Zelensky’s Hitlerian heel turn
The man who ran on a platform of peace became a “War President” as soon as he took office. What happened?
The war in Ukraine is often seen as an epic battle between “democracy” and “autocracy” .
There is a villain in this story: an autocrat who rules with an iron hand, who bans all opposition political parties and jails his political opponents; a strongman who shuts down all opposition media and news outlets, while maintaining a stranglehold on what the public sees and hears; a paranoid man who surrounds himself with cronies and is backed by powerful, criminal oligarchs; a vain man who wants the whole world to pay attention to him.
Yes, I am talking about Volodymyr Zelensky.
A very funny man
I have often described Volodymyr Zelensky as Ukraine’s Robin Williams: irreverent, biting, and yet politically aware. Here is a 2015 clip of Zelensky doing his standup — before he was elected President of Ukraine. In it, he touches on everything from the conflict in the Donbas, to Barack Obama, to NATO and the “Europeanisation” of Ukraine following EuroMaidan:
Like Robin Williams, Zelensky was known not just for his standup comedy, but also for a famously popular sitcom series called “Servant of the People”.
In that comedy series, Zelensky plays a teacher who becomes president after a video of him ranting against government corruption goes viral.
Servant of the People premiered in Ukraine in 2015 on Ukraine’s most popular TV channel, 1+1 and became a huge hit. It is now also available on Netflix and is broadcast on the UK’s Channel 4.
He was arguably the most successful media personality in Ukraine prior to running for President.
The German Council of Foreign Relations summarises Zelensky’s rise:
Since 2017, when Zelensky and his team registered “Servant of the People” as a political party, there had been rumours that he might run for president. Already in 2017 Zelensky was polling at 4 percent; his support then grew to 8 percent toward the end of 2018 and skyrocketed after he announced on 1+1 TV New Year’s Eve show that he intended to run. By February 2019 he had already become the leader of public opinion polls, ahead of long-time politicians Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko.
SO WHAT MADE ZELENSKY RUN?
In this article
As usual, I have broken down this long form article into chapters:
The Making of the President 2019 — how Zelensky formed his own party and ran the most content-free campaign in history.
The Hitlerian heel turn — how a man who ran on a “peace platform” preaching unity turned into a bellicose partisan as soon as he took office.
An autocratic “War President” — how Zelensky declared martial law and used that as an excuse to build an authoritarian state that would make Stalin proud.
A President for life? — what the future looks like for free elections in Ukraine (spoiler alert — not good).
1. The Making of the President 2019
As I mentioned, Zelensky has much in common with Robin Williams — a diminutive, high energy comic persona, a secular Jew unafraid of taking on thorny issues. But that is pretty much where the similarity ends.
Unlike Robin Williams, Zelensky is a very wealthy and powerful man “in the business”, with his own production company (Kvartal 95 Studio).
He also had very wealthy and very powerful friends who backed him and his presidential campaign in a way that only an oligarch in a corrupt country like Ukraine can.
Meet Ihor Kolomoisky
1+1, the TV network which not only made Zelensky famous, but powered his entire campaign, was owned by Ihor Kolomoisky, one of the wealthiest people in Ukraine, a true oligarch who had made a fortune in banking, as well as the oil & gas sector (he is often described in the press as an “energy magnate”).
He is also one of the most corrupt and most highly sanctioned oligarchs in the world.
Here is how Naked Capitalism profiles him:
Kolomoisky is…absolutely loathed by the IMF/creditor crowd especially for his theft of billions through the collapse of Privat Bank a few years ago.
Yet Kolomoisky also was one of the main funders of the Maidan revolution and of many of the neo-Nazi paramilitary death squads (and yes, he’s Jewish and Israeli–just business, Fredo). Kolomoisky had to flee Ukraine to Switzerland for a couple of years in a classic intra-oligarch war with Poroshenko, IMF and others.
From his perch in Switzerland, however, Kolomoisky still pulled Zelensky’s strings. The Atlantic Council reports:
Despite pitching himself as the ultimate outsider intent on breaking the power of the country’s corrupt oligarchic elite, Zelensky’s campaign depended heavily on the backing of Ihor Kolomoisky, arguably Ukraine’s most controversial oligarch of all.
During the campaign, Zelensky appointed Kolomoisky’s personal lawyer as a key adviser, travelled abroad to confer with the then-exiled Kolomoisky on multiple occasions, and benefited from the enthusiastic endorsement of Kolomoisky’s media empire. Unsurprisingly, many viewed Zelensky as Kolomoisky’s candidate.
