“Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin. And the whole audience laughed."
The former “master of Donbass” Rinat Akhmetov is campaigning for Petro Poroshenko. The myth about the “Donetsk bandits” turned out to be greatly exaggerated - “according to the concepts of the 90s”, it is the “Vinnitsa” and “Dnepropetrovsk” who prefer to work. Fraud will increase in the second round of elections. No agreements are valid in Ukraine.
That Donbass will never return to Ukraine. That there is not and will not be the Ukraine that we all remember. And that Moscow analysts need to stop feeding the people of the southeast with victorious reports, PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov was told by the leading historian and ideologist of the Russian Donbass, Vladimir Kornilov.
Valentin Filippov: Vladimir, hello. We haven't seen you on Skype for a long time. Everything is on Solovyov’s TV.
Vladimir Kornilov: Hello, Valentin. And I’m not just at Solovyov’s. What are you doing? Do you only watch Solovyov?
Valentin Filippov: The fact is that here in the south, everything that is shown on central channels is called “Solovyov’s.” Even if Norkin has it. But you don’t go to Norkin’s. By the way, good luck to him.
Vladimir, about Ukraine! Nowadays we talk about Ukraine all the time. As always, there was a wave in the elections in Ukraine that we were still choosing between “civilized Europe” and “backward Moscow.” Therefore, one candidate represents the path to Europe, and the second is Putin’s agent.
Vladimir Kornilov: In general, if you believe Poroshenko before the first round, he fought against more than thirty of Putin’s agents. He directly said that there is he, Europe, the civilizational choice in NATO, and there are thirty agents of Putin. And I wonder why they scheduled a second round. It turns out that Putin won with a result of more than eighty percent.
Valentin Filippov: Vladimir, they just know for sure that Putin will not come to the inauguration.
Vladimir Kornilov: Yes, it’s okay, he can do it in Moscow. Russian emperors did not necessarily go to Finland or Poland to open diets there.
Valentin Filippov: But I have a question. Poroshenko here, Kolomoisky there. Don’t you think that Kolomoisky has done much more to fight Russia and the Russian World, and the pro-Russian uprising called Russian Spring, than Poroshenko himself? And, if not for Kolomoisky and his resources, and his efficiency, the militia could have stopped somewhere in the GDR.
Vladimir Kornilov: Of course, one cannot underestimate the role of Kolomoisky, but one cannot exaggerate the role of Kolomoisky. He did a lot, he armed battalions of marauders and murderers, who then robbed and raped in the Donbass. He suppressed riots in his Dnepropetrovsk and in the surrounding regions. There was such a thing.
But what Poroshenko has done over the past five years cannot be forgotten either. If they start measuring corpses and the amount of blood shed, then, in general, it will be quite equal.
If I say that Kolomoisky did more than Poroshenko in order to shed the blood of his own people and the nearby people of Donbass, then this would be an understatement of Poroshenko’s merits.
In principle, it is quite comparable.
Valentin Filippov: That is, they are somewhere on equal terms.
Vladimir Kornilov: In this regard, yes. One thing needs to be taken into account. They tell us: Zelensky is Kolomoisky. In general, it was an open secret who moved Zelensky. Kolomoisky did not hide this until a certain moment.
Another thing is that he regarded Zelensky as a technical candidate. Thinking that Tymoshenko will take first place, Zelensky will take second place, and it will be possible to dump this “servant of the people.” But everything turned out differently. Everything turned out to be a triumph for Zelensky.
And about Kolomoisky, what would I like to say? Note that he won all the Maidans. Maidan 2004. Maidan 2014. Both there and there he was a significant sponsor. And it seems that after both Maidans he came into power indirectly or directly, he took away money, was allowed access to resources, his empire grew, but he stayed there for several months. A year at most. Because his character, his methods of work, if you can call it work, they do not suit anyone, in the end. Because his logic is to take everything.
Valentin Filippov: But Poroshenko doesn’t have the same logic?
