Ukraine’s acting President Oleksandr
Turchynov, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk and his wife,
presidential candidate Anatoliy Hrytsenko and his wife, leading
journalist Yulia Mostova, spent a good chunk of their day queueing at
their polling stations to get ballots.
Although – at least for some of those
people – there is an element of show in this move, it shows that
Ukraine is basically a nation where leaders are moving towards the
idea of being equal with the people they are supposed to work for.
Possibly my favorite picture from this
election, it contains the whole of Ukraine’s past, present and
future. The photograph was taken by Kyiv Post’s wonderful
photographer Kostya
Chernichkin in a village bordering Kyiv and Zhytomyr region, and
thus reflecting what things really are like in deep province where no
central TV channels care to film.
The past in this picture is represented
by the ballot box with the Soviet emblem – a relic from elections
that offered no real choice and could bring no real change. The
present is represented by the gun carried by the boy, the infighting
in the east of the country, inspired and sponsored by the neighboring
country that has trouble breaking from the past.
The boy stands for all those peers in
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast who, when they plan in the sandpit, build check
points, not sand castles. All the weapons carried by camouflaged. But
the boy is peeping out of the voting booth, where one day he will
come with a ballot, not bullet.
The town of Novoaidar was one of the
only two districts in Luhansk Oblast where polls actually opened.
Neither kidnappings, nor intimidation of election officials by the
separatists could prevent them from holding a crucial election in the
region. People braved it to the vote, showing true spirit and
determination to have a say about their future.
But a few hours later, terror started.
Separatists
stormed six polling stations in and around of Novoaidar and stole
ballots in four of them. More still, they shot at two cars with just
regular citizens who happened to be nearby. In this picture taken by
the Kyiv Post photographer Anastasiya Vlasova, you can see blood and
scattered brains of one of the victims.
For me, this is the ultimate image of
war crimes conducted by Russia and its insurgents, or with the use of
its guns. It’s also an image of strength of the Ukrainians, who do
not give up even in the face of danger.
Possibly my second favorite photo from
the election, this for me stands as a striking image of gracious
defeat and consolation. Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and
then political prisoner, made a great step by recognizing
Poroshenko’s victory in the first round and not putting up any fight.
This means two things: no political
infighting – at least for now. Also, it means that there will be no
stretched- out court challenges, and that Ukrainians will get exactly
what they voted for. Incidentally, it’s not the new president, but an
end to this historical (and exhausting) chapter in their lives, which
started in autumn with EuroMaidan protests.
Another element of this picture is
Yatseniuk, who is both Tymoshenko’s political ally and rival. This
image of consolation and a drink together for Ukraine’s future is
somehow very inspiring. Shows that the nation’s prime minister has
something going behind him, be it his own emotional intelligence or
good advisers.
Soon after polls closed in Ukraine,
Russia’s First Channel showed a screenshot that they presented as
“strange picture” which “appeared on the central server of the
CEC of Ukraine a few minutes ago.”
The picture showed that Dmytro Yarosh,
leader of the near-mythical right-wing party Right Sector, was
leading in the polls with 37 percent of the vote. In fact, leader who
has become a real scare-crow in Russia’s media, only received 1
percent of the vote – one of the worst performances among 21
candidates in the ballot.
Slon.ru, a Russian magazine, debunked
the fake, and claimed the First National TV channel forged the image
by itself, just based on discrepancies visible on the picture. One of
them, for example, was that fact that on Ukraine’s Central Election
Commission server the election was called “pre-term presidential
election”, but the inscription on the screenshot simply said
“presidential election.”
The initials of one of the candidates,
Sergiy Tigipko, were wrong, and some technical data is missing on the
screenshot. More about it on Slon.ru.
This screenshot is the quintessential
image of the Russian media propaganda, which has been going on for
months now. The fact that it’s so blatant and uncovered, means both
that Russians are not prepared to give up in their information war
with Ukraine, and that Ukraine has to finally start treating it as a
national security threat.
