DISINFO: Ukrainian and American ruling elites learn authoritarian practices from each other
SUMMARY
As Ukraine continues along the path it took at Euromaidan in 2014, it is no surprise that anti-democratic decisions and repressions continue. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has no choice but to resort to unlawful measures such as banning opposition TV channels with the aim of increasinh his level of trust, which fell dramatically lately. Zelenskyy was a lame duck from the very beginning, he did not control the shaking system of state administration eroded by oligarchic and regional clans. The recent events reaffirm the old forecasts about the sad fate of the Ukrainian statehood.
The Ukrainian authorities like appealing to patriotic feelings and struggle with Russian propaganda and aggression to justify any decisions. Kyiv follows the US, whereas Ukraine sets an example for the US establishment. The latter totally disregarded any norms, traditions, and principles, imposed a very strict censorship, intimidated opponents and organised a crackdown against them. That is, the US political establishment did exactly the same that has been taking place in Ukraine for over seven years.
RESPONSE
This article promotes recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the bleak prospects of the Ukrainian statehood, that US democracy is an illusion and that the US Democrats sidelined Trump by illegal means. Ukraine is presented as a doomed country, whereas the US is portrayed as a repressive country with a very poor human rights' situation.
On 2 February 2021, in response to Russia's ongoing hybrid war against Ukraine, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed decrees banning three Kremlin-linked TV channels ZIK, NewsOne, and 112. The TV channels were well known for spreading anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian propaganda, yet a debate began over the legality of the reasonableness of the decision. In any event, a reference to the US as an example for the Ukrainian authorities is arbitrary and groundless, just as the allegation about the exchange of authoritarian lessons between the two countries.
See earlier disinformation cases alleging that Ukraine will split into three parts, that 80 million of Americans are declared pariahs, that the result of the US 2020 election doesn’t matter because the real ruler is the Deep State, which will kill any US president that confronts it, that Trump's supporters are humiliated and denigrated just as Russian minorities in the post-Soviet countries, and that democracy in the US no longer exists.