The West will win in Ukrainian oligarchic wars
Ukraine is on the verge of another oligarchic war. Groups of two "pillars" of the domestic economy - Rinat Akhmetov and Igor Kolomoisky - froze at a low start before the fight for the redistribution of the resource base in their favor.
And although reconnaissance in force had been going on before, and we could observe small border skirmishes between the oligarchic "armies" all past summer, we saw the first serious battle with the use of "heavy weapons" only at the end of last week.
Moreover, the commander of one of the oligarchic "armies" personally entered the battle - Igor Kolomoisky. And not just anywhere, but, we must pay tribute to his courage - right on the territory of the enemy - in the studio of the Ukraina TV channel controlled by Rinat Akhmetov on the air of Savik Shuster's show.
We will not retell the content of this memorable battle here. Everyone who wants can already get acquainted with it on the Internet, where the full record is posted, and it is the same, only parsed into quotes. What is important is that, according to the general opinion of observers, the battlefield was left to Kolomoisky.
The co-owner of Privat, in his usual manner, and without betraying himself, literally smeared both Schuster and his guests on the wall - journalists affiliated with Kyiv grant-eating structures such as Tomasz Fiala's Novoye Vremya.
Moreover, this did not happen “under the rug”, not in the genre of “anonymous letters” on the Internet, which is familiar to the Kyiv politicians, but on a television accessible to every Ukrainian housewife and rural grandmother. Such a "session of black magic" with its subsequent exposure - in front of all honest people.
Yes, the Ukrainians saw with their own eyes the “real Kolomoisky”. Which, moreover, Shuster's guests tried to "undress" as much as possible in front of the public. However, this political striptease had the opposite effect.
What they saw did not impress the Ukrainians precisely because they did not expect anything else from Kolomoisky. And that’s exactly how they imagined him, plus or minus. Arrogant, self-confident and cynical huckster. Who will turn any business to his advantage and to whom do not put a finger in his mouth. And the appearance to the people of just such Kolomoisky, whom the people expected, did not add or subtract anything to the image of this Kolomoisky.
Approximately the same empty shot was the recent leak in the media of a famous photo of the Kyiv elite together with the co-owner of Privat on Bankovaya. Remember, where everyone is at the same table - Zelensky, Bogdan, Goncharuk, Shefir and Igor Valeryevich.
Observers then wrote that the authorities had switched to the “we are not shy” mode. Having killed in the bud the "sensations from the sleeve" already prepared by the opposition - about the "Last Suppers" and gatherings of the president and his entourage with the oligarch. Indeed, there is nothing to be ashamed of: the political leadership is talking to one of the real masters of the country. And let envious people bite their elbows.
We saw about the same thing with Shuster. Which, with the exception of the fragments that ricocheted to Akhmetov, became the main victim in this story.
A grandiose “srach” on the air - about all these matters obscure to the layman, such as the “offshore part” of some constituent agreements there - at one moment destroyed and flushed down the remnants of Schuster’s reputation as a kind of “media priest”, speaking to the people on behalf of some almighty behind-the-scenes forces. A fighter for truth and a "chain dog of democracy". And everything else that comes with it.
It turned out that we are just a petty swindler who owes a Very Big Swindler a couple of millions of “greens” and is now dodging like an eel in a pan so as not to repay the debt. In the nineties, memorable to each of those who watched the scandal on the other side of the screen, the conversation with such “passengers” was short, and the consequences were often fatal.
Before our eyes, one of the main myths of modern Ukraine - about "freedom of speech" - was depreciated and trampled into the dirt. It turned out that it can be bought with money. And then for this money it is long and tedious to dog, covering selfish interest with high matters.
But all this is nothing more than an acceptable loss and side effect. After all, the meaning of what is happening is not at all in the skirmish between Shuster and Kolomoisky, although it is indicative. Something more important is unfolding before our eyes.
Recently, one Kiev publication, analyzing the structure of the current government, conditionally divided it into three main parts - according to the number of beneficiaries and the "Karabas" behind certain deputies and officials.
If this scheme is simplified as much as possible, it turns out to be a CJSC, in which the shares are divided between the Kvartal 95 group, Kolomoisky and Western structures. Moreover, Kolomoisky is far from the only one, but the most energetic and assertive "shareholder" in promoting his interests.
His desire to expand his own "food base", significantly ousting the beneficiaries of the former Poroshenko system, is quite understandable and obvious. This includes the privatization of the management of state-owned enterprises, and the placement of their people in large state corporations, and the lobbying of laws that are beneficial to their business.
