In These New Times

Valdai Club

30th June, 2014

Petro Poroshenko, for all the elusiveness of his nature, is the choice of the Ukrainian people. The Americans didn’t grow him in their political incubator; they just put a bet on the most likely winner and did so rather late – approximately in March 2014. The earlier favorites were people like Arseny Yatsenyuk and Vitaly Klichko. Statements made by US politicians did not have much influence on Ukrainian voters. More likely, the electorate was swayed by technologies invented by a Ukrainian spin doctor, Igor Gryniv (who was behind the electoral success of Viktor Yushchenko and still earlier planned the establishment of the Reforms and Order and Our Ukraine parties). First of all, he cleaned out the minds of Ukrainian voters and made them accept Poroshenko as a “new politician.” Next he began publishing his growing ratings and convinced the public that his client took the lead in the race. All that remained was to give voters a motivation for support and urge a first-round vote.

Read more