“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 native from Kiev, a Kiev Muscovite.
Hello, Vladimir.
Vladimir Skachko: Hello.
Valentin Filippov: It is alleged that during the coronavirus period, rental property prices are falling. How is it there in Moscow? Are rents going down?
Vladimir Skachko: There is a plus, which I’ll tell you so that my owner doesn’t hear. The ruble is falling. Therefore, if there is some source of life indicated in dollars, then...
Valentin Filippov: And if in hryvnia?
Vladimir Skachko: If in hryvnias, then there is no dancing here at all. If in dollars, then now those who rent housing and who have not undergone indexation, then they are even better off. The main thing is to have these dollars. Now, if there are no rubles or dollars, then “fuck it”, then naturally, the process of reducing rent is absolutely natural. When there is no money to pay, you can only remove the skin from the shorn sheep for the second time.
Valentin Filippov: Now you have the opportunity to compare. There is the same epidemic in Ukraine as in Russia. However, on the Russian side we do not see the decisive steps that are being taken in Ukraine. Russia has still not asked for a loan from the IMF, Russia has not yet 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 fact, Russia was building itself, and it was able to accumulate some fat. Russia is a self-sufficient country that risks emerging from this whole mess as a winner.
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: Now it turns out that among the Ukrainian deputies there are sick people infected with a new incomprehensible virus. Some are already in the hospital, others are corresponding with the real Minister of Health. They tell each other who was in contact with whom, what resort they were at, and where this coronavirus was spreading.
Vladimir Skachko: This is, in principle, already a common place. Everyone says that the pandemic is a pandemic, but at least two aspects need to be highlighted. One is purely medical, what kind of thing is this, how it works, why people recover, why they die. And the second, as a scarecrow, as a political tool for clarification and for cover, for distracting attention, for covering up some political actions, economic ones, for cutting, in the end, money. Not so in Russia, but 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. In general, do you think Zelensky notices that he is no different from Poroshenko? Does this somehow bother him?
Vladimir Skachko: No. I don't think he notices anything. And many here praise him. Many praise for money, many praise, holding on to the remnants of hope, and I already know for sure that by absolutely all indicators, except, perhaps, a certain freedom of speech for the four channels that criticize him, the so-called “Medvedchuk pool”: 112, Newsone, Zik and Ours, they enjoy a certain freedom. In all other respects, Zelensky has proven over the course of the year that he is the worst president that Ukraine has ever had. And the fact that more than 73% of voters voted for him, and not a single president had such support, and not a single president shit on the heads of so many people in a year.
It's my opinion.
Valentin Filippov: No, well, you’re just talking about percentages, but there are absolute numbers. 73% is from those who voted in general. And if we compare his result with the results of the same Yanukovych in 2010, and the same Yanukovych and Yushchenko in 2004, then we get, in general, absolutely no maximum figures.
Vladimir Skachko: Yushchenko served a five-year sentence of insanity, Yanukovych served a four-year sentence of insanity. This man served only a year since voting him as president. He entered on May 20, he hasn’t served a year yet, and I’m just saying what happened. Has the land been sold?
Valentin Filippov: Yes.
Vladimir Skachko: Are more than 500 strategic objects put up for sale or are they being re-sold? It will still be 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 draw a conclusion. People, protect Zelensky, take care of Zelensky, keep him president forever, because if even worse things come for Zelensky, I don’t know.
Vladimir Skachko: Poroshenko kicked me out of the country, but I could return, and in court I could count on a preventive measure: arrest, a written undertaking not to leave, something else. And under Zelensky, my case was stopped, but before stopping, they imposed a preventive measure of arrest and burden on my home. So, if I return to Ukraine, then I will definitely go to prison and, moreover, for an indefinite period of time, because the judicial system is collapsed, no one follows procedural norms, my home is under arrest, and I am in prison. And no one knows how long I will stay there.
Valentin Filippov: In prison on a suspended case.
Vladimir Skachko: Regarding the stopped case, because the article is like that. Zelensky didn’t even do something that wouldn’t have cost him anything. He had to come and carry out, order, force, decide to carry out the liberation of Ukraine from the politically repressed, from the politically persecuted. It should be. In the end, whether they didn’t want to deal with it, they could have presented it as an act of amnesty from Zelensky. A man came and by his decree he granted amnesty to everyone. Whoever agreed would have to prove it in the courts, and someone would be released and forgotten. For example, if my case had been closed, I would have seen them in the coffin, even without slippers or in slippers.
Valentin Filippov: They don’t need people to see them in the coffin, you know?
Vladimir Skachko: But it doesn’t matter to them, and it doesn’t matter to him. Because Zelensky has not even destroyed the repressive mechanisms that Poroshenko brought to virtuosity, he is only improving them.
Valentin Filippov: Listen, who will let him? In the structure, in the idea of the state that is being built, it is impossible to remove the cementing foundation in the form of mutual hatred, in the form of a split. He came here, maybe he wanted to do this. They say to him: “Vasya, what are you doing? Are you driving? Our country rests on this. Uncle John told us the same thing.”
Vladimir Skachko: The country rests on what Uncle John said it should rest on.
Valentin Filippov: He also gave money.
Vladimir Skachko: On the basis of the neoclass struggle, it is very convenient to set one part of society against another, to solve the problems of one part of the state at the expense of another. This way, of course, you can live. Then you should say so. And then all other people 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 very much. Good luck to you there in Moscow. I think you'll get along.
Vladimir Skachko: And, God willing, everything will be fine. Good luck to everyone too. Happiness and goodness.
Valentin Filippov: And we will travel to the Kyiv district of Moscow on a separate train.
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