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Before the war began, the Kremlin paid significant attention to disinformation about the reasons for the attack on Ukraine. According to the rules of Russian propaganda, there must be a lot of lies. This is necessary to confuse the target audience. People should choose not between lies and truth, but between different versions of lies. This makes it harder for them to get to the real reasons or events.

Trying to explain the upcoming aggression against its neighbor, Putin offered his compatriots to believe in the scary American biolabs on Ukrainian territory, the rise of neo-Nazism, the need to protect the population of Donbas, NATO expansion, and even Ukraine’s attempts to create a nuclear bomb. A few days before the invasion, Russian special services staged several shellings of their territory supposedly by Ukraine. But this Gleiwitz incident was done so clumsily and shoddily that not even Russian Z-patriots believed it.

In fact, Putin’s decision to start a full-scale war was influenced by entirely different factors. The first (but not the main) of these was Zelensky’s victory in the presidential elections in April 2019.

The Kremlin really wanted Zelensky to win. President Poroshenko, despite all his flaws, consistently pursued a policy that Putin did not like. He strengthened the Ukrainian army, under him the economy grew for 30 consecutive months, he achieved autocephaly for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and visa-free travel for citizens to the European Union. If the situation continued at this pace, Ukraine could well receive a roadmap for joining the EU by the end of the second presidential term.

In anticipation of the presidential elections, in March 2019, the chief editor of the Russian radio station “Echo of Moscow,” Alexey Venediktov, stated that Putin is satisfied with any president of Ukraine who would make the country weaker.

“I understand that anyone but Poroshenko. In my opinion, speaking of our, pro-Russian candidate for president of Ukraine, we have Mr. Chaos. The more chaos, the weaker the candidate, the more Putin thinks it is beneficial for Russia. We do not have our own candidate: Tymoshenko, Zelensky, Boyko, some other people − it does not matter. Mr. Chaos satisfies us,” said Venediktov.

Of course, Zelensky’s victory itself was not one of the reasons for the war. But it created the necessary conditions. An incompetent president of Ukraine was Putin’s hope that Poroshenko’s policy towards Europe would, at the very least, slow down. It would also be desirable for the new president to improve relations with Russia. To begin with, it would be good for Ukraine to forget about Crimea and come to terms with the separatist authorities in Donbas.

The maximum program for Putin envisaged appointing Viktor Medvedchuk as the head of the government or the return to power of former President Viktor Yanukovych. Either way, but Venediktov was right: to begin with, the Russian leadership very much wanted the situation in Ukraine to worsen.

For some time, Putin waited. He hoped that he would somehow be able to expand the political influence of Ukrainian parties loyal to the Kremlin. For this, at the next parliamentary elections in Ukraine, pro-Russian parties had to get the percentage of votes that would allow them to claim participation in the parliamentary coalition. If this succeeded, then Medvedchuk could hope to become the speaker of the parliament or vice-premier. Putin really hoped to return representatives of pro-Russian forces to the executive power of Ukraine.

To strengthen Medvedchuk’s influence, Putin gifted his wife − former TV presenter Oksana Marchenko − the right to develop one of the three largest oil fields in Russia, the Gavrikovskoye field in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. According to Putin’s plan, Marchenko’s Cypriot company would extract oil in Russia, sell it, and use the proceeds to buy and finance TV channels in Ukraine.

For some time, this scheme worked successfully. Even under Poroshenko, Medvedchuk began to buy up information TV channels. In a relatively short time through front men, he became the owner of the television channels NewsOne, ZIK, and “112 Ukraine”. In November 2019, already under Zelensky, Medvedchuk opened two more TV channels: “First Independent” and UkrLive.

Notably, all pro-Russian media resources, including Medvedchuk’s channels, ruthlessly criticized Poroshenko before the presidential election and assessed Zelensky’s prospects quite neutrally. This continued after the new president was elected. The criticism of Poroshenko was meant to maximally reduce the percentage of his party in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Zelensky was still being observed, obviously, in the calculation of possible participation in a future coalition and government formation.

Everything changed on July 22, 2019, after the vote count in the snap elections to the Verkhovna Rada. The pro-Russian bloc of parties “Opposition Platform − For Life” got not so little: 13.05% of the votes. This allowed them to bring 43 deputies into parliament. However, Shariy’s party, another pro-Kremlin force, did not overcome the 5-percent barrier in the 2019 parliamentary elections, receiving only 2.23% of the votes.

