One Year of President Zelenskyi: a Look by VoxCheck

One week before the first round of elections, Ukrainians were ready to vote for Zelenskyi because they “were drawn to his personality”, because he had not been in politics before, and his ideas and proposals  struck a cord with the voters. At the same time, the President was wrongly expected to ensure fair tariffs, pensions and salaries, as well as “lock up” top corrupt officials.

On April 21, Zelenskyi won the second round of elections. After the inauguration on May 20, 2019, Volodymyr Zelenskyi president’s term began. Zelenskyi began his presidency by dissolving the Verkhovna Rada of the VIII convocation and calling a snap parliamentary election.

Starting in August 29, the newly elected MPs, most of whom belonged to Zelenskyi’s Servant of the People party, worked in “turbo mode”. During the first year of Zelenskyi’s presidency, the Verkhovna Rada supported a number of important and significant legislative initiatives: the law on the circulation of agricultural land, the “anti-Kolomoiskyi law”, laws on impeachment, and on lifting parliamentary immunity.

The iMoRe project that assesses the impact of legislative initiatives on the pace of reforms, found that thanks to “turbo mode” reforms accelerated compared to the last years of the VIII convocation. Read more about it here. In this article, we reviewed the President’s fulfillment of promises, analyzed the PO’s communications failures, as well as the most high-profile dismissals and appointments.

How many lies were told by the President? Fact-checking.

Before the start of the presidential campaign, then candidate Zelenskyi was “outside his element” in foreign relations, although foreign policy is the main area of presidential responsibility. His statements did not contain too many facts either. For instance, in his first landmark interview to Gordon on December 25, 2018, we noted only 5 factual statements.

During the presidential campaign, the situation did not change very much  – Zelenskyi began to appear more often on TV, however, he spoke very generally, mostly using slogans.

The situation changed since the beginning of his presidency – Zelenskyi began to use more facts.
For instance, in the 14-hour press marathon, we were able to identify 14 factual statements, six of which contained manipulation, exaggeration or were openly false. Six more statements were true. This time, when it came to foreign policy, Zelenskyi was mostly telling the truth. But with regard to sociology and numbers in general, he was quite careless often making mistakes or manipulating.

In December 2019, Zelenskyi participared in Savik Shuster’s Freedom of Speech, where he commented on the Minsk agreements. This time the President was telling the truth only.

On March 4, Zelenskyi decided to dissolve the government. This time he could not do without manipulations. Zelenskyi blamed the government for the budget failures and industry drop, although there were objective reasons beyond the government’s control. These included a warm winter and reduced energy demand, decreased imports and lower gas prices. And, to boot, a higher hryvnia rate than budgeted.

The PO’s film  – A Year of President Zelenskyi – deserves a separate mention. It was first released on April 22, a month before “one year of presidency.” During the 51 minutes of screen time, Zelenskyi touched upon nearly all possible topics, ranging from “turbo mode” and relations with the IMF to the MPs’ age and no days off for the President. On the positive side, we found no lies in the film and six true statements. At the same time, we found four manipulations and two overstatements.

Does Zelenskyi keep his promises?

All the promises will soon be published on OkPresident.org – a special VoxUkraine tool, where we collect everything regarding the President’s activities: decrees, bills, appointments, facts checked and more – after the tool is visually updated.

In this article, we analyze the most landmark and important promises made by Zelenskyi, leaving out such things as his subjective views of the future.

Dismissing the ministers, if they fail to fulfil the tasks set out before them

On March 4, Zelenskyi kept his promise and dismissed Honcharuk’s government. However, the reasons for the dismissal were rather vague – as we explained above, the President justified the government’s dismissal by what largely did not depend on its actions.

Overall, the promise could be considered fulfilled. But how correct those changes were and what they will lead to – we will see later. So far, we have seen a threat of halting healthcare reform, and we have already caught Economy Minister Igor Petrashko not knowing his onions when it comes to basic economic concepts.

Hearing high-profile criminal cases

There indeed has been some progress in the investigation into the murders of Kateryna Handziuk and Pavlo Sheremet. But what is this progress?

In December 2019, the National Police loudly declared suspects in the Sheremet case, but it soon became clear that the evidence was, to put it mildly, insufficient. 

On April 27, the SBU completed a pre-trial investigation into the Handziuk case. The public was dissatisfied with the investigation’s results. According to the participants of the initiative “Who killed Katia Handziuk?”, the suspect in the case, Vladyslav Manher, exerted influence on the Office of Prosecutor General’s work.

There has been almost no progress in the defense industry-related investigations – nothing is happening with regard to the Svynarchuk-Hladkovskyi case.

This cannot be seen as a promise fulfilled at all.

Each Ukrainian will become the owner of their land

Volodymyr Zelenskyi kept this promise. After almost six months of battles over the law on land market, today the law is signed by the President.

A state in a smartphone

It is about launching the “Diia” (Action) app. Currently, it is possible to add your driver’s license and technical passport, ID-card and biometric foreign passport there. The system is now being tested for electronic student cards. Therefore, this promise can be considered fulfilled.

To bring back the bodies of those who died in the air disaster in Iran

Volodymyr Zelenskyi fulfilled this promise.

To launch online classes for schoolchildren

No one was ready for the coronavirus pandemic. Including educational institutions. Therefore, the transition to distance learning in schools took place in extreme conditions. The Ministry of Education and Science launched the All-Ukrainian School Online project – video lessons broadcast on TV channels and available on YouTube.

