Season 2 Episode 1

[Music Playing]

Jakub: Hello and welcome back to Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World, a podcast from Message Heard and The Kyiv Independent. I'm Jakub Parusinski.

We're back now for a second series of Power Lines analysing the context and reverberations of the war in Ukraine.

But before we get going, some quick housekeeping. I personally have a new role at the Kyiv Independent. As a co-founder of KI, I'm always looking for new ways to research, analyse, and understand what is happening behind the scenes in Ukraine.

So, recently I've been setting up KI Insights, a research institute that will explore in depth the issues around the war, but more importantly, behind the business of rebuilding Ukraine.

To learn more, check out insights.kyivindependent.com. And for those who tuned in last season, you'll no doubt be wondering where my co-host, Anastasiia Lapatina is. Well, she now has her very own podcast, which is called This Week in Ukraine, and it is absolutely the go-to place to get on the ground reporting on the war. Make sure to tune in. New episodes drop every Friday.

So, this season of Power Lines is just going to be me, but I'll be interviewing some of the most important writers, thinkers, and policy makers to explain the biggest stories going on behind the wall. And don't worry, I'm sure that Nastya will be making a guest appearance down the line as well.

But in today's first episode of season two, we're going to be looking at an event that if it happens, could have enormous implications for the war, but even more importantly for how Ukraine developed as a country in the years to come.

And we're talking about the Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections in 2024. Basically, the situation is like this: Ukraine was supposed to have a parliamentary election in October of 2023, and the presidential one in the coming spring.

But the country is in the middle of a war, and its constitution says that a vote cannot be held under martial law. The situation isn't quite so black and white, though. There are certain ways that the constitutional court could essentially push through an emergency or unconventional kind of vote.

But that window of opportunity is narrowing. For example, the president is not allowed to dismiss parliament in the last six months of its term, which ends in August of 2024.

So, if the vote isn't held relatively soon, there's a chance that it won't be held for a long time. The war, after all, could go on for quite a while.

On the other hand, holding a vote under the current circumstances is incredibly challenging. There's the question of how you get people on the front lines to vote, what to do with the refugees, and just in general, how you ensure the security and integrity of the vote on the day.

So, Ukraine is faced with an impossible choice. On the one hand, it can continue a stable but bad situation for potentially a very long time. And it is bad. The level of trust in deputies is incredibly low, and there's scandals popping up all the time.

Or it could take a incredibly risky gamble in the hope of bringing in new, fresh faces with both a democratic mandate, but also the energy to put the country back on track in terms of reforms and drive towards joining the EU, joining NATO, and fulfilling all of those goals that Ukrainians have been fighting and dying for, for the last 18 months.

So, that's a really tricky situation, and I don’t know what the answer is. We'll be digging into these questions and more today and to help us with that is our first guest of the season, Anatoly Oktisyuk.

Anatoly is a political scientist who has been working in the Ukrainian political scene for the past decade. He knows how things are run on a granular level, and he's currently working on that at DemocracyHouse think tank in Kyiv.

I spoke with him at our studio at the Kyiv Independent offices to really get a sense of if these elections could and indeed should happen. But that's enough for me. Let's get straight into it with Anatoly.

[Music Playing]

Hello everybody. Welcome back to Power Lines, season two. Today we'll be talking about the potential Ukrainian elections that may be or may be not coming up. And I'm very pleased to have with us in the studio today, Anatoly Oktisyuk.

Anatoly, can you tell a little bit about yourself and your background in the Ukrainian political space?

Anatoly: I’m political expert. I'm working in DemocracyHouse think tank. It's a analytical organisation based in Kyiv. We analysing political competition in Ukraine, state decisions, war reforms, oligarchs, everything which connected with the politics. We are trying to communicate reforms and explain what is going on in Ukraine.

