The Long War #17
MYKOLAIV—I saw, for the first time in Kyiv about three weeks ago, posters advertising a charity foundation named after oligarch and former president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, and aimed at supporting the country’s military. A few days ago and here it is again in the streets of Kherson, a city where the billboards proclaimed not so long that “Russia is here forever”.
It’s not too surprising that Poroshenko would advertise his support to the Ukrainian military (though I’ll admit I didn’t expect this PR campaign to reach the battered and exhausted city of Kherson): since the beginning of the Russian invasion, showcasing one’s support for the armed forces has become the main way Ukrainian politicians can still promote themselves. And not just politicians: in a report about “jeans”, the nickname given in Ukraine to stories planted in media by oligarchs and politicians to paint them in a positive light, Ukrainian NGO Institute for Mass Information claims Ukraine’s wealthiest man Rinat Akhmetov has become the biggest user of the age-old method (Poroshenko comes second). Most of these “jeans”, the NGO points out, are used to highlight humanitarian efforts or support for the military—stories like “the Armed Forces have received 100 drones from Akhmetov’s Metinvest”.
What I find notable about Poroshenko’s advertising campaign is that it looks like the former Ukrainian president is trying to catch up in a world where politics, somewhat muted following the Russian invasion and the “sacred union” around Volodymyr Zelensky, have become more closely intertwined with the world of volunteers than ever before. In short, how effectively you can support the Ukrainian military determines how visible you can be on the public scene—former comedian and politician Serhiy Prytula has by far been the most successful example of this, while Petro Poroshenko largely disappeared from the headlines last year.
When I interviewed Prytula back in February, I asked him if, in his opinion, someone who had not engaged in any volunteering activities could hope to be elected in the next parliament. He burst out laughing, saying that this hypothetical someone simply doesn’t exist—anyone involved in Ukrainian politics or hoping to be involved at some point in the future is either in the military or is supporting the military in some way. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, of course: beyond the country’s most famous politicians, there are tens of thousands of Ukrainians who have become involved in helping raise money for various brigades, delivering drones and thermal optics, cooking meals for soldiers and repairing vehicles.
It might just be a coincidence that this advertising campaign for Poroshenko’s charity foundation started just as the topic of the upcoming counter-offensive picked up in Ukraine. But I think it’s also clear that this way of doing politics is more of a temporary break than a durable trend, a way for politicians to keep existing while Zelensky remains uncontested. It’s all about the counter-offensive now, an entire country seemingly holding its breath and hoping for a decisive strike. And it’s likely that this offensive will also strongly impact the political class’ attitude towards Zelensky and the decisions he took in the last months.
Something to read
Nashi Groshy Lviv (in Ukrainian) / How Ukrainian universities make money from the war (It’s very difficult to find any figures about the mobilization process in Ukraine. Authorities remain very tight-lipped about the whole process, and hints that mobilization has increased since the beginning of the year are just that. Mobilization avoidance is an even more difficult topic to quantify, and this article provides a rare look into the issue with this stunning statistic: enrollment of male students in Ukrainian universities increased 82% in 2022 compared to the year before. Considering that students are exempt from mobilization, there is little doubt this increase comes from Ukrainian army trying to avoid being drafted into the military).
NikVesti (in Ukrainian & Russian) / Mykolaiv officials lied when they claimed staff reduction at the city’s emergency care hospital wouldn’t affect doctors (While working in southern Ukraine, I met with several journalists—including the editor-in-chief of NikVesti—for a story on the work of local media. After almost a year of covering almost exclusively the war and the Russian atrocities that came with it, these journalists are now working again on stories aimed at holding local authorities accountable. It’s a crucial job that the war has made harder, in terms of access to data that used to be public (such as the income declarations of state officials) but also because officials now routinely use the war and the martial law as a pretext to refuse answering public information request. These guys are doing an amazing and important job in difficult conditions and I wanted to highlight it)
Associated Press / Long days of gravediggers tell story of Ukraine's war dead
OpenDemocracy / Could the West have saved Ukraine’s Donbas?