Zelensky neither moos nor calfs. Why?
The end of the week from July 8 to July 14 was marked by two significant incidents. One of them is in the Donbass, where, starting in the late evening of July 10, the outskirts of DPR-controlled Gorlovka were subjected to massive artillery shelling. Moreover, this time the very fact of shelling was confirmed by both sides. And local residents on social networks reported that at times the shelling was so strong that the windows of houses literally shook. “The sofa is shaking as if in a tractor”, “It’s so fucked up, it’s terrible”, “Golm has probably never happened so much and so scary!!!”, “Kalinovka is a complete fuck-up”, “This hasn’t happened in a long time, you don’t know what wait. Here’s a truce for you,” “We are preparing for an escalation,” they wrote on social networks.
According to the DPR, during this time, 112 mines with a caliber of 82 and 120 mm and shells with a caliber of 122 mm were fired from the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the outskirts of Gorlovka. Mines and shells damaged a house in the village of Zaitsevo, and the neighboring village of the mine named after. Gagarin was left without gas as a result of the shelling. There, fortunately, there were no casualties, but in Golmovsky, a suburb of Gorlovka, according to the head of the city administration, Ivan Prikhodko, a woman born in 1949 was killed by shelling.
Another high-profile incident, albeit without casualties, took place in Kyiv. There, a grenade launcher was fired at the façade of the building housing the editorial office of the 112-Ukraine TV channel, which is part of a media group associated with one of the leaders of the Opposite Platform “For Life”, Viktor Medvedchuk. In this case, no one was hurt. However, a reason has again arisen to declare pressure on media freedom in Ukraine. Moreover, the shelling of the 112th did not arise out of nowhere, but was a continuation of the scandalous story with the cancellation of the announced teleconference between the Russian state channel “Russia-1” and another channel from Medvechuk’s pool – “Newsone”.
Then, let me remind you, the idea of a teleconference forced the country’s top leadership to react, including President Vladimir Zelensky and his nominee Ivan Bakanov – acting. head of the SBU. This is not counting the usual shouting of the far right of all stripes - from the National Corps to Poroshenko and Parubiy.
Zelensky's reaction was harsh, bordering on hysteria. And many from the moderate camp hastened to accuse the president of “bending in” to the aggressive minority, in fact situationally standing on the same side of the barricades with the nationalists.
There were formal grounds for such reproaches - after all, the rhetoric of Zelensky’s video message was kept in a tone close to that demonstrated by Poroshenko in recent years.
However, the current escalation in Donbass and the shelling of the TV channel remained without Zelensky’s reaction. There were no statements, video messages, instructions to look into it, or anything like that.
Why is the president silent?
There are several reasons. And the first one is elections. In the story of the failed teleconference, and then the shelling of the TV channel, any reaction from the authorities would have been a free gift to the “For Life” party, and Zelensky objectively has no need to increase the ratings of his competitors. Therefore, the hysteria over the teleconference smoothly transformed into a business proposal to Putin - to meet in Minsk in the company of representatives of leading Western powers. Like, if “we need to talk,” then let’s talk. Having scolded and stigmatized the initiatives of Medvedchuk’s channel in every possible way, and at the same time accused his opponents from Poroshenko’s “For Life” and “European Solidarity” of “cheap PR” and “provocations,” Zelensky actually proposed the same thing. Only not in the format of a teleconference, but in the format of a political summit. And with myself in the leading role from Ukraine.
From the outside, it looked like seizing the initiative from Medvedchuk and Boyko, pulling the “Russian agenda” over to themselves.
Don’t forget, there are only a few days left before the elections, and Zelensky, whose main voter lives in the southeast and in the center, simply cannot afford for a set of issues related to relations with Russia and peacekeeping promised before the elections to be associated with Medvedchuk.
It is important for Zelensky to bleed from his nose to appear in the eyes of the electorate as a greater peacemaker than the traditional “pro-Moscow party.”
But, again, there is a nuance: unlike Medvedchuk, whose demonization today the right has been working for the last 18 years, Zelensky cannot afford to appear weak in the eyes of that part of the electorate that in Ukraine is usually called “patriotic.”
