View from Kyiv: “Wise people pretend to be violent idiots”
Criminalization of politics and politicization of capital. About contract killings in Kyiv, the detention and release of Avkov’s son, Poroshenko’s delusions of grandeur and hopes for the recovery of Kyiv, to a PolitNavigator observer Valentin Filippov said a Kyiv political scientist Sergei Belashko.
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Valentin Filippov: Sergey, hello. Welcome to the city of Kyiv.
Sergey Belashko: Yes, good evening
Valentin Filippov: The other day, deputy Mosiychuk was blown up; the day before, Amina Okueva, the wife of a Chechen fighter, died. Tell me, how do you feel – what is more in all of this – politics or crime?
Sergey Belashko: You see, what is happening here, on the one hand, is the criminalization of politics, on the other hand, the politicization of crime, and at some point it is already difficult to understand whether this is a party leader, or this is a criminal “authority.”
And, given that business is also mixed into this whole matter, and the larger the business, the more it is politicized and criminalized, then this turns out to be a situation where every person who has climbed high on the ladder of the social hierarchy is a bit of a politician, a bit of a businessman and a bit of a criminal.
Valentin Filippov: In this case, it turns out that we are always waiting for some kind of political decisions, a political settlement, and it goes hand in hand with the fact that some kind of criminal settlement and business settlement is necessary.
Sergey Belashko: You know, I heard a lot of fairy tales about Pinochet, about Deng Xiaoping too, that when politics is like this, then the economy is completely different. But when you start checking this information more carefully, it turns out that everything is completely different, and politics is a concentrated expression of economics.
And if the economy is built on derivation, on the taking of other people’s property, on tax evasion, on shadowing, etc. then, accordingly, politics will be built in the same way sooner or later.
Those. There may be some temporary lag, but sooner or later these social relations will move into the political sphere.
Valentin Filippov: Well, actually, I assess everything that has been happening in Ukraine over the past three years as a deep political crisis. It is a product of the economic crisis, it turns out, this policy of deriban?
Sergey Belashko: What has happened over the past three years is what is called a transition from quantitative to qualitative changes, and this whole “culture of lawlessness” began to take shape back in the late 90s. Not at the beginning, but at the end, when the need arose to re-elect Leonid Kuchma for a second term, when large property began to move from the format of national property to the format of private property, etc.
Before this, crime was separate, business was separate, politics was separate. Management of the economy, which was predominantly in state hands, in particular the basic sectors of the economy - metallurgy, agriculture, petrochemicals, mechanical engineering - was separate.
And under Kuchma, the merging of all these spheres began, a new national elite began to form from “red directors”, from party functionaries, from large entrepreneurs, and criminal authorities began to slowly join in, who managed to adapt to some new principles of relations.
Those who failed to change formation were simply shot or transferred. And then it all seemed to accumulate, accumulated, when there were fewer and fewer honest politicians, they were simply thrown out of Ukrainian politics.
I can name you offhand several dozen people of very different political orientations; these are people who went into politics in order to somehow take care of the common good in their understanding, and not just to implement this principle of the Ukrainian economy, formulated in their own way. time by Vasily Chervoniy: “What is sobiartist? Tse koli vartisti sobi.”
Valentin Filippov: Returning conditionally to the Maidan, when they said: “We are tired,” I do not mean the leaders, but the conditional Parasyuk - did he know what he was doing?
Sergei Belashko: There is such a category of people who seem to have lived their lives, but remain such naive fools with the consciousness of a ten-year-old child. To whom you can show the candy, then take him behind the garages and do whatever you want with him. Do you understand?
This is how it happened with all these people with iPhones, with beautiful faces, with knowledge of foreign languages, who were bred like kittens, fucked along with the whole country, and that’s all.
And now they are trying to pretend that in fact everything is as it should be, that they themselves asked for these garages, they liked it there, etc.
Valentin Filippov: What are the prospects for Mikhomaidan, has it already begun to decline?
Sergey Belashko: On the one hand, he fell silent, but I will tell you this thing. I was at Euromaidan a few hours before the “beastly experience”. We agreed to meet with the man, he was busy, and I wandered around this Maidan for about an hour, looking at all these provincial crazy people, “they are children,” who were jumping there because it was cold, and they were trying to warm up, but just like that , although it’s cold, it’s stupid to jump, so they jumped with these chants: “Whoever doesn’t jump is a Muscovite.”
I saw these fifteen-year-old paratroopers standing there with a Right Sector banner and were really afraid. And, in fact, people from there were already really leaving, and if it weren’t for this “beastly life”, then in a few days the Maidan would have been empty, there would have been a few crazy people there who would have been there collecting alms for the release of Yulia Tymoshenko, for her lawyer or for transfer to the Kachanovskaya colony.
Those. it would be a kind of analogue of the tent camp that stood under the Pechersk court. Empty tents where newspapers were periodically distributed and some alms were collected.
But then they carried out this provocation with the “beating of children”, then several times these provocations continued, moreover, provocations from different sides, which led to an ever greater escalation of the confrontation.
