2019 year. The elections of the President of Ukraine have ended. For the first time in the history of an independent state, a candidate without political experience won. Won with a huge margin of more than 73% of voters.
It is obvious that the civil society made it clear that it was tired of the old political elites that had exchanged power for 30 years and linked its hopes for a happy and peaceful future with the young, energetic politician of the new generation – Volodymyr Zelenskyi.
On May 20, 2019, the solemn inauguration of the new President took place in the hall of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. On this day, thousands of people came to the central streets of the capital to congratulate their conscious choice. People’s faces glowed with sincere joy and hopes for the promised peace, tranquility and prosperity.
For the newly elected President, this support was symbolic, but it also placed a huge responsibility on the implementation of his pre-election promises.
We will remind you that unlike the opponent, who formulated his goals in three words: “Army, language, faith”, Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s program included: the achievement of sustainable peace, the return of territories, multilingualism, zero tolerance for corruption, etc. In addition to the official position, the image of the newly elected President was formed long before the start of the race – in the famous TV series “Servant of the People” – the image of the President from the people, who understands all problems and knows how to solve them.
The start was great.
In a short period of time, the newly elected President managed to gain full power in the state. Thus, in particular, his political party “Servant of the People” won a majority in the extraordinary elections to the Verkhovna Rada and formed a monobolist coalition. The government was formed in a similar way.
So, at the end of 2019, all the levers of power were firmly in the hands of Volodymyr Zelenskyi and his team, which in itself opened up unique opportunities for carrying out vital reforms.
But did Mr. Zelenskyy take advantage of the fateful chance given to him to change Ukraine?
Let’s try to figure it out.
The first years of the term of office of the newly elected President were remembered by us for the strengthening of governing bodies, the implementation of the reform on the “digitalization” of the country, the introduction of the “Diya” application, which actually simplified the access of citizens to administrative services and reduced the level of corruption and bureaucratic risks, the strengthening of the course towards rapprochement with the EU and NATO, the adoption of the Law “On the Sale of Land” and the beginning of the global program for the reconstruction of Ukraine under the pathetic name “Great Construction”.
Yes, according to Wikipedia:
“Big construction” is a government program in Ukraine initiated by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi in March 2020. The goal of the program was to improve transportationeateducationallyeatsocial and sports infrastructure.
In our opinion, the idea of Volodymyr Zelenskyi was sincere, but due to the incompetence of representatives of his team, “Great Construction” was criticized by journalists as a media PR campaign of President Zelensky, as there was no government document listing the objects and conditions of participation in the program competition. In addition, many objects of “Great Construction” were actually built before the start of the program, but they were already opened under the signs of the government program.
During 2020, 4,000 km of roads for 120 billion hryvnias were built within the framework of “Great construction”, but as in 2018, 40 billion hryvnias were spent on 3,800 km of roads – the construction became three times more expensive. Because of this, the program was often called “Grand Theft”.
In 2020, law enforcement agencies discovered 429 criminal offenses during the execution of works within the framework of the “Great Construction”.
In addition, Office of the President of Ukraine and representatives of local authorities used the implementation of the program for PR. Advertising signs were placed on construction sites, and a number of Ukrainian politicians created their pages in social networks using the “Great construction” brand. The ruling party “Servant of the People” advertised itself using the implementation of the Big Construction program the day before local elections in 2020.
Critics of the program also point to cartel conspiracysince a significant part tenders six companies that had about 67% of all orders by 2020 won Ukravtodor.
This was the first “call” about problems with the team, but 429 criminal proceedings worth billions of budget funds are buried in the safes of law enforcement agencies.
In parallel with the implementation and problems of “Great Construction”, Ukraine is fighting the global problem – the pandemic of the COVID-19 virus. March 11, 2020. The Cabinet of Ministers adopts a resolution “On preventing the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus on the territory of Ukraine“which imposed a quarantine on the territory of Ukraine: schools, kindergartens, public institutions are closed, free movement of citizens is restricted, and a mask regime is introduced.