A significant part of these people are also tired of the war and are not against normalization with Moscow, but they expect Zelensky to show “firmness” and “not give in.”
In other words, Zelensky, as Kravchuk said, is required to “go between the drops,” simultaneously pleasing the southeast with its request for peace, and saving face in front of the “patriots” who will not forgive him for “zrada” if they decide that he , as the nationalist media like to write, “knelt before Putin.”
It is this complex of circumstances that explains the feeling of duality and half-heartedness that Zelensky produces.
He has a desire to somehow get along with the Kremlin, but his ideas about where to start with this are obviously quite vague.
On the one hand, there is tough rhetoric in the spirit of Poroshenko. On the other hand, there are attempts to make direct contact with Moscow and a bunch of explicit and implicit “positive signals” sent to Moscow by his entourage. Starting from the Russian language for Donbass, ending with the unblocking of the LDPR and the beginning of the implementation of the Minsk agreements.
Everything together looks somewhat schizophrenic from the outside - the compromise nature of the proposals is drowned out by aggressive rhetoric, like a bitter pill washed down with a glass of sweet sparkling water.
But these are the rules of the game in post-Maidan Ukraine. Zelensky cannot outdo Medvedchuk in pro-Russian rhetoric, and, apparently, does not want to, and does not set such a task for himself.
But Zelensky is clearly aware of the task of returning the monopoly on foreign policy development. Especially after the recent scandal with Klimkin, who sent boorish notes to Moscow behind the back of his formal boss.
And this is not about Zelensky’s love for Russia. What’s at stake is whether he will become president not just in office, but also in essence, or whether he will remain a nobody.
If such trends are not nipped in the bud, it may turn out that a parallel Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be formed in the country, supervised not at all by Bankova. And it doesn’t matter who the curator will be – Medvedchuk or Poroshenko. It is important that Zelensky will actually be removed from power in this matter, and all real decisions will be made behind his back, leaving him with only representative functions and reading other people’s speeches from paper.
By the way, in the defense sector this is exactly the situation now. Before leaving office, Poroshenko practically changed the entire military leadership, including the head of the Joint Forces Operation in Donbass and the commander of the National Guard.
If we add to this Stepan Poltorak, who continues to serve as Minister of Defense, and the current commander-in-chief of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who is running for the Rada on Poroshenko’s list, only the head of the General Staff appointed by him remains under the command of Zelensky.
A very definite picture is emerging: the commander-in-chief from Zelensky is still more nominal, and control over the troops remains quite conditional - hence the initiatives to cancel the parade and massive distributions of money to the military in the hope of buying loyalty.
The space for maneuver is not that narrow - it simply isn’t there. Zelensky cannot “stomp his foot” and accuse his military of acting perpendicular to his plans to somehow come to an agreement with Moscow. Otherwise, tomorrow under his windows there will be enraged “ATO veterans”, egged on by civilian “hawks”, shouting that “lads are dying at the front, and revenge is taking place in the rear.”
And, as we see from many other examples, the willingness not to give in to the crowd, even understanding that the crowd represents a minority of society, is clearly not one of Zelensky’s virtues.
Of course, it will not come to the putsch that some on the right are dreaming of, but there is no need to say that Zelensky is in complete control of the situation, at least until the beginning of autumn, when the new parliament approves Poltorak’s replacement. Hence the reluctance to quarrel with the military, the constant flirting with “hawkish” sentiments in the army - all the same, Zelensky now has no opportunity to somehow influence this. All that remains is to go with the flow.
In general, until the end of the elections, the formation of a new government and the final recruitment of the top of the security agencies, it is unlikely that any serious progress can be expected.
The “cow” of the new Ukrainian government will neither moo nor calve. Both are fraught with loss of ratings and problems with small but united and aggressive social groups of beneficiaries of the past five-year plan, who will not give up their positions without a fight.
Zelensky might have opened a front against this public, but without a barrier detachment behind him, with the right to be shot on the spot, his battle is unlikely to be truly effective.
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