The Oct. 23 issue of the Kyiv Post features a cartoon about Health Minister Maksym Stepanov.
It shows the minister walking in on his wife in bed with another man. “If you’re gonna sleep with my wife, at least wear your mask right and wash your hands,” Stepanov says.
The cartoon is a concise representation of Stepanov’s role in Ukraine’s coronavirus response. Despite being in charge of the country’s Ministry of Health, Stepanov can do little to make the government or the public take the measures necessary to protect themselves and others from the COVID-19 pandemic. He can only ask.
As the Kyiv Post’s news editor, I am one of the 300 or so people tuning in every day over Facebook to Stepanov’s morning coronavirus briefing. That means that I am the mute witness to a dispiriting spectacle: a government simulacrum of action directed at a largely apathetic public as people die en masse.
It’s a strange, maddening experience — one that undermines faith not just in the Ukrainian authorities, but in government as an institution.
New infections and deaths are skyrocketing. Everyday, Stepanov rattles off the latest frightening statistics and then encourages Ukrainians to wear masks, socially distance, wash their hands and protect the elderly.
Don’t get me wrong. They’re good recommendations. But Ukraine has long given up on fighting COVID-19. So, it seems, has Stepanov. Now, these recommendations sound more like an obligatory prayer.
Meanwhile, the online crowd of 300 quietly riots in the comments. Some call for Stepanov to resign. Others want the government to impose a rapid lockdown or cancel the upcoming local elections on Oct. 25. Others simply ask how many new cases there are, not realizing they can find that information online without watching the briefing. Some inquire why the health minister removed his mask for the briefing and is standing so close to the sign language interpreter.
This is the proverbial peanut gallery, stripped of its peanuts for throwing. It looks like a crowd of loonies, and yet these are likely among the members of the public most concerned about COVID-19 — the people who watch a daily briefing on the pandemic.
A cartoon, drawn by Anatoliy Vasylenko, from the Oct. 23 edition of the Kyiv Post.
How did I wind up among them? I know the short answer: I’m a journalist. But I’m also a person deeply concerned about COVID-19, who wants to protect his health and that of his wife and her elderly mother. In a global pandemic, why are comparatively so few people concerned, determined to protect their loved ones, and trying to get the latest, most up-to-date information on COVID-19?
This is itself evidence that Ukraine has failed in its battle against the coronavirus. There are daily briefings and multiple Telegram messenger channels about COVID-19. Political leaders encourage people to wear masks and socially distance. The health ministry even recorded an 11-minute dramatic film about the importance of self-isolating after returning from abroad.
But the country’s leadership does little to enforce the rules and prevent the spread of the disease. They are too afraid of harming the economy or incurring the wrath of local leaders or the public.
Meanwhile, hospitals overflow, doctors are overworked and Ukrainians die.
When Zelensky recently announced that he would be forced to impose another lockdown if Ukraine faced more than 9,500 new coronavirus cases a day (words he later retracted), a well-known journalist wrote on Twitter that this would be a mistake — a view I am sure many share.
Sure, keeping the economy open has “costs,” the journalist said, but the “economy is life” and people cannot simply stop living because they are afraid of the coronavirus.
To a degree, I agree with him. Ukraine must not only protect its people medically, but also economically. The government must do whatever it can to keep the public employed, fed and housed. For that, it needs an economy.
But it has abandoned the most powerful tool it has to keep the economy open: enforcing masking. We know the authorities have given up. A high-placed source in the government told the Kyiv Post nearly two months ago that they want people to undergo a change in mentality and learn to obey safety measures on their own. How’s that going?
Ukraine needs to save its economy. But Ukrainians are not offerings to be made at the altar of industry. They are not fuel to be poured into the grinding, churning engine of economic growth. They are the economy.
A government that saves the economy at the cost of mass death has failed at its fundamental purpose.
This is why it is agonizing and maddening to watch the health ministry’s daily COVID-19 briefings. Because the interests holding back the government’s coronavirus strategy — political ratings, local elections, even the economy — are all superficial compared to the thing at risk: life.
The Ukrainian government’s response to COVID-19 — much like the failed responses of the United States and many other countries — shows that this is not a government of the people and for the people. It is a government that fights for itself.
At a time when Ukraine’s doctors are bearing the brunt of the pandemic, struggling to save lives, burning out from overwork and sometimes dying, Ukraine needs leaders who are willing to sacrifice their popularity and careers to save lives.
Everything we’ve seen so far — and what we know about Ukrainian politics — tells us they aren’t anywhere to be found.
