The mayor of a town outside Kyiv has died from COVID-19 just days after likely winning a re-election bid with a party that denies the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic.
Anatoly Fedorchuk, the mayor of Boryspil, died of complications caused by COVID-19 on Oct. 28, three days after Ukraine held local elections. Not all the votes have been counted, but polls and political observers all predicted that he would easily sail to re-election.
Fedorchuk, 60, contracted the novel coronavirus on Oct. 19 while on the campaign trail. His two deputies also tested positive.
Fedorchuk had been running for another term as Boryspil mayor in the Oct. 25 local elections with the Nash Krai (Our Land) party. The party is led by lawmaker Serhiy Shakhov, who confirmed Fedorchuk’s death to the Kyiv Post.
After contracting COVID-19 earlier this year, Shakhov became an active denier of the high death rates caused by the coronavirus, comparing it to flu.
“Everyone is (said to be) dying from coronavirus nowadays, doctors are emphasizing that. I don’t believe in this,” Shakhov told the Kyiv Post. “Fedorchuk’s death didn’t change my opinion,” he added.
Shakhov believes that people who die from the novel coronavirus are actually dying from complications related to pre-existing conditions and mistakes by doctors, not the virus. Over 6,000 people have already succumbed to the illness in Ukraine since the start of the pandemic.
According to Ukrainian election law, after Fedorchuk’s death, the election results in Boryspil must be nullified and new elections should be scheduled by the Central Election Commission.
Mayor Fedorchuk
Fedorchuk had served as Boryspil mayor since 2006, winning three mayoral elections with three different parties.
According to Channel 24, Fedorchuk worked in law enforcement before becoming mayor. In 2006, he was elected mayor on the ticket of the Batkivshchyna party led by Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s prime minister at the time.
In 2010, Fedorchuk ran for re-election with Tymoshenko’s main competitor, the pro-Russian Party of Regions led by ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.
In 2014, Yanukovych was ousted by the EuroMaidan Revolution after the Berkut riot police used firearms against protesters, killing nearly 100 people. Yanukovych fled to Russia and, soon after, Russia invaded Ukraine.
In 2015, Fedorchuk joined the newly created Nash Krai party founded by former Party of Regions lawmaker Anton Kisse and now led by Shakov.
Fedorchuk won the 2015 local election with Nash Krai and was set to win re-election with the same party in 2020. He led the polls before the election.
Nash Krai
The Nash Krai party has an unusual history.
A splinter from the now-defunct Party of Regions, Nash Krai was created in 2015 to win the local council seats formerly held by the Party of Regions in the southeast of Ukraine.
According to documents obtained by the Kyiv Post from the office of former President Petro Poroshenko, Nash Krai’s advertising on television and in print was paid for by Poroshenko’s office. The documents showed that Poroshenko’s team allegedly recommended spending $3 million on the party’s election ads on mainstream TV channels.
Read More: Poroshenko’s administration allegedly paid media, bloggers to sway public opinion
The party was used to attract voters in the southeast of Ukraine, where Poroshenko’s electoral support was low.
In 2020, while maintaining a quietly Russia-friendly attitude, the party found a new gimmick: denying COVID-19, a virus that has killed over 1 million people worldwide.
“Coronavirus is a manmade virus which came from China. I’m surprised that our lawmakers didn’t bill China for its spread,” Shakhov said when answering questions about Fedorchuk’s death.
On March 18, Shakhov became the first Ukrainian lawmaker to test positive for COVID-19. He was hospitalized with pneumonia three days later. After recovering, Shakhov began comparing the coronavirus to the flu.
Shakhov is not alone in his attitude toward the virus.
Serhiy Mikiten, a candidate with Nash Krai for Kyiv city council, is a notorious COVID-19 denier who has spread misinformation about the “fake pandemic” on social media and organized regular anti-mask and anti-quarantine protests in Kyiv.
Shakhov and Mikiten’s statements are patently false, according to information from the World Health Organization, doctors battling the virus and scientists working on a vaccine against the disease.
Staff writer Bermet Talant contributed to this story.
