Liar Liar. Leonid Bershidsky keeps writing about Ukraine in his opinion pieces for Bloomberg

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To many Americans, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is merely a character in the U.S. impeachment drama, an awkward English speaker from a remote, corrupt country that would be eaten up by russia if not for U.S. assistance, writes russian journalist[?] Leonid Bershidsky for Bloomberg.

His opinion piece starts with the russian spelling of the Ukrainian President surname and russian propaganda narrative about “remote, corrupt country.” He also speculates that russia would have eaten Ukraine without U.S. assistance, trying to whitewash russia’s miscalculations, shortcomings and, ultimately, weakness, in an attempt to occupy half of Ukraine.

The main idea of what Bershidsky is trying to sell, though, – that Zelensky is Anti-putin somehow, and what is more laughable still – that “he’s the only kind of threat russian President Vladimir putin has any reason to fear.”

Then, not unlike most of the russian officials and propaganda channels, Bershidsky praises Zelensky for some special “results that eluded his more experienced predecessors,” not pointing any of them.

“He refused to make any firm promises, talking only about things he’d like to try, such as ending the war with russian proxies in the country’s east,” writes Bershidsky. This is a blatant lie, Zelensky whether himself or through his team made many outrageous promises. It was one of the most populist campaigns that Ukraine had ever seen, and in Ukraine, it does mean something. One of the most ridiculous of his promises was to rise payrolls for teachers to $4000.

And let’s not forget that the idea of the “russian proxies” in the Eastern Ukraine, that Bershidsky is trying to hide conveniently between the lines, exists exclusively in the information bubble of russian propagandists. Because so-called “russian proxies” are russian themselves, with russian weapons, riding russian tanks, shooting russian BUKs and paid by russian money.

Then Bershidsky, not surprisingly, plays a long worn-out card of russian propaganda about the alleged high level of antisemitism of Ukrainians. “His Jewishness made him an unusual presidential contender in a country where almost half the adult population harbors anti-Semitic attitudes, according to the Anti-Defamation League.”

Well let’s just start with that according to the survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, only 5% of Ukrainians would not like to have Jews as their fellow citizens, the lowest rate in the region. And concerning the Anti-Defamation League claim, nobody could have said better than dissident, human rights defender, executive co-president of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine, executive vice president of the Congress of National Communities of Ukraine Josef Zissels. “We have already criticized the Anti-Defamation League a number of times for the outdated methodology they use. (…) Should I answer these questions, I would also turn to be an anti-Semite,” he said.

It is also important to mention that Jews in Ukrainian politics and business are hardly a new thing. Just off the top of my head – previous prime-minister Groysman, or one of the richest people in Ukraine – oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. As the NYT has put it, “despite its scarred history, Ukraine today is no hotbed of anti-Semitism. It already has a Jewish prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, and if he stays on after Mr. Zelensky is sworn in, Ukraine will be the only country outside of Israel where the heads of state and government are Jewish.”

“The voters were so tired of Kyiv’s post-Soviet political swamp that they didn’t much care if the change were as chaotic and comical as in the “Servant of the People” series,” writes Bershidsky. The only problem is Zelensky was never going to represent anything else but that swamp. Back in the day, he was the face of the Yanukovych’s Party of Regions (youth wing) and with his coming to power numerous washed-out officials from the Yanukovych period fled back to Ukraine.

“They wanted sincerity above all,” writes Bershidsky. Yet, they [people of Ukraine] got a bunch of old-fashion lies, which can be clearly seen only half a year later.

According to Bershidsky, Zelensky received unexpected [funny joke] support from well-known reformers who had tried to revive Ukraine’s economy under Poroshenko. What this author fails to mention is that “under Poroshenko” the Ukrainian economy was growing 13 quarters in a row, and under Zelensky and his “famous reformers” we see industrial production falling for the six consecutive months, while the budget deficit reached UAH 35 bln.

There are other lies, naturally, but who is keeping score?

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