The Ukrainian Institute of America hosted the “Ukraine Under Zelensky: Where is it Heading?” webinar on June 25. Marta Dyczok, associate professor of Western University in London, Ontario, and Alexander J. Motyl, a political science professor at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, discussed President Volodymyr Zelensky’s performance and future trajectory with moderator Adrian Karatnycky, a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. The Ukrainian Institute of America is in New York City.
Dyczok prefaced her comments by saying: “To understand where things are going or might be going, I always like to look at the past and present as a sort of preview.” She began her discussion by first wishing First Lady Olena Zelenska well in recovering from COVID-19. She noted that, unlike media coverage of high profile political figures in other countries who have contracted the virus, such as United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Canada’s Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, few statements about Zelenska’s condition have been coming out publicly.
“That speaks to the relationship between President Zelensky and the media. It is a very distanced relationship,” Dyczok said. She cited Zelensky’s lack of interaction with mainstream media during his election campaign. “What we saw during the campaign and at present, which is very worrying, is marginalization of professional media,” she said.
The president has met rarely with journalists in his more than one year in office, and doesn’t grant many interviews. “He is very much controlling the message in choosing how he says things, and that is something that is quite worrying because it affects the way society perceives him,” said Dyczok. She noted that this distorted image is damaging for holding him accountable. She doesn’t expect he will change his approach. Zelensky’s problematic approach to the media is reflected in his legislative choices, according to Dyczok. She specifically mentioned “a lowering of barriers on Russian disinformation in Ukraine’s media sphere.”
She said ex-President Petro Poroshenko did a better job of keeping out Kremlin propaganda. “During the previous president there were a lot of measures taken to protect Ukrainian society and audiences from disinformation, from false narratives and even from Russian media in order to have a more balanced view, a more Ukrainian perspective on what was going on in the news, and this is really disappearing under the Zelesnky regime.”
Dyczok brought up the broadcasting of a concert from the Kremlin on Victory Day that featured participants that were banned from appearing in Ukrainian media. She denounced Zelensky’s allowance of this illegal move to occur and used it as an example to show his continuation of loosening restrictions. “He’s not actively promoting this, but he’s simply not blocking this information,” she said. “I think all of these things have potentially negative consequences for Ukraine’s society and Ukraine’s media.”
However, Zelensky’s legislative attempts to control journalists and media are noticed, she said, citing pushback from professional journalists and civil society in general.
Dyczok went on to describe Zelensky’s style as “post-Soviet.” However, she clarified that the way that he sees himself and Ukraine still has a “Soviet flavor to it, while “the post-Soviet part is he thinks like a capitalist,” she said. Bringing up his successful past as an actor and businessman, Dyczok pointed out that “his outreach was to the post-Soviet space.”
The Ukrainian Institute of America in New York City organized a webinar with three prominent members of the Ukrainian diaspora on June 25, 2020.
Motyl, while touching briefly on Dyczok’s “post-Soviet” idea, disagreed with her on several fronts. He said that “despite the fact that Zelensky’s own national orientations are somewhat unclear, the policy that he’s pursued has been solidly pro-West.” He emphasized that relations with Western institutions, such as NATO, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Union, as well as Ukraine’s relations with Western countries in general, have improved under Zelensky.
Motyl stated that the president’s policies towards Donetsk and the Minsk agreements have also been satisfactory, and “pretty much reflect the kinds of statements that were being made under Poroshenko.” Nonetheless, he did not deny that Zelensky “still suffers from the illusion that peace can be made with Russia.”
Motyl also addressed comparisons of Zelensky to ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, overthrown by the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014. He said that it is “extremely unlikely” that Zlenesk possibly pushing toward an authoritarian regime. “I’d like to suggest that that is extremely unlikely,” he said. “To be a successful authoritarian, you need to have some kind of base in the state as well as in society. Yanukovych had both.”
He explained that although Zelensky has a high percentage of support from the people, he doesn’t have support from institutions like the police, the military, and the bureaucracy in general. “What he may become is an aspiring tin-pot authoritarian, but never a successful tin-pot authoritarian,” said Motyl. Motyl said that the lack of institutional support comes from Zelensky’s lack of leverage and, simply, Zelensky himself. Motyl called his administration “dispersed, flabby, [and] undefined.”
Like Dyczok, he referenced Zelensky’s past as a comedian and businessman, using it to explain the president’s ability to gain popularity while simultaneously being unable to uphold a cohesive government. “It is highly unlikely that this kind of individual has the capacity, knowledge, skillset, and so on to be able to create an effective administrative apparatus with effective coherent policies,” said Motyl.
He agreed that the prediction that Zelensky’s inexperience will be his administration’s “Achilles Heel” came true.
That fault has trickled down to the people he appointed to his administration. “The people he knows are people like him, they’re all entertainment people,” he said. “[That] doesn’t exactly qualify them for policymaking.”
Motyl also said that Zelensky’s hostility toward Poroshenko “disqualifies him … from being able to draw on people who have expertise in government apparatus and government policymaking, because those are individuals who are largely associated with Poroshenko.”
“He has, effectively, put himself into a box,” Motyl said.
In terms of Zelensky’s party, the ruling 247-member Servants of the People, Motyl criticized the lack of coherence under a particular ideology. Echoing critics’ predictions, Motyl explained that Zelesnky’s administration has been splintering away from him. He hopes that the chaos within Zelensky’s regime will encourage him to look beyond his close circle and political party and more toward policy experts. However, Motyl stated that if the president decides to continue doing what he has been doing, he will remain “tolerably mediocre.”
