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Bogutskaya, as always, saddled the workhorse of radical nationalism. Photo: Facebook / liza.bogutskaya
The battle for the vaccine: “servant” versus “servant”
Yesterday he confirmed once again that the Servant of the People party is a “random set of numbers” that have nothing in common. Indicative in this regard was the conflict between two popular deputies from the pro-government faction, Liza Bogutskaya and Aleksandr Kachura, which, according to the statements, could end in a lawsuit between them.
The bone of contention between the two “servants” was the Russian coronavirus vaccine. After Kachura said he would have to buy it if the drug proved effective, Bogutskaya resorted to name calling and called his faction colleague “a dumb shoe.” At the same time, he distorted Kachura’s statement, saying that he proposed to vaccinate Ukrainians with a “Russian semi-finished product” (although, as already mentioned, the People’s Deputy spoke about purchases in case of proof of effectiveness). Actually, after this statement from Bogutskaya, Kachura said that he would go to court.
Interestingly, the supporter of the Russian vaccine conducted this discussion by correspondence in Ukrainian and the opponent in Russian. Which proves once again the inconsistency of the claims that the language of communication determines the worldview.
But in this case, the essence of the issue is not in the language, but in the opposition of the worldview of two deputies from one faction.
This worldview is as different as the ideology of the Opposition for Life Platform and, say, the Voice or Poroshenko’s party.
And the root cause of the fact that such discord is happening in “Servant of the People” and the mono-majority is breathing for itself in such a difference. When people who were completely incompatible with each other gathered into a faction.
Well, for Zelensky, all of this is again an indicator of how difficult everything is on his team.
Is Zelensky ready to go?
Zelensky made his statement about the connection between the president’s political perspective and the issue of peace almost in parallel with how Bogutskaya urged against using the Russian vaccine. It was made in a BBC interview that appeared yesterday.
However, objectively speaking, the interview turned out to be contradictory and, to some extent, this contradiction only explains the simultaneous presence of Kachura and Bogutskaya in Servant of the People. Because, on the one hand, the Ukrainian president declares that he is ready to leave if he does not achieve peace, on the other hand, he opposes the peace process in the way that is recognized by the whole world.
Zelenskiy now openly tells everyone, including the West, that he is not satisfied with the Minsk accords as they were signed in 2015. It is the same procedure, when the first elections will be held and then the transfer of the border under Ukrainian control.
At the same time, the president of Ukraine offers no real alternative. He still wants the points reversed: first the border and then the elections. And he stubbornly refuses to explain: who will guarantee the safety of the inhabitants of Donbass at a time when (according to his version) the border will already be under control, and there will be no legitimate authorities and local power structures in the territories of the current ones ” republics “. After all, it is enough to look at the chaos of the radicals in Kiev to understand that the Ukrainian government is not even capable of defending itself in the capital, and there is no need to speak of the inhabitants of Donbass.
Therefore, Zelensky must decide: either he really wants peace and is ready to take real compromise measures, or, as he himself put it, he had better leave, leaving the chair for someone else. Because with the current course of the Ukrainian authorities, we will definitely not achieve peace, we will simply lose four more years in the mode of a slow conflict that can turn into a hot phase at any moment.
Ukraine – Poland: one minute of silence and one hour of silence
Zelenskiy’s contradictions were also reflected in talks yesterday with the re-elected President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, who arrived in Kiev on an official visit.
These negotiations showed that, on the one hand, the tension in the relations between the two countries, which existed during the time of Petro Poroshenko, was clearly dormant, but on the other hand, the main problems of these relations are not being solved, but simply silenced.
This, of course, concerns first and foremost the loudest issue in Ukrainian-Polish relations: historical memory. Although the process of exhumation of the dead, which had been inhibited during the Poroshenko-Vyatrovich era, is now unfrozen, the parties have not reached a common denominator on how to deal with historical figures who have the opposite interpretation in both countries.
Specifically, this boils down to the graves of the UPA fighters, whose names as “Ukrainian freedom fighters” the Ukrainian side demands to be restored on a monument located on Polish territory. At the same time, for the Poles, this demand is blasphemy, since we are talking about the members of the organization that organized the systematic genocide of their fellow tribesmen in 1943. And until Kiev renounces its demand, the conflict will continue in a latent state.
And the same applies to the question of teaching in schools in the languages of national minorities. Zelensky promised that Polish schools in Ukraine will return the rights they had before 2017, forgetting that on a similar issue, both the Foreign Ministry and the Verkhovna Rada do not want to make concessions to the Hungarians.
So, most likely, this element was included in the joint statement of the two presidents as a formality, with the expectation that the Poles will do nothing for Ukrainian schools in Poland and will not demand a response.
Tariff decentralization: who will stop the disaster?
While the president is busy with international politics, the government has decided to experiment with domestic politics. Thus, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a bill for submission to parliament, which completely transfers the issue of public service fees to local authorities. This decentralization can only be welcomed if it is not known where it will lead.
At the moment, the most important tariff, that of heating, is regulated by the National Commission of Energy and Public Services. It may differ in different regions, but these differences are not significant.
But the cold water tariff has long been left at the mercy of the local authorities and the center cannot influence it in any way. Result: in some cities, a cubic meter of water costs 20-25 hryvnia, in others – 50-55 hryvnia. Furthermore, this story is not new: 10 years ago, the government of Mykola Azarov (which had much more weight in the eyes of local authorities than the current one) tried to regulate this problem, but could not even eliminate the huge imbalances on the issue of the water”. And now the regional authorities do not take into account the center at all, just look at how all instructions on quarantine on the ground are ignored.
And in such a situation, the government wants to give the regions the opportunity to set the heating rates themselves. What caused so much generosity is anyone’s guess. But there is no doubt that it will all come down to what we already have with cold water: in some cities, heating the Soviet “unit” will cost a thousand hryvnia per month, and in others, three thousand.
One thing is surprising: it seems that the Cabinet of Ministers does not understand that this is not only a market issue, but also a political one. And that Zelensky will pay for tripling the cost of heating, with his rating.
Belarusian Maidan: protests return to power phase
The situation in Belarus seems to move in a circle. Or in a spiral.
The last weekend was marked by protest actions, during which there were clashes between members of the “Maidan” police and stones and bottles were thrown at the security officers. This cannot be called a new stage in the history of the “Belarusian revolution”: in the first days after the elections, there was a moment when the protesters tried to accelerate events using force. But then the scenario of power was perceived negatively by the majority of the country’s population, and the organizers cut it down.
However, a new version has now been produced. Apparently, the headquarters of the protest has run out of fantasy about peaceful actions (or they realized that the current scenario leads nowhere), and decided to try again to accelerate events.
It was exactly the same in Ukraine on January 19, 2014, the day the peaceful Maidan ended and a violent confrontation began. In our version, it turned into a spiral movement, from the violent actions of December 1, 2013 through the peaceful protest of the following weeks to “Bloody Sunday” in Grushevsky and further on the same trajectory.
Over the weekend, the Belarusian security forces used water cannons against the radicals (this was also the case with Hrushevsky), and yesterday announced their readiness to use firearms. Perhaps this is just a threat that will never materialize. But this is an indicator that the situation in the country is not simple. Although the actions are less and less numerous, they are taking more radical forms.
And much depends on how the authorities react to this.