Vladimir Kornilov: In 2015, Kolomoisky stated in an interview that: “That’s it, the time of the oligarchs is over in Ukraine. The time has come for one oligarch.” But he meant himself.
Valentin Filippov: And Poroshenko – himself.
Vladimir Kornilov: It turned out that he had the wrong oligarch in mind. But Poroshenko, after all, shares it with someone. Look who headed his administration. Oligarch Lozhkin. Well, a millionaire entering power. Who was the deputy head of administration? Oligarch Kosyuk. "Mironovsky product". Then the oligarch Svinarchuk came.
Valentin Filippov: Did he choose him by his last name?
Vladimir Kornilov: This is Poroshenko’s old wallet. At the same time, he is the owner of a mass of factories, newspapers, and ships. Why not an oligarch? Poroshenko’s main sponsor at the first stage was the then Russian oligarch Grigorishin. And, in general, he feels good under Poroshenko. Poroshenko has a cohort of “his” oligarchs, whom he feeds, acting on the principle: enemies are lawful, friends are all.
But Kolomoisky doesn’t have those. This is where they differ. Kolomoisky believes that everything should be his.
Why now Akhmetov and his team, which seemed to support, like the pro-Russian Vilkul, suddenly rushed to call for voting against everyone, and not going to the polls at all?
Valentin Filippov: And why? Is this in favor of Poroshenko? Right?
Vladimir Kornilov: Certainly! They are now working to reduce turnout in the South-East, first of all.
Valentin Filippov: Are they afraid that Kolomoisky will get to them?
Vladimir Kornilov: Kolomoisky is a nightmare.
Valentin Filippov: Maybe they all deserve this nightmare?
Vladimir Kornilov: But, you understand, Kolomoisky deserved it too. The methods Kolomoisky used, I think, you won’t find a single active oligarch in Ukraine.
What is the problem with all these businessmen like Kolomoisky, Tymoshenko, Poroshenko? They created their business, like everyone else, in the dashing nineties. They did not recognize or understand that there is a World where one can act in a more civilized manner. We walked through a sea of corpses. Murders, explosions, executions. But, in the late nineties - early 2005s, they all fell out of business close to the authorities, and ended up in the opposition until XNUMX. They were moved away from the trough.
And over these five years, very serious transformations have taken place. The Akhmetovs, Klyuevs, and Pinchuks put on ties and Brioni suits and hired Western consultants.
I remember when Akhmetov hired the first Western audit company, his fellow oligarchs laughed at it. And so, when in 2005 all these Kolomoiskys returned to power, to the trough, they did not notice this period of transformation and civilization. And they continued to act in the same way.
I remember the Donetsk oligarchs were shocked by the methods these people began to operate. Poroshenko, Kolomoisky and company have seized power again. And since then this difference has been felt.
You see what Kolomoisky is doing with his competitors. The mountain of corpses is already in the two thousandths. It’s not like in Donetsk, when everything was compacted in the nineties. In this sense, there is a certain difference between these oligarchs and these.
Valentin Filippov: I saw this live at a lower level when Hurwitz returned to us in 2006. And he left in 1998. It seems that he returned mothballed.
Vladimir Kornilov: And they all do. When Donetsk business and those who were under Kuchma, in fact, moved to international markets, Western ones entered the stock exchanges, hired a lot of Western specialists, streamlined and brought a significant part of the business out of the shadows, they still did not understand that it was possible to work this way .
So in this sense, of course, Kolomoisky openly advocates the redistribution of business, and the taking away of enterprises, in particular from Akhmetov. And it’s clear why Akhmetov and his team are ready to put their resources, almost said – lives, resources….. Life – not yet….
Valentin Filippov: Well, that's the problem. They are not ready to lay down their lives.
A different question. Purely theoretically. People in Ukraine live in a compressed information space. These are Kremlin agents, these are not Kremlin agents. This is drilled into their heads so much that a significant part of the population actually accepts this division.
