Yuri Polakiwsky: Why Andriy Bohdan is the wrong man for the time

By Yuri Polakiwsky.

Published Nov. 4, 2019 at 5:16 pm

Andriy Bohdan, the head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration, speaks with the Kyiv Post in his office on Bankova Street on Oct. 30, 2019. In an hour-long interview, Bohdan talked about his tough transition from private-sector lawyer to the public sector, his goals for the nation, the influence of Ukraine’s oligarchs, and his unhappiness with the way in which journalists cover him. He singled out a Kyiv Post article published on Oct. 3 that he said was unfair to him. See related story on page 15.

Photo by Volodymyr Petrov

The opportunity to transform Ukraine’s politics is rapidly slipping away.

To many observers, Andriy Bohdan, the head of the Presidential Administration, has instituted a form of governance that does not reflect the expectations for change that were promised by the president. Critics, as well as sympathetic supporters, see an administration of two faces: one that is responsive to the expressed ideals for change, and the other as succumbing to internal domestic pressures which overtly favor oligarchic interests.