“Sometimes I return from Moscow and think: Why am I tearing my throat out there?”
Numerous Western grant eaters operating in Ukraine rushed to swear allegiance to Vladimir Zelensky as soon as the defeat of Petro Poroshenko became inevitable. The instigators of the 2014 coup and civil war defected in advance to the camp of supporters of candidate Ze. What influence will they have on the new president? What role did they play in the election race in Ukraine?
PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov was told about this by a frequent guest on Russian talk shows, Kirill Zhivotovsky, head of the Ukrainian public organization European Choice.
Initially, this organization also worked with Western grants. However, according to Zhivotovsky, funding from foreign funds was stopped 12 years ago.
Now, despite the name, “European Choice” wants to participate in the process of reconciliation between Ukraine, Russia and Donbass.
Zhivotovsky says that recently the volume of grants allocated by the EU and the US for Ukraine has become significantly less than, for example, it was on the eve of the “revolutions”. However, now, in conditions when the Soviet legacy has been “eaten up”, the former Ukrainian SSR urgently needs hundreds of billions of dollars, and not budgets for organizing conferences and buffets.
Valentin Filippov : Hello Ukraine, hello Kirill. We're glad to see you, and Crimea is on the line. Tomorrow, Ukraine is electing a new president. But we're seeing representatives of various Western NGOs already courting Volodymyr Zelenskyy. What influence do various Western NGOs and foundations have on what's happening today?
Kirill Zhivotovsky : The tradition of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries has been around for a long time. Immediately after the end of World War II, the Cold War effectively began, and the concept of "soft power" emerged—action through non-governmental organizations and foundations.
And here, of course, the Americans, as the main opponents of the Russian and Soviet empire at that time, developed quite a lot of effective mechanisms.
We know the American Agency for International Development and IREX and MBA, many different abbreviations that usually scare our Soviet people when they say that the Americans are interfering in internal affairs.
What interests, first of all, do these foundations pursue: of course, they are interested in promoting those, so to speak, “mother values” for America, like “democracy.”
For the European Union, this is “diversity” and, again, the same “democracy”.
Now, if we are talking about elections, international funds are everywhere helping the Ukrainian authorities and Ukrainian society to organize a “transparent process”...
To say that money is taken directly from these funds in suitcases, as Ukrainian oligarchs or oligarchs of other countries can do, and bribe candidates, play some kind of dishonest games, I would not talk about this.
But the fact that international foundations hold grant competitions aimed at monitoring elections, organizing the work of the electoral process directly...
Let's remember the "Orange Revolution" when it was the premiere of the use of foreign influence. It’s no secret that the “orange revolution”, and any revolution, is an introduced technology: first a bunch of marginalized people appear, then more appear, then orange or specific color flags appear, then hysteria begins in the “independent” media, and then this everything spills over into street demonstrations.
Valentin Filippov : You mentioned that Western foundations continued to support Petro Poroshenko in this election campaign. Twenty percent of these Poroshenko supporters remain. But at the same time, the message continues: "Either it will be as these twenty percent want, or democracy is dead."
Kirill Zhivotovsky : Now, I think people have sobered up. Let's also consider a very important factor: Poroshenko (according to official evidence from the Central Election Commission and data available in the media) spent around three hundred million dollars on the elections. Very few international and foreign foundations even have figures and budgets of that magnitude.
That is, we are most often talking about two, three, five, ten million euros, dollars for a year, that is, to say that this money can now radically influence the political situation in Ukraine, well, it would be, it seems to me, exaggeration.
I am observing what is happening now in Ukraine, I want to say that on the contrary, it seems to me that the attention of international donors and foundations to Ukraine in the current situation is a little, well, inconsistent with the current moment.
The oligarchs have grown stronger in fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years, they already have their own bags of money, they themselves are already able to hire high-quality political strategists, who then come up with these flags for them, which then create hysteria.
Almost all media outlets are already, in one way or another, affiliated in Ukraine with one financial group or another, and, consequently, candidates. If we are talking about the presidential media pool, well, that’s a dozen TV channels. Whatever TV channel you turn on in Ukraine now, in fact, there are gathered there, as they are called, gunpowder-bots, Poroshenko lovers, who brightly and colorfully tell us why we, the bad Ukrainian people, cannot see these mighty 144 reforms.