Jakub: Perfect. So, just in terms of a bit of background, Ukraine had its last elections in 2019. Zelenskyy famously came to power in a landslide winning very big in the parliamentary elections, in the presidential elections, primarily on an agenda of deoligarchization, fighting corruption and peace with Russia.

So, we can see that obviously didn't turn out how we expected, but it's interesting to know that the person who has stood up and is essentially running the war, I would say in a very decisive way was the person who came in on a platform of peace.

So, it's now sort of close to five years. Ukraine's constitution mandates that there are elections periodically. The presidential elections, I believe, are already overdue. The parliamentary elections should be coming up, but because the constitution also forbids having elections during martial law as now, the elections are not going to happen. Right?

Anatoly: Right. According to our constitution, we are still restricted. It's impossible to have elections, but in Ukraine everything is possible. So, this is the key message of our podcast, I guess.

Jakub: Okay, good. So, essentially, we do have something to talk about. So, that's important to say. So, when was the presidential election supposed to take place?

Anatoly: Next year, March 2024 and parliamentary election this October 2023.

Jakub: Okay. So, that did not happen. So, let's maybe start with what would be the reasons to have elections, even though in theory they can't be held?

Anatoly: Why do we need elections? Elections, it's a key for democracy. We need elections for democracy, for reshuffling of political allies, for making new governments, which has big credibility and big public and international legitimacy.

Jakub: And so, there's a couple of things here. So, one is legitimacy abroad. And there is some questions from foreign partners asking when the elections will be held, how quickly can they happen?

There's also the legitimacy inside the country. So, there's a couple of things that we need to unpick here.

And then, at some point it's also quite important, like if it's not now, then when? But let's take these one by one. So, in terms of the international side, what do you think the Ukrainian leadership is hearing now from the international partners?

Anatoly: Well, the key issue is yes, the elections and the preconditions for these elections, because for foreign partners, the key issues are if you would not run elections next year, then what you're going to do if this conflict would run for several years more.

Jakub: Yeah.

Anatoly: Well, if you're not conducting elections next year in 2024, what is your plan? So, this is the first issue.

The second issue is that all these things are connected with international financial and military aid. Because for some political western leaders, elections in Ukraine, this is the also windows for peace negotiations.

Jakub: Okay.

Anatoly: Because it's very important, because honestly, yes, you are right when you told that Zelenskyy won previous local parliamentary and presidential elections as a president of peace.

But as a president of peace, he was not really efficient, and his political popularity was reduced significantly. So, he lost his rates. And who knows what happened with Zelenskyy if Russia would not invite to Ukraine in 2022 in February.

Jakub: I mean, his ratings were considerably falling before the full-scale invasion. But I'd like to come back to something that you just mentioned, which is that this could be a window to open up peace negotiations.

So, Zelenskyy, he came in as the president of peace, but since then he's made a lot of personal commitments to victory. So, he's sort of personally committed themselves. Is there a sense amongst some of the international partners that if other people come to power, this essentially opens up room for-

Anatoly: Yeah, this is the option, this is the floor for the new quality of policy in Ukraine. Because it is possible that some not really hawkish political forces may come to the parliament. We don't know, but it's the opportunity.

And otherwise, this is the also chance for making new quality of the politics in Ukraine, especially in the parliament, it's a chance to make more professional government, because probably you've seen this official letter from White House about the reforms in Ukraine. That cabinet of Zelenskyy should accelerate the reforms in Ukraine.

And this is the big — among American partners if they can do it, because it's directly connected with the amounts of financial and the military aid. So, if you are more efficient, if you're more transparent, if you're more self-confident in fight against corruption and the oligarchs, so you'll receive more.

So, because if you have much more strongly institutions, if you’re supporting fight against corruption, it means that everything is going in right way in Ukraine.

The key issue, if this war will run for several years more. So, what then you're going to do with this?

Jakub: Yeah. So, let's come back to sort of what are the arguments to hold the elections now? So, one is that there's a new parliament. One question is that perhaps they're more open to peace negotiations, which we do know that certain Western partners want.

