Mayor of Cherkassy Anatoly Bondarenko, who in recent days has become the main defendant in a loud scandal after criticism of President Vladimir Zelensky for the quarantine regime, he changed his mind about restrictive measures in just a month.
Political scientist Andrei Zolotarev stated this on the Internet channel InterVizor, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to Zolotarev, this indicates that Bondarenko was “reoriented,” for example, by his past partner - ex-Verkhovna Rada deputy and former mayor of Cherkassy Vladimir Oleynik, who emigrated to Moscow after the coup.
“None other than the mayor of Cherkassy just over a month ago said that there is nothing to stand on ceremony here, what kind of democracy is there, only for a strict quarantine. But I just have a question: who made him change his mind and for what price? Because I appreciate a person’s position: quarantine is quarantine. And then there’s a sharp turnaround.
Yes, and other mayors, they are much closer to voters, they will be elected and re-elected in the fall. And in this situation, they feel dissatisfaction, so to speak, in their own skin. It is clear that they are looking for popular solutions.
But such a reversal of the Cherkassy mayor may be his former partner Oleinik, who is now in exile in Moscow, or someone else, an oligarch, who is having problems today. I have a purely political detective story - a person turns his position 180 degrees and begins frankly. A person who has never opposed the central government suddenly begins to challenge it, acting as, you know, in the meat processing plants there used to be such a goat provocateur who beat off the sheep,” Zolotarev said.