Hall of Shame. Ukrainian politicians and media personalities who have supported the Russian aggression against Ukraine

Читати українською

Russia attacked Ukraine. Such times of need usually show people’s true colours. After our victory is it important that we know those public figures (politicians, social activists, news analysts etc) of Ukraine who have supported the aggression.

That is why Detector Media makes its Hall of Shame. This is the list of the actual comments of people that only one place waits for after those words. And it’s not a public office or a chair in a talk show.

At the same time lots of media personalities and characters that we claimed to be pro-Russian or promoting Russian rhetorics of decoy and propaganda, changed their line of argument and started supporting Ukraine, criticizing Putin’s aggression, and cheering the successes of our defenders. We won’t evaluate how honest they are in this change, but we believe that all those who support us when Ukraine is under attack by Russia’s military powers, are on our side.

Not so much those that make this list.

March 01

Andriy Telizhenko. A former employee of the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, whose firstly has his visa revoked by the United States and then got some sanctions added. Nobody is shaking Telizhenko's hand anyway (except on Medvedchuk's channel), but still, he decides to nail down his status. On February 26, this looser of diplomacy posted a video on his Facebook blaming Ukraine in war.

“Why did you have to bring it all to what we have now?”— he asks President Zelensky. He tells him about the lost opportunities to reach an agreement with Russia. He asks why the leader of the state has not calculated everything and has not made the right decisions? He is indignant that Zelensky got himself in trouble, and now he is hiding behind the special forces while people “die for him”. In his speech there is not a single accusation against the Kremlin, you don’t hear the word “Russia” itself. Just the same as Telizhenko's name cannot be heard in decent company.

Renat Kuzmin. MP from the Opposition Platform For Life. As the deputy prosecutor general, he was involved in the case against Yuriy Lutsenko in time of Yanukovych's presidency. After the Russian-Ukrainian war started in 2014, he was one of Moscow's most outspoken lobbyists, to such extent that he earned the title of “The Worst Speaker on Television” according to Detector Media. After the Russian attack on February 24, Kuzmin has posted two Facebook posts showing that he is an abomination.

On February 25, the former politician published a historical journey into the situation, that is worthy of Putin. According to him, Turchynov started the war, and then all Ukrainian leaders “were shooting, bombing, arresting, maiming and humiliating the people of the rebellious Donbass.” Russia supports the self-proclaimed republics in the same way that “NATO countries still support the Kiev conspirators”. He also accuses Ukraine of Nazism. And in the end, he calls for three things: the immediate resignation of the government, the creation of a “non-Bandera state”, the refusal of citizens to sacrifice themselves for the sake of “a gang of Nazi criminals and a clown president.” That is, his demands coincide with Putin's demands.

On February 26, the collaborator decided to criticize the distribution of weapons in Kyiv. He tried to expose the defenders of Ukraine as criminals, but this is not the worst thing in the post. Kuzmin accused Ukrainian forces of shooting a family in Kyiv. And then he justified the killing of civilians by Russia: “But machine guns in the hands of civilians change everything, machine guns equate civilians with the military. It means that any soldier on either side of the conflict has the right to destroy a civilian, taking him for an enemy, even if the civilian just is smoking peacefully on a bench near his house with a machine gun under his arm. At the same time, other civilians may also be injured, for example, the smoker's neighbors, sitting on the same bench, but without machine guns.”

In those postings there is not a single word of Russia as the aggressor. We suspect that in the same manner, Kuzmin is not in Ukraine. But we will take him back for the court proceedings.

Denys Zharkykh. A former journalist (he even wrote for us), that now is the host on Medvedchuk's channels.

In his huge vanilla post on March 1, Denys Zharkykh declares two things. Firstly, that he is an emo: “I have no pride, no desire to teach you, I am the same as you are — a living corpse, sucked into military hell to become the ashes that will fly into the abyss of Oblivion.”

Secondly, Russia did not cause the war, but reacted to the one that Ukraine had started earlier: “Russia [...] has decided that since the United States and Europe allow shooting at Russians in Ukraine, they have the right to shoot at Ukrainians." Then there are the following words: “Russia has done with Ukraine what Ukraine has been doing with Donbas for 8 years.” And in the end of his post, Zharkykh justifies Putin's nuclear threats: “As if Russia has a choice.” The text somewhat condemns the Kremlin's actions, but only at the level of “everyone is equally bad”. We will get rid not only of the Russian propagandist, but also of the incompetent scribbler, if we send this collaborator to the place where all collaborators should go.

Ruslan Kotsaba. A self-proclaimed journalist and Medvedchuk’s propagandist who is well known to the readers of Detector Media, he already has got a suspicion in treason after the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014. But life has not taught him anything.

Kotsaba so far has been the only person who has hit upon the idea to post memes during the Russian attack — those about Russian power and the betrayal of the West, and excerpt from Diesel Show about the parts of Ukraine that are so different but united.

