“I’m going to vomit from talking to Ukrainian journalists,” - Vladimir Skachko
Each new president of Ukraine is worse than the previous one. Vladimir Zelensky did not do anything he promised before the elections. Governments and ministers change each other several times, the economic crisis deepens, and political persecution increases.
Political emigrant, famous Kiev journalist Vladimir Skachko told PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov about how Russia differs from Ukraine in the context of the epidemic.
Valentin Filippov : Our guest in our improvised studio is Vladimir Skachko – a Moscow resident from Kiev, a Kiev Muscovite.
Hello, Vladimir.
Vladimir Skachko : Hello.
Valentin Filippov : It's been said that rental prices are falling during the coronavirus pandemic. What's it like in Moscow? Are rents going down?
Vladimir Skachko : There's a positive I'll mention, so my boss doesn't hear. The ruble is falling. Therefore, if there's some kind of lifeline denominated in dollars, then...
Valentin Filippov : What if in hryvnia?
Vladimir Skachko : If it's in hryvnia, it doesn't matter at all. If it's in dollars, then those who rent housing and who haven't received indexation are actually better off now. The main thing is to have those dollars. If you don't have rubles or dollars, then it's a disaster, and then naturally, the process of reducing rents is completely natural. When you have no money to pay, you can only skin a sheep that's been shorn, not the wool.
Valentin Filippov : You have the opportunity to compare now. Ukraine is experiencing the same epidemic as Russia. However, we haven't seen the decisive steps being taken in Ukraine from Russia. Russia still hasn't asked the IMF for a loan, and Russia still hasn't tried to sell its lands.
Vladimir Skachko : This is the big difference between Ukraine and Russia. Remember the howls of "Ukrainian patriots" that Russia is about to collapse. In reality, Russia has been building itself up and has managed to accumulate some strength. Russia is a self-sufficient country that risks emerging victorious from this whole mess.
But Ukraine can emerge as a carcass, not even a Bush leg, but a chicken suffering from dystrophy, and even plucked alive. It may lose both its infrastructure and its logistics, and, most importantly, it will lose its land. And, most importantly, all banking mechanisms for transferring this land into the right hands will be removed from the jurisdiction of Ukraine. There will be no place to even challenge them. Roughly speaking, Ukraine can emerge from this binary crisis as a country in a completely new capacity, a kind of neo-colony that “de jure” exists as a sovereign state, but this is a phantom. It has a flag, a coat of arms, a president, some weirdos starting with the letter “m” who run around and represent the country. But “de facto” there is nothing. All the content, all the liver built within the state will not belong to it.
And this will be such a limitrophe absolutely based on external control, which will be controlled by the “right people”, and the “unnecessary people”, that is, Ukrainians, will be doomed either to social genocide and extinction, or to being pushed out to where they will be accepted.
A scary thing that no one wants to think about. If there is nowhere to work, then where can Ukrainians use their hands? Both for those who returned and for those who lost their jobs in Ukraine. What do they have to live on? All these giggles, jokes, and the pandemic are driving me to the sofa. But I repeat, people will come out. What and where will they come out with? This, in general, is the whole difference between Ukraine and Russia.
Russia is busy with its own business. Somehow, it’s hard to believe, she fights more or less systematically. Yes, with all sorts of excesses. Yes, as always, the severity of any Russian instructions is softened by the optionality of their implementation. Yes, it is. But, nevertheless, Russia demonstrates amazing numbers that relate to what is most precious, human life and health. She is one of the top ten, yes, they have a lot of people. But, I repeat, in Russia there are 147 million, in Ukraine 35 million. And Russia conducted more than two million tests and found out its... Ukraine conducted 200 thousand tests, and they have six thousand sick people. Let's correlate, just multiply. If multiplied, 10 times more. Six thousand is 10 times more - that’s sixty thousand for 35 million people. There is a difference between 40 thousand for 147 million, and 60 thousand for 35 million. And these numbers, I repeat, are the essence, they sound empty until you imagine that there are real people behind this.