There's a second thing which is we're bringing in new political forces that are maybe not connected to the oligarchs. So, a cleaner or more professional parliament.

And then there is the question of, well, how do we deal with this time issue? Because if it's not next year, if it doesn't happen in the next couple of months, when can it happen?

So many things nowadays in Ukraine seem to be conditioned on when the fighting ends. So, we have these discussions, Ukraine, and NATO, when the fighting ends. Ukraine and EU, when the fighting ends. Ukraine reconstruction, all the investment and everything, when the fighting ends.

And so, there is a very strong argument that look, you can wait, but at some point, it will need to happen within some kind of military conflict.

What about the situation for Zelenskyy and his team in itself? Is it better for them to have this faster rather than later? 

Anatoly: Yes and no. Again, so everything is possible in Ukraine with elections. For my opinion, one of the key precondition for upcoming elections is connected with military successes of Ukrainian Army.

Let's imagine if Ukrainian Army will liberate Melitopol next year, spring 2024, society will receive big patriotic push. Everyone will be happy. Then Ukraine will increase negotiation positions with Russia.

Because if you will come to Melitopol, honestly, will help the situation when Russian forces will be kick out to Crimea, then we will have a chance to attack Crimean infrastructure.

I remember when we liberate Kherson, when Ukrainian army liberates Kherson, it was huge patriotic flesh in the society. It was big uprising; big patriotic moves and the society was ready to do everything even for war. So, he need military victory.

Jakub: Yes. So obviously, people would want to see some kind of results that Zelenskyy’s policies have been successful. What about the question of there's the economy, which has rebounded to some extent, but it's not great. Life in Ukraine is difficult right now and it's probably going to get worse before it gets better.

There is the question of sort of the state capacities and the administrative apparatus that he has. What about those issues? How do you think they figure into the presidential administration's calculations?

Anatoly: It’s a very huge and tough issue for our government because if you take a look on our draft budget, 2024, more than 50% of our incomes is in dependence from Western partners. So, we are expecting to cover all this budget deficit with external financial aid. According to the forecast, we need 52/53 billions U.S. dollars.

Jakub: Just to cover the budget gap.

Anatoly: Yes. Because what we are making, our incomes we just cover in military expenses and that's it. And the rest of the financial aid we need for functioning of the state in Ukraine, 52/53 billions of U.S. dollars. So, it's huge amount of money. So, this is the big dead work for Zelenskyy.

The third reason, so we are talking about the economy and the military. It's kind of preconditions for potential elections. This is internal legitimacy of the Zelenskyy because a war is always unpopular scene. So, we-

Jakub: Especially when it goes on for a long time. Right?

Anatoly: Exactly. Because it's full-scale war. And yes, got Western partners supporting Ukraine, but we spending more and more resources, especially human resources, especially economic resources.

And for our government, it's also important to understand when they will receive opportunity to reward internal political outlets. I mean parliament and the government because they're also quite toxic, so-

Jakub: So, let's pause for a second because I just want to clarify that a little bit. So, one of the important things is that for now, well, Ukraine is very dependent on Western aid and that aid continues to be renewed, but it's being renewed for now.

There's elections coming up in a lot of European countries, Poland just in a couple of weeks. There's a lot of elections in the West as well. And most importantly the U.S. towards the end of next year.

So, we don't know how long that aid will continue afterwards. Let's say there's a Trump presidency, the funding stops, holding elections in 2024 will seem much better than holding elections in 2025. So, there's that perspective.

And then on the other side, and I think this is really interesting to unpick, we have a problem with the current elites. And to what extent is sort of Zelenskyy happy with them, how much does he want to actually change the parliament itself?

Anatoly: Zelenskyy, he's unhappy with this parliament. And he's unhappy with this government because he believes that all these guys came to the power with his popularity. They're not working very hard. They're not loyal.