In his posts the propagandist disguises himself as pacifist, he criticizes the war as it is, and equates the guilt of the participants: “Putin and Zelensky are murderers if they do not immediately agree on an urgent meeting for peace talks.” Although it should be obvious even to Medvedchuk's secondary presenter that defense and attack are completely different actions. And giving up on them will have completely different consequences.

In another post Kotsaba turns a part-time bot and talks about “eight years”. This Facebook pacifist is outraged by the “double standards of our flag-waiving community”, that allegedly only now begins to understand what is happening in Eastern Ukraine. And he blames Ukrainians that “somehow you, especially my fellow Galicians, were not so surprised by this horror, infanticide, and fratricide then…” It is difficult to say whether it is possible to be further from reality. After all, Ukrainians have been fighting Russia since 2014 precisely because they have seen and understood all ITS crimes. And they are defending themselves now because of that. But Kotsaba hints at Ukraine's guilt.

28.02

Anatoliy Burmych. One more MP of Opposition Platform who wasted his chance to stay a real Ukrainian after the Russian attack. Burmych had some experience of lies about external influence, but after Russian invasion had started, he surpassed himself. Ex-politician imagined some conspiracy theory about mysterious “them” who caused the war so that Ukrainians hated Russians and Europe fell out with Russia. Judging by Burmych’s inclinations he suspects that it’s USA because “it is definitely of no use to Russia.” Just imagine, even during the open war, declared by Putin personally, MP of OPFL continues blaming someone else. At other times future ex-MP was creating panic about the Ukrainian government that did not agree to the negotiations “anywhere” and probably planned to die “altogether”. And, of course, we have to highlight this sentence about Ukraine’s defense: “I can’t fully understand in this situation. [Defense of] what, at what costs and what for?” This is not the only speech of such kind heard from Burmych.

Olena Bondarenko. Ex-regions MP was glad about Russia recognizing the republics on the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and often broadcasted propagandist rhetoric in pro-Russian media before. At the beginning of Russian attack, she blamed Ukraine and emphasized Russia’s power with a metaphor about a “bear” and its “lair”. So, it means that Ukrainian Armed Forces push the beasts back to their caves?

We poked a bear with a stick too many times. It woke up and left its lair(((

Snizhana Yehorova. Ex-TV-presenter and fan of Putin put responsibility for the war on Ukrainian government in the video on her Youtube channel. In particular, she called Ukrainian President “a war criminal.” She tried to prove that the information about Russian army shooting a residential house in Kyiv is a fake. It seems that we will never see Snizhana in “Dance with the stars” again.

ZELENSKY IS A WAR CRIMINAL!!!

ALL THE SUFFERING OF UKRAINIAN PEOPLE IS ON HIS CONSCIENCE!!!

He has to stop the movement of Russian army through the negotiations with Moscow!!!

And he announces the general mobilization instead!!!

He does not let men out of the country with their families!!!

And gives lethal weapon to the peaceful people!!!

And this is THE ONE who threatened THE WORLD that he quits the deal of non-proliferation of nuclear weapon and possibly creates DIRTY NUCLEAR BOMB!!!

The rest of Ukraine LEARNED NOTHING from the deaths of Donbas children…

PEOPLE!!!!

COME TO YOUR SENSES!!!!

Wish you all a Guardian Angel!!!

Andriy Yermolaiev. “Of course, Russia’s military campaign is a historic crime, but…” You can see at least two red flags in these words of pro-Russian analyst, close to Firtash-Lyovochkin camp. It is good that Yermolayev at least believes that Russian war as a crime. It is bad that he does not call it a war and has some “buts” in times when Ukrainian statehood is threatened. Yermolaiev took to promoting defeatism on air of Ukrlive channel: he proposed to have “Brest Peace” now (admitting the defeat of Ukraine), because a possible military defeat could lead to disaster. Does he really believe that surrender on Russian terms will not lead to any disaster?

Yuriy Zahorodniy. Another MP from Opposition Platform For Life. Zahorodniy got delusional in his speech on the Ukrlive channel. On February 25, he continued to promote Medvedchuk, who allegedly offered Ukrainians some promising national idea. He talked of total foreign governance, saying that today Ukrainians got to understand that our state became a colony of the USA. But the coolest thing was that he called on Ukrainians to demand the resignation and re-election of the government if it did not negotiate with Russia “in the hours ahead.” More than 48 hours have passed since that and Ukrainians have a folk wisdom for Zahorodniy: “curses come home to roost.”

February 27

Denys Neviadomskyi. He is an ex-judge and currently Kharkiv MP from OPFL.

