The scariest thing in this whole story is not even that the circle around the president is getting tighter.
Yermak. Mudra. Now the Prosecutor General’s Office. Mindich, Zuckerman, the “Dynasty” cooperative. On the tapes are some Kirylo, Vova, Davyd. And an astonishing number of people, voices, and connections that we traditionally cannot identify.
Well, they just can’t — that’s it. The country is big, there are many people. Try to find them. But I’m not even talking about names. I’m talking about the state. Because, dear ones, we have turned into some kind of damned monarchy. Let’s not confuse the healthy person’s monarchy with the sick person’s monarchy.
We have completely forgotten what state institutions are and why they are needed. Ukraine is a parliamentary-presidential republic. The president here is not a king or the CEO of “Ukraine LLC”. We have a parliament, executive power, judicial power. And this whole structure exists precisely to prevent power from concentrating in one set of hands.
And what do we have de facto? The Verkhovna Rada lost its subjectivity long ago. A bill is introduced — votes are gathered — buttons are pressed. The executive power consists of five or six “effective managers” who have been shuffled from one seat to another for years. Didn’t cope here? Never mind. Try yourself in another ministry. The main thing is to be effective.
I won’t even start on the independence of the judicial system. Black humor no longer suffices here. And now — the Prosecutor General’s Office.
And here, the calendar is just wonderful.
On September 1, President Zelensky announces the need to strengthen criminal liability for fraudulent call centers: “All organizers of call centers must be held accountable”. On September 2, presidential bills are indeed registered in the Verkhovna Rada.
And literally within a few days, NABU comes to the Prosecutor General’s Office in a case about those very fraudulent call centers. Well, what can I say. The main thing in the investigation is not to end up investigating yourself.
And still, even this is not the scariest thing.
The scariest thing is that we lost the subjectivity of state institutions. The parliament is not subjective. The government is not subjective. I’ve already mentioned the courts. Real political power is increasingly concentrated around one person and their Office.
De jure — parliamentary-presidential republic. De facto — damned monarchy.
And I’m not even that interested in who will be next on the tapes and how close the next investigation will get to Bankova.
I’m interested in something else. If tomorrow you remove one person and their Office from this structure, which state institutions will remain capable of working independently? This is the real crisis.
Not a crisis of names. Not a crisis of the next tapes. And not even another corruption scandal. It’s a crisis of state institutions.
Yes, today NABU demonstrates subjectivity. And I really want to believe that this is the subjectivity of an independent Ukrainian institution. Whether it’s only their subjectivity, and whether there are much more mature players in this game — I don’t know. We will see.
But a normal state cannot rely on one person. An official can be fired. A corrupt person — imprisoned. A government — changed. Presidents — re-elected. But restoring institutions that have been tamed to be non-subjective for years is much more difficult.
And all this is happening in a country that is drowning in blood. Where soldiers give their lives. Where people collect hundreds of hryvnias for cars, drones, and REBs. Where we bury someone every day.
And then you open the published NABU materials and hear the phrase of one of the figures: “If you’re going to fuck the queen, steal a million”.