The real triumphator of the snap parliamentary elections was the pro-presidential party “Servant of the People,” which for the first time in the history of Ukraine managed to form a mono-majority. Zelensky’s party received 43.16% of the votes. Together with deputies elected in single-mandate constituencies, this was enough to form a majority without the participation of other parties. This meant that Putin’s desire to influence the decisions of the Ukrainian government would not be realized, at least for the next 4 years.

Since Medvedchuk and Boyko no longer hoped to get positions in the government or even in the leadership of the parliament, pro-Russian TV channels began to gradually criticize the president. It is worth mentioning again that Zelensky is very sensitive to criticism. He simply hated any critical statements about himself, broadcasted from the TV channels of Poroshenko and Medvedchuk. But since Poroshenko belongs to the pro-Western opposition and has quite a high authority, including in Washington and European capitals, his media resources cannot be simply shut down, as somewhere in Venezuela or Azerbaijan. This would immediately cause a scandal and accusations of oppressing freedom of speech. The President of Ukraine, as we know, positions himself as a democratic leader.

But if the TV channels of the hated Poroshenko cannot be shut down, then this prohibition does not apply to Medvedchuk’s channels. Viktor Medvedchuk made a big mistake. He somehow began to think that his status as “Putin’s godfather” and the unofficial representative of the Kremlin in Ukraine gave him certain privileges that Zelensky would not dare to violate. But it turned out that the Ukrainian president is absolutely indifferent to this status.

Zelensky did not want to tolerate and watch how Medvedchuk’s propagandists systematically destroy his rating from their TV screens. The first year of his presidency, on the wave of fantastically high popularity among the people, he could still ignore this. However, criticism on TV screens was increasing, including news stories about corruption in power. The last straw was information that Zelensky’s father was very upset by journalists’ attacks on his son. Moreover, it was about Medvedchuk’s TV channels, which Olexandr Zelensky liked to watch until a certain time. There were even rumors that the president’s father had a heart attack because of this.

On February 2, 2021, the president initiated a decision by the National Security and Defense Council to impose sanctions against people’s deputy Taras Kozak, TV channels “112 Ukraine”, NewsOne, and ZIK. Kozak fell under sanctions because he was formally the owner of these TV channels, not Medvedchuk or his wife Oksana Marchenko. A similar ownership scheme existed for Poroshenko’s channel. Until 2021, “Pryamiy” was registered to the former head of the Kyiv City Administration, Volodymyr Makeenko, although Poroshenko actually managed everything.

It is interesting how the father of the Ukrainian president reacted to the sanctions and the shutdown of Medvedchuk’s TV channels. The next day, Olexandr Zelensky told journalists that he supports the ban on TV channels “112 Ukraine”, NewsOne, and ZIK, because their rhetoric does not correspond to reality.

“The way they pour dirt on him, there’s nothing like it in any country… They pour the dirtiest dirt… They say, for instance, corruption has increased sixfold. But you look at the international results − it’s risen by three ranks,” said the elder Zelensky.

The closure of Viktor Medvedchuk’s TV channels had far-reaching consequences. With his decision, Volodymyr Zelensky showed Putin that, unlike Poroshenko, he would not allow propagandists to destroy his rating and destabilize the political situation. Of course, the master of the Kremlin understood that the lack of media support puts an end to his plans to bring pro-Russian forces to power in Ukraine. In other words, Putin lost the last illusions that Medvedchuk could ever take a high post in the Ukrainian government.

Should pro-Russian TV channels have been closed? Of course, but only if you have a strong army and are ready for the consequences. It was long clear that Medvedchuk is a traitor, and his media projects are funded by Russia. But Zelensky hardly thought about the long-term consequences and definitely was not prepared for a possible escalation of military actions. Since the Ukrainian president lacked sufficient experience in international politics and surrounded himself with equally incompetent friends, he seemed to think that everything would somehow calm down. Zelensky’s logic was childishly simple and naive: war benefits no one, so Putin will not start it.