But it was not unproblematic either. The lessons were broadcast on ZIK, NewsOne and Channel 112 that are linked to Viktor Medvedchuk. Preceding and following the lessons for schoolchildren, the TV channels continued to air pro-Kremlin propaganda, with the schoolchildren’s parents being part of the audience.
The promise can be considered fulfilled, but questions still remain over the quality of the fulfillment.

To start phase two of healthcare reform on April 1

On the one hand, the promise could be considered fulfilled: the second phase of medical reform really began on April 1. Yet, recent statements by both the President and the Health Minister question the continuation of the reform process. Specifically, the Minister’s proposal to restore funding to underfunded hospitals to 2019 levels contradicts the principles of medical reform.
This promise remains in question.

President’s failed communications?

According to VoxCheck’s estimations, the biggest failures of Zelenskyi’s communications were:

Exchange of captives?

On the night of August 30, Ukrainian social networks sparked reports of an exchange of prisoners and the possible return home of Oleh Sentsov and other political prisoners. It turned out later that this was a regular information injection from Russia. But the PO’s reaction came with a significant delay: in the morning when the news had already been picked up by hundreds of media outlets and even some officials.

Steinmeier formula

As of early October, 60% of Ukrainians did not understand the meaning of Steinmeier formula. Foreign policy and Donbas settlement is within the purview of the President as defined by the Constitution. Therefore, Zelenskyi and representatives of his team had to do most of the work explaining this topic to Ukrainians.

Flight to Oman

Why did Zelenskyi fly to Oman? Who paid for the flight and the luxury hotel? Was it an official visit? What did Medvedchuk’s planes have to do with this?
Such questions arose among Ukrainians during and after Zelenskyi’s visit to Oman. Zelenskyi was in Oman in January, but the PO representatives had to work with communications failures and public outrage even in April.

Epitsentr and the Mriia plane

On April 23, a Mriia plane arrived at Boryspil Airport with humanitarian cargo for Ukrainians and doctors: protective masks, goggles and suits. This plane was met by Zelenskyi. It was later revealed that the goods were Epitsentr’s commercial cargo. The public was outraged: the plane allegedly delivered to Ukraine only goods for Epitsentr, and Zelenskyi decided to use it to improve his own image.
Only later did PO deputy head, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, explain that the flight was fully paid for by Epitsentr, and that the plane delivered both humanitarian and commercial cargo.

10 million tests from China in 48 hours

On March 20, Zelenskyi announced that 10 million high-precision tests from China and 400,000 rapid tests would arrive in Ukraine in the next 48 hours. However, it is still not clear what those 10 million tests were.
In reality, 250 thousand rapid tests (instead of 400,000) and 521 PCR tests arrived in the 48 hours, which would suffice for 50,000 tests.

The most high-profile appointments and dismissals of Zelenskyi’s first year

In this block, we will consider the most high-profile dismissals and appointments that took place during the first year of Zelenskyi’s presidency. Later, we will publish an in-depth analysis of all the appointments, including heads of regional state administrations, “Quarterists” at various government levels, and the “all-weather” Avakov.

Dismissing Ruslan Riaboshapka and appointing Iryna Venediktova Prosecutor General.

The reason for Riaboshapka’s dismissal could be that he did not sign suspicion for Poroshenko. At least that is what leader of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamiia, thinks.

Venediktova’s appointment was criticized due to her failure to run for the Supreme Court of Ukraine in 2016. Now, after Venediktova’s appointment, the reform of the Office of Prosecutor General can be considered as put on hold: Venediktova signed a decree according to which international representatives withdrew from the process of purging the prosecutor’s office.

Dismissing Nefiodov and Verlanov

Following the government’s dismissal, another high-profile reshuffle of the executive branch was the dismissal of Maxim Nefiodov and Serhiy Verlanov from their positions of head of Customs and Tax Service, respectively.
The problem was that the dismissal was unexpected to both heads of said state bodies, and the reasons for the dismissal were not explained. It is just an assumption that the reasons for dismissals were:

1. shortfall in customs revenues,
2. failure to curb smuggling,
3. Serhiy Umanskyi’s allegations of corruption at customs, due to which the budget failed to receive up to UAH 10 billion per month.

It is not yet known what really caused Nefiodov’s and Verlanov’s dismissals.

Syvokho in the NSDCU

Many of Zelenskyi’s colleagues from “Quarter 95” were appointed to the Office of the President and other government bodies. Serhiy Syvokho was one of them.
In the National Security and Defense Council, Syvokho worked as an adviser on a voluntary basis from October 2019 to March 2020. The exact date of his dismissal is unknown.
The main scandal in which Syvokho got involved is the clash with the National Corps during the presentation of the “National Platform for Reconciliation”. According to the National Corps, the reason for the conflict was that, during the presentation, Syvokho did not mention Russia’s participation and guilt in the events in eastern Ukraine.

Dismissing Andriy Bohdan and appointing Andriy Yermak

On February 11, Zelenskyi dismissed Andriy Bohdan from his position as PO head and appointed Andriy Yermak. In our opinion, Yermak got noticed most in the Minsk process. On March 11, Andriy Yermak secretely agreed in Minsk to sign a decision on establishing a so-called advisory council with the “ORDLO representatives” – the Russian occupation administrations.