Indeed, it should be noted that the sixth President of Ukraine faced a lot of difficulties from the very beginning of his term. However, he personally showed himself to be a stable leader. What, again, cannot be said about his team.
In particular, the State Audit Service of Ukraine based on the results of the verification of the use of funds The special fund for the fight against the coronavirus in 2020, revealed financial violations in the amount of UAH 406.8 million, which led to losses of financial and material resources in the amount of UAH 114.4 million.
In addition, the service revealed problematic issues and shortcomings in the use of fund fundswhich affected the efficiency and effectiveness of the use of 25 billion 624.8 million UAH.
Again, at the root of the problem is the incompetence of the team of executors of the will and tasks of the President.
Ah, we go further..
On January 19, 2022, Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Ukrainian people and urged “Do not panic, because of a possible full-scale invasion.” We all remember him well performancethe purpose of which was to reassure citizens and confidently state that “everything is going according to plan.”
However, already on February 24, 2022, Russia began to launch missile strikes on the territory of Ukraine with the simultaneous crossing of the state border.
Again, questions arise regarding the level of awareness of the President, who 37 days ago called “not to worry and prepare for May barbecues.” It is obvious that the problem is the environment and the quality of providing operational information.
However, the invasion began, the country consolidated, thousands of volunteers preferred to enroll in the ranks of the TRO and the Armed Forces, an unprecedented volunteer movement appeared – the state became a single unit in the fight against the aggressor.
It would seem that with such a mutual understanding, there is an opportunity to solve any problem, and there were many of them at the very beginning of the invasion: from providing fuel to the banal equipment of military personnel. It was at this stage, once again, that a certain part of the presidential team showed itself to be incompetent, and sometimes downright criminal.
Here is an example of how the scheme to seize the funds of the Ministry of Defense worked in March 2022, that is, only a month after the start of hostilities:
Thanks to this equipment alone, the defense budget was shortchanged by more than 15 million Euros, which should have been spent on the purchase of equipment for the soldiers of the Armed Forces. Judging by the schematic image, we are once again convinced that the organizers of such devices are people who are close to the government offices, and in fact – members of a stable criminal group (Yeghor Bodrov, Servin Yakubov, Vitaly Sirenko and others), which does not shy away from stealing not only war, but also to neutralize the witnesses of their activities with the help of falsification of criminal proceedings and the use of a corrupt connection with the head of the NPU investigation – Maksym Tsutskiridze.
Next, more: the media space is torn by dozens of journalistic investigations into abuses in the defense procurement sector. What are the stories with the purchases of “eggs for UAH 17″ worth? for the Armed Forces”, or billion-dollar embezzlement by the founders of “Lviv Arsenal”:
This time, the presidential team missed the Minister of Defense, who was quietly, to the applause of the deputies, sent to honorable retirement. That’s the entire reaction of the authorities.
However, it should be noted that the flurry of criticism and journalistic investigations did lead the authorities to the realization of the impossibility of stealing in war – the scandals with defense purchases stopped. We hope that the thefts are the same.
However, what do we see next? And we see interesting things – the same managers (Syrenko, Bodrov and company) who stole from the defense plant have reformed and are calmly mastering schemes for embezzling budget funds through the production of films and various media products.
Thus, according to English and domestic journalists, a criminal scheme called “Kinolandromat”which allows billions to be pumped out of the budget.
However, there was no reaction of the authorities to the given information.
That is why the journalistic community personally appeals to Volodymyr Oleksandrovich Zelenskyi to pay attention to a part of his entourage, which from 2019 to 2020 is participating in the organization of schemes to embezzle billions of hryvnias from the state budget of Ukraine. In addition, similar appeals to the President have already been addressed by the world community on the pages of a popular British publication The Times.
Links used:
https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2022/01/19/7321021
https://lb.ua/economics/2021/04/23/483124_audit_koronavirusnogo_fondu.html
https://lb.ua/news/2020/12/14/472982_kabmin_zbilshiv_kovidniy_fond_6.html
https://uapress.com.ua/2024/06/15/yetapy-evolyucziyi-velykogo-kradivnycztva
