KYIV – Almost three and a half years after the Euro-Maidan Revolution of Dignity, Ukrainian citizens are coping with an interminable war with Russia, a sluggish economy and continuing corruption. As they negotiate a murky future in a traumatized country, many find much-needed clarity in the incisive analysis of Vitaly Portnikov, one of Ukraine’s leading journalists and political commentators.
Born in Kyiv in 1967, Vitaly Eduardovych Portnikov began his studies in the philology department of Dnipropetrovsk University, after being denied admission to Kyiv State University because of Soviet quotas on Jewish students. He then transferred to the Moscow University Faculty of Journalism, where he obtained a graduate degree in journalism in 1992. During this time he served as parliamentary correspondent in Moscow for the Kyiv newspaper Molod Ukrainy, becoming the first journalist to represent a Ukrainian publication in the international arena.
Subsequently, he became a regular contributor and columnist for a wide range of Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Belarusian and Latvian print and online publications, as well as Israel’s most popular Russian-language newspaper Vesti (News).
Mr. Portnikov is the founder and host of the popular talk show “Politclub” on the Kyiv-based Espreso TV channel. He also hosts the “Roads to Liberty” talk show, which explores issues facing Russia, Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries, on the Russian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He is the winner of the 1989 “Zolote Pero” (Golden Pen) award of the Ukrainian Association of Journalists and has been nominated for the 2017 Taras Shevchenko Award for his two collections of essays: “Mother of God in the Synagogue” and “Prison for Angels.”
This article is a summary of Mr. Portnikov’s views as expressed during an interview with this writer in Kyiv and in several subsequent articles.
Maidan and the war
Mr. Portnikov is convinced that the demonstrations that erupted after then-President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign the European Union-Ukraine Association Agreement saved Ukraine as a democracy and an independent state. Ukrainians, who before 2013 had lived in what he labels a state of “political schizophrenia,” did not protest much as Mr. Yanukovych gradually usurped power, replaced the Constitution and jailed political opponents. The first mass protests began after he refused to sign the Association Agreement, which many Ukrainians viewed primarily as a ticket to a better life. The violent repressions that followed turned out to be a fatal error for Mr. Yanukovych. The mass protests – “the real Maidan” – began then and led to the collapse of his regime.
In Mr. Portnikov’s view, the violence was largely mandated and orchestrated by Russia, which wanted to use it to break up the country and to lure Mr. Yanukovych out of Kyiv, making him a hostage. When Mr. Yanukovych wrote a letter requesting that Vladimir Putin send Russian troops to Ukraine, he provided a “legitimate basis” for Russian intervention. The late Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s U.N. representative at the time, showed this letter during an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council on March 3, 2014 (although Russian officials now claim this letter never existed).
This was not a new plan, Mr. Portnikov points out. Mr. Putin’s emissaries had tried to convince Leonid Kuchma to move his government to Donetsk or Kharkiv during the first Maidan, but the wily president saw through the plan of his Russian “allies” and avoided their trap.
“People don’t really understand this,” Mr. Portnikov says. “They think they drove out Yanukovych, that he went to Russia, and the revolution prevailed… But this could have been a different victory. Moscow was interested in the complete radicalization of attitudes…. We lost territory, but we could have lost half of the country.”
He does not think Russia will risk a full-scale invasion now, primarily because it can no longer afford it and also because the military tool is no longer as effective. Russia used armed means to seize Crimea’s Parliament and succeeded in taking over administration buildings in Donetsk and Luhansk. But it failed in Kharkiv because Ukraine’s interim government was able to organize the necessary resistance. Generally, Russia’s military wants a “legitimate basis” for military action, such as a request for help from the oblast radas (councils) of Dnipro or Zaporizhia who want to create “people’s republics.” However, that opportunity is gone because Ukraine’s government is much stronger now and the Ukrainian people have demonstrated their will to resist.
