Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard
23:25:09
23/11/2018
kp.ru
Five years ago the government of Ukraine suspended preparation for the signing of the agreement on association with the European Union. In today’s Ukraine it is considered that students without facial hair spontaneously came to Kiev’s Independence Square in response to these shocking actions of Viktor Yanukovych, and that the heartless regime crushed the democratic elan of youth with army boots, having in passing broken several clavicles and nose bridges. It is this that Euromaidan allegedly started with.
In reality, preparation for the next standoff between the opposition and the authorities started much earlier. On November 13th, 2013 the future Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yury Lutsenko (at that time – the leader of the social movement “Third Ukrainian Republic”) called to prepare a 100,000 person meeting should the signing of the association be disrupted: “But it isn’t yet for the purpose of sweeping away Bankova (the Presidential Administration on Bankova Street in Kiev) from the earth. It is simply to show that the people aren’t indifferent when it comes to where Ukraine will be tomorrow”.
And by the end of the first week of the protest the “student group” already had a tent town, the commandant of which became the “head of the program” Andriy Parubiy. And Yatsenyuk, Klitschko, and Tyagnibok (future Prime Minister, Mayor of Kiev, and Rada deputy respectively) spoke from the scene about European “stipends”.
However, the fight for the heads of Ukrainians – for their minds – started even earlier. Since September instruction manuals – printed on good paper on which the advantages of life in a big and close-knit European family over vegetation in the shadow of the evil Russian stepmother were brightly and well described – were distributed in the city in large quantities.
Certain works of agit-art are still floating around the Internet. Today it is possible to visually judge how Ukraine – which nearly 5 years after signing the association agreement with the EU still hasn’t approached Europe – was fooled.
“There is a better side of Europe” – it is under such a title that the Institute of World Policy started an information campaign devoted to the European integration of the country. The unenviable present and bright future of the inhabitants of Ukraine was drawn for them in the form of cartoons (see the pictures and the “Quotes from the instruction manual”).
What they tried to escape from/What didn’t come true
COMFORTABLE OLD AGE
A quote from the instruction manual:
“In Germany the average pension is about €800 per month, in France the minimum pension is €500 per month, in Great Britain it is €760. In Ukraine the average pension is about €137 (1438 hryvnia)”.
Our comment:
This is indeed true. The average pension in Ukraine in five years increased up to 1828 hryvnia. However, because of the global crisis (and the wise economic policy of Kiev, of course) today it is €58. The same mathematics apply to the average salaries. They seemingly also grew by twofold, but in euro they became twofold less – 198. At the same time, the cost of rent rose by 2-fold/3-fold, electricity – fivefold, heating – by more than tenfold, gas – sevenfold.
THE HEALTH OF CITIZENS
A quote from the instruction manual:
“Less than €90 is being spent on average per Ukrainian, and in EU countries – up to €1200. In total, 13 times less is spent on medical care for one resident of Ukraine than what is spent on average in the EU”.
Our comment:
As a result of the healthcare reform, the expenditure on medicine in Ukraine was reduced from $7.5 billion to $2.8 billion. Among the “achievements” there is the introduction of paid services practically in all spheres, the negative difference between birth and death rates increased from 158 to almost 200,000 people. The incidence rate of tuberculosis sharply increased because of the disappearance of vaccines, including Russian ones, which fell under a ban. But now the “doctor over the phone” service is available – in Transcarpathia a 12-year-old child died from measles – an incorrect diagnosis was made remotely.
THE EU WITHOUT BORDERS
A quote from the instruction manual:
“Visa-free travel not only allows Europeans to plan their travel from the border regions at the last moment, but also to go shopping and to visit the doctor in a neighbouring European country”.
Our comment:
“Every Ukrainian can drink coffee in Bratislava, to take a low-cost flight to Warsaw or visit the Vienna opera” – who does not remember the golden words of Petro Poroshenko.