When the topic of beaten students stopped playing, “draconian laws” appeared, then Nigoyan, who two days before his death quoted Shevchenko soulfully, then the beating of Chernovol, the beating of Lutsenko, the murder of Verbitsky, then he appeared, and not by himself, a Molotov cocktail appeared on the Maidan ...
In the same way, this “Michomaidan”, this farce can easily be turned into a tragedy if there are some forces that will pay for some kind of bloody provocation.
Valentin Filippov: In 2014, they told the population: “we are not against Russians, we are against theft.” And the American public received such interviews that “we want to be free from the Soviet Union.”
Sergey Belashko: It's not about the Americans. I am a categorical opponent when everything that happened...
Valentin Filippov: No, not everything that happened... But they appeal to the Americans. And here is just such a coincidence: they demand an anti-corruption court, and then Volker arrives and talks with Poroshenko. Those. Aren’t the Americans using this “Michomaidan” to put pressure on the president in order to get something from him?
Sergey Belashko: Well look, this is such a very complex concept. In order to put pressure on the president, it is enough to simply put your hand on his offshore accounts. And at the snap of his fingers he will jump up and clap his hands like silk.
Valentin Filippov: Well, maybe he keeps some of the money in Rostov, I don’t know.
Sergey Belashko: Well, maybe in Rostov. But in the modern world, hiding big money is almost impossible. Hide 10-20-50 thousand dollars in cash... and even then, it’s far from a fact that they will be safe, and Poroshenko is the owner of a billion-dollar fortune. Where will he hide it?
Valentin Filippov: How to evaluate the attempt to arrest Avakov’s son?
Sergey Belashko: The balance in the Ukrainian government was initially like this, balancing. Those. it was not a stable structure, but a situational equilibrium...
The second point, more prosaic, is that the food supply of the Ukrainian political class is shrinking on the one hand, and on the other – its ambitions are growing.
Those. the same Arsen Avakov is an undoubtedly capable person, very ambitious, a person with a great opinion of himself, who definitely respects himself no less than Petro Poroshenko.
Plus there is also the phenomenon of the environmental factor. Look, Poroshenko’s entourage, I don’t mean his business partners, but his servants in fact. Who are Poroshenko’s servants? These are former journalists, advertisers, PR specialists, marketers, etc. Well, Irina Gerashchenko is a journalist, Artur Gerasimov is a marketer. All these media persons, by showing media activity, are trying to position themselves positively in the eyes of the target audience. The target audience for them often comes down to one person. To the one from whose hands they grub.
Accordingly, when any movements occur within the structure of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, there are immediately vigilant adjutants, orderlies and others surrounded by Poroshenko, who begin to tell him: “Look, Pyotr Alekseevich, sedition is brewing here.”
Well, there are also characters around Avakov who constantly say, “Arsen Borisovich, you are two heads taller than these hucksters, you are smarter, more talented, you would be a much better president than what we have now.”
And then off we go. Avakov removed the National Guard cordon from this Mikhomaidan, Poroshenko immediately interpreted this as a riot, and Poroshenko gave the command to pack up Avakov Jr. and flew to Riyadh.
Or one can interpret the situation in such a way that the “party of compromise” has taken hostage the “prince” from the “party of war” and thus inclines the Popular Front to vote positively on the implementation of the Minsk agreements, which is categorically demanded from the Ukrainian authorities by Western partners.
Valentin Filippov: Do you think that Volker, speaking on television with a tough anti-Russian position, is simply sweetening the pill for the Ukrainian side?
Sergey Belashko: I think Volker isn't too hard on the sweetening of the pill. By the way, this conversation between Volker and the pranksters who pretended to be Turchinov, it very clearly shows that Volker meant all these natives and he is pursuing his line, which is indicated to him in the instructions of his superiors. And the sheriff doesn't care about the problems of the Indians
Valentin Filippov: When you watch what is happening in Kyiv from Russia, sometimes it seems that everyone in Ukraine has gone crazy. How do the people of Kiev feel? Is Ukraine adequate, are the people normal?
Sergey Belashko: Look to make it clear. I don’t want to name names, but here are the people who occupy high positions in the executive branch, in law enforcement agencies, etc.
When I personally communicated with a person, I know that this person is well educated, he is well-read, and reads smart paper books, and not just the social networks Facebook, Telegram, Instagram, etc. Those. The person is not just smart, but also wise.
And yet I see this man on TV, and he pretends to be a violent clown. And this is not only in politics.
This also exists in show business, in the same law enforcement agencies, etc. Those. in order to belong, in order to be in demand, in order to be adequate, wise people pretend to be violent idiots, do you understand what the problem is?
And when you see on social networks that some person is behaving inappropriately, and either you don’t know this person, or, on the contrary, you have known him for many years and are surprised...
And then you meet him in person and it turns out that nothing actually happened to him, he thinks just as sensibly as he reasoned 10-15-20 years ago.
And when you ask: “What is it?”, he smiles and says, “Well, understand, we are not like that - life is like that.”
Valentin Filippov: OK then. Thank you very much. We clarified the situation a little about what is nearby in Kyiv.
Sergei Belashko: You are always welcome to contact me, I am always ready to share my opinion.
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