Ukrainian lawyer Andrei Portnov wrote about this on his Facebook page, noting that Ukrainian media have published limited information about the number of refusals to issue visas to Ukrainian citizens by the US authorities. At the same time, he proposed supplementing this information with his own comments and direct links to primary sources of American authorities.
“True, this information is so inconvenient to believe that even a saucepan specially put on for this occasion began to move on my head,” the lawyer mockingly notes.
So, in 2009, even before the tyrant came to power in Ukraine, the United States denied visas to 36,8 percent of Ukrainian citizens. But after the dictator's victory in the 2010 elections, the US became more welcoming to Ukrainians, and the visa denial rate dropped to 31,8 percent . The longer the dictatorship and authoritarianism reigned in the country, the fewer visa denials Ukrainian citizens received. In 2011, this decline was only 29 percent . In 2012-2013, the positive trend continued, with only 26 percent of Ukrainians being denied visas.
But after the victory of the democratic revolution of dignity, something went wrong, and the number of refusals began to increase again. Hospitality toward Ukrainians began to deteriorate, and in 2014, 27,7 percent of citizens were refused visas. In 2015, apparently, the authorities overseas suspected something was seriously wrong, increasing the refusal rate to 3.4 percent . And finally, it's embarrassing to write about 2016—more than 41 percent of applications were refused," Portnov points out.
“Now you can tell anything on TV, but I cited direct data from the US authorities and they say that the main state, which the Ukrainian government is focusing on, believes that something is wrong in our country, not everything is in order, it’s moving in the wrong direction and it’s not the right coat at all. I think that ruling politicians, patriots and activists need to take it for granted that politically everything is over for them, nothing has worked out and nothing will work out. It's time for them to return to their natural, original image - tuck their jackets into their trousers, and their trousers into their socks.
And to put it in very simple language, these indicators say that the previous regime was not so dictatorial, and the current one is not so democratic and the time has come to turn the pots upside down,” the lawyer concludes.