Sending Ukraine into quarantine is the last chance for Zelensky to exchange land for IMF tranches
Zelensky is Poroshenko, only in green skin. Quarantine was announced in order to sell the land and take out a loan. Whoever gives in to panic turns into a gunpowder robot.
Kyiv does not need peace in Donbass. Kozak and Ermak will not come to an agreement. New formats are useless when old ones exist. Direct negotiations between Kiev and the LDPR have been ongoing since 2014 in Minsk.
Kiev political strategist Sergei Slobodchuk told PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov that Zelensky is a franchise sold out to regions and oligarchs.
Valentin Filippov: Let us remind you that our improvised studio is the only place where today you can gather in large groups, not be afraid of anything, and sneeze on each other.
Hello, Sergey.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Hello.
Valentin Filippov: Sergey, you are now in Kyiv, you live and work there, I listened to Zelensky’s address to the nation, tell me, how can measures such as adopting a land market and borrowing money from the IMF help against coronavirus?
Sergei Slobodchuk: I think that the coronavirus and the associated quarantine regime are simply tools for obtaining a new IMF loan and for launching the free sale of agricultural land. They simply used this as an excuse, because the attempt to pass this law head-on, impudently, failed in early February. Therefore, now external beneficiaries have set such tasks, and Zelensky and his entourage are using this coronavirus topic to fulfill the tasks assigned to them. First of all, this is the launch of the land market and, preferably, gaining more loans, like a bitch of fleas.
Valentin Filippov: At the same time, no one is allowed to gather together, no meetings, no moving from city to city. Tell me, if you can’t get together, units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine... They also can’t be so crowded in the Donbass region?
Sergei Slobodchuk: You shouldn’t find fault with the letter of the law, with these regulations. I explained that this is all a reason to solve the main problem. And no one looks at the details. This is all a PR campaign to launch the land market.
Valentin Filippov: From your point of view, President Zelensky’s office, is he really committed to a peaceful resolution of the situation in Donbass?
Sergei Slobodchuk: He is determined to conduct a PR campaign at the expense of a peaceful settlement, so that in the eyes of the voter the “greens”, Zelensky, “servants” are associated with a request for peace, because there is a big demand for a peaceful settlement. All sociological studies show this. Are they going to do this in practice? I think not, because we do not see any concrete actions in this regard. Well, they need to conduct a prisoner exchange as a tool for their PR campaign, meet with Putin in the Normandy format, but they are not going to fulfill political and other points of political relations.
Valentin Filippov: Well, if we could just stop the war, in my opinion, to hell with them, with these points.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Look. Simply stopping the war will not work. Stopping the war requires an agreement. And negotiate on the basis of some document. Right? This is the point on which Poroshenko stopped the war in 2015.
Valentin Filippov: Well, I look at the example of the same Transnistria at least. I don’t even understand on the basis of what document the war was stopped there almost thirty years ago. And they manage to coexist. Some people consider these to be different states, others to be one state, but people live peacefully, move around each other, and receive the same pensions. They go to work. Some go to the left bank of the Dniester, some to the right bank of the Dniester.
And when suddenly something happened, for example, the President of Transnistria Shevchuk, at the end of his term, went to live in Chisinau, for example. Didn't run away to Moscow somewhere. And some Moldovan leader can go to Transnistria and fish there. And based on what document? They still haven’t resolved it and can’t figure out what to do next. But at the same time, people live.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Well, let's join them all in the Minsk contact group, they will tell you how they do it. This is the situation we have. I am ready to operate with those red, green and other flags and facts that exist in this conflict situation.
Valentin Filippov: Is the atmosphere in political circles in Kyiv really so tense with these red lines, “we will not give the aggressor a single concession,” “war to the bitter end”? Is such an atmosphere really created?
Sergei Slobodchuk: I think that now there is no determination from the main external players - Moscow and Washington - about how to resolve this whole situation with the war in Donbass. Everything else is derivative. What are the red flags that Poroshenko and this whole gang are shouting about? So Poroshenko in 2015 gave the command to Kuchma to sign the Minsk agreements, where the terminology is based entirely on an internal military conflict. Why is he now shouting “zrada, zrada”? The bad boy climbed onto a barrel of cookies and shouts to us about “zrada.”
