Volodymyr Zelenskyi on HBO. VoxCheck analyses the interview

On January, 29 the American HBO channel announced the interview with Volodymyr Zelenskyi in the first episode of the Season 4 of Axios show. Next day, on February, 1, the President’s Office published the translated into Ukrainian text of the conversation.

In a 40-minute interview, Volodymyr Zelenskyi told about his vision on the course of Ukraine towards NATO and the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. Besides, there were discussed China threats, war with Russia, Normandy format, Crimea talks and, of course, COVID-19 vaccine.

Manipulations and exaggerations of the President

There were hardly a few factual claims in the interview. Zelenskyi often used the words “I think”, “I’d like”. Within the fact-checking we can’t evaluate to what extent Zelenskyi was correct in his thoughts and desires. There were a lot of appraisals and forecasts as well. However, we managed to identify claims with critical factual uncertainties. Below we are analysing main mistakes in the interview of Volodymyr Zelenskyi.

The accession of new countries to NATO requires approval by each current member of the Alliance. The USA is only one out of 30 member states of the Alliance.

To join the organisation a potential member should meet certain criteria stated in the North Atlantic Treaty.

Fundamental is the commitment to the principles of democracy, social justice and economic freedom.

The President is right – we are hardly at the head of the queue to get vaccines. Would it change if Ukraine was an EU-member? Doubtful. According to the line of thinking of Zelenskyi, Ukraine has not got the vaccine because it is not an EU-member. But this is wrong.

Ukraine can get a coronavirus vaccine within the COVAX program. COVAX is a kind of a safety net. This is how it works: richer countries chip in to support medical trials and invest in infrastructure. Thus, it will be possible in future to produce more doses and distribute them among state members.

As far as Ukraine belongs to the lower middle-income countries, it will be provided with the vaccines within the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) special facility.

Besides, Ukraine can purchase vaccines on its initiative. We can count the vaccines provided by COVAX to be sufficient only for 20% of the population – and even then they will be supplied in tranches. The rest of the citizens should be vaccinated at their own cost.

Centralised procurement of the medicines in Ukraine handles the state-owned enterprise Medzakupivli. This is exactly who should conclude vaccine contracts. But the Ministry of Health (MOH) authorised it to do this only on December, 10 – while Great Britain, for example, has been vaccinating its citizens already for several days. Purchase costs were transferred to the MOH on December, 22 – vaccination in the USA as of that date lasted already for a week.

That is why it is inappropriate to complain about our non-EU status. Ukrainian government could seek the vaccine and reach a delivery agreement in advance, but it did not use this possibility until more recently.

Yes, there is a significant difference between the Capitol Attack and the Revolution of Dignity and The Orange Revolution.

Firstly, the nature of the events. Both – the Orange Revolution and the Revolution of Dignity started as a peaceful demonstration against the acting government. The Capitol Attack, on the contrary, from the very beginning, was an act of violence, it broke the US law and caused the death of 5 people (4 protesters and 1 policeman). It was organised to support the sitting president who lost the elections (upheld by the US courts) but did not want to recognise it.

Secondly, reasons. While the anti-democratic actions of the government caused the protests in Ukraine (in case of the Orange Revolution – falsifications during the election, in case of the Revolution of Dignity – the refusal of the President to follow eurointegration course; corruption; violence against the peaceful protesters etc.), the Capitol Attack happened because of untruthful claims of Donald Trump on allegedly falsified elections and calls for recounting of votes.

There is also a difference between the “average participants” of the events. The Capitol Attack was mainly supported by marginalised groups – for example, QAnon conspiracy theorists and ultranationalists. In Ukrainian protests participated representatives of the various social classes and professions, while ultranationalists comprised an insignificant part of the protesters.

Here Zelenskyi speaks in the context of digitalisation in Ukraine and most likely means registration of the individual entrepreneurs with Diya application. However, it is not all as easy as it sounds. The registration procedure of the individual entrepreneurs can take up to 2 working days. You need around 10 minutes only to submit an application. In the case of LTD registration the procedure will take about 6 days (p.6).

President’s “if only”s

Most claims of Zelenskyi is difficult to check according to the fact-checking methodology. Here also belong so-called “if only”s: “if only I were a President back then’’, “if only Ukraine had a nuclear weapon”, “if only Ukraine were a NATO-member”. However, we could not ignore some of these claims. We commented on them and did not bring a verdict of VoxCheck in order the readers could evaluate them on their own. 

Nuclear disarmament is not a mistake, but first and foremost a necessity. On the one hand, economic – nuclear weapon maintenance would be too expensive for Ukraine, which was in the middle of the economic crisis in 1990-s. On the other hand, Ukraine had to demonstrate it to be a liable political partner who desires peace and stability. The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine signed in 1990 declares that the country will stick to three non-nuclear principles: not to receive, develop or acquire nuclear weapons. Ukraine could not negotiate with “the rest of the world” on equal terms. On the contrary, it could be isolated on the international stage and be imposed by sanctions as, for example, it happened with Iran.

According to the National Bureau of Investigation, there were 5 reasons for Crimea loss: decrease of the size of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, destruction of the readiness for mobilisation state, demolishing of the Crimean air defence systems, illegal changes in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and negation of the strategic documents, failure to take measures on external threat response.

We can not say whether it was possible simply not to let “little green men” to invade Crimea with such a defence potential and consistent destruction of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The Servant of the People party excluded its members. Some of them – because of lobbying of oligarchical interests (Anna Skorokhod) or bribery (O. Yurchenko). Others, for example, Heo Leros – because of his criticism of the President and his entourage. He accused Zelenskyi of the breach of the pre-election promises and the Head of the Office of the President – of abuse of power. Soon he was excluded from the parliamentary party.

Oleksandr Dubinskyi was also excluded, but on February, 1, after the interview. Why has this not been done earlier? Were not numerous investigative journalists’ evidence of Dubinskyi and Kolomoiskyi relations, his fortune and spread by him fakes about “prostitutes on Maidan” enough?

We keep the matter open.

There are also concerns about other members of the pro-presidential party: Yevhen Shevchenko, who say over and over again about the resumption of relations with the Russian Federation and “external control” of IMF; Olha Vasylevska-Smahliuk, whose name is also associated with the oligarch Kolomoiskyi; Maksym Buzhanskyi, who not only in his Telegram, but also on TV aggressively promotes anti-Ukrainian and pro-Soviet massages. Buzhanskyi is also known for his alternative language law which had to protect the rights of the Russian speaking citizens.

Should these parliamentary members be excluded from the party? We also keep the matter open for both the President and the readers.

In this calling of the Parliament Servant of the People is the only party which excludes its members. But in general, this is not a novelty for Ukrainian parliamentarism.