Editor’s Note: This feature separates Ukraine’s friends from its enemies. The Order of Yaroslav the Wise has been given since 1995 for distinguished service to the nation. It is named after the Kyivan Rus leader from 1019-1054, when the medieval empire reached its zenith. The Order of Lenin was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union, whose demise Russian President Vladimir Putin mourns. It is named after Vladimir Lenin, whose corpse still rots on the Kremlin’s Red Square, more than 100 years after the October Revolution he led.
Ukraine’s Friend of the Week — Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president
It would be naïve to assume that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the strongman of Turkey, is guided by anything but bottom-line pragmatism in politics.
Ukraine also sometimes needs to learn some lessons of realpolitik – and this week, Erdogan said something that plays well in our own favor.
During an address to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 22, the Turkish leader again vocally supported Ukraine in the face of Russia’s occupation that started in 2014 and continues today over 7% of Ukraine’s territory, including the Crimean peninsula and eastern Donbas.
“We believe it is important to preserve the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, including the territory of Crimea, the (Russian) annexation of which we do not recognize,” he said.
He also noted that the rights of Crimean Tatars need protection as well, following so many reports of Russian encroachment.
Of course, he does this not for his love to Ukraine, or Crimea, or its oppressed native population – but of his drive to deter the expansion of his long-time frenemy, the Kremlin. And in this regard, our interests overlap.
So we at the Kyiv Post do not hesitate to name Erdogan as Ukraine’s friend of the week for his principled and vocal stance. But no one out here has any illusions regarding the strongman of Ankara – or his readiness to potentially change his mind when it necessary.
Ukraine’s Foe of the Week — Sundar Pichai, Google CEO
As it often happens, the loudest preachers back down first.
Late last week, it became known that Google and Apple had removed the app Navalny from their mobile stores. The tech giants surrendered to Russian authorities threatening financial and legal sanctions for giving a voice to the team of the jailed anti-Kremlin leader, Aleksey Navalny.
The app was particularly used to coordinate protest voting in Russia’s Sept. 17-19 parliamentary elections, in a bid to dethrone the Kremlin’s ruling party, United Russia. It became not available just on the ballot day’s eve, throughout the country.
In fact, Big Tech has overtly and ultimately betrayed all those values they preach so hard in public – democracy, free speech, diversity, rule of law, and so on. It’s now not even about Russia or its voting, it’s all about us all. This world has now got not so many places not influenced by these masters of the digital age.
So because of this, Google director Sundar Pichai gets the symbolic Order of Lenin.
But he gets it also on behalf of Apple and other big tech players that love their virtue signaling policies – and give up easily to authoritarian regimes threatening to make business difficult in their markets.