He signed his own doom on air of Ukrlive channel. Neviadomsky technically urged Ukraine to capitulate, that is to give up NATO, to acknowledge self-proclaimed republics on the occupied territory, and to establish diplomatic relations with them. While Ukraine’s Armed Forces protect Kharkiv, Neviadomskyi talks of “suicide” of the state if it joins anti-Russian block. As an encore, ex-public figure even repeats Russian propaganda about NATO’s expansion.

Neviadomskyi himself reproached us after his appearance in our Hall of Shame — he said that he had never talked of supporting the aggression. We have studiously listened to this video once again and we apologize as we forgot to write that Denys Neviadomskyi offered to talk about recognition of sо-called people’s republics within Donetsk and Luhansk regions (that is to give free territories of these regions to Russia) and establishing diplomatic relations with them.

Hanna Herman. Ex-member of the Party of Regions and ex-speaker of Yanukovychi is currently a part-time speaker of Russian army. In the video on Ukrlive channel she talks of “Donbas mothers” as if they did not suffer from this very Russian army. She directly urges President Zelensky to compromise. She repeats Russian rhetoric that the war is caused by Ukraine’s reluctance to defy NATO. She believes that President Zelensky is “controlled”, and he refuses to negotiate because of that. And she finishes her performance with Biblical cool stories about “brothers” who can live in peace because “there are not so many casualties among civilians”. Herman is ready to forgive all these murders to Russians, and Ukrainians are not ready to forgive Herman.

Olesya Medvedieva. She is an experienced propagandist that kept the blog of Strana.ua and supported the points of Russian propaganda in her signature bold style. Now Olesya’s attitude changed to defeatism. She calls for a “bad peace” and not a “good war”. She calls Ukraine for negotiations while Russia still gives this chance. And she obviously intimidates Ukrainians with Russian power and gives a speech about it at the end of the video. Those who support peace won’t take the weapons. People with weapons will be shoot at. And the government in general should not urge people to attack Russian armament with Molotov cocktails because that puts peaceful people under attack. We remind ex-announcer that Russia needs no reason to attack peaceful cities. And armed Ukrainians, actually, protect those peaceful people.

26.02

Yevheniy Muraiev. He is an ex-member of the Party of Regions and the opposition coalition who lately tried to stay in the politics with the Ours (Nashi) party and tv-channel Nash. He used to describe Oleg Sentsov as a terrorist, talked of civil war in Ukraine, believed that NATO was a Nazi union, blamed the annexation of Crimea on Kyiv government, as well as other ways of “instigating Russia”. On February 24, in his Facebook he claimed that Ukraine is to be blamed for the war: “All those years our government lived from the war, built all its politics around it and now the war got at our doorway. This is the consequence of wrong and stupid decisions, and we all must face it now.” Not a single word of condemnation for Russia — it is not mentioned at all.

Later Muraiev expanded on his attitude:

1. I told you so, but you didn’t listen.

2. All that is happening is the “fight of the world powers” (this common Russian rhetoric was also used to condone Putin’s attack: as if they wage war against the West, not Ukraine).

3. It’s still not too late to become a neutral state.

Maybe Muraiev still dreams of the British intelligence predictions coming true. But it is more likely that he will run for the office not in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, but in Russia’s Duma (if they let him in as he is currently under the sanctions).

Illya Kyva. He was fighting against Russia in 2014, came into public politics with Arsen Avakov’s help, and joined Opposition Platform For Life in 2019. Kyva was leading an information war against Ukraine on resources of Putin’s crony, that is, he was talking about civil war, demonizing people of Western Ukraine, saying that Kyiv instigates war and so on. He has left Ukraine on January 30 and it seems that he has no intention to come back. Right before the intrusion Kyva posted a video in which he urged Putin to free Ukraine. Since then, he constantly cheers aggressor’s “success” on his Telegram channel. Before the beginning of military actions, he told, that he is in Spain and did not plan to come back. It is doubtful that Spanish parliament has anything for Kyva. Bad news for him: Spain gives the criminals out to Ukraine.

Yuriy Dudkin. This professional propagandist faced criminal accusation on suspicion of treason a year ago. He justified the annexation of Crimea, imposed lies of civil war, accused Ukraine of planning to offence the occupied territory, praised Russian army. Dudkin lives with this suspicion for a year now, so he chooses rather subtle wording to express his attitude. He knows that Ukraine will win, and he will have to answer for this. But in other posts he tries to mock Ukrainian defenders and sow fear among Ukrainians.

The Ministry of Defense of Russia informed RIA Novosti that military infrastructure, anti-aircraft defense, military airfields and aircraft of Ukrainian army are being disabled with precision-guided attacks.

There is no threat for Ukrainian civilians.

The new history is being created right in front of our eyes.

The history of the fall of the state that chose the path of antihumanism.