>>> 32. The Perfect Moment for Putin

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The reasons for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine can likely be divided into two separate groups: those that formed Putin’s steadfast desire to annex Ukrainian territories to Russia, and those that influenced the decision that the time had come.

It’s no secret that Vladimir Putin had long contemplated the annexation of Ukraine, well before Zelensky, Poroshenko, and Yanukovych’s flight. The first alarming signals appeared in 2003, during the conflict around Tuzla Island. The Tuzla situation showed that the Russian president did not rule out the possibility of resolving contentious issues with Ukraine through the use of force. I remind you that Kuchma and Putin de-escalated this border dispute only after Ukrainian paratroopers were moved to Tuzla Island when the situation was a step away from gunfire between both shores of the Kerch Strait.

Five years later, in April 2008, during a closed meeting of the Russia-NATO Council, Vladimir Putin openly hinted to George W. Bush Jr. that if Ukraine joined the North Atlantic Alliance, the country might lose its statehood.

Then, as known, the patient’s condition began to deteriorate. Putin became increasingly embittered, and in February 2014, he decided to use Yanukovych’s flight to annex Crimea. Most experts believe that in his attitude towards the Ukrainian issue, the Kremlin master was drowned in a cocktail, the main component of which were imperial ambitions. Other components of this drink included: nostalgia for the USSR, resentment over NATO’s expansion to Eastern European countries, incompetence, delusions of grandeur, and the recognition of Kosovo’s independence.

The latter precedent, in Putin’s opinion, untied his hands, as the recognition of Kosovo’s independence by the USA and other Western countries violated the 1975 Helsinki Pact on the inviolability of European states’ borders. The cherry on top was the famous quote by Zbigniew Brzezinski that Russia without Ukraine can never become an empire. In the late 90s, his book “The Grand Chessboard” was a big hit, both in Ukraine and Russia. And, of course, it made an impression on Putin.

There was a whole list of reasons why Putin needed Ukraine. This country is one of the few that possesses a full aircraft manufacturing cycle, has technologies and industrial capacities for space rocket engineering, is among the top ten largest world metallurgy producers, and is one of the biggest food exporters. Moreover, it’s a vast human resource that could fuel Russia’s demography and economy for decades.

Another reason for the war was the desire to prevent Ukraine from integrating into the European Union. A rich, successful, and democratic Ukraine is Putin’s worst nightmare. He simply could not allow Ukrainians to live better than Russians. The Russian president could “overlook” the successful transformation of Eastern European countries, but Ukraine’s success would have been the worst reminder of his own incompetence.

There is no country in the world richer in natural resources than Russia. It owns vast deposits of gold, diamonds, oil, gas, and non-ferrous metals. With the money earned only from the export of raw materials abroad, Russia could build several new cities, no worse than Dubai. But all Putin achieved after 23 years of his rule is a minimum wage for Russians at the level of $200 a month.

It wasn’t even about joining NATO. The whole story’s goal is merely the conquest or destruction of Ukraine. Estonia has long been a NATO member, and the distance between the Estonian border and Saint Petersburg is only 125 kilometers. That’s almost four times less than the distance from the Ukrainian border to Moscow. Therefore, Putin’s rhetoric about “NATO aircraft flight time” or “NATO troops at Russia’s borders” is an argument aimed only at the domestic audience.

In April 2014, when Putin, after the annexation of Crimea, began a hybrid war in the east and south of Ukraine, he hoped to capture several regions with little bloodshed. But the “Russian spring” failed everywhere except Donbas. And even there, things did not go as planned. Hybrid methods, effectively used in Crimea, stopped working, and by summer, the situation escalated into a low-intensity armed conflict.

A full-scale war was not in Vladimir Putin’s plans at that time. He later mentioned this in 2023 as his big mistake. Although in August 2014, the Russian president used the Russian regular army to defeat Ukrainian forces near Ilovaisk, the legend of the “Donbas people’s uprising” was used up until the start of the full-scale invasion. Putin harbored the hope that he could still bring Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence through political means.

It’s worth noting that even two weeks before the war began, most politicians in Ukraine did not believe in the possibility of a large-scale invasion, so incredible was the very thought of it. Not only Zelensky, but even Poroshenko and Tymoshenko. It just didn’t fit any rational logic. Everyone understood that the situation now was completely different from 2014, and Russia would face catastrophic consequences in the event of a war. But Ukrainian politicians did not account for Putin’s hatred of Ukraine, capable of irrational actions. He is an authoritarian dictator, for whom even the death of tens of thousands of citizens means little.

