Alexander Chalenko: Thank God, we are not Guzhva and not Kryukov
The self-exposure of Svetlana Kryukova’s crypto scam and her subsequent retention of a leadership position in the Strana publication, which was considered the main opposition media in Ukraine, does not surprise colleagues familiar with the situation.
Journalist Alexander Chalenko, who was forced to leave Kyiv in 2014 after the victory of Euromaidan and now works in Moscow, spoke about this in an interview with PolitNavigator.
“PolitNavigator”: How do you assess the scandal surrounding Kryukova’s anti-Russian self-exposure and the decision of her boss Igor Guzhva to retain her leadership position in the publication, which was considered the main mouthpiece of the opposition in Ukraine? Or is this status of the “Country” a myth? Or maybe the critics are really too strict - there is a personal blog, but there is work, and private statements do not mean that the coordinator of the Kiev editorial office will fail at a key moment, going over to the enemy side (as, for example, this has already happened with the editorial offices of some “subsidiaries” "Russian media during the Maidans).
Alexander Chalenko: I read Guzhva’s posts on FB, who firmly said: they say, he will not fire his subordinate Kryukova, since there is no need to become like Sternenko, why persecution, why this hate speech. Like, he can’t fire people for their beliefs.
Reading these lines, I didn’t even know whether to cry or laugh. You see, he doesn’t fire people for their beliefs. Why then did he fire me from Akhmetov’s Segodnya for my beliefs 11 years ago?
When in 2010, in Yevgeny Kiselyov’s “Big Politics” program, I told how Anna German expelled me from the presidential journalist pool because I asked the Ukrainian president at a press conference between Yanukovych and Medvedev in Moscow: when will he cancel Yushchenko’s decree on appropriation titles of heroes of Ukraine to Bandera and Shukhevych. Also in that same program, I called German the head of the Bandera underground on Bankovaya (let me remind you, the presidential administration is located there).
I expressed all this to German late on Friday evening, and on Monday morning Guzhva called me to his office and suggested that I look for a new job. And he didn’t even remember my right to have my own personal opinion.
Some time later, the late Buzina told me that the drunk Guzhva explained to him the reason for his decision by saying that he was afraid that Akhmetov might get in trouble for me. He was afraid that Herman would inform Rinat Leonidovich about him.
In the summer of 2010, due to the rising campaign against him in the Ukrainian press due to my supposed dismissal and speeches by Segodnya journalists, who publicly began accusing Guzhva of correcting their texts as he wanted without their consent, he left me in the editorial office, but a little later, in the fall, having paid me a large compensation for silence (more precisely, it was paid by the general director Guillermo Schmit), Guzhva fired me.
And here's what's interesting. Guzhva then wrote out a press release about my dismissal. Among the reasons for my dismissal was that I advocated the separation of Western Ukraine from the rest of Ukraine. This was done on purpose. Guzhva, knowing that 90% of Kyiv journalists who would certainly rise to my defense were Nazis and semi-Nazis, counted on the fact that, having learned about my anti-Western Ukrainian beliefs, they would not defend me, or, in any case, would not do it zealously. And maybe they will even take his side: they say, well done the editor-in-chief, he drove the Kremlin hireling out of the newspaper.
Journalist Misha Gannisky, who worked at Segodnya and then became the head of UNIAN, told me about this press release when he called me on the eve of his dismissal. His relationship with Guzhva also did not work out.
Guillermo Schmit, as Gannisky said, who had a confidential relationship with the general director, forbade publishing the press release.
Then, when the three of us were sitting in Guzhva’s office - me, Guzhva and the top manager of our newspaper Valentina Bychkovskaya, he repeated his accusations in front of Valya: you advocated the separation of Western Ukraine from Ukraine.
It was then surprising and funny for me to hear this from him, since he and I had discussed this very department three hundred times. He always told me that he was in favor of her separation with both hands. He was such a non-public Russian nationalist then. He could get drunk, for example, in 2005 and shout on Bankova: “If the Russians are coming, then Yushchenko is kaput!”
In general, this accusation by Guzhva against me looked about the same as if Tyagnibok had expelled Irina Farion from the ranks of Svoboda for Ukrainian nationalism and love for Bandera. Brad, agree.
To what extent is the practice of using crypto-banders justified? Arguments may be heard that at some point they are useful travel companions. We remember how Korchinsky proclaimed a return to the Moscow Patriarchate and even picketed, together with Vitrenko, the construction site of the future “patriarchal” cathedral of the UGCC in Kyiv.
