Today, the Ukrainian parliament rejected the appointment of the former ace economist and manager behind Naftogaz’s recovery, modernization, and triumph over Gazprom, Yuriy Vitrenko, to the post of first deputy prime minister and minister of energy of Ukraine. His nomination, made by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, but clearly at the behest of President Volodymyr Zelensky, was supported by 186 members of parliament, short of the required minimum being 226 votes.
This is a blow to the cause of reform. It also seems to have thwarted the president’s new impulsive move to restore confidence in his administration and strengthen his hand in dealing with relentless oligarchs and their auxiliaries, particularly in the critical, but so lucrative an area as the energy sector.
The Energy Ministry is a major prize for of all the oligarchic sharks feeding in Ukraine’s fertile economic waters. Since May 2020 it has been headed by Olha Buslavets, regarded as an associate of Ukraine’s richest oligarch and energy baron, Rinat Akhmetov.
It is unclear why at this stage Zelensky decided to try to place Vitrenko, who considers himself to be a maverick not allied to any particular oligarch or political force, in this sensitive position. After all, Vitrenko, who after his remarkable record at Naftogaz, was being discussed at the beginning of this year as a strong candidate for prime minister, was suddenly “laid off” in May.
Internal jealousy, differences over how Naftogaz should be run, and the Zelensky administration’s apparent reluctance to pursue further claims against Russia’s Gazprom in international arbitration, ostensibly for fear of jeopardizing the prospects for reaching a peace agreement with Russia – these are among the factors that can be gleaned from Vitrenko’s subsequent writings.
Of course, not only Akhmetov, but others, who have had their snouts in the feeding trough that is Ukraine’s energy sector, would hardly welcome a strong, independent professional with a record of integrity in this post. Even Zelensky’s supposed political partner, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Dmitry Razumkov, who has recently been distancing himself from the president and is believed to have political ambitions of his own, signaled he was not in favor of Vitrenko being empowered in such a way.
Whatever Zelensky’s motives, he clearly did not do his homework properly to ensure that Vitrenko’s candidacy would be supported.
What we saw in the parliament today was in fact quite shameful. It was a display of ingratitude in the style of today’s corrupt Ukraine still dominated by oligarchs and business interests that overshadow national ones. You would think, in just about any other decent country, Vitrenko, the technocrat who masterminded and oversaw Ukraine’s amazing victory over Gazprom in international arbitration last year and was so instrumental in ending the country’s dependence on Russian gas, would be regarded as a national hero and economic guru.
Yet for the enduring unholy alliance of cynical exploiters of Ukraine’s economic potential and their representatives in parliament he is too much of a principled and capable professional, operating by Western norms of accountability and openness, and therefore a threat to them.
To undermine Vitrenko’s reputation, the ensuing attempted smear campaign minimized his achievements as an external professional trouble-shooter brought in by Naftogaz in 2014. He was after all, formally not a civil servant but an outside expert hired to do the impossible.
His detractors, including Razumkov, have insinuated that he has somehow been unreasonable in seeking to receive the bonuses for himself and his team agreed to in advance if they won in what seemed at the time to be a hopeless struggle against the mammoth Gazprom. Prize money not from the Ukrainian state, but from the billions Gazprom was made to pay in compensation.
Apart from his untarnished record as a reformer and patriot, Vitrenko knows too much from the inside how the oligarchic system functions and what the real roles and interests of leading politicians, businesspeople and foreign supporters and advisers have been. He has been publishing a series of candid articles and insights on his Facebook page and created an on-line Yuriy Vitrenko Library. A book is expected shortly.
As someone who had no qualms in looking, as he puts it, Russian President Vladimir Putin in the eye at the Normandy Four summit in Paris last December, when he was asked by Zelensky to press Ukraine’s case against Naftogaz with him, Vitrenko is one of the few who could be expected to stand up to Ukraine’s oligarchs and populist political leaders.
It therefore not so surprising to see who voted in the parliament against his appointment along with Yuriy Boyko’s and Viktor Medvechuk’s pro-Russian Opposition Bloc – For Life. Surprise, surprise –Tymoshenko’s Fatherland, and Poroshenko’s European Solidarity factions. Plus, a significant number of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party.
It’s not only a pity, but a disgrace, that the “system” that has been allowed to evolve, or rather fester in Ukraine for so long, masquerading as a Europe-oriented democracy, has no time for meritocracy, fair play, and proper accountability. For Vitrenko is but the latest example of how the system operates and treats some of the country’s best people.
His rejection today is a loss for Ukraine (and more loss of time for her). But I’m confident we will hear a lot more from Vitrenko and that he will return in more political auspicious conditions. After all, he is only 44. And there’s still plenty of time to build a political career if he decides to go for it.
Perhaps, what happened to Vitrenko today may turn out to be a blessing in disguise for him given the opposition to what he represents from the vested interests camp which would have made his job close to impossible.
I salute him for at least demonstrating that he was ready to serve his country in such difficult conditions, as well as President Zelensky’s courageous initiative to nominate him for the post. And I congratulate the hero of the war with Gazprom for at least finally winning this week on the issue of the compensation owed to him.
So, in a nutshell, today’s decision concerning Vitrenko gave us a graphic snapshot of Ukrainian reality at the end of a very trying 2020.
In 2021 it seems we are destined to continue for a 30th year to keep wandering in the wilderness relying on good Samaritans to sustain our caravan’s semblance of movement forward as it carries its homegrown sheikhs from oasis to oasis.
