Season 2 Episode 6

Speakers: Jakub Parusinski & Mykola Davydiuk

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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. Each week we're going to be analysing the undercurrents of the war in Ukraine, bringing you analysis from across the globe to explain its context and consequences as the war continues.

This week, as 2023 draws to a close, we want to take a look at how Ukrainians are holding up, especially given the political turbulence of the last few months, both internally and internationally.

2023 was a difficult year for Ukraine. A lot of people expected that after the Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives, a whole host of Ukrainian successes would follow. But it actually turned out the other way around.

The counteroffensive was difficult, it stalled. And meanwhile, Western support, which had been so united at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, has started to fritter away at the edges.

There have been positives to be sure, especially in the Black Sea, where Ukraine has pushed back the Russian Navy. It has retained Odesa as a port hub, and it's even managed to unilaterally open a grain corridor. And the economy has rebounded.

Ukraine continues to function as a nation, as a society, as a country, but it hasn't been easy. Internally, the country has also changed, where once what we saw was an extremely united front, now politics is back in the conversation. We see that Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Head of the Armed Forces, has quite a different view on where Ukraine is militarily and what the path should be looking forward, than its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Several politicians have thrown their hat in the ring saying that they want to replace Zelenskyy as president, and we see criticism, which was once unthinkable, showing up in social media on YouTube and on Telegram channels.

But what does the Ukrainian public actually want? They're obviously tired, exhausted by this gruelling fight, but are they ready to stay the course? Do they perhaps want a change in leadership, new ideas and new ways to move forward in order to bring the country closer to victory?

To hear some more about Ukraine's current political situation, I wanted to speak to someone with an insider's view. So, I got in touch with Mykola Davydiuk. Mykola is an author and a popular political scientist in Ukraine. He's advised many major political figures over the past decade and is now a key commentator on the war through his YouTube and TikTok channels.

I asked him about how he's experienced 2023 politically in Ukraine, and what he thinks are the likely next moves for Zelenskyy, his allies, and his rivals.

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So, we are here today on Power Lines with Mykola Davydiuk. Mykola, welcome.

Mykola: Hi, thank you for invitation.

Jakub: One of the first images that came out of Ukraine at the beginning of the full-scale invasion was this video by Volodymyr Zelenskyy with the prime minister, his chief of staff, his head of party, and all of these other key figures around him.

And the text of that was that we are all here. He was showing the unity. He was showing that he had not left Kyiv, that he would defend the country. And this was a really huge signal that Ukraine is united against the Russian enemy and people rallied around him. The world rallied around him.

Fast forward almost two years, it feels like we're in a bit of a different place. You've got people coming out and announcing their candidature for president. The international scene looks a little bit more grim. It's more difficult to make decisions.

But also, within Ukraine, it feels like the mood has changed. And the first question I wanted to ask you, has politics come back to Ukraine?

Mykola: Just start to answer your question, I think we're still altogether here, but when the West concentrated on figure of Zelenskyy and compared that with the Churchill, Ukrainians stayed strong, and they concentrated on the state.

And the West tried to see just the one hero with whom is easy to shake his hand, and with whom you may make a selfie, with whom you may talk, you may invite him to your parliament, to your office. And I think West concentrated just in one person.

And when appeared, many other heroes, many other volunteers and the top generals, many commentators started to talk, “Oh, no, they split it, they're frustrating, and that is like political competition.”

But I'm not sure about that. Yes, I see some drama and scandals among Zelenskyy, and some other people. And when politicians started to attack and defend their political field and their ratings, personal ratings.

But if we are talking about institution or when we are talking about institution, the role of institution is more important than the names of the person who may sit on the top or who may rule that institution.

And if you're talking about Ukraine, we need to mention that we are like a truly democratic society. And some media started to talk about conflict and among politician generals.

But yes, sometimes politicians try to defend their field and trying to pressure in some militaries and trying to restrict some zero possibilities. But I don't think that is a big scandal or a big drama for us.