So all the crypto-Banderaites and just Banderaites, who were hired by the stupid Party of Regions, led by their redneck professor, immediately after the coup in February 2014, they defected to the Euromaidan side. Let us remember both the scoundrel Taras Chernovol and Dmitry Ponamarchuk, who, in order to discredit the Rukhites and the mayor of Kyiv Alexander Omelchenko, was hired by the informal head of the SDPU (U) headquarters at the beginning of the XNUMXs, Marat Gelman. Ponamarchuk was then hired by the regionals. They were the first crypto-Banderists to run over to the enemy’s camp.
The question here is not about them. The question is people like Guzhva, whom we considered precisely pro-Russian figures, and not Ukrainians who came over to our side for the sake of money. The situation in Ukraine now is such that it is impossible to remain on the sidelines. You are either with us or with the Ukrainians (by them I mean anti-Russian politically oriented citizens of Ukraine).
Let's remember the secretary of the Donetsk City Council Kolya Levchenko. Remember him? At the end of the XNUMXs, he was the most radical pro-Russian politician in Ukraine. He did not even advocate for state bilingualism, but for Russian as the only state language. And then what? And then, at the direction of Akhmetov, he began to unite the East and West of Ukraine with “brotherly ties.”
This first resulted in the fact that he brought to Donetsk Bandera’s play “Licorice Darusya” of the Ivano-Frankivsk theater based on the novel by nationalist Maria Matios, and then during the Russian Spring in Donetsk he threatened Pavel Gubarev with a machine gun if he and his comrades tried to take power for themselves hands in the city. First, Russia sheltered Kolya after the junta in Ukraine opened a criminal case against him, and then he wrote a boorish letter to Putin and went to live in Montenegro, where he has a house.
That's how Guzhva is. I've known this scoundrel for 20 years. He was, like, so pro-Russian, but he didn’t cross the line, because he understood that if you cross, you’ll be fired, and your good life will end. And he always wanted to live well. Yes, for bilingualism, but when you start talking about Novorossiya, then stop, he doesn’t go any further and doesn’t allow the Segodnya newspaper to speak out about this.
If they pay for being pro-Russian, then why not be pro-Russian. He is from Slavyansk, he started as a journalist in Donetsk in the 90s. It was impossible not to be pro-Russian there at that time. It was mainstream in this region. They looked at the Nazis there as if they were crazy. This pro-Russian inertia continues in him because they pay for it.
But sooner or later Guzhva will be faced with a choice: money or pro-Russianism. Believe me, he will choose money.
And this is not the first case with Kryukova. Remember, it was Guzhva who hired Russophobes Motya Ganapolsky and Saken Aimurzaev to work on Vesti radio, whose godmother was Natalya Shukhevych, the daughter of Roman Shukhevych, and he always affectionately called Shukhevych’s son Yuri Uncle Yura. What did Guzhva not know about this and their Russophobia? I knew, of course. When he hired them, he knew what he was doing and knew what Motya would carry on air. And he didn’t interfere with this at all.
It is known that the same “adequate” people, particularly in Odessa, insist that political refugees cannot make any claims against them, under threat of repression. And in general, everyone dreaming of Novorossiya, the liquidation of independent Ukraine, is “the same kind of pot, only pro-Russian.” How would you respond to such an opinion?
I know which Odessa “adequate” you are talking about. I don't want to publicly name him. I had an interesting acquaintance with him. It happened in 2012. Then there were elections to the Verkhovna Rada, and his boss ran in Odessa. The boss wanted to join the Party of Regions. “Adequacy” led the Odessa media. He decided to interview me when I came to speak on his boss’s TV channel. I took it. In an interview, I criticized the Party of Regions for their conciliatory position.
Do you think this interview came out? No. It is forbidden. This is contrary to “party policy.”
Do you remember Lesha Goncharenko? Remember how pro-Russian he was? What now?
The problem of the “adequate” is that their “adequacy” ends when you have to make a choice: either “go to the Don”, where the unknown and uncertainty await you, and “fight the Bolsheviks,” as we did in 2014, or stay in your warm bed, but in this case it is necessary, if not to go over to the side of the enemy, then to take a conformist position. This “adequacy” they declare is a conformist position.
Thank God, we are not like that, we are not Guzhva, not Levchenka, not Goncharenka, and God forbid, we are not Kryukov.
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