Perhaps, had Putin been an evil genius, everything would have worked out for him. And Ukraine, except for the “irreparably nationalist” western regions, would already have been divided into three or four new federal districts of the Russian Federation. But Putin is not an evil genius. The most accurate description of him was given by the former head of the Central Bank of Russia, Viktor Geraschenko: “Putin is an ordinary C-student.” Mediocrity, who reached the top only because Boris Berezovsky chose him once.

In his attitude towards Ukraine, Putin repeatedly made two big mistakes. He overestimated the Soviet past and did not consider the local specifics of Ukrainian politics. Putin believed that Ukraine was still a former Soviet republic that accidentally and undeservedly gained independence. And his historical mission was to correct this mistake.

There’s a version that the capture of Ukraine was supposed to be the first step towards other wars. And that Ukraine was of interest to Putin primarily as a source of resources: economic, logistical, and, most importantly, human, for further expansion into Eastern Europe. The Russian president was not actually prepared for a full-scale war. He sincerely believed it would be a two-week special operation, similar to the annexation of Crimea or the suppression of the “Prague Spring” in 1968. And further on, after absorbing Ukraine, Putin could use this additional resource for a full-scale war with NATO. Ukrainians were prepared to play the role of cannon fodder in this plan. They, along with the Buryats and Tuvans, were supposed to storm Riga, Warsaw, or even Berlin as part of the Russian army.

This is just one of the versions. An argument against it is that according to the military action plan that fell into the hands of Ukrainian military, the Russian army did not intend to occupy the western regions of Ukraine. Russians feared that the presence of “hostile population” there could turn into a guerrilla war. According to Putin’s plan, Western Ukraine was to become a pro-Russian protectorate headed by a new Vichy regime or go to Poland after the division of spheres of influence between Russia and the West. Transcarpathia would come under Hungarian control. This is how the “new Yalta,” in Putin’s understanding, was supposed to look.

We do not know what was really in Putin’s mind when he planned this adventure. One thing is for certain — he greatly overestimated the capabilities of his country and his army.

>>> 31. Zelensky’s Father Triggers a Chain Reaction

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The longstanding conflict between Volodymyr Zelensky and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko dates back several years before Zelensky’s triumphant victory in 2019. Starting in 2014, when Klitschko was first elected as the mayor of Kyiv, the performers of “Kvartal 95” crudely parodied the former world boxing champion, depicting him in their shows as a dumb athlete. Moreover, they did it very often. Naturally, the capital’s mayor hardly appreciated this.

In an interview with Ukrainian journalist Sonya Koshkina, Vitali Klitschko confirmed that he had encountered Zelensky by chance at parties among mutual friends several times and expressed his displeasure about the parodies. Zelensky, in response, always explained it as just that type of humor. Either way, personal animosity arose between them.

After the 2019 election victory, the new president Zelensky tried to extend his influence over Kyiv, so Vitali Klitschko was offered cooperation. According to the mayor, the head of the President’s Office, Andriy Bohdan, approached him with a request that Klitschko coordinate all his actions in the capital with one of two people of his choice: major developer Andriy Vavrysh or the head of the “1+1” TV channel, Olexandr Tkachenko.

The mayor refused the offer and even held a press conference, where he talked about the call from the head of the President’s Office:

“I clearly asked: please tell me, Mr. Bohdan, what official positions do they hold (Vavrysh and Tkachenko), and what key roles are they supposed to play in consultations on the various steps that take place in our city?” – Klitschko reported.

Essentially, this was a declaration of war. It seemed that Zelensky, buoyed by his popularity, would easily deal with the capital’s mayor. Especially since there were only a few months left until the local elections in Kyiv. But the reality was somewhat different. Klitschko was also popular among voters. If not in the entire country, then definitely in the capital. Big money circulates in Kyiv, a part of which, in the form of taxes, goes into the city budget. Having the ability to manage large financial resources, the mayor improved urban infrastructure. In other words, billions in the city budget solved many problems. Kyivans saw positive changes and were generally satisfied with their mayor. Compared to other Ukrainian cities, Kyiv always looked very attractive.