In fact, Kolomoisky had his fingers in many pies. His bank, PrivatBank, was nationalised and he was charged with embezzlement and other crimes, which is why he had to go into exile.
Kolomoisky’s bank, however, had controlling interest in Burisma, and it is widely speculated that Kolomoisky had a hand in getting Hunter Biden his seat on Burisma’s board.
In 2017, Kolomoisky agreed to bankroll his business partner Zelensky in yet another enterprise: politics. First, he provided seed money to launch the Servant of the People Party. Then he provided the money — and the platform — for Zelensky to launch his 2019 Presidential campaign.
It was to be a campaign unlike the world had ever seen.
A 21st century campaign
It all starts in 2012, when Zelensky concluded a joint production agreement between his Kvartal 95 Studio and Kolomoisky’s 1+1 Media Group, which owned the Ukrainian TV network 1+1.
Kolomoisky’s 1+1 was “Ukraine’s most popular TV network”, according to Politico, and that was to play a major role later on.
Once the deal was done, Zelensky became omnipresent on the network, filling hours of weekly programming with his variety shows, comedy talent contests and of course his Servant of the People series.
When Zelensky announced his candidacy live during a 1+1 New Year’s Eve TV special, he immediately rocketed to the top of the polls, ahead of both Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, his two “traditional” opponents.
The Zelensky campaign then proceeded on a purely “virtual” basis. As the Brookings Institute explains:
During the campaign, Zelensky gave few interviews, held no campaign rallies, and did not lay out positions in any detail, instead letting his television persona define his image.
The OSCE Report on the Election of 2019 noted:
Mr. Zelensky did not conduct a single traditional campaign rally, relying instead on his appearances as a comedian and actor on television and in his concerts, as well as on his extensive presence on and use of social media.
No wonder, then, that “Ukraine’s nearly four-month long election campaign did little to provide answers as to who Zelensky is and what he truly thinks”, as Politico observed.
“Zelensky avoided human contact with his electorate. He addressed voters through short YouTube and Instagram posts and appearances on TV. Instead of preparing for the presidency and holding substantive public meetings, he traveled with his comedy troupe and performed in variety shows”.
“Zelensky’s virtual-first strategy allowed him to run his campaign on general themes and vague promises and to avoid issuing detailed positions on policy issues”. — Politico
“The Peace Candidate”?
George W. Bush famously once boasted: “I’m a uniter not a divider”. And if there was one coherent, identifiable message in Zelensky;’s campaign, that was it.
Zelensky broadcast a vague promise of “peace” and “unity”, often focused on the Donbas and the ethnic divisions playing out there in violence.
Indeed, when it came to the ethnic Russians in the Eastern parts of Ukraine, Zelensky had seemed to be running as their champion.
Zelensky portrayed himself as a friend of the ethnic Russian population in the Donbas and elsewhere, and contrasted himself with the incumbent Petro Poroshenko, who appealed to the other side:
President Petro Poroshenko grew up as a Russian-speaker himself, but the incumbent is running on a campaign slogan of “Army, Language, Faith.” — emphasising the promotion of Ukrainian language as a backbone of his campaign. His administration has taken steps to bolster its status, including introducing quotas for the use of Ukrainian language on television and radio.
Poroshenko was the Russophobic candidate
In fact, under Poroshenko, the Ukrainian parliament passed a controversial law that eliminated education in minority languages such as Russian after primary school. During the 2019 presidential election season, Poroshenko’s government went a step further, with a law that gave the Ukrainian language primacy in all aspects of public life.
By “Army”, Poroshenko was referring to the NATO-directed buildup of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), which had been funded to the tune of $75 million by the Obama Administration, with the goal of reaching NATO standards, rules and procedures by 2020.
Poroshenko, with US/NATO help, exploded Ukraine’s armed forces from a mere 6,000 in 2014 to 150,000.
And when it came to “Faith”, Poroshenko made headway with the Ukrainian nationalists by forcing the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine break with Moscow and move toward becoming the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church”.
Zelensky seemed to oppose these “divisive” moves.
In fact, he ran a hard-hitting campaign video that preached unity. In the advert, Zelensky says:
“They divided us … but we are all Ukrainians … In the north, south, east, west and center … Ukrainian and Russian speakers … We are different, but so similar. We are uniting to move forward.”
“A bright, sweet wrapper”
We may never know what Zelensky’s true plans were during the campaign. We can only marvel at the genius of running a virtual campaign completely devoid of any policy proposals or concrete promises.