This parliament is really toxic for Zelenskyy, and he really wants to reshuffle them because another problem there is no mono coalition formally, it's still existing, but in fact there is no mono coalition.

They're not loyal because there is group of Kolomoisky, there is group of Razumkov, Former Speaker of Parliament, affiliated with … there is a big amount of still pro-Russian forces. There is opposition.

For Zelenskyy, this is a great opportunity to reward parliament and government to win this election because his political opponents, they would not have enough instruments to be successful, let's say on the elections during the martial law.

Jakub: So, tell me a little bit more about that, because this is very interesting. So, Ukrainian elections, as in most countries, they're quite expensive, time consuming, a lot of energy needs to go into them.

In the past, these elections, and different political parties as well as individual deputies have been sponsored by various oligarchs mostly.

Anatoly: Right.

Jakub: And also, by Russia, who now has the resources?

Anatoly: I said there are only two forces who has own resources. It's just Zelenskyy party. Because it's a ruling party. They have enough instruments for gathering money. because they controlling everything in Ukraine.

So, they have lots of businessmen who may cover all these expenses. And former President Petro Poroshenko, he's also oligarch. He has enough own-

Jakub: Famously a billionaire himself.

Anatoly: Yes, yes, yes. He has enough own resources to cover all these expenses. For the rest of the parties, yes, they was connected and affiliated with the oligarchs, and now oligarchs are restricted.

They don't have medias, they don't have possibilities to finance. They don't have free resources, and they're trying to save rest of the resources what they have now.

But at the same times, if you're going to have elections during the martial law, or let's say another war conditions, new political parties will have a chance to make a new party, organisations and to receive support directly inside of the society.

[Music Playing]

Jakub: So, how do people feel about the elections? Do you think there's public support at the moment? 

Anatoly: I think no, there is no public support for the elections because our society is still believing in the military victory of Ukraine, that Ukraine will defeat Russia and liberate South, liberate Ukraine because it was also the part of our Ukrainian state propaganda. It was the part of the policy of Zelenskyy.

He pushed this narrative that we liberate or occupy territory until end of 2023 or until 2024. People still believe in Ukrainian victory because they see Kherson, they see successful counteroffensive in Kharkiv region.

Ukrainian society believing in so-called Wunderwaffe. And first of all, it was HIMARS, then it was Patriots. Now we are expecting for ATACMS, then we expecting for F-16 and so on, so on.

The society believes that if we receive so-called super powerful weapon from the Western partners, it would help us to liberate more and more territories.

So, until we have this hope in the society, we believe in the military victory. Then we will see if this so-called Wunderwaffe doesn't work in the future, then society will start to think, “Okay, what then?” So, this is the first issue.

The second issue is that Ukrainian society is still ready to suffer and ready to give mandate of trust for Zelenskyy I think until end of the year or until maybe 2024.

But Office of the President, they also monitoring temperature in the society, if they see that society is unhappy. I know the society unhappy now because the man, they’re restricted to go abroad. There is big poverty, there is high prices on everything. Our government is planning to increase prices for utilities, for electricity and so on, so on.

War is always unpopular. It's almost two years and people getting unsatisfied with this current situation. And if people will be really unsatisfied, and if we see that this Wunderwaffe doesn't work, if we don't see military so-called success, so then-

Jakub: Then people will become angry and in a sense for the presidential administration right now, that-

Anatoly: Legitimacy of Zelenskyy will decrease.

Jakub: Will decrease. And then I think there's a lot of potential negative consequences. I think, let's jump into them in a second. But essentially for them it's a question of if they wait too long, the situation might get even worse.

There is a little bit of a window of opportunity. Yes, they have to hope for some kind of victories, some kind of positive news in the short-term, but also in the long-term, not lose too much because there's a lot of hardship coming in the month and the years ahead.