Besides Klitschko’s popularity, Zelensky faced another problem: he did not have a suitable candidate who could win the elections in Kyiv for him. There were many who wanted to become mayor from “Servant of the People”: Mykola Tyschenko, Olexandr Dubinsky, Olexandr Tkachenko, and Iryna Vereshchuk. But Tyschenko and Dubinsky were trailed by a series of scandals. And Tkachenko and Vereshchuk, despite all the support from Kolomoisky’s TV channel, lacked enough charisma to compete with Klitschko.

Eventually, Zelensky chose Vereshchuk, who disastrously lost the Kyiv mayor election, only securing fifth place with 5.44% of the vote. Klitschko was re-elected for a new term. And with a huge advantage: more than 50% of voters voted for him.

A similar situation occurred in the elections for the Kyiv City Council. Petro Poroshenko’s “European Solidarity” party and Klitschko’s “UDAR” party formed a majority of 61 deputies. The pro-presidential “Servant of the People” party received only 12 seats in the city council.

The election results significantly reduced Zelensky’s possibilities to fight Klitschko for power in Kyiv. But he was not ready to give up. There are at least three known instances when the president intended to illegally dismiss Klitschko from the position of head of the Kyiv City State Administration. According to the Constitution of Ukraine, the mayor elected by Kyivans automatically becomes the head of the Kyiv City Council and holds the position of head of the city state administration. Zelensky was not deterred by the constitutional contradiction, but he was daunted by the prospect of a conflict with city council deputies.

Dismissing Klitschko as head of the administration, the president could do nothing about the fact that he would still remain the elected mayor of the city. The main financial resources in Kyiv are distributed during city council sessions, which are chaired by the mayor. Appointing his own appointee as head of the administration, Zelensky would only have escalated the conflict to a new level. Issues related to construction and land plots would still have to be resolved through Klitschko and his deputies.

In December 2021, a meeting took place between Klitschko and Zelensky, during which the president offered the mayor to exit the coalition with Poroshenko’s party in the city council. The head of state also asked Klitschko not to run in the upcoming presidential elections. Regarding the first offer, Zelensky received a refusal, and as for plans to become president, Klitschko turned it into a joke.

After this meeting, Vitali Klitschko and Volodymyr Zelensky have not met once in two years. As the Kyiv mayor assures, they have not even spoken on the phone since the war began. Deep personal animosity still exists between them.

>>> 30. Why Putin Attacked Ukraine

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Being an experienced specialist in the media sphere, Zelensky understood that his popularity largely rested on the loyalty of nationalwide television channels. Poroshenko’s story showed that charisma and the loyalty of the core electorate were not enough for victory. The voter must be in an atmosphere that creates the illusion of the absence of a viable alternative to the incumbent president. This is exactly what Putin did at the beginning of his first presidential term. And, as you see, he succeeded in eliminating all potential competitors.

Volodymyr Zelensky, as it turned out, has some traits of an authoritarian ruler. For example, he really dislikes criticism. One might even say he hates it. As the former head of the President’s Office Andriy Bohdan recalled, Zelensky even wrote to him at two in the morning to find out information about some little-known author of a critical post on Facebook. Bohdan was very surprised by this, as the former “Kvartal 95” comedian came to power using not only harsh criticism but also the most disgusting ways of mocking his opponents.

Zelensky’s painful reaction to any criticism combined with a keen desire to prevent opposition media from accessing a wide audience. For example, in the first year of Volodymyr Zelensky’s presidency, observers noted that he and his former business partner Ihor Kolomoisky negatively mentioned Tomas Fiala several times — a Czech investor who has been living and doing business in Ukraine for many years.

Who is Fiala? He is not yet an oligarch — his fortune is estimated at about $200 million, which is not that much compared to others. He is not a friend of Poroshenko, he does not own a TV channel, and he is a foreigner living in Ukraine with a residence permit. But on closer examination of Tomas Fiala’s personality, everything falls into place. Zelensky and Kolomoisky sensed danger because Fiala began to buy and open media resources. Over several years, he and his companies gained control over the “NV” magazine, its website, a radio station, and two financial news websites.

