Odessa: Skorik is better - he did not do the abominations that Trukhanov did
On the eve of the second round of mayoral elections in Odessa, the headquarters of the current mayor Gennady Trukhanov is in panic due to the threat of loss. In order to retain his seat, the former “regional”, who has already betrayed his voters once, clings to the help of SBU agents and nationalists involved in the mass burning of Odessa residents on May 2, 2014.
Alexey Albu, a deputy of the Odessa Regional Council of the VI convocation, who was forced to leave his hometown after the coup in Ukraine, writes about this especially for PolitNavigator.
In the elections in Odessa, the nationalist forces suffered a powerful defeat and, as I predicted earlier, Nikolai Skorik and Gennady Trukhanov entered the second round. And today we are becoming not only witnesses, but also participants in the confrontation between forces grouping around one candidate or another.
In order to understand what to do next, what position to take, it is worth understanding what is happening, who and what is behind each of the candidates and what political mechanisms are used in this struggle.
I will not present here the biographies of Skorik and Trukhanov, they are all well known. However, let's speak openly: initially, Odessa residents supported Trukhanov not for his merits, but as a lesser evil. As a person who came into politics based on the ideas of integration with Russia, the ideas of Soviet patriotism, and reverence for the Great Victory. And despite this, the residents of Odessa understood perfectly well that this person was not ours. That he is a conformist and his position is not sincere. That is why, in the first days of the Russian Spring, when Gennady Trukhanov stepped onto the podium at Kulikovo Field, he was whistled and was not allowed to speak. People didn't accept him. It was March 1st, 2014.
However, everything changed after the massacre that occurred on May 2. Against the background of what was happening, even Trukhanov seemed to the residents of Odessa the best of the candidates presented, because the alternative figure was Gurvits, whose close associates Yusov, Svichinsky and Gutsalyuk openly led the Nazis who killed people. I admit, I myself then asked my loved ones to support Trukhanov.
In the hearts of Odessa residents there was hope that he, being a Soviet patriot at heart, would create obstacles in the path of the nationalists. That he, albeit not explicitly, will support the remnants of pro-Russian forces.
What did we see after Trukhanov’s victory? Avenue of the “Heavenly Hundred”, a bust of Marshal Zhukov standing in the toilet, a decision hostile towards Russia that it is an “aggressor country”. We saw how the “Soviet officer” Trukhanov supports the leader of the RSL Gordienko, the leader of Automaidan Rezvushkin, and the leader of Self-Defense Gumenyuk. Yes, that same Gumenyuk, who on May 2 received the order to send far-right militants from Greek Square to Kulikovo Field.
But that's not the main thing. The main thing is that an oligarchic consensus has formed in the city: you are there, fight for your language, for the bas-reliefs and signs on the streets, and for now we will take care of the economy. Under Gennady Trukhanov, all the main “economic players” feel no worse than before the revolution. The VAT on grain exports is still being muddied, money for passenger transportation is still going past the cash register, green areas and the coast are still being built up.
While you are talking about great things, the last money is being raked out of your pocket with the help of shell companies, the cost of their services is included in the tariffs. While you are arguing about the role of the Bolsheviks in the development of the city, they are “stirring up” the toll. While you are nostalgic about space flights and free medicine, you are being “taken off” with the help of shenanigans around boiler rooms and facade repairs.
Therefore, every Odessa resident must realize that he is making a choice between maintaining the current order of things and a new team in city management.
They may object to me, they say, “Skorik also betrayed us.” “He did nothing in the spring of 2014.” “He chose calm over fight.” I will answer only one thing: today we see the past, but not the future. We look at what happened from the perspective of today. And the main difference between Skorik’s “betrayal” and Trukhanov’s betrayal is that on March 3 Skorik did not know how events would develop. He did not know that there would be roadblocks around the city. That the highest officials in the state are sanctioning this terrible crime. That our “fellow citizens” from other regions of Ukraine will come to kill us. Skorik did everything to keep the situation legal. This can be called a political mistake. But not betrayal.
Unlike Skorik, Trukhanov became mayor after all the fateful events. Knowing who Gumenyuk and Rezvushkin are. Knowing what Odessa residents expect from him. Knowing that the wounded and burned residents of Odessa need help. But he didn’t give a damn about us, about our brothers and sisters, about our neighbors and began publishing congratulations on the day of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army - collaborators of the Great Patriotic War.