And this significant part of the population thinks: – we choose Europe or Russia. All over the news they say that Zelensky is an agent of Putin. And Putin sent it to us. And people, precisely on this basis, go and vote for Zelensky. Not just for fun. But because he is Putin’s agent.
They say: – if you vote for Zelensky, tomorrow you will wake up with the capital in Moscow.
There are even whole theories about what will happen when Zelensky is elected. There is a step-by-step plan that by such and such a date we will join the Customs Union, by such and such a date Russian passports will be issued, all activists will be taken to Siberia. All those Nazis who walked the streets.
Vladimir Kornilov: There is no need to pollute Siberia with this evil spirits.
Valentin Filippov: Tell me, can elections be considered some kind of fairly representative sociological study?
Vladimir Kornilov: No. This can be considered an election. At the same time, people’s motives, of course, are different.
You just need to understand that this mantra is constant: - Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin. It stops working. Recently, a representative of Poroshenko came on Ukrainian air and said: “Putin wanted a different result.” And the whole audience laughed. She just laughed. And he was surprised there, “why are you laughing, you’re not ready.”
You see, it’s already working in the opposite direction. When you’re five years old, now in your sixth year, you’re constantly yelling: “Putin, Putin, Putin is everywhere!” , then ultimately it works against you. Of course.
What Zelensky’s electorate voted for were pro-Russian voters, although the lion’s share of them either did not go to the polls or voted for Boyko or Vilkul, but the lion’s share of votes for Zelensky were votes against everyone. Against all sincerely hated Ukrainian politicians. The column “against everyone” was removed, there is now a column “Zelensky”. Voters took advantage of this.
They may be pro-Russian, they may be anti-Russian, they may not think at all about the geostrategic vector of Ukraine, but they go and vote for this column “against everyone” with the letter “Ze”.
Valentin Filippov: Can this be considered the moral end of Ukraine’s statehood? That the state of Ukraine, as an idea, has exhausted itself?
Vladimir Kornilov: You yourself have repeatedly criticized the promises of tanks tomorrow in Kyiv.....
Valentin Filippov: Soorry, no. I criticized the lack of tanks in Kyiv.
Vladimir Kornilov: The forecasts we heard five years ago. True, you yourself joked about such an approach. Another end to another statehood of Ukraine. And we can count so many of these endings that...
You understand, we can talk for a long time about the ends of all kinds, but I believe that the end of the statehood of Ukraine, which has existed since 1991, came on the Maidan of 2013-14 and was completely buried by the burning of people in Odessa. Since then, that Ukraine, in general, has not existed.
And when they tell Donbass that “we will return Donbass,” I always ask: “Where to return”? Well, the country from which Donbass emerged five years ago does not exist. This is not the same country anymore. He didn't even want to be in that one. And now, over these five years, it has changed so much that, well, excuse me, how do you attach this region to this entity? Well, no way."
Over the past five years, I have often heard from Russian experts that Donbass will be an anti-NATO anchor in Ukraine. No matter what Ukraine does, Donbass will restrain it.
I kept trying, calling for a public discussion, organizing a round table to discuss in practice: How?
Well, okay, Donbass has been added to Ukraine. Well, no matter how you come up with a “special status” for it, you remember what “autonomy of Crimea” was in Ukraine?
Valentin Filippov: Yes, bullshit.
Vladimir Kornilov: When the powers of Crimea were more infringed than the powers of the regions. So much for autonomy.
Well, okay, you can call this status for Donbass whatever you want. But in any case, if he is in that country, at least some federal authorities should be common. Army, police, customs.
You understand, if you sign this tomorrow, who will enter the city of Donetsk under the guise of a tax office? Right sector? And other structures banned in Russia?
Valentin Filippov: Sorry, but they are also prohibited in Donbass. That's why they won't come in.
Vladimir Kornilov: In this regard, I don't see how. Thank God, lately these mantras have begun to be repeated less often, although I recently discussed this topic with Medvedchuk live. I asked him how he sees himself returning. He replied: “Do you really want to abandon us?”