In Ukraine, there are cases when someone not from the ruling team owns a media holding. But if the owner of these media does not want problems, they must, at a minimum, demonstrate loyalty to the president. For example, the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, through his family, controls a small by Ukrainian standards TV channel 24, the news website Zaxid.net, and the Radio Lux network. He has no problems with licenses or tax inspections. And no criticism of Sadovyi himself has ever come from the president. It just so happened that the media resources of the mayor of Lviv are very loyal to Volodymyr Zelensky.

Unlike Andriy Sadovyi, Czech investor Tomas Fiala demonstrated an independent stance, although he cannot be considered opposition. Moreover, considering that his residency status in Ukraine prohibits political activity. But for Zelensky, the mere fact that a person not loyal to him had access to a large audience already posed a danger.

Fiala, obviously, realized that his independence in the media market began to worry the president, and in the near future, this could threaten his investment business. The problem was solved in a somewhat unusual way for Ukraine. To guarantee the absence of problems from the authorities, in the autumn of 2021, Fiala bought one of the most influential political online newspaper − “Ukrainska Pravda”. It was hardly necessary for him, both from an investment point of view and for expanding political influence. Especially since the new owner publicly promised not to interfere in the editorial policy of the site. However, the mere fact of owning “Ukrainska Pravda” removed all claims from Zelensky towards Fiala. Otherwise, the website could once again change its owner. And the popular site could get a new editor. Say, someone more friendly to Poroshenko or Medvedchuk.

In other words, it was a non-aggression and mutual understanding pact. “Ukrainska Pravda” remained neutral towards Zelensky (although they always had a dislike for Poroshenko, for example), and the president forgot Fiala’s surname. Indeed, after the Czech became the owner of “Ukrainska Pravda”, Volodymyr Zelensky never mentioned Tomas Fiala again in his press conferences and interviews.

As for the opposition, from the very beginning, the president deliberately limited its influence on the television market. And if the pressure on Medvedchuk’s media holding could be easily explained by his connections with the Kremlin, then with the pro-Western opposition in the form of Poroshenko, it was necessary to come up with a different scheme. The war and martial law helped.

A month after the war began, the state regulator turned off three opposition TV channels loyal to Petro Poroshenko from cable networks and digital broadcasting: “Pryamiy”, “5 Kanal”, and “Espreso”. They were left with only broadcasting on YouTube and some streaming services, which significantly narrowed the Ukrainian audience.

At the same time, the largest nationalwide channels, controlled by oligarchs, joined the “Unified Marathon” − a state channel that broadcasts news and video reports around the clock, mainly about the situation in the country and military topics. The idea of this project was that channels “1+1”, “ICTV”, and “STB” would supply content in the form of news and television reports for the marathon, and the state would pay them for it.

Trying to establish control over the information space, Zelensky’s team did not forget to earn money on state television. For example, in the state budget for 2024, the government allocated 170 million hryvnias (about $4 million) for financing the parliamentary channel “Rada”. It turned out that two-thirds of this money was transferred without a tender to the private company “Kinokit”, which belongs to the former deputy head of the President’s Office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko. Instead of creating television content based on the “Rada” channel, its director signed a contract for content production with a private firm of a Presidential Office official.

Access to state funds allowed Zelensky’s team to solve two problems at once. After limiting the opposition’s influence on voters, they began financing unprofitable oligarchic TV channels at the expense of the state and created another corruption scheme for their own enrichment. The only requirement for the heads of the TV channels was simple: no criticism of the president.

In January 2024, almost simultaneously, two events related to criticism of Zelensky occurred in Kyiv. Two days after a journalist from the “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia” Yuriy Nikolov on one of the YouTube streams extremely negatively characterized the professional qualities of the president, unknown men tried to break into his apartment. They banged on the doors, shouted that they would send Nikolov to the front, called him a traitor and a provocateur. After that, the hooligans, filming everything on a phone camera, pasted leaflets with insults on the journalist’s apartment door. About 15 minutes later, this video was published in the Telegram channel “Card Office”, which often shares insiders from the President’s Office.

A few days later, a video from a hidden camera in a hotel room was published online, showing journalists of the Bihus Info project using drugs at a private New Year’s party. This project has long been known for its anti-corruption investigations, and its YouTube channel has about a million subscribers. Several months before the appearance of the video with drugs, the journalists of Bihus Info released several videos on their channel with investigations into the corruption of Zelensky’s associates.

