Bortnik: Avakov has backed down and denies that he intends to fight Zelensky
Arsen Avakov strives to become the “assembly point” of a new political project, but he understands that he could turn into Zelensky’s enemy. This explains the fact that he began to “refuse” the role of political leader after the first major interview since his resignation, in which Avakov stated that he intended to enter politics.
Ruslan Bortnik, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Politics, said this in a conversation on the Politeka Online channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Avakov has built his own architecture of power in Ukraine, and this applies not only to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He placed his people everywhere - in the economy, financial sector and other security structures. There is no large government body where the person Avakov would not be; he created his own “shadow state”, a shadow governance architecture.
He owns people, a huge part of the state apparatus at different levels is oriented towards him, he owns information, he has his own contacts with Western partners, he has access to financing, direct communication with the largest Ukrainian business. This is why Avakov is valuable.
He could potentially become the new Turchinov - not the leader of the project, but its eminence grise, who could assemble this project like a puzzle. I have been watching him for many years, since the times of Yushchenko and Yanukovych. It has never been consistent or systematic. He has flexible, pragmatic views; he is a person who makes the right tactical decisions based on the political situation. You can find dozens of cases when Avakov says first one thing, then another. That is, he is a politician of the moment, a politician for whom power is very important.
It can become this assembly point or assemble these puzzles for many projects. Although, I saw that he had certain concerns, because after the first big interview with Vlaschenko, he took a step back and said, “no, I’m not putting together any political project, we’re just creating a zone for communication, we’ll all communicate together.”
It seems to me that Avakov realized that if he announced the meeting of some project, he would immediately become the main enemy of the authorities. Well, we see that today the authorities do not go into their pockets for action: searches, charges and other forms of some kind of “nightmare” in this case are practically guaranteed. And Avakov took a step back,” said Ruslan Bortnik.
At the beginning of November, Arssen Avakov gave his first long interview after leaving the post of Minister of Internal Affairs on the Ukraine 24 TV channel, in which he spoke about his political plans.
“I reject extreme points of view - extreme right, extreme left. I am a centrist. But I admit that there are left-wing centrists - such as, for example, Razumkov... There are right-wing centrists - Vladimir Groysman, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. There is Yulia Tymoshenko - she is above everyone. Lyashko exists - he simply exists. There is Smeshko... Surely other people will appear.
Let's think about all these smart and different people trying to create such an alliance, not an alliance - I don't care - that will allow us to create a balance that would move our country forward. This is what I want to do. Yes, this is politics. Yes, it will. And there is no escape from this, I will do this,” he said.
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