And they're like militaries doing their job silently and just don't care what the politician doing. They're just doing their job. And the result we can see on the monitor, 300,000 killed occupants or like that is their result.

So yes, we may feel that we started to speak more, that we behave more in political side, but I don't think that Ukrainian political life truly back on the stage, we don't have election. We don't have many media which we had before, and we're still mobilised on the war, I think.

Jakub: I think what you say about the Western media's portrayal of the war is a very fair challenge. They were lost, I think, completely lost at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. It was so terrifying and overwhelming, and they tried to find a narrative for it.

And Zelenskyy as the superhero, the Churchill of our times, personifying the war via Zelenskyy himself is something that leads you off track.

And the second thing that leads you off track is this kind of ebb and flow of the narratives. A year ago, Ukraine was a superpower and Russia was two feet tall and everybody thought that the Kharkiv counteroffensive and the Kherson counteroffensive would just be repeated endlessly until Ukraine got to the Russian borders.

Now it feels like the table has turned by 180 degrees and everything seems a little bit desperate that there is no hope at the end of the tunnel. And almost certainly the narrative is bouncing too far from one side to the other.

But that being said, I think there's also a question about, well, you've got the piece by Zaluzhnyi in the Economist, and you've got sort of the daily messages which have now come out for 650 days or even more from Zelenskyy.

And these seem at odds and regarding the strategy, regarding the way sort of forward. And I'm wondering, is this sort of one of the things that is driving what appears at least to be a certain level of conflict or discontent?

Mykola: If we are following that narrative about Churchill, so I think maybe the goal just entered the room and then like a real military and then like, and Churchill started to feel a little bit uncomfortable.

You mentioned that Zelenskyy didn't leave Ukraine, but in the same time when he had the space to call the presidents to unite the world and unite Ukrainians sitting in his shelter, somebody fight on the same time.

And I'm talking not about just the Zaluzhnyi, but about Ukrainian armed forces that the guys whom we forget creating narratives, because not just the politician organised that first days.

So, I think Zaluzhnyi and his people and they are the biggest heroes in this world, but not the politicians. But what I mentioned in the start when we are talking about institution is much better in strategic way to keep institution that there some names.

I think the ratings is the worst tool to measure your effectivity in there or to measure how excellent you are during the war is like is quite stupid issue to use a poll. But that is a unique reason why the politicians and Zelenskyy started to … the answer is a poll.

So yeah, but I think they need to forget about the polls during this war until the end. And the next day we will take polls and then we will start to talk. But during the war is very harmful to the nation and to the state.

Jakub: Just for our listeners, what you're referring to is sort of several polls I think that have come out not quite publicly, but people have sort of seen or heard about them over the last sort of 18 months that shows that sort of trust in and support for the Valerii Zaluzhnyi has kind of grown and is high and in some cases exceeds Zelenskyy, and others.

It sort of challenges them. And I think that's a fair point to sort of call out that there's something more important.

Turning maybe over to other politicians than the ones in the presidential administration, what do you make of the positions of Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, who has not just most recently, but sort of made various kind of efforts to stand out and potentially position himself for some kind of elections.

Poroshenko, the former president. Arestovych, the I guess former now advisor to Zelenskyy who has officially announced his candidacy. What do you make of those figures that have in some way or other sort of tried to bring up the issue of who's in power, how do you run the country, et cetera?

Mykola: I think like during the war, we are talking about the candidates, but the worst issue for the candidate that we are not expect an election. Yes, we talk about that during the mid of autumn and we talk and expect maybe for spring and but now the situation on the battlefield is not so good. And nobody guarantee you that you may organise that election.

About the candidates, I think everybody of them of course want to be a president of a young democratic state and during the war is like very respectful and they give you a lot of possibilities.

You may meet with all the presidents in the world, but I'm not sure that the state has enough muscles and the power to survive in both processes. The first one is election. The second is a war.