Let's talk for a moment about what the counterfactual here is. Why wouldn't the elections be held? And essentially what are the difficulties? So, what are the big challenges to sort of holding elections in the current circumstances?

Anatoly: Well, for my opinion, the biggest concern for Zelenskyy, this is the political legitimacy of these elections inside of Ukraine. I mean, from the rest of the political elites because according to my information, I have lots of friends, MPs from the opposition parties, Petro Poroshenko, Yulia Tymoshenko. In other political parties, they may ignore upcoming elections.

So, this is the one of the potential risks for the Zelenskyy that some political parties, they will ignore it.

The second scenario, of course, it's issues connected with the security because we don't know what kind of intensity of the conflict would be in Ukraine, high or low.

Another issue, from my opinion may be solved, for instance, if there's Zelenskyy saying that few millions of Ukrainian refugees are abroad in EU, I think European partners may solve this problem very easily.

European officials may arrange the voting stations everywhere where Ukrainians are settled. So, it's not the problem to receive the ballots and to settle the polling stations in city halls and everywhere.

Jakub: But then let's go to the bigger challenge. What do you do with the soldiers who are on the front lines?

Anatoly: So, then it's a big issue. I think this is what our government would like to use the tool of electronic voting.

Jakub: Okay.

Anatoly: So, it’s the Diia application.

Jakub: I was about to ask, Ukraine has this famous super app where you can have your passport, your banking, you can even watch some media-

Anatoly: State in the smartphone.

Jakub: Yeah, everything. Perfect phrase, state in the smartphone. So, do you think it's reasonable to expect that Diia will be used for electronic voting?

Anatoly: I think so. And this is what Zelenskyy is interested to implement, this electronic voting. But the problem is that for using this instrument, you need fix this in the constitution. We don't have in our constitution possibility to vote via electronic way or by post.

Jakub: And realistically, Ukraine will need both.

Anatoly: Yes, we need both, because this is the chance how to interact people in voting process. I mean, in the frontline, it would lead for increasing public legitimacy of these elections because some part of Ukrainian population would not trust for electronic voting and especially opposition that would not trust for this posting.

Jakub: But just to push on that point as well, the legitimacy of the elections will be challenged. Ukrainian is so politicised now that you have so many enemies all around the world who will challenge what is happening in the elections.

So, Russia will challenge, there will be a lot of propaganda. There will be a campaign against it anyway. So, you do need some kind of preparations to say, “Look, the elections were legitimate, here are international observers. Here was the process that we ran them.”

Is that something that the Western partners are concerned about as well? That electronic voting cannot be monitored as easily? I don’t know if they have the technology or there isn't that much experience with this. Is that also a problem for electronic voting?

Anatoly: That’s a problem honestly, because we never tested it before. We never used it before. But again, for these elections, we need political review of Zelenskyy.

Jakub: Okay.

Anatoly: Because if we would say, he will say, “Okay guys, we need these directions because it depends, from these elections we depending for amounts of military aid, financial aid, Western partners is making pressure on us. This is the issue of surviving of the state.”

Jakub: Yeah. So, there is a precedent for finding a way out, but there's no perfect solutions here. There's only lesser evils and ways forward.

I wanted to turn a little bit towards what could be the result of the elections if they were to be held within the next sort of six months. You mentioned already, I think it's quite apparent that Ukraine has become a more militarised society. To what extent is the military a block that will show up?

Anatoly: We don't know. It's really too hard predict because post-war or so-called war society, they may be split on two sides because one part of the society may vote for peace parties.

Another part of the society may vote for so-called militarised parties or would say more radical or hawkish political parties. And we don't know which camp will receive more support.

Jakub: Does it feel like that's being prepared right now?

Anatoly: Yes. Big preparation is going on. And I mean, the problem is that the political parties, they're not trusting for the Zelenskyy. And if he's saying there is no elections, there is no chance for the elections. They key political players, keeping in mind this possibility for potential elections in 2024.