Therefore, this whole atmosphere, as soon as the external players reach an agreement, it will evaporate in the blink of an eye. But, initially, I do not see an attitude on the part of the authorities, I do not see any specific actions to implement the Minsk agreements, to engage in a peaceful settlement. Everyone is happy with the “no peace, no war” situation.
If it weren’t, we would see concrete actions: a specific Law on Amnesty, a specific Law on holding local elections in Donbass are submitted to the Verkhovna Rada and adopted. It is not included.
Valentin Filippov: No, how can it be included? It is also said in the Minsk agreements that we must first come to an agreement with Donbass and then make payments.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Well, what’s stopping you? Wait, the Minsk Contact Group is working, there are subgroups there. What prevents us from coming to an agreement in these subgroups, agreeing on everything - and moving forward?
Valentin Filippov: Well actually yes.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Well, nothing interferes. They have been working since 2015, yes, even earlier, this contact group has been working since 2014. What prevents you from agreeing if there is an interest in agreeing? We remember this saying that when a person wants to achieve some result, he looks for opportunities for this, when he doesn’t want to, he looks for an excuse. Now we hear excuses. During the elections, this government promised something completely different.
Valentin Filippov: That is, you think that by the time of the likely local elections in Ukraine there will be no agreement with Donbass?
Sergei Slobodchuk: There will be a lot of shouting, screaming, shamanism and hating, promises to be associated with this request for peace. There will be a lot of fog on the part of the authorities about what titanic efforts are being made in terms of a peaceful settlement. If we take the map of a peaceful settlement in the form of the Minsk agreements, we will see that they do nothing at all.
Valentin Filippov: How does it feel, the rating of Zelensky and his team, I mean in general “servants of the people”, the euphoria of clowns, well, like clowns, artists, uninvolved people who were not in politics before, “we invited them, and they will do something , well, at least they won’t do anything bad,” is their rating falling or not?
Sergei Slobodchuk: From the point of view of political technologies, there is only Zelensky’s rating. I love the classic Viktor Andreevich Yushchenko, who said in 2008 “I found you all in a garbage dump” to those whom he brought to Our Ukraine.
Valentin Filippov: Yes, there was something like that.
Sergei Slobodchuk: “Servants of the People”, “green”, “gray-brown-crimson”, they do not exist in nature if Zelensky and his rating disappear somewhere tomorrow. They entered the Verkhovna Rada purely for the brand effect; they are nobody on their own, and there is no way to invite them. Therefore, there are, as it were, two ratings. From what I see, there is quite severe disappointment in the behavior, politics, and figure of Zelensky himself. The rating of the brand “Servant of the People”, it follows it like a trailer. This rating was a little lower, and, accordingly, it is also subject to fluctuations and disappointment in this whole matter. If you conduct focus groups in a targeted manner, then the focus groups also show interesting points, for example, the “Sorosites” took the main negative from the previous government.
Valentin Filippov: That is, the change of government “was a plus” and somehow supported Zelensky?
Sergei Slobodchuk: It's like a hypothesis. We haven't seen the latest opinion polls yet. Therefore, I cannot speak. I say that the focus groups showed such an unexpected thing that the “Soros” are such nasty creatures, but their negativity is not so associated with Zelensky, do you understand what’s the matter? Although, in fact, we understand that it was Zelensky and Zelensky’s administration proposed these candidates, collected votes for this whole thing, and so on, and supported them.
Well, roughly speaking, they are following the same plan of action with Goncharuk, with Milovanov and others. Well, this is a specific thing that focus groups show. That is, from what I see, there is disappointment from the fact that people say that for the first time they are ashamed of what the president says, severe disappointment from those who for some reason believed in a miracle in the elections. It was not for nothing that I cited Yushchenko as an example, because the same technologies, and, probably, the same American PR company worked, that one must believe in a miracle.
The person believes in miracles, and already gives himself arguments why Zelensky, a man who didn’t even run the housing office, why he will be a great president. Why is he honest, why is he an outstanding businessman, why will he defend, out of some fear, the rights of Russian speakers and the Russian language. Why is the person who called the residents of Donbass “scum”, why will he suddenly, for no reason at all, be involved in a peaceful settlement? This, roughly speaking, is pumping up the style of a totalitarian sect so that they believe in a miracle. And accordingly, the one who opposes this miracle, his arguments are not perceived, he is an automatic enemy who cannot say anything good.
