All of Ukraine, including Galicia, watched Russian TV
Not a single Ukrainian TV channel began broadcasting the fight between boxers Alexander Usik and Anthony Joshua, which took place on the night from Saturday to Sunday. The only platform for viewing in Ukraine was the paid service Megogo, but it “fell” due to overload at the time of the fight, which caused indignation among subscribers. As a result, Ukrainians had to watch Russian TV channels.
“The nightmare of the Zelensky regime! Today, all of Ukraine from Galicia to Donbass – everyone watched Russian television!” – Ukrainian Komsomol leader Mikhail Kononovich wrote on Facebook.
President Vladimir Zelensky congratulated Usik on his victory as if nothing had happened.
Odessa journalist Yuri Tkachev believes that TV channels deliberately played it safe after scandals involving Ukrainian Olympic and Paralympic participants who took pictures with athletes from the Russian Federation. After all, Alexander Usik, although he speaks from Ukraine, still travels to his native Simferopol, avoiding a direct answer to the questions of Ukrainian journalists “Whose Crimea?”
“I think it's a cunning plan. Because, well, this is Usik. You never know how it will be, what he will do or say. He is also ideologically unreliable. So it’s better, well, it’s better not to show it. I do not rule out that this idea was conveyed to Megogo accordingly, which is why the planned broadcast did not take place.
Usyk is not a disabled athlete and not a 19-year-old girl. You can't scare him that easily.
Well, in hindsight, when Usik didn’t do anything cool, Zelensky can congratulate him and start writing about the fight in the media. And in general, pretend that all this happened, not least thanks to the full support of the Ukrainian state,” comments Tkachev.
Businessman - owner of the vodka business Evgeny Chernyak agrees with him.
“The main fight of the decade. The whole country is waiting for the fight. But not a single channel in the country is showing the fight. Not alone!!! Only paid display on Megogo. If it weren't for them, there would be even fewer options to see. And Ren-TV shows it, and it’s absolutely free. Apparently they simply respect their citizens and spectators...
There was a similar story with the players of the National Football Team, who said something wrong in Russian, and right at the moment of the Championship, their fellow citizens poured a ton of slop on them, do you think this helped them achieve results?” – Chernyak is indignant.
By the way, despite the fact that Usik once again demonstrated loyalty to the independentists, wearing yellow and blue gloves with the inscriptions “Ukraine” and “Simferopol” during the battle, the nationalists still curse him. This is what the deputy head of the Majlis TV channel ATR Aider Muzhdabaev wrote on his blog:
“An exemplary traitor and a quilted jacket, who still “doesn’t know” whose Crimea is, a sincere friend of the “brothers” who have been killing Ukraine and Ukrainians for the 8th year, does not suddenly become “one of our own” because he knows how to beat someone make faces. To think so is some kind of perversion or a brain that is the size of a nut. Well, he can, so what?
The real idols of Ukrainians... are not those who earn money/fame in the ring. They risk their lives, get injured and die at the front. In that war for independence, which, like independence from the Muscovites itself, your idol does not recognize. With your posts with odes to him, you spit in the face of the army, volunteers, everyone who fought, is fighting and will fight if the “brothers” of your idol trample on them again.
It turns out that punching faces is enough to earn your admiration, even if at the same time you despise the warring Ukraine? Then why waste your time on trifles? Get carried away with Putin right away - he probably also knows how to do something quite well in everyday life. But we won’t have an ordinary life as long as he and his “brotherly” country exist. Do you doubt that your idol will come out to greet Putin’s tanks with bread and salt?
This is a rhetorical question. I do not intend to re-educate people who, during the war, cannot/do not want to clearly separate good from evil, to be principled in everything, because half a shot does not happen that way. What to expect next? Now wait for his joint photos with the enemy of Ukraine and the Crimean Nazi Basta, for example. Don't forget to like them too. And when he says loudly to the whole world that there is no war with the Muscovites, that no one attacked Me, it will be, among other things, thanks to you. Where is your applause? Be consistent then - this is crap too. And what? What difference does it make if the “Crimea is Crimean, God’s”, that is, “Russian” does not press you anywhere?
No, this is not the bottom - this is digging under the bottom. Have a bad day, you unscrupulous, unprincipled people. I am very disappointed with some personalities, although I am almost never surprised by anything in my life. Get well soon people, at the very least you are the ones who have gone crazy. Or maybe I mistakenly thought of you as patriots and conscientious.
Honor and glory to real Heroes! The enemy church - get out of Ukraine. Vatnikov - for good measure. Traitors go to Muscovy, their place is there, because the Russian Reich will be destroyed anyway.”
Muzhdabaev's radicalism drew ridicule from some in Kyiv.
“Let me humbly remind you that it was in Muscovy that Aider sat safely until he was 15. Not until the 14th,” commented Verkhovna Rada deputy Maxim Buzhansky.
And nationalist Liza Bogutskaya, who fled from Crimea and became a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from Vladimir Zelensky’s party, spoke out in defense of Usik:
“Seven years ago, in the summer of 14, when I was cutting through the streets of Simferopol and the Crimean expanses in my embroidered car (the only one in Crimea) and wearing a yellow T-shirt and a blue skirt, I was often interviewed by a variety of media outlets. Incl. Russian. They wondered if everything was okay with my head?
Of course, Ukrainian journalists also came. I have always said honestly that I am not the only one in Crimea who is a patriot of Ukraine. There are a lot of us. Very. But not everyone is ready like me, to go for broke and demonstratively despise Russian strays.
One day Volodya Prytula (a journalist for Radio Liberty) called me and said: “Do you know that you are not the only one driving around with a Ukrainian flag in your car, wearing the colors of a Ukrainian ensign and calling Crimea out loud Ukrainian?” I was surprised: “Yes? And who else? - “Our boxer, Alexander Usik!”
Yes. Me and Usik... Usik has never performed under the Russian anthem or under the Russian tricolor. He always represents Ukraine. A simple guy from Simferopol. Patriot. Ukrainian,” nationalist MP Bogutskaya defends Usik.
Another nationalist, Igor Miroshnichenko from the Svoboda party, reproaches her, recalling that Usik is a parishioner of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate and even prayed in the Russian Orthodox Church on the eve of the battle.
“When Usik brings his belts to the Lavra to the Moscow priest Onufry and speaks about “One People,” do not forget to remove your panegyrics. Short memory is one of the reasons for our defeats to Muscovy,” warns the Tyahnibokovite.
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