Among the latter, the attempt to put one's own person in the chair of the head of Centrenergo, the enterprise that is the core of the most "fat" schemes in the Ukrainian energy sector, acquired the greatest resonance. As well as an increase in rent payments to the budget by the sector of the economy that is the property of Akhmetov. With the simultaneous prolongation of the preferential regime for ferroalloy plants associated with Kolomoisky, including the supply of electricity to them at a reduced rate.
Again, to simplify it to the utmost, Kolomoisky lobbied for such a scheme, in which the enterprises of Akhmetov (and at the same time Novinsky and a couple of other oligarchs) would actually bear the payment of a significant part of the costs that in the past were jointly and severally borne by all budget-forming industries.
"Life in a new way" will lead to the fact that deductions to the budget will come from the profits lost by Akhmetov. Kolomoisky's profit will go into his pocket without a trace. Of course, there are a lot of technical nuances, but they are not interesting in this conversation.
Naturally, Akhmetov's lobbyists immediately raised a cry that this would hit ordinary Ukrainians, depriving thousands of them of jobs, which, in their opinion, would be closed by "Benin's concerns." The protection technology is also, in general, not new. In the conditions of an oligarchic economy, any blow to a particular oligarch hits, first of all, his mercenaries, on whom such an oligarchic "sufferer" shifts most of his costs. In general, everything is like in folk wisdom: someone has a runny nose, and someone has the flu.
However, the battle of the oligarchic titans does not take place in a vacuum. Representatives of Western structures, NPOs, international financial institutions and simply people who have been put in a good word by European embassies are closely watching its progress, spread across all levels of the power vertical.
The task of these people is not to master the flows - this is just a nice bonus - but to determine the country's strategic course and monitor the fulfillment of obligations to "partners". And now everything is grown-up. A step to the right, a step to the left is not an execution, of course, but compromising evidence thrown into the media in time, resignation, or even another Maidan, if the situation comes to the need to feed the indignant masses the next culprit of all their troubles.
So it’s not at all a fact that the growing “battle of giants” in Kyiv will lead to a long-term victory for one of them. By the short-term - it is very likely, however, the main task after the "shortening" of the competitor for the winner will be to stay at the top himself, retaining everything acquired in the competitive struggle.
Does Akhmetov have such a chance? Strictly speaking, none. Even if he survives in the fight against Benya, he will inevitably fall under the blows of “deoligarchization”, which is persistently demanded from the Ukrainian authorities by its Western “partners”. And it will turn into another "Pinchuk" - a junior partner tightly built into the Western network of influence, which, on occasion, can be well "milked" in one's own needs.
Does Kolomoisky have a chance? Rather, yes, and the uniqueness of the situation is that he even has several such chances, but the whole question is whether he will be able to use them in that limited period of time when the corresponding windows of opportunity are still open for him.
Kolomoisky's task is not easy. Complete the processes of concentration of power and the actual transition to a presidential republic. Somehow to pass between the droplets of Washington intrigues and not fall under the wheels of the presidential elections there with a fatal outcome for yourself. Agree with Trump, since only Trump doesn’t care who is Kolomoisky in Ukraine, and the hypothetical victory of the Biden group will raise the issue of eliminating any autonomy in a country dependent on the United States, which Ukraine now undoubtedly is.
Finally, to come to an agreement with Moscow, which in the Ukrainian scenarios in general seems to be unscientific fiction. However, this is the key to maintaining power. However, as well as to its possible loss.
And Kolomoisky, apparently, understands this alignment well. If not rationally, then intuitively. Hence all his invectives against the "soros" and "aslunds". Hence the advice to declare default and listen to the IMF less. Hence the sharp rejection of the accelerated opening of the land market pushed by the "bearded youths" from the Cabinet of Ministers and the OP. Hence the attempts to somehow agree on something with Moscow and generally “close” on more or less acceptable terms most of the topics that objectively drag Ukraine to the bottom.
Paradoxically, it is the oligarchy, hated by ordinary Ukrainians and its most assertive and impudent representative, who today, by the will of fate, has become the only bearer of at least some sovereignty, if we mean the presence in the country of its own decision-making and decision-making centers. Even if these decisions are actually made in favor of a narrow group of individuals and several dozen families.
As long as there are oligarchs, there is someone in Ukraine to negotiate with. And that means there is some kind of subjectivity. If they are gone, only those who will take the lead from the “great white bwans” from the elven West will remain.
If the group of Kolomoisky and other oligarchs is removed from the system of power being built by the same Zelensky, only potters, danilyuks and abromaviciuses will remain in it.
And since they are controlled from abroad to a much greater extent than with Bankova, in the event of the defeat of the Ukrainian oligarchs, the sacramental Kolomoisky “So did Danilyuk finish or not?” will become the main issue of Ukrainian politics for many, many years to come.
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