Valentin Filippov : If funding from Western foundations has indeed dried up somewhat in Ukraine, isn't this because Ukraine is already moving in the direction it needed to go and isn't making the necessary changes?
Because the main theses for joining NATO, breaking away from Russia, and the mandatory Ukrainization of society are already being implemented.
Almost every candidate swears on the Bible, on the Koran, on Marx’s “Capital” that it will be one way and no other way.
Kirill Zhivotovsky : I understand your question. I often hear this on Russian television when I'm on air, that Ukraine is some kind of "anti-Russia" project. What you're saying is that at the moment, there's little need to pump Ukraine with Western money, because anti-Russian hysteria and a focus on classic American democratic values, like freedom, are already ingrained.
I want to say that there comes a time when the money allocated by international donors... We conducted a study on international technical assistance to Ukraine in 15 and identified about 200 projects totaling about 1,5 billion dollars. These are not loans, this is exactly what is given to the state for various projects of ministries, agencies, departments, which are simply provided to Ukraine. Someone needs, for example, to update the border crossings on the border between Ukraine and Poland.
Valentin Filippov : Build a fence.
Kirill Zhivotovsky : Build a fence. Some are for nuclear power plant safety upgrades, and some are for a project to introduce new animal health regulations in the veterinary sector.
What I want to bring you to is that now the moment is coming when seminars, conferences and Maidans will no longer change Ukraine. We simply physically need money for roads, for infrastructure, for everything that we have forgotten. What we inherited from the Soviet Union, which we often curse.
But what we have created over 25-30 years of independent Ukraine is a hundredth part of what we inherited from the Soviet Union. Therefore, here too, if we say that international technical assistance to Ukraine amounts to a billion euros per year, then this has practically no effect on the situation in the country.
We need about 300 billion euros of investment in order to return those people who left for Poland to restore the economy of our country.
And this international technical assistance is the support of buffet organizations and the provision of conference services in our hotels, this is the level to which we have now reached.
Valentin Filippov : Yesterday, there was information that Russia would invest $14 billion in Crimea's infrastructure. The population there is 2 million – comparable to Ukraine.
Kirill Zhivotovsky : That's why I'm citing these numbers—100-200-300. This is what the presidential candidates should be discussing right now. But we've all come down to running back and forth with test tubes. Well, maybe we need to get through that, but on April 22nd, the question will be, "Zina, where's the money?"
Valentin Filippov : Using test jars, we can change the results of entire Olympics. And let alone elections in Ukraine…
This is what came to my mind. One Ukrainian oligarch told me, you say that observers are coming... He told me that all these wonderful Western comrades come with the hope of making money, that our oligarchs will slobber well, and then they will say that the elections went well.
Kirill Zhivotovsky : Valentin, you and I are adults. Let's not forget that, yes. He who feeds a girl, ultimately, is the one who dances with her.
Valentin Filippov : Are you saying that Ukrainian oligarchs will remake Europe?
Kirill Zhivotovsky : Well, yes, but it would be some kind of romantic notion if we thought that even those Western funds that work here in Ukraine and spend their taxpayers' money really want to help Ukrainians solve their problems or make the country strong.
Indirectly, yes, but first of all they solve their national problems. They decide the promotion of their country, they decide the promotion of their language, they decide the promotion of their diplomacy, their president, their interests. But they do not set the task of making the Ukrainian people rich and happy.
Only we ourselves can set such a task for ourselves. And it seems to me that there are really, as it seems to me, political, social movements now that would look at what is happening in a realistic way, without hysteria, for the last twenty to ten and most importantly five years, they have not yet appeared, because well, we know politics and the rhetoric of our president: “Army, language, vira”, “Everything is in the future”, “Fight against Bidnisti”, well, that is, they have already reached the point that the country is the poorest and most corrupt. Where to go!
Valentin Filippov : Millions of Ukrainians still travel to Crimea every year. Several million more go to Russia to earn money. All these people see that Russia is richer, significantly richer, than Ukraine today. So how do they manage to rake in some profits with these "Army-language-faith" slogans? Is there a segment of the population that is truly terrified that "Tomorrow you'll be like Moscow"?