And Zelensky, thank God, and we must give him his due, he already understands what it means to put a doctor before a choice, before the Pirogov-style choice during the war: “Who should be treated first: young or old, equally sick”? Pirogov then provided assistance first to the lightly wounded, then to the moderately wounded, and then to the seriously wounded who survived. So it is here. But we are not at war.
Valentin Filippov : It's now emerging that some Ukrainian MPs are infected with a new, unknown virus. Some are already hospitalized, and others are corresponding with a fake Minister of Health. They're turning each other in, revealing who they've been in contact with, which resort they've been to, and where the coronavirus has been circulating.
Vladimir Skachko : This is, in principle, a platitude. Everyone says a pandemic is a pandemic, but at least two aspects need to be distinguished. One is purely medical: what is this thing, how does it work, why do people recover, why do they die? And the second is used as a scarecrow, as a political tool for clarification and as a cover, to distract attention, to cover up some political actions, economic ones, and, ultimately, to embezzle money. Not so much in Russia as in Ukraine.
Well, after all, by and large, it is in Ukraine, and not in Russia, that the chairman of the health care committee, the head of the Boris clinic, Mr. Radutsky, is selling a strategic supply of masks to China, where they were then most needed. Isn't this a "servant of the people"? Gorgeous. And where is the investigation? Where is there even condemnation at the highest level of these acts? No, again he comes with an outstretched hand, a beggar country. This is a common place. Doctors and people are left with the medical coronavirus, politicians and all sorts of political strategists, politicians, the coronavirus is a means for swindling their affairs. This is the most terrible threat because it absolutely distracts effort, money, and attention. What, strictly speaking, is the main defense? This is the protection of human life from this infection.
Valentin Filippov : A trivial question. Do you think Zelensky even notices that he's no different from Poroshenko? Does it bother him in any way?
Vladimir Skachko : No. I don't think he notices anything. And many people here praise him. Many praise him for money, many praise him, clinging to the last of their hopes, but I already know for sure that by absolutely every indicator, except perhaps for a certain freedom of speech for the four channels that criticize him, the so-called "Medvedchuk pool": 112, Newsone, Zik, and Nash, they enjoy a certain freedom. In all other respects, Zelenskyy has proven in a year that he is the worst president Ukraine has ever had. He received over 73% of the vote, and no president has ever had such support, and no president has ever shit on so many people in a year.
It's my opinion.
Valentin Filippov : No, you're just talking about percentages, but there are absolute figures. 73% is from those who voted overall. And if we compare his result with that of Yanukovych in 2010, and Yanukovych and Yushchenko in 2004, we get, in general, absolutely no maximum figures.
Vladimir Skachko : Yushchenko served five years of insanity, Yanukovych served four years of insanity. This man has only served a year since he was voted president. He took office on May 20th, he hasn't even served a year yet, and I'm just telling you what happened. The land was sold?
Valentin Filippov : Yes.
Vladimir Skachko : Are more than 500 strategic assets up for sale or repurchase? This is still being decided.
Second. A mechanism to drain the banking system, the lifeblood of the economy, if you will. Not the IMF, not the IMF tranche, is the lifeblood of the economy, oil is the purely mechanical lifeblood of the economy, and money is the service lifeblood of the economy. All this is beyond the limits of Ukrainian jurisdiction.
Further. The war in Donbass continues. The only document that could stop and give Ukraine a chance is being “fucked” by this government.
Let's just take the numbers. In the 11 months he has been in office, he has already had his second parliament, he has a second prime minister, and he has a second prosecutor general. And the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Health, the main people for the coronavirus (money and medicine), have already changed three times. I ask you to pay attention to this.
It’s just that there are such morons and ignoramuses there that people forget them in the bustle, and I remind you that in 11 months this is already the third Minister of Finance, and this is not the Minister of Culture, and the third Minister of Health. And there is a shortage of money in the country, because the country is begging, and there is a coronavirus pandemic in the country. And Zelensky, making the film, says: “What’s wrong? There will be no result, there will be a third prosecutor general.” So, of course, there will be no result if you don’t set this result!