Unfortunately, Russia does not want peace in the Donbas because the constant shelling and the death of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are an important part of Mr. Putin’s plan to destabilize Ukraine. In fact, Russia may attempt to seize more territory in eastern Ukraine, Mr. Portnikov says, and if Russia does not collapse beforehand, the crisis may last 20 to 25 years or more, as it has in Transnistria or Nagorno-Karabakh. Ukraine’s only option is to work for the weakening of Russia while resisting attempts to be drawn into a larger war it cannot win, as was the case with Georgia in 2008. Furthermore, Ukrainians must practice “wisdom and patience,” and learn to ignore the siren songs of the populists and the pro-Russian politicians who promise that “decisiveness,” “dialogue” and “negotiations” with Mr. Putin will solve the problem.
In fact, Mr. Portnikov insists that all talk of “compromise” with Mr. Putin is part of a plan that has been developed since 1991 for the political liquidation of Ukrainian statehood. It may be proposed by outright agents of Russia in the political or “expert” establishments in Ukraine or the West, or by “useful idiots” who do not understand Russia’s real goals. For Mr. Putin, Crimea and the Donbas are a burden, but they are also the key to conquering the rest of Ukraine, he concludes.
Journalism and ethics
Mr. Portnikov took an active part in the protests in 2013, serving on the public committee for Euro-Maidan, the organizing body of pro-EU demonstrations. Attempts to break into his apartment and a smear campaign designed to discredit him and the pro-democracy movement convinced him to flee to Poland during the final weeks of Maidan in January 2014, especially after he was warned by trustworthy sources in Russia that there were plans to murder him. “When I returned from Warsaw and compared photos from before and after that period I could see how much I had been affected,” he admits.
When asked if it is dangerous to be a journalist in Ukraine, Mr. Portnikov answers that it is always dangerous to live in changing times because the rules of the game keep changing. A scar from a “warning” meted out during his period in Moscow serves as a reminder that he was mistaken in assuming that his role as a political analyst rather than a war correspondent or investigative journalist provided some protection.
As for the death of Pavel Sheremet in a car bombing in Kyiv last year, he points out that the journalist had played an important role in Russian journalism during its transformation to Putinism and also hosted a radio show financed by close associates of Mr. Yanukovych. “It leads one to think that his death was useful or that he was no longer useful to the people he worked for and who financed him… We will only know when the FSB [Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation] files are opened to see if he was viewed as friend or foe.”
For Mr. Portnikov, the Maidan experience also confirmed his views on the ethics of journalism. In a country with a weak economy where few profitable media companies exist, real independent journalism is difficult. “There is nothing like an independent CNN or The New York Times in Ukraine,” he says. Oligarchs establish TV stations primarily to wield influence, and journalists view themselves as hired hands who generally do as they’re told. He admits he has refused multiple lucrative offers to work for oligarchs in Russia and Ukraine, creating instead “an economic model of survival for himself under the circumstances that exist” that guarantees his independence.
However, he is convinced that individual journalists can change the country if they concentrate on their mission rather than on personal advantage. During the Maidan, Mr. Portnikov chose to participate actively in events and to appear on the stage because he believed this activity provided an important contact with his audience. “If I’m calling for the European choice, I need to protect that choice and not sit on the sidelines,” he explains. After the Maidan, he returned to journalism, where he believes his mission is to provide certain ideological benchmarks and to teach people to think.
Several of his colleagues who announced they would only work as journalists and not take part in the events on Maidan went on to become deputies and integrate into the political and financial elite of the country, “taking advantage of the mythology they created about themselves,” he says. “They viewed journalism not as a mission but as a springboard that would allow them to participate in the financial distribution in the country.”
However, such opportunism, especially by those who consider themselves investigative journalists, “compromises Ukrainian journalism and undermines people’s trust,” he says. “This is the personal choice of individuals who have nice apartments and cars but who in reality have worked against Ukraine in journalism and against Ukraine in politics, but who enjoy great authority among all those who are convinced the state is to be exploited – whether the job is in journalism or in the Verkhovna Rada.”
