Zelensky versus the Sorosites, part II
Zelensky sends goons to the apartment of anti-corruption journalists. "They plan to liquidate us physically in the trenches".
The first instalment of this series covered Zelensky’s actions against pro-western businessmen in late 2023 and early 2024. As we will see today, this was only the beginning of the President’s Office counter-offensive against Soros’ little piglets.
On January 14, Bankova (the Office) sent goons to the apartment of Yury Nikolov, the journalist from ‘Nashi Groshi’ (‘Our Money’). Nikolov was the journalist who broke the news about Reznikov’s golden eggs back in 2023, leading to his ignominious sacking from the post of defense minister.
While Nikolov wasn’t at home, his elderly mother was treated to a bunch of screaming at her door by ‘patriotic young men’ who angrily demanded her son to make himself available for mobilization to the front. In the published videos, the ‘unknown patriots’ yell "Kremlin whore, open up, we're going to talk now, since you're so good at talking in videos!" They eventually resorted to plastering Nikolov's door with papers filled with insults calling him a traitor and calls to join the army.
While Zelensky and the government immediately declared that an investigation would be underway as to the identity of the ‘unknown attackers’, the Sorosite under attack and his comrades placed great importance on the fact that the video was first gleefully shared by telegrams known to be controlled by the Office. These telegrams had written the following:
“These soldiers returned from the front line on rotation and decided to deliver a summons to a well-known "journalist" who had been fed by a Russian businessman of Armenian descent for several years, fled from Kyiv at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, and after returning pretended as if none of it had happened.”
Top anti-corruption warrior Vitaliy Shabunin wrote on his telegram the following:
“Why do I think it was the Office of the President? Because within 15 minutes after the ‘provocation’, information a
bout it appeared on the Telegram trash channels close to the Office.”
Nikolov himself claimed in an interview to Radio NV (another Fiala-owned publication) that the Office-controlled telegrams even explained why he was targeted:
“They took a quote of mine from my appearance on the Ukrainian Truth Chat program on Youtube. This was a couple weeks ago, when I criticized Volodymyr Zelensky for his passive position towards mobilization and so on, which, so to speak, the representatives of the president and he himself are trying to make General Zaluzhny guilty for what is happening… What I mean is that they went after me for this statement’.
Nikolov also stated that he may have been a victim of conflicts within Bankova, or simply of a businessman offended by some of his investigation. He also noted that a year ago, Reznikov had asked the secret services to open up a case against Nikolov on the grounds of ‘threatening state security’ due to his egg corruption investigation.
Nevertheless, he lamented that ‘whoever ordered this is giving proof to those who argue that Ukraine is a country of emotionless Papuans, where freedom of speech means nothing’. Lamenting their own transformation into ‘Papuans’ is a favorite pastime among Ukrainian journalists across the spectrum.
Meanwhile, the Bihus.ua online publication, known for its criticisms of Bankova, was also quite professionally attacked. Videos were leaked on a hitherto unknown site showing some of its employees ordering and consuming illegal narcotics. The videos were circulated by pro-Office telegram channels.
In response, the head of Bihus sacked the employees, but also noted that such a detailed bugging of his company, which must have taken months, could only have been done by law enforcement agencies. While Zelensky also promised to look into it, there was little doubt among the Sorosites that the order to leak this kompromat came from the top.
Sorosite parliamentarian Yaroslav Zheleznyak took to his telegram to accuse law enforcement agencies of organizing the operation. Fellow parliamentarian Anatoly Gritsenko also stated on his telegram that the Nikolov and Bihus cases ‘are part of a consistent and very dangerous tendency [whereby the government] is putting pressure and persecuting civil activists and journalists who are conducting anti-corruption investigations’. Gritsenko was supported in this evaluation by the decidedly non-Sorosite political analyst Kost’ Bondarenko, who tied the events to the attack on Fiala.