So, how to keep and save the state during the war and election, we don't know. And that when we're talking about election looks rather as experiment on the state and on the democracy, because what the Lindsey Graham said, you need to prove that you are a super democracy.

But I studied political science and I know that in political theory and political practice, we don't have such words as a super democracy. We just have a democracy. You are democratic or not.

And we can't compare Ukraine with Russia because like some European politicians said, if Russia organize election, they are democratic. And if you are not, you are not democratic anymore.

But Russia don't organise election during 20 years. The process that mass, which they called election, that's not an election that how Episcopal said, that just a bureaucracy.

So, we can't be compared with the Russia who is truly autocratic. And we can't also show that we are super democracy because somebody won that, in our constitution black and whites written that we are forbidden to organise election during the war. That was what was written by founding fathers of our state and our constitution. And they thought about that.

So, I think now we need to concentrate more in looking for weapons and the money and the political diplomatic support in the West and Global South, but not trying to understand which candidate is better.

Of course, we have a lot of candidates, we are a democratic statement but some of them not working for Ukraine like Arestovych who like criticising all the time states … in Poland and just working as a popular activist and a blogger with very tough pro-Russian narratives and defending Russian language, defending many Russian issues here.

And about Klitschko, he's a mayor and he is responsible for the biggest city in the country and that is not everything good with the city, with the comfort of life and so on and so on. And we know that he's thinking about election, but he's just 1% rating guy.

But his speeches in foreign media in Western and like Germany and Swiss media as he's like 95% person and which is not true.

And also, many bloggers and the singers and comedians want to be, but we have one big problem. We may win all the elections, but we may lose a state. And that is the biggest threat and the danger that too much people thinking about election, but not so many people thinking how to survive during this war.

I mean personally, and I mean the state. Yeah, a lot of candidates is a good mark that we are democratic, but that is not a good mark that we so hard concentrated on a battlefield.

Jakub: I think that's fair. One sort of quick question here is, given that the narrative has been quite unified coming out of Ukraine to the world for so long, basically what we're seeing is this a case where anybody who comes out challenging that narrative gets a disproportionately large platform.

And basically, this is an opportunity. Anyone who sort of wants to be heard and seen, well, you have an opportunity to do that now just because the voices that were coming out of Kyiv or other parts of the country were so, I guess consistent.

Mykola: I think we just started to dig deeper and before we just read the headlines and then now the people started to read all the articles about Ukraine. I think situation is the same.

And maybe some voices is louder and yeah, that may happen. But if you're talking about the narrative, is we are united, yes, we are as a society and political class, including the top generals more united than the West are.

Or we may also compare with the Russian society. Do they really so united supporting the war as they was in February, 2022? No. And the question about our unity is the answer, do we survive in the evening when we wake up in the morning? And if we are not united, if we are not together, if we are not fighting, we have no chance to survive.

So, the unity in the is the answer of our surviving. So, that's also important to mention that Ukraine trying to resolve many, many different questions including Russian church, which are the network of Russian KGB spies.

We are trying to resolve a question of language of reforming a government and the political society. We're trying to reform economy, we're trying to look for money, we are trying to look for like political diplomatic support.

In the same time when our house is burning, we are still fighting against second world, biggest army. So, we're trying to resolve so many questions.

I also met a lot of people who are supporting Ukrainian language, who are supporting Ukrainian state, but the same time they support Russian church and such voices also quite loud.

And we need to speak more, but we also don't have possibilities to speak about the church in the time when we are fighting against Russian troops. So yes, some voices truly allowed, but that is a explanation that we are doing so much job.

Jakub: It's a very difficult, there's so many different challenges that Ukraine needs to address. One of the questions that keeps popping up, and it feels like that's something that's also changing a bit in Ukraine is the question of to what extent should Ukraine have a offensive strategy in 2024?

