Translated by Ollie Richardson

12:52:09
03/01/2018

Nikolay Azarov

How will 2017 be remembered by Ukrainians? What was positive about it and what frustrated us and forced us to feel aggrieved?!

This was the 4th year of the Kiev junta’s reign. This term is more than sufficient to do something good for the people. Let’s think together and try to evaluate things objectively.

Pensions and wages were raised. This sounds good, but these supplements were immediately “eaten“ by the increase in prices, tariffs, and the cost of services.

The “visa-free“ regime was introduced, but only about 1% of the population of Ukraine used it. For the vast majority of Ukrainians tourism is too expensive now.

So-called healthcare reform was carried out, it was not so much good, but it became even worse. The average operation in terms of complexity began to cost fabulous money for ordinary Ukrainians, and what can be said here about serious illnesses and complicated operations…

2017 was marked by another infringement on the rights of the Russian people and Ukrainians whose native language is Russian. The discriminative law on education, which was condemned by many countries, was adopted.

A law where Russia is defined as the “aggressor” country was adopted, but at the same time commodity turnover with the “aggressor” increased by 30%, $3 billion was received from the “aggressor” as a payment for gas transit, and 90% of the coal supply came from the “aggressor” country. This is schizophrenia at the State level.

In 2017 Ukraine became even more distanced from long-awaited peace and stability. Instead of negotiations and compromise, there was the non-stop shelling of Donbass and civilian deaths. The conflict has already lasted longer than the Great Patriotic War, and some very much want it to last even longer.

2017 was the year of strengthening of radical, Nazi groups, and further attacks on freedom of speech, human rights, and democracy. Naturally, the appearance of such characters as Saakashvili happened against this background. Ukraine finally lost its sovereignty, and the trust in the Kiev junta fell to its lowest level.

Despite the cheerful official reports of the Kiev junta about the alleged growth of the economy, during the year not a single serious industrial facility was constructed and put into operation, and in agriculture there was a decline in production volumes in all domains.

According to all international ratings, 2017 became a failure for Ukraine: last place in terms of income per capita; second place in terms of mortality; among the leaders in terms of crime, etc; corruption and abuse of power by the junta became exorbitant; and all western curators begun to speak about it openly.

All this is very sad and unfortunate. But it is impossible to live without hoping for the best.

At midnight on December 31st, 2017, we tore off the last leaf of the calendar and entered the New 2018. It has to be better than the previous year. We have lived through this difficult year, we had some pleasures during it, and some achievements. It surely has to have taught us something, to make us think. And let all of this help us in 2018 and make it a year of fundamental change for the better.

Happy New Year to you, dear friends!

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