Portnikov is afraid that the “Ukrainian gaydars” will fail, and in Ukraine everything will go like in Russia in the 90s
The Ukrainian authorities are not able to use the “mandate of trust” given to them by the Maidan in order to implement large-scale liberal reforms in the country, and therefore the situation in the country may follow the Russian scenario of the 90s.
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Such concerns Ukrainian journalist Vitaly Portnikov expresses himself in his column for the publication “Kontrakty.UA”.
“That is why it is possible that the situation will develop according to the Russian scenario of the 90s. Moreover, I think that our 90s have already arrived. All that is needed is the finishing touches associated with the renewal of the elite - and in place of the people nominated by the Maidan or associated with it, real cynical and shameless predators will come - “new people” who will be able to carry out corporate reforms and gain a foothold in the levers of power. And if these people are lucky – as Putin and his entourage were lucky – and the economic situation is favorable for Ukraine – then Ukrainian democracy and the economy will also have an equal chance,” he noted.
The journalist believes that the experience of reforms of one of the main ideologists of antisocial “shock therapy” of the early 1990s in Russia, Yegor Gaidar, is important for Ukraine:
“An autocratic regime of a pseudo-patriotic kind, moderately anti-Western and falsely anti-Russian, will reign in the country for many years. And Ukrainians, like Russians before, will exchange their rights and prospects for the opportunity to live like human beings for at least a few decades - until the next collapse. So it’s not the Russians who should be thinking about the anniversary of Gaidar’s reforms - they have already sunk their boat. We should think about this anniversary,” Portnikov warns adherents of Ukrainian neoliberalism.
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