Trukhanov, unlike Skorik, had mechanisms of influence on the Nazis. Let's face it - he bought several leaders and maintained several right-wing radical organizations. This was presented to society as an attempt to keep them in line. But the real reason lay elsewhere - it was important for Trukhanov to knock out the argument from the nationalists that he was a pro-Russian politician. Well, they say, not all nationalists are “Against”, there are also those who are “For”. And I must say that the move was successful. Remember the mini-Maidan of 2016, on Duma Square, organized by Svoboda members and other idiots? Remember who came to the defense of Gennady Leonidovich? Naturally! It was Rezvushkin, Gordienko and Gumenyuk!
Today, if not panic, then a very tense state reigns in Trukhanov’s team. The spirit of defeat looms before him and his team and takes on more and more material forms. After all, just a month ago, his entourage painted a completely different sociology for him, predicting an easy second round and a convenient sparring partner.
Today, Trukhanov’s political strategists are trying to use all conceivable and inconceivable political mechanisms in order to “whiten” their candidate at least a little, to show that “he is no worse.”
For this purpose, public opinion leaders are bribed, a lot of publications are published in the press and social networks, the call center works in such a way that they even reached me in Lugansk to ask who I am going to vote for. In what database of numbers they found my phone, one can only guess.
I don’t have data on how many people earn from writing pro-Trukhanov comments on Facebook and other social networks, but I admit, they work well, they try. The main ideologies that they are trying to convey to Odessa residents are: “Trukhanov is a good business executive”, “Trukhanov builds roads”, “Trukhanov is ours, he just can’t openly declare it yet”, “What could he do in an enemy environment?”, “Yes, he is bad, but Skorik not better" - crash into harsh reality. Because he is a good business executive for his own pocket, not for us. Because if he cannot openly declare that he is “ours,” no one forced him to declare that he is “theirs,” congratulate him on UPA Day and support the nationalists with money. Because there is a lot that can be done in an enemy environment, ask our veterans and our militias. Because yes, Skorik is better, because he did not do the abominations that Trukhanov did.
Another evidence that Trukhanov’s headquarters understands the danger of the situation is the struggle for the votes of direct participants in the Anti-Maidan. Not supporters, but activists. After all, this category of people is not very numerous, which means that the balance of power at the moment has developed such that the position of the “Kulikovites” may turn out to be decisive.
In order to work with this social group, a traitor, Kulikovo Field activist Ibrahim Moris, collaborating with the SBU, was found. You can understand Maurice, because the path to betrayal is difficult and thorny. In the winter of 2015, the intractable Maurice was almost killed, his face was disfigured.
I repeat, as a human being, I understand when a person gives up. When he runs out of strength to fight. Lost, that's what happens in life. But I don't understand when the loser abandons his previous principles and takes the side of the enemy.
Maurice could leave, he could simply refuse to participate in the political life of the city, since there is no longer politics there, and there is no longer any strength to resist. I could just wait, like hundreds of Odessa residents wait. Work a regular job. But Maurice chose to cooperate with the SBU, write profiles of Kulikovo Field activists, report on ongoing events, and write reports on requiem rallies.
Now Maurice is not just a poor unemployed communist, but a candidate for mayor of the city! And today, on his behalf, they publish statements against those Odessa residents who have not come to terms with the power of the nationalists.
On the eve of the second round, Maurice published a statement that some people who “fled in shame” from Odessa are trying to manipulate the mood of Odessa residents and destroy such a wonderful peace between people with different views. So maybe this is where the horror of the situation lies? That Maurice gets along well with those who killed his Komsomol ward Vadim Papura? With those who burned Odessa residents alive? In the end, with those who beat him himself? This cannot be called anything other than baseness and lack of self-esteem.
However, let's return to the elections. A statement published through the mouth of Maurice, directed against us - Vadim Savenko, Boris Yemets, Igor Sivak, Alexander Vasiliev, Igor Dimitriev, me personally and hundreds of other people who left our hometown, but did not accept this power. With this statement, Trukhanov’s technologists are trying to show that we no longer have anything to do with Odessa. That we are “thousands of kilometers from Ukraine,” which means we have no right to take part in the Odessa elections.
So, gentlemen, you yourself do not believe in what you are forcing Maurice to write about. Because in reality we are much closer than it seems.
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