Poroshenko, for his part, tried to make the contest about issues. He famously held a “one man debate” in which he stood on the stage next to an empty podium. Zelensky never showed up.
Finally, on April 19, 2019, just two days before the runoff election, Zelensky agreed to debate, but only on his terms.
“Are you not entertained?”
Zelensky demanded that the debate take place in Kiev’s 70,000-capacity Olympiyskiy football stadium.
Poroshenko agreed, insisting that the stadium event not become a “show”.
FAT CHANCE!
The two candidates squared off in what may have been the greatest staged bit of theatre Zelensky had ever produced.
Zelensky was careful to stay in his “Servant of the People” character:
“I am not a politician,” said Zelensky, who spoke first. “I am just a simple person who has come to break down this system,” he said. “I am the result of your mistakes and promises.”
Indeed, Zelensky seemed to have cracked the code: if you don’t make promises, no one can accuse you of breaking them.
An exasperated Poroshenko complained abut how Zelensky was some sort of political Zelig:
“We only have a beautiful and bright sweet wrapper in which everyone can find what he is looking for,” said an emotional Poroshenko.
Indeed, Poroshenko was no doubt frustrated: trying to critique Zelensky on policy must have felt like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.
The “WOW” Finish
Zelensky’s “message”, such as it was, resonated with the voters, who no doubt could not help but conflate the actor with his popular role of a dauntless reformer.
Zelensky won with an overwhelming 73% of the vote — beating the 67% that his TV character had “won” with.
2. The Hitlerian heel turn
As mentioned above, Zelensky was firm about not promising anything or sharing any concrete plans during the campaign. But he did vaguely voice support for close ties with the EU and NATO, and he talked in general terms about making more active efforts to re-integrate the rebel east back in Ukraine’s fold.
Once in office, Zelensky set about trying to make good about the first point, but immediately walked away from the second.
Another Normandy Format Fake
On 10 December 2019 Zelensky flew to Paris to meet with the leaders of France, Germany and Russia under the so-called “Normandy Format” — the group that had negotiated the ill-fated Minsk Accords.
Unfortunately, these talks were — like their predecessor —just a ruse that had no chance of accomplishing anything. At first hailed as the first such meeting since 2016, the “summit” in Paris lasted a mere 90 minutes and brought forth nothing new. “No breakthrough” was the universal assessment in the media.
Indeed, it is now apparent that the newly elected Ukrainian president had gone to Paris simply to appear to make good on his campaign rhetoric:
It was in Zelensky’s interest to create the impression that the peace process has been unblocked as this was a promise he had made during his electoral campaign.
Zelensky then returned to Kiev, no doubt having ticked a box on his “to-do” list, with no intention of doing anything further to bring “peace to the Donbas”.
The next day Zelensky held his first press conference. It was a marathon 14 hour session, during which Zelensky showed that he had pivoted to a war footing:
“From this day we will have a military state. We will go to war. Our army is ready. We will wage war on Donbas. With this war, with our army, we will take back our territories”, Zelensky thundered, slapping his hand on the table for emphasis.
What could have caused this dramatic turn?
Kolomoisky, Zelensky and Azov — “it’s complicated”
It is important to remember that Zelensky was the creature of Ihor Kolomoisky, infamous “energy magnate” and the most powerful oligarch in Ukraine.
As noted above, Kolomoisky gave Zelensky a media platform, along with a lot of money to start his very own political party. And he helped Zelensky get elected.
And notably, once Zelensky was in office, Kolomoisky was immediately allowed to return to Ukraine.
But Kolomoisky was also the primary funder of the Dnipro Battalion, the Azov Battalion, Aydar Battalion and other Nazi movements and militias, and he actively supported their terrorist activities and crimes against the ethnic Russians in the Donbas.
A POLITICO profile of Kolomoisky described his relationship with the Nazi battalions and the powerful position it afforded him following the Maidan Coup:
Appointed governor of his home state of Dnipropetrovsk in east Ukraine in March 2014, he was instrumental in turning back the tide of Russian aggression by spending more than $10 million to create the “Dnipro battalion” that successfully defended the region from a separatist insurgency.
It should also be noted that the Kolomoisky backed the Dnipro-1 Neo-Nazi militia, who were the ones that provided much of the “muscle” during the Maidan uprising in 2014.
It was the charismatic Dnipro-1 leader, Volodymyr Parasyuk, who led the storming of the Ukrainian parliament and forced the removal of Viktor Yanukovych’s duly elected government during the Coup.
