Volodymyr Zelensky’s day-long press conference in Kyiv today can be interpreted as an effort to convince his critics that his government is working assiduously to reduce corruption and bring an end to the war in the Donbas.
Since his inauguration as president, Zelensky has been the subject of intensive scrutiny both outside and within Ukraine. Western critics have sometimes condemned him before he has had a chance to prove that his leadership is different. Inside the country, a vocal minority that includes former President Petro Poroshenko has hardly wasted a chance to protest any move toward ending the conflict as a concession to Russia. Often the president’s words are taken out of context but that is perhaps not surprising. The vocal minority suffered a humiliating defeat in the two elections of 2019 and reminiscent of the Regions Party in 2014 have suddenly been relegated from the seat of power to the distant periphery.
The format of the press conference was radical: the president knew none of the questions beforehand—reversing Vladimir Putin’s usual tactic—or from whom they would emerge among the small group around his table at any one time. In recent memory, no leader has subjected himself to such a lengthy ordeal (14 hours), and one must attribute the protraction to the pressure under which Zelensky has placed because of Ukraine’s awkward position in the US impeachment case against President Donald Trump. No doubt Zelensky wishes his phone call with Trump had been kept private. His task is to keep relations with the US afloat and military aid extant while ensuring that Ukraine does not feature in the proceedings that will inevitably follow.
One conclusion from the press conference is: no official, whether it be Interior Minister Arsen Avakov or chief of staff Andriy Bohdan, can consider themselves to be secure in office. If officials are shown to be corrupt they will be removed. The apparent exception to that sweeping statement, billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, remains the uncertainty because, for many critics, failure to remove him from any position of influence is a sign that Zelensky remains under his sway. The apparent desire for compromise over Kolomoisky’s PrivatBank is a case in point. To date, Kolomoisky’s public prominence is unchallenged, but it seems doubtful it can continue. Similar to the presence of ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili after his appointment as governor of Odessa under Poroshenko, Kolomoisky’s return with Zelensky in office raises questions about the new president’s consolidation of power: is he the leader or a political pawn to be tossed around by influential oligarchs?
But Zelensky can hardly be expected to make such a decisive move until he has made progress in ending the conflict in the east. As he noted, one Ukrainian soldier dies in the Donbas every two days, or roughly 180 per year and he has a responsibility to save lives. Russia has given him zero assistance or encouragement, but stands cynically on the sidelines, denying responsibility for the conflict, which it claims is a Ukrainian internal affair, despite funding the separatists and even going so far as to select Pushilin as the new leader of the DNR last year, following the assassination of Zakharchenko.
With regard to Russia, Zelensky, like Poroshenko, has little flexibility. The latter simply denounced Russia and claimed the countries to be at war; Zelensky’s approach is more careful but without any visible concessions from Moscow, any move toward rapprochement—the so-called Steinmeier Formula–is interpreted by critics as a sign of weakness. Providing local authorities in Donetsk and Luhansk regions with power to run their own economies in some form of federal system was a provision of both Minsk agreements, but came with the proviso that Ukraine must control its eastern border. Zelensky stressed that same point. To date, however, Moscow has shown no sign of permitting this to happen.
The crucial question—one rarely raised by the critics—is the extent to which the separatists, gun-toting gangsters aside, wield influence in the Kremlin-controlled territories of the eastern Donbas. For a number of reasons, they cannot be dismissed solely as Moscow agents operating inside the borders of Ukraine. A genuine disaffection with rule from Kyiv has raised its head every time an alleged or authentic nationalist leadership is installed as president: 2004 and 2014 being the most obvious. Moreover, the Donbas has been in turmoil for years: a locale of communism, banditry, crime, clans, and magnified by the four years in power of local satrap Viktor Yanukovych and his Donbas-dominated cabinet.
Yet, most residents, even in the separatist zones, prefer to remain in Ukraine. Most are not in military garb fighting a local war but peaceful, often elderly residents wishing only for an end to hostilities, no matter whence they derive. These are the real concern and over the past five years, they have had little representation or consideration in Kyiv—they fall within the circle of “terrorists” attacked by ATO, the sovoks denounced by Volodymyr Viatrovych, former head of the National Institute for Remembrance, or those nostalgic for the days of Soviet power: coal miners, steelworkers whose day has come and gone. But they are Ukrainians, and they make up part of the independent state.
Zelensky seems to veer toward recognizing them while still talking to all sectors of social and political life, from left-wing to far right-wing. In this way he seeks broad appeal, through listening, responding, reliance on youth, and establishing distance from previous governments. He believes that his commitment is to the people and communication can be direct, ostensibly without journalists participating. Yet October 10 in Kyiv belies that comment. Perhaps more accurately, he wishes to form a pact with the population to fulfill its wishes, and refuses to be responsible to others outside this sector. He is likely to fail, it should be admitted, but it may be Ukraine’s last attempt to heal its troubled society within the geographical borders—Crimea excepted—established peacefully in 1991.
After the press conference, few can doubt his commitment.
