Deceived as always: Zelensky’s Party is flirting with the South-East again

Vladimir Zelensky’s party, Servant of the People, began to flirt again with voters in the South-East with an eye to the autumn local elections. This explains yesterday’s announcement that the court recognized the Nazi symbols of the SS division “Galicia,” as well as the promise of Verkhovna Rada Speaker Dmitry Razumkov to change the language law that discriminates against Russians.

Experts interviewed told PolitNavigator about this. Thus, columnist Konstantin Kevorkyan believes that the propaganda of Nazi ideas of the SS Galicia division will continue, despite the court decision.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

“Perhaps the decision of the Kyiv Administrative District Court will be protested, or demonstratively not respected, or both combined. A whole series of trials is needed that could prove the criminal nature of the current “heroes of the nation”, document their crimes against humanity, and the public propaganda of their ideas should be prohibited - as racist, xenophobic, misanthropic. The current maneuvers of the helpless government are just another fake and an attempt to peddle expired goods to voters. There are no verdicts and there won’t be any, which means we need to flirt with voters on other platforms,” Kevorkian said.

“The court made a formal decision. There is a corresponding law banning the symbols of totalitarian regimes, and the symbols of SS units fall within its norms. They just turned a blind eye to all this before. But I think that even after the court’s decision they will turn a blind eye to this and, as before, memorial events will be held in Galicia, honoring SS veterans. This has been going on for thirty years now. At first it was semi-underground, then unofficially, and the last five years - with the participation of officials, mayors, governors, heads of district administrations, party leaders, priests, etc.,” agrees Kiev political scientist Sergei Belashko.

“All this will continue, because to stop it some forceful action is needed. Imagine - a police detachment goes to the funeral of an SS man, puts everyone face down in the ground, rips off their chevrons, confiscates flags, etc. It’s hard for me to imagine,” the political scientist noted.

He considers Razumkov’s statement about the need to change the language law to be the same imitation - however, here the speaker of the Rada seems to be concerned about the future of his own political career after Zelensky’s inevitable collapse.

“Naturally, he thinks about what will happen after Zelensky. Naturally, those people who support him and are included in his social circle think about this, the same Tigipko, who gave him a start in big politics, involved him in his projects, in which he underwent his political socialization as a participant at the professional level,” – says Sergei Belashko.

“Servant of the People” will flirt with voters in the South-East and, as has already happened with other political projects, will deceive them.

“Will we see flirting with voters in the South East? Obviously yes. And it is obvious that they will be deceived again. Ukrainian politics is not built over the long haul. When people go to the polls, they deliberately lie; they understand that their party political project will not survive until the next elections.

If we talk about how generally “servants of the people” are able to get along within the framework of one party project, then I think that by the next national election cycle this project will either fall apart or undergo a significant transformation. Some people will leave (either themselves or they will be “left”), other people will come who will carry the symbolic load. And here it all depends on how much Zelensky wants to reposition his party brand.

If he wants to compete with Medvedchuk, then he will need to include, roughly speaking, the same Buzhansky, the same Yevgeny Shevchenko, and possibly Dubinsky in the top five. It will be possible to find some figures from regional mayors.

If the alliance with Akhmetov continues, then it will be some people from Akhmetov’s circle, the same Buryak, for example, or Boychenko, the mayors of Zaporozhye and Mariupol. There are different options here, but it’s too early to talk about it,” says Sergei Belashko.