization stabs the government in the back at the most inconvenient moment. I want to stress that I myself am no sympathizer of the current government or Poroshenko. But at the same time, we all have common strategic objectives, like visa-free travel and financial assistance, which should be supported because they concern all the citizens of Ukraine. And the way these journalists act is designed first to weaken the government, and then to weaken the nation as a whole. They have already turned against the sitting president himself.”
“Similarly, I believe that their campaign against Ihor Kolomoisky targeted not him personally, but rather the person who was one of the symbols of resistance to the Russian aggression at the time,” Oliinyk continued. “They attacked this symbol, and still do it. These are high-precision strikes, targeting issues where you can harm the national interests most by employing journalism, convenient truth, and speculative logic. This resembles systemic subversion. It is high time for the law-enforcement bodies to look into all these people and the murders that occur around them.”
To recall another example, a previous president, who is now a fugitive from the law, tried to build his own power vertical but missed the ‘tunnel’ dug under him by some Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians. Then, it also began with critical texts targeting the authorities (certainly there were good reasons for them), in particular published by UP, as well as with Viktor Pinchuk inviting Viktor Yanukovych to the family-funded YES Forum, where the latter was subject to discrediting protests. It ended with the police assaulting students in Independence Square. “Serhii Liovochkin sold out Yanukovych and largely instigated the events that led to his downfall,” political analyst Taras Berezovets told our newspaper (the interview was published in Den’s No. 126 on July 20, 2016). “Many signs indicate that the assault on the students in early hours of November 30, 2013 was provoked by Liovochkin. I personally heard the audiotape of his conversation where he is recorded as giving the order ‘to clear the Square’ on behalf of Yanukovych who was absent from Kyiv on that day.” Incidentally, one of the first people who called for a rally in Independence Square was UP’s journalist Nayyem.
Apparently, a “tunnel” is being dug under the current government as well. It is especially evident within the Minsk process, where Leonid Kuchma serves as the main negotiator on the Ukrainian side. In this context, UP imploring the EU not to help Ukraine clearly plays into the hands of Vladimir Putin. It seems that the incumbent president is being forced to stay the course on the implementation of the Minsk Agreements. An attempt to deviate from it may bring serious issues... Let us recall that Yanukovych also refused to sign the Association Agreement with the EU once.