People talk about a peace plan, but that seems completely impossible. And correct me if I'm wrong, because Russia doesn't want peace, Russia doesn't respect peace. Any document that would be signed would have no value.

But there is a question of trying to contain the fighting to limit it and to get more time for training for additional weapons to sort of bring down the intensity of the war.

How do you feel that that has evolved in Ukraine and how do you feel that also specifically, I'm wondering is there a difference in between how Zelenskyy sees this and how Zaluzhnyi sees this? Because it feels like there's a little bit of a different perspective on that.

Mykola: Yeah, I think perspective of well-trained military and the young politician is different. And that's not bad. We're speaking about different views and the different ideas how to win and how to save the state and how to save our future and more people.

And that what happened with the counteroffensive when Zaluzhnyi tried to save more lives and more weapons when he understood that not all the NATO tactics is working here and that not everything is working against Russia.

I think that is a question not of public discussion. And that is like some talks amongst politician and top generals, Ukrainian and NATO generals, and that is a question about strategy and how to win-win now or tomorrow.

But if the answer tomorrow we need also to have a strong proposition for Ukraine for today. Because when somebody started to speak like what Wall Street Journal mentioned in 2025 you will have better position on the battlefield.

Yes, maybe, but how to survive until that time? Yes, maybe in 2035, we also will have excellent position, but how to come to that point and nobody may explain and if we reject some support in 2024, expecting for better 2025 that they will not come.

I think that's also like a big formula and how much weapons we may receive, how much money we may receive, how many people do we have? Because strategically, I more than convinced that Biden right, that he's right. If Ukraine lose strategically West also lose.

And I think that's not just the fight Ukraine against Russia or Russia against Ukraine. That is a big, huge battle in this century among democracies against autocracies.

The same among Hamas and Israel, the same China against their neighbours. Then I'm not only one island which are a state, but also many other neighbours, the same North Korea against the South Korea and many, many others.

So, we are living in a big world battle democracies against autocracies. And if we not supporting the players of our team, how we think that we may win, we lose Ukraine, we'll lose another state, we lose one more state and then we will start to scream what's going on. We are losing the game.

And I think that is a big mark who will win in this war, Ukraine, or Russia, and that will create a trend globally. Who will win in this century? First — Ukraine must win what Biden said, and as I know they thinking about a precedent and which have to teach the dictators of future don't do like Putin.

I think that wasn't enough to finish the story with Iraq, which wasn't a nuclear state. That was a good mark for many different dictators. Not to invade in weak and smaller neighbours, actually what happened with Kuwait.

But I think they need also to show an example what may happen with the dictators who has a nuclear weapon. The West need to show that they know how to behave with such kind of dictators. And that will be an answer for this century.

And the Biden who is very experienced guy and he is very old school politician, and he knows a lot of dictators personally and he knows how to behave with them. So, like I believe that he will show the old-fashioned political leadership and show that democracy also may be strong.

Jakub: So, there's a couple of points to unpick here. I think it is important to recognize that the war between Russia and Ukraine is one that fans out across the world.

And when Russia goes unpunished, other people may take the initiative and see like, hey, I can do what I want as long as nobody can stop me. And I think it's fair to say that Russia is encouraging this kind of behaviour wherever it can, the Middle East.

Most recently it looks like in Latin America with Venezuela and Guyana, there is also a conflict brewing and Azerbaijan and Armenia by the way as well. A sign that, if you cannot be stopped by force, then you might as well move and do what you want as long as you have the power to do so.

Part of that story is that Russia has already switched to a war footing. They have already moved towards a war economy. The West hasn't and is struggling, and Russia unfortunately it seems like it's holding up better than expected, at least at this point in time. Although it's difficult to see what is happening under the surface.

One of the things that Russia is doing is trying to use different influence operations both within Ukraine and internationally.

Maybe to start with Ukraine first, what do you see that Russia is doing that in order to try to undermine Ukraine politically, internally, morally? Is it still active there as it has been for many years? Or how do you see that?