Despite President Zelensky’s public condemnation of pressure on journalists, the customers of both incidents were never found. Notably, such practices of persecuting journalists with the involvement of special services were widely spread during the presidency of Yanukovych.

>>> 29. Reasons for the Conflict with Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko

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As a true populist, Volodymyr Zelensky was not fond of limiting himself in the promises he happily distributed to voters. Naturally, almost all of them remained fantasies. For instance, on June 7, 2021, the president promised to plant 1 billion trees in Ukraine over three years. A very good and bold initiative, considering that Ukraine has a disproportionately high area of arable greenery and an extremely small area of forests relative to the country’s total area. The only problem: implementing such an idea in practice is impossible.

Critics of the president immediately calculated on social networks: to plant a billion trees in Ukraine over three years, more than 10 trees per second need to be planted. Experts also questioned the president’s initiative:

“If trees are planted at a density of 1 tree every 5 meters (which looks like a fairly dense forest), then one hectare can accommodate 492 trees. Accordingly, a square kilometer can accommodate a hundred times more – 49,200 trees. 330 million trees a year will cover 6,775 square kilometers. Over three years, this will be 20.3 thousand square kilometers, which constitutes more than 3.6 percent of the territory controlled by the government of Ukraine. According to official data, existing forests currently occupy about 16% of the territory,” said the director of the Association of Energy Efficient Cities of Ukraine, Sviatoslav Pavlyuk.

Subsequent events showed that the officials whom Zelensky entrusted with implementing his idea slightly adjusted it. On the “Green Country” website, they showed beautiful figures of planted trees, but upon closer examination, it turned out that it was not about creating new forests, but about renewing old, already existing forests. For example, during the spring planting in 2023, foresters reported the renewal of 11,988 hectares of forest, but only 542 hectares of new forests were created. In practice, this meant that the implementation of the president’s project was going well, but the number of new forests is unlikely to increase significantly. Although Zelensky in his speech meant precisely the increase in forest areas.

Another megaproject of the president, which he announced in 2020, was related to the creation of a state airline – Ukrainian National Airlines (UNA). Zelensky even promised to allocate about $100 million for the start of the new carrier. It is still unclear what prompted the president to propose such an idea. Passenger air transport is a complex and low-margin business. It is more than likely that if created, the state airline would almost immediately face the fate of “Ukrzaliznytsia” – the national railway company, which shows losses year after year. Ukraine’s budget is not so wealthy as to launch projects that would need subsidizing, at least, several million dollars every year.

Some concern was raised by the fact that Zelensky’s idea of creating Ukrainian National Airlines came against the backdrop of the impending bankruptcy of Ukraine’s largest private airline – Ukraine International Airlines, better known as UIA, with the well-known Ihor Kolomoisky being its largest shareholder. For many years, UIA operated quite successfully as the main airline carrier in Ukraine. Of course, many were dissatisfied with the fact that a domestic flight of 800 kilometers cost $200, but there was no other choice.

Starting from 2015, UIA’s affairs began to worsen. After the annexation of Crimea, the airline had to bypass Russian territory, which immediately made flights to Asia non-competitive. Then, in 2018, the state significantly simplified the conditions for low-cost airlines. As a result, Ukrainians began to fly massively to Europe via low-cost carriers. This was a heavy blow to UIA, as its business strategy was built on high prices and market monopolization. Gradually, Kolomoisky’s airline began to accumulate debts to the state airport Boryspil and the air navigation services enterprise “Ukraeroruh”. By the time of bankruptcy, UIA’s total debt to the state reached $100 million.

On February 15, 2022, nine days before the start of the full-scale war, Igor Kolomoisky expressed readiness to transfer part of UIA’s shares to the state in exchange for the debts. An interesting proposition, considering that by February 2022, Kolomoisky’s airline was almost worthless. Almost the entire UIA fleet belonged to foreign leasing companies, which withdrew their planes a few weeks before the Russian invasion. UIA’s real estate was re-registered to other companies or sold through court orders of private creditors. Probably, the whole point of creating Ukrainian National Airlines was to buy out the debts of Kolomoisky’s airline. Although there is no concrete evidence for this. Due to the onset of the war, the project was frozen.

