In the past three months, Viktor Liashko had two days off.
When the novel coronavirus came to Ukraine in early March, it changed many lives. In a rather singular way, it changed Liashko’s.
The 40-year-old deputy health minister became the voice of the coronavirus response in Ukraine.
In the early weeks of the lockdown, his daily briefings were the must-see source for coronavirus updates. Liashko has become the closest that Ukraine has to Anthony Fauci, the leader of the White House’s coronavirus task force, and Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, who are the prominent voices of the pandemic in the U.S.
And although he has since ceded the daily briefings to Health Minister Maksym Stepanov, Liashko remains active in coordinating the government’s response to the virus, lifting quarantine restrictions and explaining it all to Ukrainians.
And there is still a lot to explain: Infections are on the rise, with every day bringing a new record — all the while Ukraine is lifting nearly every quarantine restriction.
For Liashko, the coronavirus spotlight has been both a heavy burden and an extraordinary boost for his career.
And he may be ready to use it as a stepping stone: As Ukraine reopens after the coronavirus, Liashko is rumored to be considering running for mayor of Kyiv.
Unexpected spotlight
The first thing Liashko does as he sits down on the bench in Kyiv’s Mariinsky Park for an interview with the Kyiv Post is ask the journalist to move further away from him.
For him, it’s less about being afraid of contracting the virus and more about leading by example.
For three months now, Liashko has been the voice of the government’s response to coronavirus. He went from anonymity to one of the most persistent faces on Ukrainian television.
How did it happen? He was in the right place at the uniquely right time.
When the pandemic hit Ukraine, Liashko had just recently begun his tenure as deputy health minister. His background was in the prevention of infectious diseases. A medic by education, during his career he alternated between state service and the nonprofit sector, promoting vaccination and HIV treatment, among other things.
So when the threat of the new little-known virus loomed on the horizon, and Ukraine’s government needed to act, heads naturally turned to him.
Viktor Liashko, deputy health minister and chief sanitary doctor, adjusts his face masks as he enters the Health Ministry’s headquarters in Kyiv on June 23, 2020. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
He became the main communicator for the government’s response in February, when Ukraine was evacuating its citizens from Wuhan, then the epicenter of the virus.
The evacuation of 45 Ukrainians and 27 foreign nationals turned into a scandal that made international headlines. In the early stage of the pandemic, when there was little understanding of how the virus spreads, or how deadly it is, several hundred locals protested the arrival of the evacuees to their quarantine site in Poltava Oblast, in a town called Novi Sanzhary. Some even threw rocks at the buses carrying the evacuees.
“We understood that there is miscommunication, that people don’t understand the problem well, so we decided to do daily briefings — first to inform about (the evacuation), then about the first case, and so on,” Liashko says.
Soon he was officially appointed chief sanitary doctor — a position that didn’t exist for a long time. The appointment came in early March — but Liashko doesn’t even remember when it happened.
“From the moment that plane with evacuees from Wuhan landed in Ukraine, and until now, it has all been one endless process,” he says.
Early success
Ukraine’s early response to the coronavirus won praise. The government started introducing quarantine measures in mid-March, when Ukraine had only a handful of cases, and just before the first death was reported.
When Liashko first heard about the new virus in January, he didn’t pay much attention at first.
“It wasn’t the first time a virus originated in China,” he says.
But when Italy was hit, he realized that Ukraine wouldn’t be unaffected. It was Italy’s bad outbreak that convinced him and others in the government that Ukraine needs an early lockdown.
Viktor Liashko, deputy health minister and chief sanitary doctor, talks to the Kyiv Post outside the Health Ministry’s headquarters in the Mariinsky Park in Kyiv on June 23, 2020. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
While Ukraine didn’t go as far as some countries that banned their people from leaving home without a good reason, it did stop nearly all public transportation, domestic and international travel, schools, restaurants and entertainment venues for three months.
It proved useful: Ukraine avoided an early outbreak. In Italy, the virus has killed over 34,000 people so far. Ukraine just crossed the 1,000 death mark and ranks 81st among all countries in terms of cases per one million of the population, as of June 25.
Liashko says he wouldn’t have done anything differently. Everything was done exactly right, he claims.
“We did everything that needed to be done, everything that could be done with the resources and knowledge we had at the time,” he says.
“I had no idea the quarantine would last for so long,” he adds.
Denying mistakes
While Liashko is understandably proud of the success of the government’s early response to the pandemic, he is equally unwilling to concede to the criticisms of its later actions.
The widespread criticism concerns flaws in the government’s communication about the lifting of quarantine measures.
One example came on May 23, when Stepanov said at his morning briefing that Kyiv wasn’t ready to reopen the metro due to the high number of new COVID-19 cases.
Just about an hour later he backed down: Actually, Kyiv was ready and could open its main transportation channel.
It brought suspicions of political intervention, because Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko supported re-opening the metro.
But Liashko defends the ministry and tries to explain the quick change of opinion — albeit, not too convincingly.
“After the minister said the metro couldn’t be re-opened, we recalculated the indicators (the infection rates) using the latest data on the number of cases,” he says.
“And the new indicators showed that Kyiv was fit for reopening.”