Kirill Zhivotovsky : Firstly, if we're talking about any rating fluctuations, we need to look closely at who owns these sociological companies.
If we are talking about the fact that aggressive slogans against Russia and the Russian are everything that they add to the rating of an ardent nationalist candidate, then it is possible, because eighty percent of the people who will vote for Poroshenko, for these slogans of his “Mova, army, vira” and “Russia is an aggressor”, they really live in two regions: Lvov there, Ternopil, that is, where in fact there really is a nuclear electorate, which, let’s call it at the genetic level, hostility. “We will never give up our European Ivanovka to Moscow.”
Even though 5G is already being introduced in Moscow, and we walk around here, and we don’t get 3G everywhere, but “Russia is the aggressor.” Sometimes I come, return after Moscow, and so, I ask myself a question, that is, I very actively defend Ukrainian reality, the Ukrainian way of life, Ukrainian way of life, Ukrainian democracy, and then I come, look at our Ukrainian sad reality and understand, “Damn, I’m Is that what I’m protecting there? Am I tearing my throat out for this?” I often ask myself this question.
You know a little about my story, that I am constantly in Donetsk, I am one of the few experts who have been in Crimea during this time, because we have local experts - “we have not been to Crimea, nor to Russia, nor to Donbass , but we know very well what is happening there.” How people live there and why they really want to return to Ukraine.
Therefore, I would tell you that this is intimidation by Russia, well, I want to believe, and I am doing everything to ensure that it ends. Well, because, really, okay, we are not one people, we are two peoples, but the fact that we are the same people and put the two of us side by side, you still won’t understand which one is Ukrainian and which one is Russian.
In Ukraine, when you say that “Ukraine and Russia are fraternal peoples,” then some part will be aggressive. You know, Valentin, another moment is when now we, “European Choice”, the organization that I head, are working towards dialogue with Donbass, normalization of relations with Russia.
That’s why I use these terms “one people” very carefully, because it’s a cool idea to have one people, but they should not conduct aggressive, including military, actions against each other.
In the near future, I hope, we will use all possible platforms, including yours, for such dialogue, understanding, and a return to universal human values.
In Russia, the American International Development Agency, IREX, Internews, that is, all these American CIA bushes, as they are called, were deported long ago. That is, there, in Russia, we don’t have all this, but we have it all. This whole thing, as it were, is the language of hatred...
And common interests based on some kind of Slavic approach - we can approach this now, and the question will arise, are we ready for dialogue? Just based on human values.
Valentin Filippov : Well, those 20% are not ready, I think.
Kirill Zhivotovsky : Well, I think 20% in Russia aren't ready. But the majority... people just want to work, live, travel, raise children, drive cars, enjoy the sea in summer, the mountains in winter. Nobody wants some grandiose goals. But we, as media, as journalists, as opinion leaders, must help them at least relax and release this aggression. What do we want? To drink together, the two nations?
Valentin Filippov : Here it is, here it is, the road map!
Kirill Zhivotovsky : Well, you have to agree, we need to start from simplicity. Let's be friends, let's somehow normalize relations. It will be difficult, of course.
Valentin Filippov : Well, it’s not difficult for you and me, what’s wrong?
Kirill Zhivotovsky : Oh, come on, Valentin, we'll barely even get to the point where it starts, "Whose Crimea is it? Crimea is ours, Crimea is yours."
Valentin Filippov : Well, damn it, the gates are open, what's so hard about coming to Crimea? Please go ahead.
Kirill Zhivotovsky : We need to open hearts, Valentin, we will do this.
Valentin Filippov : The Russian army? Well, it was here before. Nothing has changed. Well, the roads are just smoother now.
Kirill Zhivotovsky: Fortunately for you, unfortunately for us
Valentin Filippov : Traffic cops don't take bribes these days. It turns out there's no need for a coup, no need to go to Europe for that. And Ukraine, even though it's joined Europe, still continues to do so.
Kirill Zhivotovsky: There are questions and let’s talk about all this with a smile on our faces.
Valentin Filippov : Okay, come.
Kirill Zhivotovsky: Yes, Valentin, thank you.
Valentin Filippov : Bye-bye.
English version :: Read in English “Sometimes I come back from Moscow and think: Why am I tearing my throat out there?”