Letter From the Editors

Sometimes you need a refresh. Ukraine “freshened up” its cabinet this week by appointing Yulia Sviridenko as its new prime minister in a reshuffle that saw outgoing premier Denis Shmygal take over as defense minister. His predecessor, Rustem Umerov, was initially rumored to be heading to Washington as Ukraine’s ambassador to the US – a move that would have mirrored President Zelensky’s earlier appointment of former UAF chief Valery Zaluzhny as ambassador to the UK. But in this game of high-stakes musical chairs, Umerov was left without a seat. Instead, Olga Stefanishina was tapped for the role.

Sviridenko’s appointment shows Zelensky and his cabinet chief Yermak are busy placing “their people” in all the right positions, says expert Ivan Skorikov. Moreover, Sviridenko is a technocrat who won’t “outshine Zelensky in any way. Former prime minister Shmygal was also such a person,” he says. That dynamic didn’t sit well with everyone. Yulia Timoshenko, the first woman to serve as Ukraine’s prime minister and a longtime political rival, led her faction in voting against Sviridenko’s candidacy. Still, the Supreme Rada approved the appointment with 262 votes.

The other holdouts were members of former president Poroshenko’s European Solidarity bloc, which supposedly did not want to be “responsible for the personnel decisions of this government.” Of course, Poroshenko may be worried about other, more serious repercussions – like an arrest warrant. Pavel Dulman writes that freshening up the cabinet was intended to put on a show for Trump’s “emissary” Keith Kellogg. And now, heads could roll: “Taking advantage of this opportunity and Trump’s dislike for USAID clients, Yermak and Zelensky have already launched a pogrom against ‘Ukrainian civil society.’ ” Case in point: The head of the Anticorruption Action Center in Ukraine has already been mobilized and placed under investigation. Meanwhile, Poroshenko, known for his public clashes with Zelensky, could be next in line.

If recent events in Russia are any indication, Ukrainian officials have reason to be nervous. In a Republic editorial, Andrei Okun notes that the repressive machine is increasingly turning inward. In the early stages of the regime’s sovereign democracy push, it went after the opposition and occasionally ordinary citizens “who accidentally ended up on the receiving end of sovereignty,” writes Okun. Now, officials who were thought to be untouchable are falling from windows, suffering sudden heart attacks in the middle of meetings, or mishandling firearms. The most high-profile of these cases was the recent suicide of Transportation Minister Roman Starovoit, who also happened to be the governor of Kursk Province prior to that. Allegedly, he was about to be arrested after testimony from his successor, Aleksei Smirnov (also under investigation). “The Putin regime is entering a situation where the boat is rocking itself,” writes Okun. And this could pose an even bigger threat than Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutinous march on Moscow in summer 2023.

Perhaps in an effort to buoy their positions in a stormy sea, Russian establishment opposition parties are reaching out to that elusive but ever-enticing support base – young people. Vedomosti’s Yulia Maleva examined how the LDPR, the Communists and Noviye Lyudi, along with United Russia, are coming up with memes and legislation that would resonate with Gen Z. For example, Noviye Lyudi recently introduced legislation banning animal acts in circuses. The party also chose an elephant as its mascot, which is Gen Z slang for someone admirable. Ready to show your love of communism with trendy merch? Then how about swag of Lenin in a KFC-style logo rebranded as “KGB”? Just contact the party’s Transbaikal branch.

Of course, the biggest problem with young people, who tend to be apolitical, is getting them to the polls, says sociologist Denis Yelovsky. “This requires so much effort that their votes turn out to be too costly,” he says. But given the sort of examples young people are seeing in the top political echelons these days, that’s hardly surprising.