“People are not prepared for the fact that, in such a crisis, one must make unconventional and sometimes unpleasant decisions.”
On 19 November, the Servant of the People faction issued a statement calling for the creation of a coalition government of stability and the launch of negotiations between all pro-Ukrainian factions and groups in the Verkhovna Rada.
I would like us to begin with more details about this statement: how did it come about, who drafted it, and what is its purpose?
It was conceived yesterday (18 November — Ed.). We had earlier discussed the need to formulate a comprehensive political position — back when the first publications about the so-called Mindich tapes appeared (10 November — Ed.) and we started discussing this crisis within the faction’s chat groups.
Then we gathered — about 10–12 people — to discuss the situation. I outlined three main points.
First: a situation may arise in which we will have to work together to restore trust in the state authorities as a whole, not only in the faction, parliament or the president. What could we, as parliament, do to demonstrate to society that we are taking real steps to preserve and restore this trust? Next comes the government. And what about the president? He is our political comrade.
Comrade? Let us be honest — you would not be in parliament if it were not for him.
All right. He is our political comrade; he created the party.
You do not have a party, you have a political group.
Well, then just say “organised crime”. That is definitely not us.
…It was also necessary to formulate a specific proposal for the president. There were three points. The first was to begin negotiations between all pro-Ukrainian factions. I emphasise — pro-Ukrainian.
Does this list include Razumkov?
In fact, his people are part of our faction. And again, Sonya, let us be honest. I have known Yuliya Tymoshenko since 1996. I will not give personal political assessments. I will evaluate the political differences: they oppose the land market; they oppose foreigners being selected for NABU, SAPO and other bodies; they oppose the participation of foreigners in supervisory boards.
And I am in favour. And we, as a faction, are in favour. We supported this.
So, if you had asked me two weeks ago whether I could even imagine sitting at the negotiating table with Yuliya Volodymyrivna, whom I have known for many years…
We have heard so much from European Solidarity over the years! That we are “green snot”, traitors, that we will surrender the country, that we dream of selling Ukraine to Putin. Well, I believe it became obvious on the morning of 24 February 2022 that President Zelenskyy and we are certainly not the people they have described all these years.
I would not have sat down at the negotiating table with them either. But now the situation is different — there is a large-scale, profound crisis, and the country is at war.
Our proposal is not addressed to our opponents. It is addressed to our faction: under what conditions can negotiations begin? And our opponents must determine what they are willing to set aside in order to form a coalition around fundamental values: saving Ukraine and stabilising the economy.
Let me clarify: was the text of the statement we saw agreed with you or anyone else from the opposition?
No, not at all. This is our internal initiative, written by us for ourselves. I will not name those who told us that the statement was sound, but they are still in no hurry to support it publicly by reposting it. Yet they do support it.
No one was prepared for such a crisis. I think everyone now understands its scope, but no one knows how to act within it. And people are simply not prepared for the fact that, in such a crisis, one must make non-standard and sometimes not very pleasant decisions.
How many years have we lived with a mono-coalition? It has been seven years now. Formally, we have 229 MPs on our list, meaning we have a mono-majority. Today, if I am not mistaken, Andriy Osadchuk wrote in the comments on Facebook under my statement that I was being disingenuous.
I quote: “Legally, in order to create a new coalition and a government based on it, it is necessary to announce the dissolution of the current majority. Servant of the People has long ceased to be a majority and has only 189–200 votes out of the minimum required 226. Do you plan to announce the dissolution of the coalition?”
This is the conflict: we cannot dissolve a faction of 229 people or a mono-majority. De jure it exists, although de facto it does not.
Therefore, this statement about the need to make non-standard political decisions. If we look at the legislation, a coalition can only be formed by factions.
Opponents talk about a coalition of unity, we talk about a coalition of stability: there will be no political unity, but unity around stability is possible.
How did faction leader Davyd Arakhamiya react to this initiative?
Restrainedly, because the initiative is quite radical. When the statement was released, I showed it to Davyd — he saw it after it was published. He didn't ask any questions, because we weren't planning to impose anything on anyone.