Naturally, Shabunin also voiced his opinion that the government was behind this kompromat-gathering, who he claimed was confident that the war will let them get away with it. He came out with quite a thundering statement on his telegram:
"And so, the Office believes they can go further than their predecessors had the opportunity to. Because when they start to deal with 'investigators' (and other critics), society, preoccupied with war, will not react as sharply. Discrediting investigative journalists and the public sector is exactly for this purpose - preparing the ground. And then there will be three general ways to remove the undesirable:
the adoption of laws similar to the Russian 'foreign agents';
imprisonment through concocted criminal proceedings;
physical elimination in the war,"
Shabunin was particularly adamant that the third option will become necessary:
“The authorities, if they continue to tighten the screws (and they will), will simply have no other choice. Because reprisals through idiotic criminal proceedings will destroy Zelensky’s legitimacy both domestically and internationally. So they will have to either stop or do it in such a way that it would be difficult to make a claim. Utilization on the front is the best way. What can you accuse the authorities of here: it’s war,"
Shabunin also took a shot at Zelensky, stating that "obviously, the final decision is with him."
This tactic of attacking the Sorosites by appealing to insufficient militarism on their part has been used widely. Sergei Shabunin, perhaps the tsar of the anti-corruption ecosystem, and someone who has himself constantly pushed for harsher mobilization, became accused by journalists of dodging conscription by ‘mobilizing’ himself into a brigade on the second day of the war that he has never himself actually fought in.
A court case that had been opened in December 2023 on this matter became public in early March of this year. Shabunin was accused of draft-dodging. He is also being charged for falsifying documents that allowed him to evade the army by fictitiously serving. Through this fiction, Shabunin received a monthly salary of 53 thousand hryvnia, of which 30,000 was a reward for ‘the execution of battle tasks’. He fabricated these documents with the help of Sytnyk and the NACP (National Agency for Corruption Prevention).
According to earlier investigations into the topic which came out on February 9 2024, Shabunin received 182,770 hryvnia in income from a fictitious position in the mobilization office since the start of the full-scale war. He also received 402,501 hryvnia from a fictitious position in the A4076 military unit. Furthermore, he received 217,813 hryvnia from ‘business activities’ and 1,3335,750 hryvnia from his role at the Centre for the Prevention of Corruption.
Nor did his family ease up on the monetary front, with his wife and children moving to the Czech Republic in 2022 and receiving social assistance there, only to move to the USA after, where they also received social benefits as refugees.
The above details of Shabunin’s financial life were based on his financial declaration for 2022. More importantly, they were released by ‘Ukrainian News’, a portal which is highly loyal to Zelensky’s media line.
On December 4 2023, a similar scandal developed around one of Shabunin’s partner’s in the anti-corruption scene, Mikhail Zhernakov. The publication ‘Law and Business’ found out by reference to Zhernakov’s military documents that he had evaded military service on the basis of his excessively flat feet. For someone who has built his career in recent years on calling for a harsher battle against draft-dodgers, this was quite something, though clearly not a unique phenomenon among his kin. I also have my fair share of personal stories on this topic, though it’s not something I’ll share online.
Apocalyptic days indeed. I am reminded of the statement I published recently by Mustafa Naiem’s brother, another venerable Sorosite, who claimed that all Ukrainian patriots should abandon the country by May, since the Russians will soon win. But in retrospect, perhaps his statement also aimed at generally discrediting the Zelensky government, and hinting that there were plenty of domestic risks to ‘patriots’ like himself, beyond the risk of Russian ‘orcs’?
And of course, the appeal to leave Ukraine could only be addressed to similarly ‘connected’ individuals like himself - for most Ukrainian men, there’s no way to escape ‘the avant-garde of Western Democracy’, with the main struggle being to evade mobilization officers and their trucks hauling you off to the front lines.
Whence such vigor in prosecuting the struggle against Soros’s little piglets? Many Ukrainian experts have pointed to the twin factors of dwindling US financial aid and worsening prospects on the frontline. With the US ever more reluctant to send money to Bankova, its inhabitants no longer feel an obligation to endure criticism from Washington’s local minions. Meanwhile, the worsening situation on the frontline means that Zelensky feel their popularity diving and grip over power loosening. Zaluzhny has now been sent to London, but who knows what might happen in the future? I have already written at length about the ongoing parliamentary crisis and the looming Ides of May.
In such a situation, Bankova is clearly trying to send a message to its foreign donors, on whom it obviously still totally depends, that there are no alternative centers of power. We may be bastards, but we’re the only bastards you have, to paraphrase a classic saying in this part of the world. We’ll see if this deal is accepted in Washington, and what aces the Sorosites have up their sleeves.