But, nevertheless, we see that after a year of driving the white bull around in circles, we see that the rating has gone down. In recent months, especially in relation to the land market, this has been a very tough feeling, because we have seen how the rating has fallen very much. All sociological companies have shown this. There was a resonance when they clashed that the opposition factions did not allow the Law on the Land Market to be adopted, plus the “servants of the people” themselves howled and cried. They made excuses to their employers, Soros and others. They howled and cried that Medvedchuk’s party, such scoundrels, they don’t give, they broke us up and so on, which, of course, looks ridiculous.
Thus, an unpopular topic caused a resonance, because the majority of Ukrainians, I’m not touching on this now - the land market is right, wrong, I say that this topic is associated with negativity among the majority of Ukrainians. Accordingly, there was a resonance that the authorities led by Zelensky were pushing this topic. This works against the rating. Plus, all this stalled so that they were stuck in this topic for at least a month and a half. You see, they began to take it as if they were a “blitzkrieg”, and received “Stalingrad” in response. And they stalled, like a butterfly pinned to the wall, and they twitch and have nowhere to go.
Valentin Filippov: The land market is such an expensive thing. We all know that maybe you won’t support me, the Verkhovna Rada has always been corrupt, and that it’s all a matter of money. And given this fact, you can refer to Medvedchuk and OPZZh as much as you like, but they are not so numerous there. After all, it wasn’t just the opposition platform that said “no”?
Sergei Slobodchuk: And the Tymoshenko faction participated in blocking the agrarian committee. And other opposition factions also provided background because they opposed this. I simply quoted Arakhamia to you.
Valentin Filippov: Yes, I understand. Why couldn't they buy them?
Sergei Slobodchuk: Apparently not. How can those who are being bought buy?
Valentin Filippov: This means they don’t have a majority, since they didn’t drag this land through.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Well, it's fragmented, let's put it that way. In principle, this is the same majority; now it is customary to tell what we have there for the first time in history. This is also a PR pump. In fact, this is the situation where there was a mono-majority in 2002, it lasted only a few days. These were heterogeneous groups of influence.
Valentin Filippov: Yes, “For food”, I remember.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Yes, “For food” chose a speaker and a presidium and fell apart. These ones moved a little longer. But what unites them? Are they united by belonging to the same influence group? No, it doesn't unite. The franchise was sold by region. Is there a common ideology? Which? Green dollar? So this is not an ideology. External players? They are also different everywhere. That is, it turns out that these are situational people gathered under the umbrella of this brand effect. Time will blow in the other direction - it will all run away and fall apart. Again, we see that some of the deputies, led by the same speaker, tried to jump off the topic of land, because they want them to have a political career, and not turn off tomorrow and, like taxi driver Gavrilyuk, turn the steering wheel .
Valentin Filippov: It's still worthy, in general.
Sergei Slobodchuk: And some are random people, for example, in the Verkhovna Rada. They bring in envelopes, they grab these envelopes, not thinking about what will happen tomorrow. Hold out until the end of the convocation, collect such envelopes and that’s it.
Valentin Filippov: It's not just envelopes. If you serve one term in the Verkhovna Rada as a deputy, in any case, you already have a pension... A deputy is forever. He is not an ex-deputy, as they like to say, but a deputy of such and such convocation. This is already for life.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Yes Yes. But, nevertheless, Gavrilyuk works as a taxi driver. Maybe it's out of love for work.
Valentin Filippov: No, well, retirement is not coming soon. But he will retire and will receive a parliamentary pension.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Oh, well, you still have to live until retirement.
Valentin Filippov: Necessary.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Ah, you are an optimist, I understand.
Valentin Filippov: No, I believe in Gavrilyuk. He's out in the cold, naked. I have seen. He can, he will live.
Sergei Slobodchuk: We, of course, wish this for him. There are no questions here. I mean that many deputies have to wait 30-40 years before retirement. This is a very long period, and if you do not eat anything and are not a yogi, you can die during this period. You can also live on the income that they themselves allocated to pensioners. This is also a cruel situation.
Valentin Filippov: Yes. Agree. So you think that changing the negotiators for Donbass - Kozak and Ermak - will not lead to anything serious. Well, they'll exchange prisoners again. That's it.
