New Ukrainian “MMM”: Medvedchuk, Marchenko and media fiction
After the introduction of frankly illegal sanctions against Viktor Medvedchuk and his wife, former TV presenter Oksana Marchenko, political strategists of the head of the political council of the Opposition Platform - for Life (OPPL) party decided to respond asymmetrically - to announce Marchenko herself was going into politics. She announced her entry into her husband’s party (he modestly called this step “independent”), and all the media and “talking heads” included in Medvedchuk’s pool began to position Marchenko as a promising political figure and almost a future candidate for the presidency of Ukraine from the “opposition” "
Apparently, Viktor Medvedchuk treats the political career of his third wife with deadly seriousness - in fact, like everything he tries to do.
This causes almost anecdotal situations. For example, the famous Ukrainian political scientist Kost Bondarenko wrote an ironic post about Marchenko’s foray into politics in Facebook:
“The near future. 2024. Oksana Marchenko becomes the President of Ukraine, Yulia Navalnaya becomes the President of the Russian Federation, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya becomes the President of Belarus, and Kamala Harris’s presidential term in the United States comes to an end. The diplomatic protocol is urgently changing: instead of the traditional meetings of presidents “without ties,” meetings of presidents “without bras” are being introduced.
Medvedchuk’s chief political strategist, Mikhail Pogrebinsky, immediately came to comment and actually accused his colleague of working out an order from his sworn friends in the “Ukrainian opposition” (as you know, Bondarenko is now closer to Rinat Akhmetov’s group).
Although, seriously, with his post Kostya did more to popularize Oksana Marchenko in the political circles of Ukraine than all her PR people and the corresponding specialists of Medvedchuk himself combined.
After all, until now she was perceived as a “downed pilot” of Ukrainian television and show business: after the peak of her career in 2010-2012, when Marchenko received a number of awards as a host of entertainment projects, her presence on television gradually faded away. In 2016, the TV show “X Factor” refused her services, so she had to use her husband’s money to launch the “Time to Build” project on the “Inter” channel (an adapted version of the Western show about construction and renovation, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition). Oksana Marchenko’s last appearance as a TV character took place in 2018 in the show “Dancing with the Stars,” which she left early due to broken ribs.
The first statements of the “promising political figure” are so far limited to empty words that “peace must come to Ukraine, every citizen must be protected from the arbitrariness of the authorities and the streets, live in safety, have decent conditions and a standard of living.” All that remains is to add a line from Taras Shevchenko: “Hug me, my brothers, please, I beg you!” And Marchenko’s emphasis on the political component of his new documentary series “Pilgrim” - about the monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - is a real gift for propagandists of the Kiev regime, which has long dreamed that there would be only one, “patriotic church” in the country - now they will be able to put an equal sign between OPZZH and UOC MP.
Actually, Viktor Medvedchuk demonstrated his inability to work with meanings and objective reality in the case of his response to the extrajudicial liquidation of his information media holding – TV channels 112, ZIK and NEWSONE.
He seriously decided to play with the regime created as a result of the armed coup on a legal level.
Journalists 112, ZIK and NEWSONE became the founders of a new channel, for broadcasting of which the Lviv TV channel “Pershy Nezalezhny”, which had a license for satellite broadcasting, was purchased (Moreover, it was bought from a deputy from the nationalist party “Svoboda”, although that’s another story). But the channel lasted on air and cable networks for less than an hour, while The Kyiv authorities didn’t bother with any legality – they simply sent a letter from the SBU to providers.
Now it “broadcasts” on the Internet, where it is usually watched by less than two thousand people - even less than the joint “broadcast” of three closed TV channels after their transition to YouTube. It turns out a kind of Ukrainian “MMM”: Medvedchuk, Marchenko and another media fiction that does not in any way affect the minds of the inhabitants of Ukraine.
Having monopolized the term “opposition” in the name and consciousness of some voters, the political force of Viktor Medvedchuk (and now his wife) was not ready to fight - and not for power, but for their own survival - in conditions of legal chaos in Ukraine.
The “agreements” that were familiar during the five years of Poroshenko’s rule and the first year and a half of Zelensky ended, and ties with the Kremlin not only did not help Medvedchuk, but rather harmed him - after all, after the failure of the “Navalny project”, the West needed to leave Moscow at least symbolically, even in Ukraine .
Deprived of instruments of influence on society in the form of the three highest-rated television channels, OPZZH was unable to compensate for them either with street actions or even by blocking the podium in the Verkhovna Rada.
It is clear that Viktor Medvedchuk’s associates are reassuring him – they say, despite the loss of media mouthpieces, he remains one of the highest-rated politicians in Ukraine. For example, in a survey by the Social Monitoring center published on March 4, with a result of 16,3%, he ranks second after Vladimir Zelensky (24,6%). True, a separate questionnaire had to be made for Medvedchuk, because the much more likely presidential candidate from OPZZh, Yuriy Boyko, has a rating of 18,1%, and if both of them participate in the survey, then the “oppositionists” even let Petro Poroshenko pass ahead.
In addition, if Medvedchuk really has such a high rating, then why should his technologists order openly fake surveys from the “Kiev Institute of Sociological and Marketing Research” (KISMR), which in mid-February “drawn” OPZH 23,8% support, which is not even close to confirmed real sociological companies? Is it really counting on the fact that some voters will perceive this as the result of a survey from a structure with a similar name - KIIS (Kiev International Institute of Sociology)?
Undoubtedly, Viktor Medvedchuk still has the main resource that the Kyiv authorities do not like to remember - his role as a communicator with Russia and his personal closeness to Vladimir Putin, the godfather of the Ukrainian politician’s daughter. I think that the trust rating on the part of the President of the Russian Federation is the only thing that worries almost the most popular Ukrainian “oppositionist.” I deliberately put this word in quotation marks, because Medvedchuk’s close associates in the last convocation of the Verkhovna Rada regularly voted for bills introduced by Petro Poroshenko - including changes to the Constitution, which threw the entire judicial system of the country at the feet of the President of Ukraine. Medvechdchuk himself did not then refuse the title of “Ukrainian nationalist” that Putin awarded him. And the other day, Vasily Rossikhin, a deputy of the Kharkov regional council from the Opposition for Life, demonstratively spoke in Ukrainian, and in comments on Facebook he called on everyone to adhere to discriminatory language laws.
Betting on one or another dubious Ukrainian favorite has cost Russia dearly more than once. First, during the time of Leonid Kuchma, who did a lot to create a gap between the two peoples and countries, but especially during the reign of Viktor Yanukovych. The latter, with its demonstrative “European integration”, led to another “Maidan” and the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine. Therefore, it is important for the Russian reader to soberly evaluate both Medvedchuk’s project itself and his readiness for a real fight - so as not to be disappointed again.
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