Under the Coup government installed by the US, the Nazi militias that were funded by Kolomoisky became formally incorporated into the Ukrainian armed forces in April of 2014 and sent to the Donbas to carry out a so-called “Anti Terror Operation” — which Kolomoisky backed.
He even offered a $10,000 “bounty” for any Ukrainian fighter who killed or captured a “Russian saboteur” in the Donbas.
“Glory to the heroes!”
If you look carefully at Zelensky’s rhetoric, you see that he also sides with the ultranationalists doing battle in the east. For example, in his inaugural address, Zelensky said of the Donbas: “I’m ready to do everything so that our heroes don’t die there”.
At the time, people thought this meant he wanted peace. But “heroes” is a Ukrainian code word for Banderite ultranationalists, and has been especially popular since the post-Maidan government in Kiev passed laws proclaiming Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) to be official “heroes of Ukraine” and making it a crime to argue otherwise.
The OUN-UPA are widely regarded as fascist war criminals who committed atrocities in the service of the Nazis in WWII, including slaughtering over 70,000 Jews in Poland.
In referring to the “heroes”, Zelensky may have just been dog-whistling, saying he wanted to protect the ultranationalist and Nazi battalions fighting the separatists in Donbas — not seek compromise or reconciliation as he implied during his campaign.
“It wasn’t us who started that war. But we need to be the one to finish it”, Zelensky declared ominously.
Not really the words of a peacemaker.
Perhaps this bellicose attitude was not the “about face” on the Donbas that it seemed. Perhaps Zelensky always meant to treat the rebels harshly. He was, after all, still in Kolomoisky’s thrall, even choosing Andriy Bohdan, the oligarch’s former lawyer, as his chief of staff.
In any case, once elected, Zelensky no longer spoke of “unity” and “reconciliation”, and he abandoned all talk of dialogue or negotiations with Putin.
It was obvious that Zelensky planned to deal with the Donbas in the most heavy-handed of ways, but first, he had to cement his grip on power.
Seizing control of the parliament
The first thing that Zelensky did when he assumed office was to dissolve the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) and call for snap elections. This was because there were no MPs that belonged to his Servant of the People Party serving in the current government, and Zelensky wanted to be able to pass a LOT of new laws quickly.
The move was declared illegal by many:
Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kiev-based think tank Penta, said the dissolution of parliament was “legally dubious” and would “certainly be contested in court” but it showed Mr Zelensky was going to “lay down the agenda and that he will dominate the political landscape”.
The move to dissolve parliament led to the resignation of the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister, and the head of Ukrainian Security Service — all of whom were quickly replaced — along with the prosecutor general — with Zelensky loyalists.
Snap elections
Unbelievably, the snap elections resulted in Zelensky’s party capturing 60% of the seats in the Verkhovna Rada. It was the first time in Ukraine’s post-Soviet history that a single party held an outright majority in the parliament.
This was an unbelievable (literally) result for a party that had only been founded two years earlier.
No wonder, then, that 75% of the new members of parliament (MPs) in the Rada were political novices, never having served in government. They were blank slates, formless pawns, ready to do whatever their “dear leader” Zelensky told them.
Zelensky wasted no time in taking advantage of his “rubber stamp” legislature.
Creating an imperial Presidency
The Atlantic Council, the official think tank of NATO, is devoutly anti-Russian, but even they had to worry about what Zelensky was leveraging the captured parliament to change how Ukraine is governed.
In September 2019, Melinda Haring, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, expressed dismay at the clear signs of autocratic rule that were appearing in Ukraine:
“…the presidential administration began pressing flawed bills through the parliament it controls and made a series of decisions that can only mean one thing: Zelensky is consolidating power”, Haring wrote.
“Ukraine is rapidly switching to a presidential republic from the parliamentary-presidential system its constitution prescribes. And the worst part is that there’s little to stop him”.
Haring was right to be dismayed. Officially, Ukraine is supposed to be a “semi-presidential republic”, in which the Prime Minister and the President share the Executive powers of the state.
Indeed, when the US overthrew Yanukovych in the Maidan Coup, Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt were caught on tape deciding who would be the Prime Minister of Ukraine, as this was seen as the more politically influential office.
It was the US-picked Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk who steered the country post-coup, signing the EU Association Agreement, pushing through anti-Russian laws, starting the war in Donbas, etc. — no President needed.
In fact, the Maidan Coup regime functioned VERY effectively for months before a new president (Poroshenko) was elected in May 2014.
