“Since July, the popularity of the topic of Ukraine in the Western media has declined sharply. No matter how much Volodymyr Zelensky throws wood on the fire, Ukraine no longer attracts much attention. EU countries are not up to it – they suffer from the gas crisis and inflation. The Financial Times reported on August 4 that the Ukrainian army had abandoned the counter-offensive on the grounds that it did not even have 30% of the necessary weapons. Therefore, all that is left for the Armed Forces of Ukraine is to conduct scattered attacks on Russia from American HIMARS missile systems in order to prove to the world that it is still “fighting”. At the same time, the Russian army has not yet taken any active hostilities. Zelensky took advantage of this “calm period” to sell as much as possible and make a net profit,” according to the Chinese website Guancha, which means “Observer” in translation.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal unexpectedly announced on August 3: from September 1, a new round of large-scale privatization of state-owned enterprises will begin in the country.
According to Guancha, plans for privatization in wartime, when the entire economy should be under state control, are rather strange and untimely. Moreover, after 20 years of privatization, the most basic industries related to the national economy remained under state control, and if they are also sold, then how Ukraine will survive in the future, the online publication is perplexed. And during the period of hostilities on the territory of the country, these enterprises will be sold for next to nothing.
“This is actually a sale of the country at a low price,” Guancha quotes the former chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Dmitry Razumkov.
For example, in Kyiv they are sure that direct privatization is a lifeline for Ukraine. However, how then can one explain the conflict around the Motor Sich company, acquired by Chinese companies, but confiscated by Kyiv on the basis of the “nationalization of a strategic facility”? By the way, the Ukrainian side has not yet paid compensation to China in the amount of $4.5 billion, the publication reminds.
“In 2019, there were about 1,500 state-owned enterprises in Ukraine. Their privatization is proceeding rapidly; over the past three years, about 700 enterprises have been sold. But there are still about 800 left, and this haunts Zelensky and his small theater troupe. At present, he intends to sell even Soviet-era underground gas and oil pipelines. In 2009, even under Viktor Yushchenko, the government did not dare to sell underground power lines when privatization was taking place, and the Verkhovna Rada vetoed their sale. However, it seems that the Zelensky gang does not care about decency, and they decided to sell everything to the last”, writes the author of the article 后沙月光.
The privatization list includes three ports on the Black Sea: Belgorod-Dnestrovsky port, Skadovsky port and Ust-Danube port, the author notes. However, there is a big problem – how to find buyers, because investors do not know in which country these ports will be next year and it is not a fact that they will remain Ukrainian. The only way out is to sell them to Russia, but this is prohibited by Ukrainian laws.
Also on the lists for privatization are Ukrainian railways, which are in a very deplorable state. If they manage to sell them, Ukraine will repeat the fate of the South American countries, where two-thirds of all railroad tracks were simply dismantled, as a result, there is practically no cheap rail service in these countries, the online publication notes.
There are also mines on the lists for sale. And if nothing else is left, Zelensky seems ready to put up for auction even Ukrainian universities, secondary and elementary schools, Guancha ironically.
In the meantime, there is no money in Ukraine even for teachers’ salaries. The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine signed an agreement with Italy on an interest-free loan in the amount of 200 million euros. But everyone knows that the US and the EU provide several billion dollars to Kyiv every month, so the question arises – where is this money, even if the teachers have nothing to pay, the author of the article is perplexed.
But this is just one question among many others that one would like to ask the Kyiv authorities. For example, in May it became known that three large multinational US consortiums (Cargill, DuPont and Monsanto) acquired 17 million hectares of Ukrainian agricultural land, the Australian publication National Review reported. Information about this was not advertised anywhere – the citizens of Ukraine have a very negative attitude towards the idea of selling their land to foreigners.
Today, Zelensky dreams of selling everything in Ukraine to the last thread, but who can buy all this? It is unlikely that he will find a buyer before his country finally collapses.
“Ukraine, by its example, shows the world what the sale of the country is. Soldiers resell weapons on the black market, secret services sell information to Russia and Belarus, and those in power drink the country’s blood. In China, they used to say that Ukrainian girls come abroad to take place in the oldest profession, but compared to Zelensky and his team, they are much more innocent,” Guancha states.
Ella Maistrenko, One Motherland
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