1/4/21
Earlier this month in a small village in western Ukraine, a group of political pranksters met to declare self-government and to fly the country’s yellow-and-blue national flag upside down as their new symbol. The tiny group of misfits, led by a former plumber named Anatoly Balakhnin, was ignored by most Ukrainians; only Radio Liberty reported on the meeting, noting 10 people had shown up to it. Yet across the border, in Russian media, the new group was declared an “alternative state” and held up as an example of how Ukraine was supposedly facing “issues of separatism” in its western regions. Russia has waged a propaganda campaign alongside its military one, to bolster its power inside the former Soviet republic and foment dissent against those who would see Ukraine reunified with stronger ties to the West. Part of that effort involves latching onto any hint of separatism and going for broke. A young democracy, Ukraine has an endless number of issues, and some of them became more obvious during the recent months of the pandemic. Inevitably, Ukraine’s economy has shrunk, and the popularity of the country’s leader, the former comedian Zelensky, has been shrinking along with it. Ukrainian society is politically active, and people have been criticizing the authorities in every region. Zelensky’s party, Servant of the People, did not manage to win even one mayoral race in a single big city in local elections this fall.
Still, “what matters is that the process of local elections was totally transparent and fair and this is what people should understand about Ukraine,” Egor Sobolev, author of Ukraine’s anti-corruption legislation, told The Daily Beast. Today, Ukraine is more dependent on the help from the West than before the COVID-19 pandemic. “President Joe Biden has to understand that Ukraine is a developing democracy. Ukrainian leadership hopes Biden’s administration could play a role in the peace talks. Kyiv’s goal is to restore control over Ukraine’s border Russian propagandists constantly mock President Zelensky and the hopelessness of the peace talks, referring to Ukrainian negotiators as “madmen” on Vesti, one of the most-viewed talk shows. The news about new movement of Ukrainian “separatists” gave some in Russian media a reason to gloat: “It is time for Zelensky to start one more Anti-Terrorist Operation,” Versia.ru said in the article about “the new state” in Western Ukraine.
(This will end well.)