Q: who is the Prime Minister of Ukraine today?
You would be forgiven for not knowing, as the office, under Zelensky, has been completely gutted of any power or influence.
A cabinet of cronies
Zelensky ran on a platform of propriety, promising to “clean up” the government, eradicate cronyism and go after the oligarchs. Yet, since Zelensky took office, 30 people close to him — friends, previous co-workers, and previous Kvartal 95 employers — have been selected for positions in the Ukrainian government.
Zelensky appointed long-time friend Ivan Bakanov as the head of the Servant of the People Party two days after his presidential inauguration. He later appointed Bakanov First Deputy Chief of the SBU Security Service of Ukraine.
Imagine a US President appointing his long time friend and business associate as head of the CIA.
“Ensuring loyalty”
Like a mafia don, Zelensky moved quickly to make sure that the entire government of Ukraine is controlled by his loyal lieutenants.
Haring goes on to describe Zelensky’s steps to control the legislative branch of government:
The new president and parliament are quickly consolidating power, from dismissing the Central Election Commission to introducing flawed judicial reform bills that would give the new general prosecutor unlimited power to reform its office, ignore the problematic High Council of Justice, a body with the power to hire, fire, and discipline bad judges, and reduce the number of Supreme Court justices.
Critics in and outside of government charge that these steps are meant to ensure that the new parliament and existing judges remain loyal. Parliament also plans to introduce new rules that would enable political parties to remove MPs if they don’t vote or behave the right way. Once these changes are consolidated, some of the most important institutions will be easy to control.
Provoking Russia
Once firmly in power, Zelensky not only ignored the need to make peace in the Donbas, he used the conflict with the “breakaway republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk to antagonise and provoke Putin, and top elevate the conflict on the international stage.
Indeed, in the three years that followed his election, Zelensky managed to turn what was essentially a civil war in Ukraine into the international East-West geopolitical struggle that the US and NATO have always wanted.
Suddenly, NATO membership became issue number one for the Zelensky government. The president brought the subject up in every public appearance.
All throughout 2020 and 2021, Zelensky taunted Putin, insulted him, and even called out the Russian leader, daring him to meet in person on the battlefield in Donbas.
In January 2022, Zelensky ordered another 120,000 Ukrainian troops to mass along the Donbas “contact line”. At this time, the OSCE monitoring team also noted a 500% increase in the shelling of rebel areas.
This was an obvious preparation for an invasion of the DPR and LPR —and an act that dared the Russians to make a move.
On February 20, 2022, just days before the launch of Russia’s incursion, The Guardian published a story warning that Zelensky found himself “on the brink of war” with Russia:
…critics fear that by refusing to make concessions to Moscow, Zelensky is steering his country towards disaster. They argue he needs to find a pragmatic solution to the dangerous standoff with Putin — ruling out Nato membership for Ukraine, at least for now — a key Russian demand.
Zelensky chose to provoke rather than compromise. He could have ended the crisis by officially giving up NATO membership, but it was far too late for that.
“The Russians will keep on until Zelenskiy gets the message,” Vasyl Filipchuk, a former senior Ukrainian diplomat and foreign affairs spokesperson said. “They want him to stop what they see as anti-Russian rhetoric. A statement on Nato would calm the situation down.
Four days later, Russia invaded. Zelensky had given the US and NATO the war with Russia that they so desperately wanted.
And he gave himself absolute power.
3. An Autocratic “War President”
In 2014, after the killing of 14,000 civilians in the Donbas, with Ukrainian Nazi battalions massed along the contact line, ready to execute Zelensky’s “Final Solution” to the Donbas crisis, Putin felt he had no choice but to invade.
In doing so, he played right into the hands of a Ukrainian president who was eager to shut down every possible source of opposition, eradicate freedom of thought and expression, and ensure his enduring political supremacy.
Just as bad as Putin?
A Newsweek opinion piece sums up the problems with Zelensky:
“Zelensky rules much like his adversary, the universally denounced Putin, does. Zelensky shut down all opposition media in Ukraine, then banned opposition political parties. He declared that Russia would have to kill every single citizen of Kyiv to get to him, but also found time to pose for a melodramatic Annie Leibovitz portrait spread for American fashion magazine Vogue. Zelensky also fired the Ukrainian equivalent of the U.S. Attorney General and the head of the CIA, on the very same day, perhaps during breaks from his grandiose photo shoot”
Indeed, there is a litany of cases showing Zelensky’s autocratic overreach.