At the same time the Ukrainian has to have a reservation of accommodation and financial guarantees at the rate of €45 per person per day. One fan of the Vienna opera tried to prove their financial viability to Polish border guards by using toy “Monopoly” bank notes. The flow of “tourists” to Europe in five years has increased. However, people in the majority go there to work, and illegally at that.
LEVEL OF INTER-HUMAN MISTRUST
A quote from the instruction manual:
“In Ukraine, like in other Post-Soviet countries, people are capable of trusting only their immediate environment – relatives and really close friends. As the international experience shows, the level of inter-human trust and the level of provision are interconnected things. Usually, the lower the level of provision – the lower the level of trust. In European countries the standard of living is higher and the level of interpersonal trust is much higher”.
Our comment:
The standard of living in Ukraine isn’t exactly distinguished for its healthy growth. And there is no need to even comment about the level of trust when the frontline passed through families. “Household separatists” and “traitors of the Motherland” are being flung in prisons via denunciations. The country divided into “vatniks” and “ukrops”, into “moskals” and the autocephalous church, into those who try to honour their roots and those who openly worship Bandera. The aggressive nationalist minority intimidated the country so much so that the sprouts of a voice of reason extremely rarely breakthrough the anti-Russian mud.
ABSOLUTE HIERARCHY
A quote from the instruction manual:
“In the Ukrainian realities nearly any boss considers himself a tsar and their employee as a slave, but only until he arrives in the office of his higher boss. In many European countries the boss is just a senior partner. If in Ukraine the employee is deprived of civil rights, then in the EU labor relations are strictly regulated by the relevant legislation”.
Our comment:
Ukrainians could personally experience the strictly regulated labor relations in the EU thanks to the “sacred visa-free travel“. The Internet is overflowing with chilling stories about the most real slave conditions that gastarbeiters are given in the enlightened Europe. But people go there anyway because it is more profitable to put up with European slavery than domestic slavery.
INTOLERANCE
A quote from the instruction manual:
“In Ukraine manifestations of intolerance are observed rather often. Sociological data shows that only 5% of Ukrainians are ready to participate in protest actions against discrimination. Only 36% are ready to vote for a Jew as president, and only 18% are ready to vote for a black candidate”.
Our comment:
Here it is somehow awkward to comment on. I am afraid that today there would be even less of those who are interested in voting for a black Jew. In five years the marginal nationalism that left the skhrons [Banderist hideouts – ed] evolved to the state national idea. In the Armed Forces whole units were built using the Nazi ideology. Avenues and squares of cities are being renamed in honor of Nazi criminals. Numerous druzhinas created on the principle of “blood purity” march on the streets. Anti-Semitic graffiti became an habitual part of the city landscape. And the main thing is that the civilised Old World looks at it with patronising indulgence, like how a hereditary governess looks at a spoiled child. All of a sudden it discharges a sharp report on how in a children’s camp they are taught to cut “Moskals”. And then it immediately drowns in a general stream of anti-Russian propaganda, according to which Ukraine is the victim of aggression. And it means that it can be forgiven for little mischiefs.
POLITICAL IMPUNITY
A quote from the instruction manual:
“In Ukraine a politician or official can frankly resort to lying in public, manipulation, and plagiarism. Meanwhile, over the past three years three well-known political figures from Germany alone were forced to resign because they had plagiarised their doctorate”.
Our comment:
Poroshenko’s tax avoidance through Panama offshores did not interest the investigating authorities. The investigation concerning Yatsenyuk about the theft of money via the construction of a wall on the border with Russia sees no progress. The accusations made towards the son of the Interior Minister of Ukraine Arsen Avakov (delivering low-quality equipment for the needs of the army) were dismissed. And apparently the shameful failures at the frontline don’t give a reason for dismissals, let alone executions.
