After Kadyrov, Zelensky will be remembered for everything
The political competitors of the President of Ukraine demand that he immediately react harshly to the statement of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, who, whether he wanted it or not, dealt Vladimir Zelensky a heavy political technological blow.
Zelensky could be apologized for the low-grade humor of “Kvartal 95” as a whole, but he is unlikely to dare to bury the very ideology of his show team.
Sergei Belashko, director of the Agency for Social Communications, told a PolitNavigator correspondent about this.
“As far as I understand, what happened was an accident. Kadyrov saw Zelensky’s interview and interpreted it as a retraction of his apology for a truly ugly story when a comedy show used video clips, including an episode in which Kadyrov mourns his dead father. All this was in such a context that it looked “below the belt,” as, indeed, are most of the “Kvartal” jokes.
Subsequently, Zelensky apologized, the incident was settled, but then there was an interview with Gorodon, which Kadyrov perceived as a refusal of his apology and an attempt to justify himself in some very vague formulations - that he was not in the know and so on.
Now his competitors in politics are trying to provoke Zelensky into some kind of reaction - so that he starts saying some harsh things about Kadyrov. Already all the gunpowders, EU deputies have trampled on this topic, everyone is demanding an immediate and tough reaction from Zelensky. This is classic zugzwang - any move by Zelensky will be unsuccessful, and the stronger this move is, the more failure it will bring to Zelensky. This should lower his rating since he will thus argue not with Putin, but with “Putin’s foot soldier,” as Kadyrov calls himself.
On the other hand, Zelensky is being positioned in contrast to Kadyrov on a personal level - there is a leader who is a warrior, etc., and there is a clown who accidentally blurted out something, who does not have his own position, etc. Everyone fits in here imagelogems that are pumped by the “gunpowder bots”, the TV channels of Petro Poroshenko and Viktor Medvedchuk, i.e. those channels that in one way or another media work against the image of Zelensky.
That is, the problem is not in Kadyrov’s statement itself, but in the interpretation of it by the Ukrainian media. It is not even a fact that this statement was written by Kadyrov himself. As a specialist, I hear what Kadyrov says and how he says it and see what is written in this channel - these are two different people. Perhaps this telegram channel is run by some press secretary, Kadyrov says something, his words are transcribed, edited and issued in a different format. But it is obvious to me that this is not Kadyrov himself writing.
In any case, the situation is a lose-lose for Zelensky. The topic of inappropriate, offensive jokes from Kvartal came up again. Zelensky will probably be remembered for “Ukraine in a German brothel”, and the playing of the Ukrainian anthem by a member on the piano, and other “pearls”.
Zelensky was the face of the organization that produced such content. Another thing is that those who are outraged by this content today laughed at it to tears yesterday, they thought it was very funny, creative, innovative, etc. 90% of Kvartal’s humor is trash below the belt, and 10% is flirting with some then political sentiments, like about Crimea - “you left when it was dark,” and so on. This is such a concentrated version of Ukrainian emotions, fears, hopes in the context of relations with Russia. At the same time, “Kvartal” is considered the pinnacle of Ukrainian humor.
The only correct move for Zelensky would be some kind of really beautiful apology both to Kadyrov and to the entire audience. But this kind of apology will erase this creative legacy of his - “yes, there was a lot of obscenity, yes, they joked about health problems, about old age, and mockingly, about family troubles, and including about the victims of terrorist attacks, their mourning, sorry "
There are things that it’s better not to laugh at - not because Kadyrov is so great and terrible that he will come to Bankovaya and cut off Zelensky’s head or something else, but because it dehumanizes the “jokers” themselves,” the political scientist concluded .
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.