Eliminating opposition media
On February 2, 2021, Ukrainian TV channels ZIK, NewsOne, and 112 were forced off the air after the official channel owner and opposition MP Taras Kozak was hit with sanctions.
All three channels belonged to Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch who is also head of the “Opposition Platform — For Life” party (OPFL). Both the OPFL and the three closed TV stations were popular in the Russian speaking areas of Ukraine in the east and south.
Eliminating political opposition
A year later, Zelensky had a problem: people were staring to leave his Servant of the People party and gravitating towards other political parties. He decided to take some drastic steps to halt that trend — namely, by eliminating all opposition parties.
The Russian invasion allowed him to declare martial law, after all — why not take advantage of the situation to REALLY get a grip on power?
In May 2022, Zelensky set about banning of all opposition parties. Relying on his slavishly controlled parliament to pass the necessary laws, he was able to ban 11 parties in all, shutting down their operations and seizing their assets, claiming they were “pro-Russian”.
Among these parties was the aforementioned “Opposition Platform — For Life” party, whose leader the Viktor Medvedchuk, had been arrested and his assets seized a month earlier for being “anti-Ukrainian”.
OPFL had controlled 44 seats in the 450-seat Ukrainian Parliament, and was the only sizeable bloc to oppose Zelensky’s own Servant of the People contingent.
Russian ex-president and top security official Dmitry Medvedev sarcastically wrote on his Telegram channel that the move would bring Ukraine closer to the west:
“The most democratic president of modern Ukraine has taken another step towards the western ideals of democracy. By decision of the Council for National Defence and Security, he completely banned any activity of opposition parties in Ukraine. They are not needed! Well done! Keep it up”, he wrote, proving that sarcasm is not solely the province of Anglo-Saxons.
With the elimination of the opposition, Ukraine had become — like Nazi Germany — a state with only one political party.
Eliminating press freedom
Having shut down opposition TV in 2021, Zelensky decided to shut down all other types of opposition media a year later.
In December 2022, the Ukrainian parliament passed a bill that gave the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting the powers to regulate newspapers, online media or digital platforms that provide media services — alongside its existing authority over TV and radio.
What’s unprecedented: The law makes mandatory a “code of ethics”. If violations of that code are found, the reaction of the National Council and its powers can range from a warning to a fine or a complete closure of the media outlet.
Eliminating religious freedom
Religion in Ukraine has always been problematic. The western part of the country is dominated by Catholics, while the central and eastern regions worship in the Russian Orthodox Church.
As mentioned above, Petro Poroshenko had already initiated some level of religious persecution in 2017 when he passed a law requiring the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) to change its name to one that reveals its affiliation with the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church.
As RadioFreeEurope noted, this move was “the latest development in Ukraine’s quest to create its own, independent Orthodox Church”.
In December 2018, Ukraine did indeed found the Orthodox Church of Ukraine of the Kiev Patriarchate (OCU). The country was thus divided also in terms of religion, with two Orthodox churches claiming legitimacy.
That was until December 2022, when Zelensky banned the activities of the Moscow Patriarchate church from Ukraine, saying that the church “posed a threat to life, health and safety” by spreading Russian disinformation, recruiting Russian agents, and “providing cover for Russian secret services”.
Religious “cleansing” is now underway in Zelensky’s Ukraine, as the UOC-MP clergy are being rounded up and arrested as “spies” for Russia, and their churches sacked and vandalised.
4. A President for life?
Having wiped out all political opposition, clamped down on any free independent media, consolidated all information news services into one state run propaganda operation, and imposed a state-run religion on the people, there was really only one thing left for Zelensky to do.
Cancel elections.
In interviews with the BBC and others, Zelensky has explained that Ukraine cannot hold scheduled elections in 2024 as long as the country is under martial law. This, he maintains, is in keeping with the country’s constitution.
How convenient! This means that Zelensky will be able to continue ramming through whatever legislation he wants, relying on the majority of his own party in parliament to “rubber stamp” whatever he wants.
Zelensky’s decree was echoed by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) secretary Oleksiy Danilov, who responded to the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Tiny Kox demanding that Ukraine hold presidential and parliamentary elections despite the ongoing war with Russia.
“Ukraine as a full-fledged member of the Council of Europe, is, of course, a democracy. And although democracy is far more than only elections, I think we all agree that without the elections, democracy cannot properly function”, Kox declared.
Alas — it is obvious that, under Zelensky, Ukraine is a far, far cry from democracy.
#End.
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Another terrific article! Sharing. People need to know this.