The ‘new-old’ oligarchic government of ‘servants’ is absolutely not what the Ukrainian people, who are fighting for their very survival, need!
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has appointed a ‘new’ government. Both the composition of the government and the very process of its appointment illustrate once again that the ‘servants’ in power, like their predecessors, do not represent the interests of the majority of the Ukrainian people, but work exclusively in the interests of the ruling oligarchy and its henchmen.
Firstly.
There has been yet another blatant violation of the requirements of the Constitution of Ukraine by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Indeed, he has effectively presented Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko with a fait accompli regarding his desire to dismiss her from office – and, consequently, to dismiss the entire Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
Svyrydenko is a typical lackey of the oligarchy, and it is, in fact, a good thing that this individual – whom Yermak actively pushed for the post of head of government – has finally been dismissed.
But what is important is this: in a parliamentary-presidential republic – which, according to the Constitution, Ukraine is – it is the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine that should have passed a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister of Ukraine, and it is the Verkhovna Rada that should have initiated the government’s resignation. But, as always, the President simply “handed down” instructions to the government and parliament from on high.
Once again, the guarantor of the Ukrainian Constitution has brazenly and demonstratively violated it!
Secondly.
The destructive and frankly absurd practice of merging and splitting ministries without any justification continues once more.
When the Svyrydenko government was appointed, a “mega-ministry” was created by merging the ministries of the economy, the environment and agricultural policy. The absurdity of this idea was obvious from the outset, but that did not stop the ‘servants’ in power. Now the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food is being separated out again. On the one hand, better late than never. But on the other hand, this once again places an enormous strain on the system of public administration, and once again entails huge losses of budgetary funds and effort for yet another ‘reorganisation’.
Yet the absurd Ministry of Economy and Environment remains – an artificial merger of two completely different spheres that should not be under a single government body, and whose combination effectively precludes the state from pursuing a high-quality environmental policy, as the objectives of these two areas are directly opposed.
The same applies to the splitting of yet another ‘mega-ministry’ – the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development. It has once again been split into the Ministry of Regional Development and the Ministry of Infrastructure. And once again, this represents a senseless waste of time and a senseless waste of taxpayers’ money.
Thirdly.
Here are the odious figures in this “new-old” oligarchic government.
Taras Vysotskyi – Ukraine’s new Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food.
He is the former deputy to Mykola Solskyi, Minister of Agrarian Policy – a notorious landowner and high-profile corrupt official. Back in August 2023, Vysotskyi was placed under investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) for his involvement in Solskyi’s large-scale corruption schemes. He was subsequently released from pre-trial detention on bail but continued to work at the ministry. Following the aforementioned merger of ministries, he became Deputy Minister under Sobolev. And now, a high-profile corrupt official facing allegations has become a minister!
Another high-profile corrupt official – Mykola Kalashnyk – is Ukraine’s new Minister for Recovery, Infrastructure and Transport. Prior to this, Kalashnyk was head of the Kyiv Regional State Administration. He is a protégé of the former minister and high-profile corrupt official Oleksiy Kuleba – a long-standing friend and accomplice of Yermak dating back to their ‘street stall days’. He is also the subject of a whole series of journalistic investigations which clearly point to his having committed corruption offences!
Denis Maslov is Ukraine’s new Minister of Justice. Prior to this, he was the head of the parliamentary committee on legal policy. It was this very committee that played a leading role in drafting the mega-corrupt bill ‘on bona fide acquirers’ (Law 12089, which allowed thieves of public property to keep their loot and granted them amnesty) and the no less mega-corrupt draft Civil Code of Ukraine. And Maslov, as committee chair, organised the entire process of pushing these corrupt and blatantly criminal bills through.
The “new-old” Minister of Health Viktor Lyashko is yet another top-level corrupt official. It is worth recalling both the high-profile scandals involving cartel collusion by pharmaceutical corporations to raise medicine prices and the corruption scandal surrounding the reconstruction of Okhmatdyt.
Ivan Vyhovskyi is Ukraine’s new Minister of Internal Affairs and former head of the National Police. Just two years ago, a high-profile journalistic investigation was published revealing Vyhovskyi’s clearly illegal and corrupt wealth, including a host of luxury properties that he attempted to conceal by registering them in the names of relatives. At the time, we reported in detail on this disgraceful story. Moreover, during the time Vygivskyi headed the National Police, there were numerous corruption scandals within the force. It is clear that all these schemes took place with Vygivskyi’s knowledge and complicity.
Once again, a veteran has not been appointed as Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, despite the demands of the veterans’ community and contrary to common sense, while Denys Ulyutin was left in charge of the Ministry of Social Policy; having come from the Ministry of Finance, he has already shown that his primary interest lies in cutting spending on social support for the people and implementing anti-social policies in his post.
It is also worth noting that the ‘new-old’ First Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Energy of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal – is a top manager for the oligarch Akhmetov, who has consistently remained in all “Servant” governments, evidently acting as his master’s ‘overseer’.
And, of course, we emphasise that the new Prime Minister of Ukraine, Serhiy Koretskyi, is a long-standing top manager for the oligarch and Member of Parliament Ihor Yeremeyev, a long-standing head of his WOG petrol station chain, and Yeremeyev’s assistant during two parliamentary terms. It is clear that, just like his predecessor Svyrydenko, he will prioritise in his work the preservation of the lavish lifestyle of the wealthiest one per cent of citizens, rather than the welfare of the majority of the Ukrainian people.
Such is this ‘new-old’ oligarchic government of ‘servants’ – a government that is utterly ill-equipped to meet the challenges of a full-scale war – a war for the very survival of the Ukrainian people.
Our People’s Party of Labour, ‘Narodovladia’ states that the only government that can truly be considered the new government – which the Ukrainian people so desperately need right now – is one that proposes measures towards social justice, such as:
- the introduction of a separate progressive wealth tax, levied at a specified percentage of the value of all assets held by the wealthiest citizens;
- the introduction of progressive income taxation (including a progressive military levy): the higher the income, the higher the rate, as is the case in all major European Union countries; furthermore, the tax must be uniform across all forms of income, without various ‘loopholes’ such as the current under-taxation of dividends;
- nationalisation of strategic enterprises;
- a complete end to the possibility of evading tax through so-called ‘offshore’ jurisdictions (both de jure and de facto);
- substantial progressive taxes on luxury goods;
- a genuine crackdown on private monopolies and cartel collusion;
- strengthening labour rights and ensuring their proper protection;
- a genuine fight against corruption, in particular a legislative ban on the release of high-level corrupt officials from custody on bail;
- a legislative ban on non-essential budgetary expenditure;
- completely eliminating the possibility for large enterprises to evade paying the taxes they owe through artificial ‘networks of sole traders’;
- a differentiated VAT rate: increasing the rate for luxury goods and other items currently purchased primarily by the wealthiest sections of the population;
- utilising all the opportunities afforded by the legal regime of martial law, for example by introducing compulsory labour for the construction oligarchy and directing their machinery to build fortifications.
Conversely, if such and other socially just proposals do not emerge from the ‘new’ government officials, then any reshuffles, regardless of the names involved, are merely oligarchic window-dressing designed to create the illusion of a “renewal of power” and to deceive the Ukrainian people.
Do you agree? Then join us in building a truly people’s party, so that we may finally have a government that works in the interests of millions, not billionaires!