FROM THE AUTHOR
“Russian aggression” is in general one of the pillars of both the external and domestic policies of Kiev. After all, the troubles described above can easily be explained by an external invasion. And it is because of this “invasion” that hospitals became less numerous, heating is more expensive, food prices are higher, and life is more difficult. And it is not important that the extortionate conditions of the IMF, without which Kiev will not receive the next tranche, herd Ukrainians into debt. And Russia, at the same time, remains the largest investor in the Ukrainian economy and its largest trade partner. While there is a war in the East, it is somehow indecent to ask why radiators in apartments are covered in hoarfrost. “You are cold? Think about those who sleep in the trenches,” advices a girl from a propaganda campaign launched on social networks. Everything can be written off on war.
AND AT THIS TIME
“Poroshenko drunkenly walked around”
The Ukrainian TV channel NewsOne on air of the “Big Tuesday” broadcast asked the audience a question: “If you could return to the past, would you go to Maidan?” The program lasted an hour and a half, and nearly 10,000 people during this time managed to vote. 91% answered “No”.
On the air of this same channel the head of the Socialist Party of Ukraine Ilya Kiva made confessions, having described how during Maidan the future president Petro Poroshenko and the future Mayor of Kiev Vitaly Klitschko drank cognac in the headquarters of the protest in the House of Trade Unions.
“I saw this first floor where drunk Poroshenko was walking around. When he drunkenly stumbled out on the street and his tongue hardly moved. I remember a drunk Klitschko, back then everything was mixed up in my head.”
Kiva, according to him, did not abuse alcohol. He probably mixed things up his head because of the aroma.
EXPERT OPINION
Sergey MARKOV, director of the Institute of Political Research:
Ukraine was used for the fight against Russia
“In reality there were several stages of this Maidan. The first one – which was public – was rather spontaneous. The pro-West public was shocked by Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the agreement on association. He simply understood that it is unprofitable both for the economy of Ukraine and for him personally. The worse things thus had to fall on the period of his electoral campaign, and he simply wouldn’t have been re-elected. And by November 30th this little Maidan already started to fade away. And in order to prevent it from ending, the traitors in Yanukovych’s environment connected with oligarchical circles organised the beating up of students on a massive scale. The former head of the Presidential Administration Levochkin is more often than not mentioned among the organisers. They brought right-wing radicals there, who provoked the police.”
And the second stage of Maidan started?
“Yes, it was provoked – its organisation started, the camp was created, food and portable toilets started to be delivered… And the third stage Maidan began at the end of December when the American intelligence agencies took all organisational issues into their hands and led affairs towards a coup d’etat. And the fourth stage is the execution organised by the masters of Maidan – first of all – Andriy Parubiy. Its purpose was to direct the seizure of power. I think that in total no more than $10 million dollars were spent.”
Did the authors of instruction manuals similar to this one think that the idea of Euro-association will bring nothing good for Ukraine? It was obvious?
“No. This was organised by both pro-West orientated people and western experts directly. But they did not assume that in Ukraine there would be full destruction. They simply formed the trend towards the West in order to tear Ukraine away from Russia. Although the idea to establish a Russophobic dictatorship with terror initially didn’t exist. It was supposed that Ukraine would become a new Poland. Another thing is that Poland, after all, is governed by Poles. But Kiev was immediately told that the western intelligence agencies will manage it. And their agenda is rigidly anti-Russian.”
The current disastrous condition of Ukraine is a consequence of war, the global crisis, or the incompetence of the authorities?
“Most likely it is a consequence of the fact that today the whole situation in the country is subordinated to the fight of the American intelligence agencies against Russia. And all the resources of Ukraine are used for this purpose. Such a bad economic situation existed during the occupation of 1941-1943. The Germans had no reason to do good for Ukrainians. The occupational regime in Ukraine had to serve in the fight against the Soviet Union and the Red Army. And it is the same thing now. All the political institutes of Kiev are sharpened for the carrying out of a coup in Russia.”
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