We set ourselves a simple task: to offer our version. It is public because we believe that all processes should now be public. The time for backroom deals is over.
We made our proposal. If they want it, they will have the support of their colleagues in the faction. If they don't want it, they won't. We offered our version of how to act in this crisis.
It is well known that there is a long-standing conflict between Davyd Arakhamiya and the head of the President's Office, Andriy Yermak. It escalates and then subsides. I have been observing the reaction of some representatives of the Office to this statement. And the reaction was something like this: "Davyd is stirring something up for himself, he is to blame for everything."
This is an interesting story because I don't have Telegram. But my colleagues sent me some screenshots. And what did I see there?
Some anonymous channels write that we did it "on Arakhamiya's orders," who is "digging under Yermak." Others — including our former colleague Maryana Bezuhla — write that we did it "on Yermak's orders" to "whitewash" and "advocate" for him.
The statement includes a request to reshuffle the president's inner circle.
If, God forbid, the NABU and SAPO investigations confirm that there is corruption there too... We know that there will be new material, because the investigators themselves said that there are a thousand hours of content. And they have to go all the way — until the tapes run out. And maybe even further, if people agree to cooperate with the investigation and reveal other chains.
Therefore, we do not know when it will all end. And that is why this statement is a platform that allows us to say: whoever appears next must go. Better voluntarily. That is, if names appear on the tapes, these people must immediately take political responsibility and leave so as not to sink our common ship.
Umerov must resign, even if he gave the order not to sign anything.
We already know that this is not only about theft in the energy sector, but also about very likely corruption in the procurement of body armour for the front line.
In other words, the people who purchased these bulletproof vests, who approved, organised and allowed them to be purchased, effectively killed our soldiers with their own hands.
I have a good impression of Rustem...
"Good guy" is not a profession.
I agree. But I want to believe that he signed the contract due to "persistent requests" but did not intend to fulfil it. Because from the conversation on the tapes, it is not clear that he pressured his subordinates to sign the compliance certificates.
You are justifying him now. What do we hear on the tapes? He openly "blows off" this and that. He must understand that this is rubbish. Okay, let him not say it directly, let him not start an argument. But what should he have done in this situation? He should have contacted the authorities so that they could investigate and report this fact. Did he do that? Obviously not.
I agree. Despite my positive attitude towards Rustem and my belief that he may not have actually wanted to buy this rubbish and was trying to avoid it politically, he still has to go.
But you're right: if he had picked up the phone and called [Kryvonos to report what had happened], he wouldn't be facing political responsibility today. But now he is: even if he didn't actually do anything wrong and even gave orders not to sign anything. He is politically responsible — and he has to go.
Do you believe that the Office will allow him to do so?
I believe that this is a situation in which everyone must decide for themselves.
"Hetmantsev and Arakhamiya are not one and the same... But the faction has great respect for Davyd."
Let's talk about the situation in parliament and in the faction. When the list was being formed, there were people who were supported by Kolomoyskyy, Bohdan, Pavlyuk and others. But times have changed, so explain to us: how many groups focused on specific people actually exist in Servant of the People?
None.
For example, how many people do Hetmantsev and Arakhamiya actually control? And is it correct to say that Hetmantsev and Arakhamiya are one and the same?
No. They are not one entity and do not control any established group. There are people who listen to Danylo Hetmantsev; there are those who listen to me; there are those who listen to Serhiy Babak.
When it comes to centres of influence, these are the heads of committees. There are additional centres of influence — the Coalition Council. But the fact that Hetmantsev heads it does not mean that he controls it. Because I am also a member of the Coalition Council — and Danylo Oleksandrovych certainly does not control me. Just as he does not control Babak and others. We are self-sufficient.
The faction has great respect for Davyd Arakhamiya. People are used to David being a responsible organiser. That is why he has a lot of support and respect. But to say that he has some kind of group? No. He simply has the respect and support of the majority of the faction.
Does the Office have its own group?
I don't think so. Well, there are individual MPs who regularly visit it. But I don't even know who goes there now.
As of now, how justified or unjustified are the rumours that Danylo Hetmantsev may create his own party based on part of Servant of the People?