Corruption, Politics and Society
Although he admits he did not vote for Petro Poroshenko, Mr. Portnikov has little patience for those who now demonize the Ukrainian president. “He does some things well, others not so well,” he says. His main objection is to Mr. Poroshenko’s attempts to concentrate power, undermining the parliamentary-presidential republic. In Mr. Portnikov’s view, the previous government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk was the first reformist government in the country until it was dissolved under the pressure of public opinion by those who did not understand the difficult decisions taken under conditions of war. Reformers in the current government of Volodymyr Groisman, Mr. Poroshenko’s close ally, are finding that things are quite difficult now because there is no trust or balance.
However, voters need to take responsibility for their actions, Mr. Portnikov added. “I told people before the parliamentary elections that if they voted for the Petro Poroshenko Bloc they would destroy parliamentary democracy. They voted and now they have problems with reforms and the balance of power. This was their choice. They need to take responsibility for the next elections.”
One barrier to sustained progress is the political naïveté and anarchism of Ukrainians.” It’s an aspect of post-colonialism in Ukraine that there is no real concept of the state. There is this idea that the state is bad – even one’s own. Even if you vote for it, it becomes bad within a week.” Although Mr. Portnikov finds this anarchism much preferable to the unquestioning support that Russians have for their own government, he hopes Ukrainians will become more responsible over the years.
This maturation must also include shedding the hypocrisy on the issue of corruption. “Of course, corruption must be overcome,” he says “but I tell people to first change the rules of the game personally. Pay your taxes. Don’t bribe teachers for exam grades. Don’t pay doctors on the side. You need to demand a system where you pay doctors legally, so they pay their taxes because otherwise there will be no money for roads and other services. If you do this, you will fight corruption. You will live poorly but honestly.”
For Mr. Portnikov, people who live in the shadow economy and who have not paid their taxes for 25 years are as guilty as the ministers and deputies who profit from their access to the state budget and the distribution of enormous sums. It does not matter if they speak perfect Ukrainian and proclaim their patriotism. Without principles and respect for the law, rich or poor are equally guilty, and the only thing that differentiates them is their position in a criminal pyramid and the opportunities it affords.
Nonetheless, efforts to link sanctions against Russia for its aggression to the state of reform in Ukraine are outrageous. “The West must insist on the respect of international law. It is irrelevant if Czechoslovakia was democratic or not in 1938. What matters is that territory was seized… Internal matters are Ukraine’s business. If you tie reforms to the question of territorial integrity, you are opening a Pandora’s box on the European continent.”
Conclusion
In summary, Mr. Portnikov outlines a complex future with few illusions. Ukraine has wasted 23 to 25 years wavering between Moscow and the West because it could not decide. Now it can hesitate no more. Finally, it is advancing in the right direction but is forced to undertake changes that many Ukrainians do not understand and which may yield results only in three, five or 10 years.
When they came out to protest against the criminal regime of Mr. Yanukovych during the 2013-2014 demonstrations, many Ukrainians were absolutely unprepared for the changes and reforms that would follow. They had grown up in a former colony, bounced among empires, that never had the chance to develop its own ethical foundation for a modern economy. As a result, Ukraine has inherited the most rapacious aspects of capitalism, without the restraints and standards that had been developed during the 18th-19th centuries by the state and religious institutions in Europe and the United States.
Furthermore, Ukrainians will have to build their state under the constant exterior threat from Russia that will not vanish until the collapse of the current regime. Mr. Putin, who does not consider Ukraine a real country, is determined to transform it into a satellite of the Kremlin – a project in line with the imperialistic attitudes of most of his compatriots.
Mr. Portnikov estimates it will take some 25 to 30 difficult years to build a prosperous economy in which the children of the current generation will live more or less well. If the current generation does not undertake this arduous task, then their children will have to do so for the benefit of their grandchildren.
“Many people respond that they don’t want to do this because they only have some 20 to 30 years of life left and they need to emigrate for the sake of their children. But I ask them: why not stay here and build an economy for your children in Ukraine?”
Many of Mr. Portnikov’s fans in Ukraine have already answered: “Why not, indeed?”