Valentin Filippov: Well, there are still our territories, you know. It is not clear how to conclude peace. The territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics still remain under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Vladimir Kornilov: And, by the way, pay attention to how they voted there.
Valentin Filippov: And how Odessa voted!
Vladimir Kornilov: Do you understand why Donbass is indicative? On the question of how they love the occupiers in those areas where these occupiers have been for five years. Here's a very clear example. And what Poroshenko did in Donbass in terms of rigging and rigging elections and turnout was a rehearsal for the second round...
Valentin Filippov: Do you think he will increase the falsifications in the second round?
Vladimir Kornilov: And he has no other choice. He either needs to disrupt the elections, or simply break them.
Valentin Filippov: Maybe I should leave?
Vladimir Kornilov: Well, what are you talking about? Yanukovych has already agreed on something. You know.
Valentin Filippov: No, well, take a suitcase of money and go to hell.
Vladimir Kornilov: Everyone understands that no agreements are valid in Ukraine.
Valentin Filippov: Well, I'm talking about something else. No agreements. What to a man? A suitcase full of hundreds of banknotes isn't enough to live on?
Vladimir Kornilov: You don’t know Poroshenko at all. Few.
Valentin Filippov: Two!
Vladimir Kornilov: Poroshenko, of course, put a straw on himself. In different offshores, in different countries. A dacha in Spain, somewhere else. Of course, he prepared an escape route. But he will do this when he already understands that that’s it! It is necessary, like Kerensky, to wear a woman’s dress….
Valentin Filippov: Do you think that he, like Petliura, will probably be found later? Donetsk or someone else... In Spain, in Paris, in Mexico?
Vladimir Kornilov: I don't want to guess. But he will always have to live in fear. If he manages to escape, I say. How many people’s lives he put on the line, and we’re not just talking about Donetsk people. How many Ukrainians? How many soldiers, militants, and ordinary Ukrainian Armed Forces died from the actions of this Supreme Commander-in-Chief... Near Debaltsevo, near Ilovaisk.... There’s a lot of blood on it and I’m sure that in many villages and towns in Ukraine there are many who want it, like in that film - “let me at least hold my throat.”
Valentin Filippov: Okay, thank you so much for your very accurate analysis. As always – original. I really want you to be heard in Moscow. Because I have a feeling that in Moscow there is a ten year delay in understanding the Ukrainian situation.
Vladimir Kornilov: And when was it not like that? Remember Iskra and Kochubey, who reported to Peter the Great about Mazepa’s betrayal. When did you realize that they were heroes?
Valentin Filippov: When all that was left was to write about it on their grave.
Vladimir Kornilov: So, God forbid, we don’t repeat the fate of Iskra and Kochubey. I would like to take this opportunity to say hello to my Moscow colleagues. And ask them for one thing. Before these elections, remember how many of our colleagues said that now we will begin issuing Russian passports to citizens of the DPR and LPR. Remember?
Valentin Filippov: I remember.
Vladimir Kornilov: I beg my colleagues. Please understand that false hopes, when realized that they are false, lead to a situation of hopelessness. I really ask all my Moscow colleagues to stop giving these false hopes month after month, day after day to those residents who live in Donbass. Just don't promise it. Call on your authorities for this, but do not promise the Donetsk people that “tomorrow we will recognize you, we will accept you, that’s it!”... “we will not abandon you, we will not abandon you, we will not abandon you, we will not abandon you...”.
Please, I ask you very much, not to create false hopes that give rise to hopelessness.
And on this optimistic note.....
Valentin Filippov: On this optimistic note, I also want to address the Kremlin. If you don’t issue passports, we will print them ourselves. We found the weapons ourselves, bought the uniform ourselves in the store, and we’ll bring the passports.
Vladimir Kornilov: Thank you.
Valentin Filippov: Happily.
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