At the moment, I don't see any processes. I see subjectivisation. For example, Danylo Oleksandrovych is active on social media — he is subjectivising himself. But there is also Oleksandr Fediyenko, who, in my opinion, runs a very warm, lamp-lit blog on Telegram. But that's not really an indicator.
For example, Maks Buzhanskyy has been active on social media for a long time and systematically. Is this a sign that he is creating a party? In my opinion, no. But whether they could hypothetically unite is another question.
As for the position of Verkhovna Rada Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk, it seems that he has effectively removed himself from this crisis; he is "in the house."
I don't know what I would do in his place: he needs to keep the situation in parliament under control, and right now that can only be done from this position — "in the house," as you say.
Who sets the agenda?
The Conciliation Board.
"Slogans calling for the immediate resignation of the government are demagoguery. We need to understand who we will replace it with."
There are calls to completely replace the government. But with whom? There are no people.
I had the same question. This is also one of the reasons why the statement was made. Slogans calling for the immediate resignation of the government look good politically, but in practice they are demagoguery.
We need to understand who will replace them, how long the process will take, and what the criteria for forming a new government will be. It is a long process, not something that can be done "tomorrow".
I want to conclude the topic of Servant of the People. How much do you currently earn as committee chair and MP?
Essentially, we have two salaries: after taxes, I earn about 48,000, and about the same amount as an MP. Together, it comes to 70-100, which varies greatly from month to month.
Why am I asking? There have been repeated reports that civil servants receive extra payments in envelopes, but recently these have allegedly been cut.
I know nothing about envelopes, so I cannot say whether they were thick or have become thinner. I live on what I earned during the "happy times" — before I entered politics.
In the summer, there was a crisis situation — with the scandalous law on NABU and SAP, which launched the Cardboard Maydan. At that time, it seemed that parliament had woken up for the first time in a long time.
Because before that, you very conscientiously fulfilled the wishes of your "senior political colleagues." And then it suddenly turned out that you had been used, and then made the scapegoats.
After that, there was a meeting between the faction and the president — about nothing. The conflict itself was never discussed there. Can we say that the current reaction of the Rada is a consequence of the fact that the conflict between the Office and the SP was not resolved at that time?
"Unresolved trauma," as psychologists say. I never thought about it that way, but now that you mention it, I realise that it's true.
Who was the real author of the bill restricting the NABU and SAP?
I don't know, honestly. I can only talk about what I saw: at 12:00, the parliamentary session was about to begin, and at 11:00, people I know personally wrote to me, warning me: "They are setting you up. They are ambushing you. A trap in parliament." I saw this with my own eyes.
As of 11:45, I didn't even understand when the amendments had been inserted. This didn't happen in our group. But I heard that other groups were saying that this was a request from above.
From above — where from? From the president? Obviously, yes, because we only have one authority above us. And it's clearly not the Cabinet of Ministers.
I don't know. I was told that it was important to support it — so that it would be clear who was with us and who was against us. They even told a story that NABU special forces were standing at the roadblocks, ready to arrest deputies in batches, with suspicions of corruption already stamped out — they were going to detain 80 deputies.
A meeting between the faction and the president was announced for Thursday... What is going to be said there? What can we expect?
The only thing I would like to hear is a response to these proposals. Seriously, as in 2019: what is your opinion? What should be done and what should not? Why do you think so? What do you support?
What consequences do you think this political crisis could have for the country and national security?
The worst: continued disorganisation of state administration, collapse of the system, leading to defeat.
The best: a simple plan to purge the authorities of those with links to corruption as quickly as possible, demonstrate toughness, open a round-table dialogue and restore trust in the authorities. And not pull the blanket over yourself.
The last question, which can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no": does President Zelenskyy now have a chance of being re-elected?
It is difficult to predict, but knowing him, he has the wisdom, intuition, knowledge and strength to emerge from this situation as the winner. And, perhaps, under favourable circumstances, if his family allows him to, he may even run in the next presidential election. The stability of the institution of the presidency depends on this in many ways, and that is important.