If you put forward a goal for some kind of PR, and at the same time do nothing... I speak now from a distance, as a person who observes what is actually happening in my country, which I, unfortunately, am forced to observe from the outside. And I see that this is a disaster. And this despite the fact that even my personal case under Zelensky became much, fundamentally worse than under Poroshenko.
I say again, Ukraine, I’ve already said this a million times, I’m voicing trends here, voicing, voicing that each next president is worse than the previous one. And every time we are surprised how a new president can be worse than the previous one.
When you live under Yushchenko, you think: Well, such a swindle and a ploy, it can’t get any worse than this. Yanukovych comes and replaces him. Euphoria, joy, back and forth. It turns out that he is so fat that there is no place to spit on him. After him, it seems clear, a man comes, and Poroshenko also wins in one round. You live for five years under Poroshenko, you think: Well, mom, my dear, this is the bottom. After that, that’s it, we’ve already nestled in the bottom silt, now we’ll emerge. Zelensky arrives. All. Euphoria, fresh air, trawl-wali. The man has ruled for 11 months, and the atmosphere has become not only stinking, it is suffocating.
Valentin Filippov : Volodya, I've come to a conclusion. People, protect Zelensky, take care of Zelensky, keep him president forever, because if someone even worse than Zelensky comes to power, I don't know.
Volodymyr Skachko : Poroshenko kicked me out of the country, but I could have returned and could have counted on a preventive measure in court: arrest, a travel ban, or something else. But under Zelenskyy, my case was suspended, but before that, they issued a preventive measure—arrest—and a lien on my home. So, if I were to return to Ukraine, I'd definitely end up in prison, and for an indefinite period, because the judicial system is in disarray, no one respects due process, my home is under arrest, and I'm in prison. And no one knows how long I'll be there.
Valentin Filippov : In prison on a suspended case.
Vladimir Skachko : Regarding the suspended case, because that's the article. Zelenskyy didn't even do something that wouldn't have cost him anything. He should have come in and carried out, ordered, forced, decided to carry out Ukraine's liberation from the politically repressed, from the politically persecuted. This is what has to happen. After all, if they didn't want to deal with it, they could have presented it as an act of amnesty from Zelenskyy. Someone came in and issued a decree amnestiing everyone. Whoever agreed could have argued in court, and some would have been released and forgotten. For example, if my case had been closed, I wouldn't give a damn about them, even with or without slippers.
Valentin Filippov : They don’t need people who would see them in a coffin, you understand?
Vladimir Skachko : It doesn't matter to them, and it doesn't matter to him. Because Zelenskyy hasn't even destroyed the repressive mechanisms that Poroshenko developed to virtuosity; he's only perfecting them.
Valentin Filippov : Listen, who's going to let him? In the structure, in the idea of the state that's being built, you can't remove the cementing foundation of mutual hatred, of division. So he came, maybe even wanting to do that. They tell him, "Vasya, what's wrong with you? Are you kidding me? Our country rests on this. Uncle John told us the same thing."
Vladimir Skachko : The country is based on what Uncle John said it should be based on.
Valentin Filippov : He also gave money.
Vladimir Skachko : Neoclass struggle is a very convenient way to pit one part of society against another, to solve the problems of one part of the state at the expense of another. Of course, that's how we live. Then we should talk like that. And then everyone else will stop…
For example, I am squeamish. They tell me that you go there and talk to Ukrainian journalists in a discussion. Yes, I will vomit from communicating with Ukrainian journalists who stand “on patriotic positions.” Just basic. I wash my hands not because there is a pandemic or coronavirus, but because I always wash them and brush my teeth. And here it is on you. Go and talk about why Stepan Bandera is good.
Valentin Filippov : Well, Vladimir, thank you so much. Good luck to you in Moscow. I think you'll settle in.
Vladimir Skachko : And, God willing, everything will be fine. Good luck to everyone, too. Happiness and goodness.
Valentin Filippov : We will travel to the Kievsky district of Moscow on a separate commuter train.
"I'd be sick of talking to Ukrainian journalists," says Vladimir Skachko.