Mykola: I think Russia trying to spread out the chaos in the world. They are very irresponsible people and their politician not thinking about the world. What may happen with the nuclear weapon, with the climate change, with border controls and they are not building something.

They are too weak to build something. They try to build the like left-wing world, if you remember to build a communism. And they couldn't and they tried to build Russian empire and they couldn't. And they understood that their strong side is not building their strong side, is destroying.

So, what they are doing now, what they are trying to promote is a chaos, chaos everywhere. And they build in not strong pro-Russian narrative. They just build in anti-Western narrative, and they try and to provoke Global South and many other countries and they're like, “Let's fight against U.S., let's fight against West.”

But in the same time, what Surkov wrote in his article that Russia want to be a part of Global West and they want to be like a Global North. So, they also afraid to fight against China because they know that China much stronger than Russia. And they lost their chance to be stronger after 1991 and after 2022 when they lost strategically their war in Ukraine.

I think Russia just trying to spread out the chaos. And their game is weak because Russia is post empire, is like dying empire and who has very strong sentiment of past, but don't have a strong vision of future.

And comparing Russia with Soviet Union, Soviet Union had ideology that was like communism, socialism, and the left-wing ideas. And they worked with that in Africa and Latin America and Asia and many, many others in part of the world.

But Russia don't have such idea. Is it right or is it left? They support or are they against? You don't know. And if you compare their messages in different parts of the world is like in U.S., they supporting Trump in Africa, they are against Trump, and in Latin America depend on the state.

So, they are state without position. They just spread in chaos. In Ukraine, choose their side. We say like we are a western state, we want to be part of that. We want to be part of EU, we want to be part of NATO. And if we are talking about new wars which may happen this or next year, Guyana and happen Israel, yes, we see that Russia involved.

Jakub: Okay, but just to sort of bring it back to Ukraine, so what is it specifically that Russia is kind of pushing on? What are the levers that it's using, you mentioned the church, what else is its strategy vis-a-vis Ukraine.

Mykola: Yeah. Language split and also mass. And like they try and to blow out our mobilisation and they try and to separate politician, they try and to spread out their propaganda.

For instance, yesterday I wrote a blog on my YouTube and just show how Zelenskyy moved to Argentina, how he met with Milei. And that was just the general stuff, nothing special, but a hundred and thousand comments on my YouTube page.

And they're like, they write in that he come to take drugs, that he's like an old fascist and in 40s came to Argentina because he want to disappear. I think that all the people is like Russian bots and trolls.

So, they also trying to work with such narratives against Ukrainian officials, about Zaluzhnyi, about Zelenskyy, about many other Ukrainian leaders. So, I think that church and language is a key and also fighting against mobilisation is top three and …

Because they can't promote Russian party or pro-Russian party because they strike missile firstly in Kharkiv, and Chernihiv and also their troops entered Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Kherson which was very pro-Russian regions and now they are not.

So, what they still have is trying to split. So, I think these top three is real work. And they invested there a lot of money and resources and the people.

Jakub: Turning towards the next year, I think it's fair to say that Ukraine has gone through a ton of misery and difficulties, not even just since February 2022, but the 10 years before that of war against Russia.

But 2023 seems to have been particularly difficult. How do you see 2024? What are the reasons for optimism? What are the things that maybe the narrative has discounted too much and there are certainly are a lot of them, I think Ukraine's victories in the Black Sea have been overlooked certainly. But how do you see the coming year?

Mykola: The next year will depend from two issues. First, will we receive money from U.S? And how the Congress may vote, that I think crucial.

Second is like a long run in Ukrainian case is like the results of American election. A lot of things depend from the world leader. And I think that is the most. We may do our home task and our home stuff and like mobilisation and producing of Ukrainian weapon and also like Ukrainian taxes and everything is possible is not like impossible for us.

But the most important is a superpower stays in Washington. So, results of election and the money, I think everything depend on that.