The same thing happened in early June, when restaurants in Ukraine were allowed to open for indoor service. Restaurants in Kyiv opened, only to be told hours later that the city isn’t ready for re-opening. Finally, on June 24, movie theaters were allowed to re-open — but the very next day, the government postponed their opening by one week.
Liashko blames it all on the fast-changing data: a city or region that could be allowed to lift a restriction on one day can be denied that same right on the next day.
But Liashko denies that there is any political calculus in deciding whether to ease the quarantine restrictions.
“There are discussions, but they are based on scientific data and statistics,” he says. “None of the decisions we made were political.”
Future unclear
Despite having first-hand knowledge about the pandemic in Ukraine and his background in infectious diseases, even Liashko doesn’t know what will happen with the pandemic.
“We tried making predictions before, and we saw it didn’t work so well,” he says. “Although we’re doing a lot of modeling and looking at different scenarios, it’s impossible to predict what will happen.”
But if the second wave of the virus comes — which seems increasingly more likely as the number of cases continues growing every day — Ukraine will be prepared for it, he says.
As for a vaccine, it’s too early to say when Ukraine might get it, once it’s developed.
“The government appointed the people who are reaching out to vaccine developers abroad,” he says. “They are looking into whether there already are queues (of countries) ready to buy it, and we’ll see what Ukraine can count on.”
Quarantine violations
On June 25, Ukraine reported 994 new cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours — a new daily record. But as the number of infections grows, people appear to be more reluctant to abide by quarantine than ever.
As the Kyiv Post spoke with Liashko on the bench next to the entrance to the Health Ministry’s headquarters in Kyiv, people were entering and leaving the ministry.
Despite a sign on the door that warned, “No entrance without a face mask!”, about half of them weren’t wearing one.
“That’s life,” says Liashko about their negligence, adding that they probably put a mask on once inside.
Everyone is tired, he admits. But it is vital — literally — for people to continue to wear masks in public places and to practice social distancing.
“People heard about the ‘easing of quarantine’ and took it to mean that quarantine ended,” he said. “But that’s not the case. We are in this soft stage of quarantine and we will have to live in it for some time — we don’t know for how long.”
Still, he rejects widespread criticism that blames Ukrainians’ neglect of safety measures on mentality or habitual distrust for state orders.
“I think that our people demonstrated in these past months that they can be organized, and they can listen and trust the government’s recommendations,” Liashko says.
$600 cup of coffee
The number of people neglecting quarantine restrictions prompted the government and President Volodymyr Zelensky to address Ukrainians and strongly ask them to remain serious about the threat. Zelensky asked the national police to enforce the quarantine more vigorously.
That means charging violators with fines that start at Hr 17,000 ($630) — a painfully large sum, as Liashko learned first-hand.
The chief sanitary doctor, who spent months calling on Ukrainians to take quarantine seriously, was spotted violating it in early June.
On June 3, Liashko accompanied Zelensky and several other officials on a work trip to Khmelnytsky, a city of 265,000 people some 300 kilometers west of Kyiv. The group made a stop at a local coffee house. They sat inside and had espressos. The President’s Office shared a photo of the happy gathering.
On the next day, the government would allow restaurants to open, but at the time, they could only serve clients on summer terraces or sell take-out — meaning that the president and chief sanitary doctor violated quarantine.
Chief Sanitary Doctor Viktor Liashko (in the background) watches as President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials have coffee during a working trip to Khmelnytsky on June 3. The group violated quarantine by visiting the cafe, which resulted in Hr 17,000 ($636) fines for each, including Liashko.
After an uproar on social media, the police fined all the members of the group, including the owner of the cafe. Each now has to pay the Hr 17,000 fine and some Hr 400 in court fees.
“It’s a lot of money,” Liashko says. “My wife keeps reminding me about it.”
Liashko says he doesn’t understand how the violation happened. They were originally supposed to sit outdoors, but “ended up at the table inside.” He doesn’t remember who was the first one to take a seat. At the time, he didn’t realize they were violating restrictions.
Was the coffee at least good?
“I didn’t even drink any,” he admits. “I was just chatting with the owner.”
Politics next?
Lately, Liashko’s name started popping up in conversations that had nothing to do with coronavirus. Ukrainian media reported, citing various anonymous sources, that he is considering running for mayor of Kyiv, and may even have the support of the ruling party, Servant of the People.
The election takes place in October. The current mayor Klitschko will be running for reelection. He leads in the polls with around 40% of support. And yet there is no shortage of those who want to challenge him — for the publicity of the campaign, if nothing else.
If Liashko indeed runs, he will join a crowded pool of candidates that includes experienced politicians, lawmakers and TV celebrities.
Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kyiv-based political analyst and commentator, says the Liashko’s chances to win are slim but it all depends on what he does with his sudden popularity.
According to the April poll by the Rating Group sociological company, Liashko is one of the most trusted public figures in Ukraine.
“He has a high level of recognition and, by many accounts, he has a higher approval rating than other government officials,” says Fesenko. “The task is to convert the approval rating into the electoral rating.”
When Liashko is asked about whether he will run, he changes instantly. The official who battles the deadly virus is gone. Instead, there is a young man who fidgets uncomfortably, smiles broadly, and gives no direct answer.
“We need to defeat the coronavirus first,” he says.
It’s not a “no.”
“It’s not a yes, either,” he says.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleksiy Sorokin contributed to this story.
