We paid the price for not being the administration’s lackeys: pressure to censor news, a failed libel lawsuit against us and two unsuccessful attempts to buy us by Yanukovych cronies. But the nation paid a far greater price, one also inflicted on the credibility of those who stood up for the bandit rather than the truth.
History proved our tough but fair coverage to be correct. It’s not that the assessment was difficult to make. Anyone who saw Yanukovych and his entourage in action knew this was a deeply corrupt, secretive regime bent on raping the nation for private gain. The difference is that we had the courage and character to tell it like it is.
Fast forward to today and we see a Yanukovych-lite regime taking shape under President Petro Poroshenko. It’s shocking to see the number of Westerners who are ready to champion “reforms” that haven’t happened and “progress” that hasn’t been achieved.
Many of the positive changes, namely in banking and energy, were forced upon Ukraine by the West or out of survival, as Yanukovych’s successors inherited a bankrupt nation. And many of those changes were paid for by Ukrainian taxpayers – such as the $3 billion and counting bailout of depositors who lost their savings in banks used by their owners to rob people. The gas price hikes have been suffered by those least able to afford it as prosecutors look the other way in the theft of billions of dollars by politically influential thieves. The criminal justice system remains broken by design.
Poroshenko, meanwhile, has installed loyalists as prime minister, general prosecutor, central bank governor, head of the Deposit Guarantee Fund, head of the State Fiscal Service and many other strategic places. And, not least of which, he commands the largest faction in parliament. The president remains the hypocritical obstructionist-in-chief, betraying promise after promise. Another day of reckoning is ahead. Probably not soon, but it’s coming all the same.