Jakub: Is there a plan B either with the money or with the election of Trump? I mean to name the elephant in the room.

Mykola: That's depend and about money we also need to talk more even now about sanctions against Russian money. Sovereign money and the money of oligarchs. We didn't receive any cent from that.

And we see half a trillion bucks in Europe and in U.S., but we still need to ask money and some donations and in Europe or U.S., but I think we may pay for land lease by Russian money which are frozen in Europe. So, that may be a good plan B.

But that is like a frank speaking among politicians. And I'm not sure that European mates and the partners are ready to start that conversation. Many of them still believe that they will or would cooperate with Russia and Russian money.

So, you need to choose. And so, yes, that may be a good plan B because they had like a billion and billion dollars is for a hundred billion dollars only in Europe. So, that's a good amount of money, which may help Ukraine to win because what Ukrainian general top general said and in Ukraine’s … that to win we need from 350 millions for 400 billions.

And so, that is enough Russian money to win. So, we don't need to begging money from European taxpayers, American taxpayer, just let us to use frozen Russian money.

Jakub: Okay. What about internally? I think we started this conversation by saying that the media has relied too much on trying to build a narrative around the war, but narrative matters. And it does matter what message you send internally, what message you send to the world.

What would be your recommendations in terms of how Zelenskyy and his team and his institutions can shape the narrative going forward?

Mykola: I think we need to speak more with the Global South and the world, not only the West, because Russia spreading their propaganda, and we need to help to keep Western leadership in the world and do that globally. And this war must not be like a West against Russia or Russia against West. We need to unite all the world.

So, our narratives have to be different in different parts of the world. We can be the same state everywhere because we are also different and we are post-colonial state, which were occupied by Russia for 400 years.

So, with Africa or Latin America, it's easy to speak because we feel their pain and we know what they mean and we need to show them our history also occupied colonised state, and they sometimes closer to us than to Russia, because Russia send them a message. It will just be anti-American, just be anti-Western. And when we come and show them that we are like so close, and we may be like a good team.

So, we need to speak more in Latin America, Africa, Asia. Also, we need to invest more in media and in a narrative about grain, because we supported two years under the war. We providing a fantastic grain to Africa, but nobody appreciate that.

It is like everybody think that is a Russian grain, or when Russia stole a hundred thousand tons of Ukrainian grain in Kherson and then move that to Africa and said that that is a donation from Russian people to African people. That was crazy because the grain was from Ukraine and GRC and in BBC wrote about that. That is horrible.

So, we need to work more in diplomat political and media field and just to show ourselves, and I think my message to invite more people to Ukraine mostly like the top political leaders as Pope Francis and Lula.

If before we invited a lot of the people who support Ukraine, now we also need to invite the people who arguing against us, even Mr. Orban. We know how hungry he's and how he trying to serve Putin, but we need to find his humanity and we need to show him what his friend did in Ukraine, truly did in Ukraine.

The situation very similar, what was among some left political elites in Europe who supported strongly Soviet Union. But when some of them saw what happened in Solovki, in Gulag, they stopped to support that.

So, we also need to show the Gulag and Solovki what happened here and now in Ukraine. So, and I think we will change their mind and maybe even their mindset.

Jakub: Perfect. I think that's a great thought to end the year on and hopefully it'll be one where Ukraine will have an easier path to maintain its independence and secure all of its territories. Mykola, thank you so much for joining us on Power Lines.

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Mykola: Thank you for invitation. Thank you so much.

Jakub: Thank you so much for listening to Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World and thanks too to Mykola for coming on. We'll be back in the new year with an episode looking forward to 2024 and the role that business and the economy will be playing in the reconstruction of Ukraine.

The whole team at Power Lines and the Kyiv Independent wishes all of our listeners, a safe and restful holiday season. Don't forget to subscribe and rate Power Lines wherever you get your podcast, as it really helps others find our show.

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