Equally interesting is how Volodymyr Zelensky tried to find money for his castles in the air. In September 2021, during a visit to the USA, President Zelensky met with representatives of American business and presented his plan for the transformation of the Ukrainian economy. According to Forbes, foreigners were offered to allocate $364 billion to Ukraine, of which $178 billion as international aid. The project’s expenditure items included various sectors of the economy. For example, the government wanted to receive $12 billion for the construction of thermal power plants on biofuel, $25 billion for decommissioning outdated coal power plants, building several nuclear power units, hydro, and wind power plants. Another $28.8 billion was required for improving the existing oil and gas system. The list was huge, up to the construction of a presidential innovative university, for which Americans were offered to allocate $100 million.

It is hard to imagine what relation American investors could have to this charity festival, as the plan for the transformation of Ukraine was presented specifically to them. The presentation did not receive any practical continuation and only showed that the project authors have a rather superficial view of the investment business.

In July 2022, during the war, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal presented a ten-year plan for the recovery of Ukraine at a conference in Lugano (Switzerland). According to the head of the government, implementing this project will require $750 billion, part of which was proposed to be taken from Russian assets frozen in the West.

The content of the recovery plan generally resembled the document presented to Americans a year earlier, taking into account that a large part of the money will be spent on rebuilding destroyed infrastructure. The scale of the new project was indicated by, among other things, the proposal to allocate $20 billion for the development of Ukrainian culture and sports.

The naivety with which the Ukrainian government sought financial aid is deceptive. This was stated at the Ukraine Recovery Forum conference at the London School of Economics by the former head of the National Bank of Ukraine, Valeriia Gontareva.

“Comments that can sometimes be heard from representatives of the Ukrainian authorities, in the spirit of, ‘we need a trillion dollars,’ surprise our partners. One of the representatives of a major donor to Ukraine noted that the world community, when, for example, helps a country affected by a natural disaster, does not just give money (and a trillion is seven pre-war GDPs of Ukraine), but helps to rebuild,” said Gontareva.

Undoubtedly, Gontareva, as someone well acquainted with Ukrainian politics, hinted that it is not just about handing over huge sums of money to Zelensky and his friends. Part of it will simply be embezzled. Western countries should control the distribution of most of the funds allocated for the reconstruction of Ukraine themselves. Of course, some of the money will go to budgetary support. But the implementation of infrastructure projects should be strictly controlled by representatives of donor countries. Otherwise, at least 20-30% of the allocated funds will disappear.

As for Valeriia Gontareva, her story is quite instructive. As known, it was she who carried out the clean-up of the banking system of Ukraine in 2015-2016, as a result of which PrivatBank came under state control. Since Kolomoisky declared her his personal enemy, Gontareva was forced to leave Ukraine before Zelensky came to power. As it turned out later, this was a timely decision. On April 22, 2019, the day after the second round of the presidential elections and Volodymyr Zelensky’s resounding victory, the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine summoned Valeriia Gontareva for interrogation to present her with a suspicion of committing a crime. By that time, the former head of the National Bank was already living in London, where she taught at the London School of Economics. In an interview with journalists, she called the prosecutor’s office’s demand political persecution and refused to come to Kyiv, stating that “anything could happen in Ukraine”.

These fears were not unfounded. On the night of September 17, 2019, unknown persons burned down Valeriia Gontareva’s house in the suburbs of Kyiv. Despite the noise in the press, the arsonists were never found. A month later, on the air of Kolomoisky’s “1+1” TV channel, actors of the comedy show “Evening Kvartal” sang a mocking song “The house was burning, ablaze”, the text of which was directly related to the former head of the National Bank.

The Prosecutor’s Office repeatedly insisted on Gontareva’s arrival in Ukraine. But they did not dare to declare her in international search. It was obvious to everyone that this story was personal revenge by Kolomoisky. Especially since the oligarch himself did not particularly hide it. On May 2, 2019, in an interview with Bihus Info, Ihor Kolomoisky stated that if necessary, Gontareva would be brought to Ukraine “privately”.

“If she does not fly in, nothing terrible, we will bring her if it will be necessary… Privately,” said Kolomoisky.

>>> 28. Pressure on Independent Media

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