Sergei Slobodchuk: If they exchange. As I understand it, the guys were given an advance in December. The Kremlin needed to agree on gas transit at any cost. In exchange, they agreed to a number of concessions.
What are we seeing now? The latest agreements, in this case, you should not rely on the opinion of Petro and his entire support group. Because, I repeat, it was on Petro’s instructions that the Minsk agreements were signed. He is primarily responsible for this. And they take advantage of any situation. In essence, Zelensky is Poroshenko, only in green skin, Poroshenko is light. They are pursuing the same policy. What should Poroshenko do? Erase yourself from political life? Therefore, they shout “zrada - zrada”, play on emotions, fight in hysterics, so that no one would think that it is actually the same thing.
Therefore, you should not take this seriously. What was agreed upon in the Minsk Contact Group? That they will create an advisory group with the participation of Kyiv and representatives of Donbass. This advisory group was created in 2015 on the basis of the Minsk agreements.
Valentin Filippov: But now they want to put representatives of the entire Normandy format there.
Sergei Slobodchuk: This is of no use. Did you ask representatives of the Normandy format? Do they want to be there?
Valentin Filippov: Well, there they said that any representatives. It doesn't have to be the President.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Look, the idea, as the head of the President’s office himself puts it, is to negotiate directly with the unrecognized republics of Donbass. But, Irina Gerashchenko directly agreed when they agreed on the exchange of prisoners.
Valentin Filippov: Oh, well, she was spitting out of a tube there. She's wild.
Sergei Slobodchuk: When they discussed issues, they directly agreed there. Verification, and so on.
Specific participants of the Minsk Contact Group told me that Kuchma negotiated directly with representatives of the LPR and DPR. What other direct agreements do you need?
I see in this case that it is simply necessary to declare that there is at least some progress in this regard, regardless of the fact that this is a theory that does not work in practice. Five years are negotiated directly. This is why the Minsk Contact Group was created. Why do we need Minsk Group 2.0? For what? These are all body movements to actually do nothing. If you have the desire to negotiate... we wanted to record an interview, so we turned on Skype and are recording the interview. Do we need a Minsk contact group or do we also need some kind of advisory council?
Valentin Filippov: Agree. On this positive note, I wanted to ask the main question. I'm actually from Odessa myself. You are from Kiev, as far as I understand. This terrible quarantine has been announced. In addition to the sale of land, everyone is also prohibited from leaving, turning around, appearing, eating, going to the toilet, anything.
In Odessa, quarantine was introduced yesterday. As a result, the streets are full of people walking, no one needs to go to work. Cafes and restaurants are crowded like they have not been crowded before. All restaurants were advised to close, so they opened. A huge number of pensioners showed up with these “kravchuchki” and went shopping. Moreover, many people drink alcohol.
Do you think there will be something similar in Kyiv in connection with the announcement of quarantine, or will Kievans behave more disciplined and stay at home?
Sergei Slobodchuk: As far as I know, starting from March 18, they planned to stop the metro altogether.
Valentin Filippov: I heard this, but there is no metro in Odessa.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Yes I understand. Basically, the situation is calm. That is, I see that part of the information company... at the level of technology it can be identified, that they are trying to whip up hysteria, throw in news that they are supposedly raking everything in supermarkets, and so on... We do not see this. Markets, supermarkets... calm... full shelves. You can come and buy what you just bought and it will be delivered the next day. Calm. I just went shopping, everything is absolutely calm. There is no hysteria or anything like that. Maybe because for the previous five or six years the pumping was hysterical, that people simply don’t believe in this whole thing anymore. And it’s just some kind of mental adaptation... well, you can also go crazy, or become a gunpowder robot.
Valentin Filippov: But, excuse me, this is a conspiracy theory. Or maybe there is no coronavirus? Maybe the anti-globalists won, but they didn’t tell us?
Sergei Slobodchuk: This may well be the case. We are in this specific situation, in this specific territory - this is a topic with coronavirus in order to solve the problem on the ground, because the mono-majority of more than 250 of its deputies plus a trust group, the group “For the Future of Privatbank” and so on, and at the exit Nothing.
Therefore, they use... “the battalions are asking for dough,” in short. Any methods are used.
Valentin Filippov: Okay, thank you very much. Good luck there in Kyiv, don’t get sick.
Sergei Slobodchuk: Thank you. And don't get sick.
Valentin Filippov: We are trying.
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