And they're preparing. They are trying to keep the team. They're trying to watch some analytical activities. They are monitoring political attitudes, conducting sociological posts and so on.

According to the sociological posts, there is big, big popularity in Ukraine have Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

Jakub: He's the head of the armed forces. And he's the sort of prime candidate that everybody talks about as a potential challenger to Zelenskyy on the one hand, or somebody who would form a political party.

Anatoly: He is Ukrainian Mannerheim or Charles de Gaulle. So honestly, because now we have a big request from the society for fair and transparent man. So, from the majority of Ukrainians Valerii Zaluzhnyi, he's the guy who is self-made man. He don't have any offshores. He's not affiliated with the oligarchs.

He's the guy from the army with good reputation, respected on the West. But again, on the martial period, he don't have a chance to participate because he's restricted by current legislation.

Jakub: So, essentially what we have, and I think this is something that's quite interesting to deep dive on a little bit, is that we're seeing that the president's camp is kind of preparing for these new political forces by creating its own alliances with similar parties, but that are friendlier to them.

So, should Zaluzhnyi or somebody from his team, or somebody who's sort of politically close to him launch military party, you've got the defenders of Azov style which is a closer to the president kind of military party, which is being set up.

I mean, a lot of their media presence in let's say the recent months suggest that, okay, something is being set up here. There's a little bit of a campaign happening. Do we see other directions like that?

Anatoly: On the beginning, our podcast we mentioned on so-called peace parties who declaring the peace, now we see Arestovych project.

Jakub: Yeah.

Anatoly: So, he is also affiliated with Office of the President. And this is also possibility to use this trend for peace. Because if I'm 100% sure that in new parliament we would not see honestly pro-Russian parties, because they will be banned.

Jakub: And yet there's a big block of people who are formerly, let's say, not pro-Russian, but more Russia minded kind of-

Anatoly: Right, Russia minded, or they supporting peace with any concessions from the Ukrainian government, or they're ready for peace, for any scenarios. Just give us peace and that's it.

Jakub: And so, you've got Arestovych who was quite prominent and next to Zelenskyy for a long time. Now I think it's a little bit more distant. He would be one of the people to lead a party that would soak up those votes.

So, we've got the military, we've got the pro-Russia, or sort of the Russia affiliated, Russia minded kind of camp. Who else is there?

Anatoly: Then Razumkov.

Jakub: Okay.

Anatoly: Razumkov, of course, he is not declaring that he's pro-Russian, but he is the party of pigeons.

Jakub: Okay. What does that mean?

Anatoly: Pigeon party, like he blatantly may support the peace on any conditions. Of course, he's pro-European, pro-Western, Razumkov. But at the same time, he's supporting interests of big business, let's say, Rinat Akhmetov, Vadym Novynskyi, it's potential party of reconstruction of big business in Ukraine.

Jakub: Okay.

Anatoly: Of industrial reconstruction.

Jakub: That sounds quite a bit like a lot of the other East European populist parties that are close to big business, they prefer to be in the west because it's more convenient. But at the end of the day, they're not really ideological, they're just about-

Anatoly: Yeah. It's so called Ukrainian Republican Party. He's supported by big capital. He's also supported by Moscow Church because he's very close to Vadym Novynskyi. He may be successful.

And in this camp, I will put also Yulia Tymoshenko. Despite that she is the longest living political party in Ukraine who always represented in the parliament. Yulia Tymoshenko may be successful again, this is for my opinion, she may pick up electorate of party for life.

She will use social narratives, I restore pensions, restore social insurance to decrease tariffs and so on, so on. Sometimes even before the war, she used so populistic narratives, which is sometimes I am like, everyone likes something for free especially if you're talking about the pensioners, 10 millions of pensioners in Ukraine. You should remember about this.

Jakub: This is incredible, by the way. I mean, Ukraine is a country of let's say 40 something million. The numbers keep jumping around.

Anatoly: Yes. And 10 millions of pensioners, like my parents, my mother, she is school teacher. And she remember good times when the Yulia Tymoshenko was a prime minister.

Jakub: Yeah.

Anatoly: So, it was the really wealthy period 2005, 2008, 2010, when we had the great economic situation. And Yulia, she's the person who may make a deal with Putin. If Tymoshenko will come and say, “Okay guys, so I know how to solve the conflict. I know Putin, I will meet with him, and we will make a settlement. And the war will be over.”

Jakub: Okay. So then, so we've got the old players, we've got sort of the Russian speaking camp, the disoriented camp, the military camp. Is there a space also for the regional authorities? Ukraine has had this long debate about federalization, is there room for a local party?

Anatoly: 100%. 100%. There is room for regional elites. They always trying to be represented in the big politics because they control in regional political landscape. They have resources, worker resources, and we have also small regional oligarchs, big farmers, big regional businesses who trying to invest in the work areas.

So, potentially Vitali Klitschko may play the role of the leader who consolidate the interest of regional mayors and regional elites.

Or at least if Vitali Klitschko would not run for upcoming elections, his young brother, Wladimir Klitschko, former boxer, he'll participate in these elections as I know he has ambitious to participate. And he is the liberal candidate, could be one of the potential alternative against Zelenskyy.

Jakub: And Wladimir Klitschko has the advantage of being both a new face and being recognizable, with-

Anatoly: The Germans, Americans, they come to Kyiv despite the meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy or British, they're meeting with Brothers Klitschko because they see them as one of the — who may interact with another opposition political parties.

Jakub: That's very interesting. Speaking about this need to sort of change the faces and bring in new people, there's a lot of people who are currently in power who will most likely not be in power if the elections come up.

And there's a lot of people who expect that they will no longer have a future in Ukraine. Is there a threat for some of the people to decide to collaborate with Russia?

Anatoly: This is actually what Russia expected to do, because in one of the interview of Budanov says that the Russian intelligence, they just accommodated huge amount of cash to distribute cash in the bags, and to buy the reality of the officers apparatus everywhere, everywhere.

But it doesn't work. It doesn't work. I mean, otherwise, despite all these corruption scenes in Ukraine, the good and positive scenes that we have very efficient infrastructure, anti-corruption infrastructure.

Despite all the scenes, they are working and they demonstrating good efficiency. We have a good hope that we are moving forward, and we are trying to reduce all this corruption.

Jakub: Okay, very good. Anatoly, thank you so much for joining us today. It was absolutely fascinating to hear and to speculate on what can happen. We've got elections coming up everywhere, in Europe, in the U.S. and even in Russia.

And if there's one thing that we've learned over the past 18 months, it's to never take anything for granted. Even those elections might have some surprises for us. Thank you so much for joining us on Power Lines.

[Music Playing]

Anatoly: Thank you for invitation. Many thanks for our audience for listening us.

Jakub: Thanks so much for listening to Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World. We'll be back in two weeks with a new episode on some other pivotal elections in Eastern Europe.

But these ones are definitely happening, the elections in Poland on October 15th. The polling shows that it's currently on a knife's edge, so whatever happens, we'll be digging into what the results mean for the future of Ukraine.

To find more podcasts like Power Lines, look up, Message Heard, wherever you're listening to this podcast. And find us on our website, messageheard.com or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook by looking up at Message Heard.

You can also follow the Kyiv Independent on Twitter and Facebook at KyivIndependent and Instagram at Kyivindependent_official to get the latest news and stay up to date with our coverage.

And if you're interested in more in-depth analysis of the reconstruction of Ukraine, be sure to check out insights.kyivindependent.com.

Now, fair warning, this is a subscription product, but we'll definitely try to make a lot of interesting content available to the broader public. You can support the Kyiv Independent on our Patreon, or by going to our website and clicking the support button.