I don’t get it. And what about the “complete and final victory”?
(Zelensky claimed that “he doesn’t know how long his country will stand”)

Up until recently Dudkin has been coming to the studios of Medvedchuk’s TV-channels, so he is probably staying in Ukraine. When Russian army will be retreating, he may ask them to take him away, even if on the shield, as there are more proofs of treason now.

Dmytro Spivak. A looser among politicians who happened to join almost all political parties in course of his career — from Nataliia Korolevska and Poroshenko’s Bloc to the Homeland and the Servant of the People. Lately he was a usual guest and even a host of the shows on Medvedchuk’s channels. Now he has been working on Rinat Akhmetov’s channel for a year, and he tells, that the war in Ukraine is instigated by the USA. Also, Spivak complains of “American biolaboratories” in Ukraine and has been calling for our state’s neutrality six months ago because “there will be no war with Russia.” With the invasion Spivak decided that Putin was “outplayed and systematically pushed to this mad decision”, and that Russian president was simply “tricked.”

THEY OUTPLAYED HIM

They outplayed him informationally, and systematically pushed him to this mad decision.

And he was tricked by it. And he took those monstrous and inadequate actions. Though some weeks ago he said that he would never do it.

Ukraine will stand and there will be no broad invasion, no occupied towns. I still believe it. And they don’t have power to occupy even a third of the territory, except for some Donbas settlements.

For now, the West has won politically. and Putin has lost. But anyway, they will sit down to talk and will try to drive the situation away during the next year. It is highly important that we participate in these negotiations, at least as a subject if not on equal terms.

It is a pity that all these military actions and intergalactic quarrel take place on our land and at our country’s expense. Combat will be over, and the question is how we will rebuild the economy and military infrastructure.

But I am sure that this situation will be the lesson for us as well. It concerns the government’s actions during the peaceful [time], as well as our economics, as well as our inner politics and outer priorities, for sure.

But I will talk about it later…

And now let’s wait for the end of this madness, without panic, without fear, let’s not be tricked into provocations and fakes, let’s not leave and run…

The spring will come and there will be no war!

Truth and justice will prevail anyway!

Afterwards he sort of supported Ukraine vocally but mostly accused the government, as majority of its representatives “drink coffee in Europe”, and also advised to “talk” that for him is approximately the same that capitulation is for us. Spivak claims that Ukraine “will stand” but “everything will change” — Putin in general talks the same.

Nestor Shufrych. One of the brightest representatives of Opposition Platform For Life decided to help Russia. Putin tries to scare the Ukrainians in vain and at the same his buffers time impose Kremlin demands. There is no condemnation of Russia’s actions (“escalation” instead of “attack”) in his speeches but there is a demand to give up: “defining the neutral status for Ukraine.”

“In course of the meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky in Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine fraction OPFL offered to start negotiations with RF about de-escalation based on the defining the neutral status for Ukraine and assuring the safety on the base of the model implemented by Austrian Republic.

We believe that this opens the way to stop the conflict, bring back the stability to our country and, which is the most important, to save lives of our citizens. We were offering it before, but now it is to the point like never before.

Such unrealistic NATO’s projects are not worth life and wellbeing of our people.

By the way, soon after that Strana.ua and other pro-Russian dumpsters broadcasted the message that Shufrych convinced Zelensky basically to agree to the neutral status. However, firstly Zelensky said that he did not see the guarantees and the guarantors of Ukraine’s safety. Secondly, Putin’s demands don’t stop at Ukraine’s neutrality.

 Tetyana Montyan. Experienced propagandist and Ukrainophob has been calling Putin for a long time, as well as helping Russia to demonize Ukraine in UNO. At this stage Montyan is really settled in the Hall of Shame. But if you need more proof — Russian invasion makes her openly happy, and she talks of changing flags.

Zmagarki are anxious for some reason ;Р

A long column of military machinery marked with V was noticed in Brest. Somehow this news was omitted by news broadcasts. It’s a shame. For it means that there are plans not only for Kyiv and Odesa, but for all Ukraine. It is like Maydown slogans: “East and West together” and “Together and to the end!”

I hope that no one in the ancient Russian Halych and principality Halychyna, named after it, hopes to run for Poland under all the shouting? We are to build a new country here, on the grounds of denazification and debanderization. In brotherly love with Russians and Bielorussians. ???? It’s time to prepare for putting new portraits and flags on the facades of the buildings, honorable gentlemen. Or is it better to call you “comrades” already?

However, in her Telegram channel, the propagandist sometimes expresses her sympathy, worries about the fate of peaceful citizens bombed by her Russian friends and says that she prays for the quick victory of Russia so that it does not have to kill us all. Not bad.

Oleksii Kalinichenko. He is a pro-Russian political analyst you never heard of. But he is real, unfortunately. After the beginning of the Russian invasion Kalinichenko accused Ukraine in Nazism, mocked armed forces, and tried to bleach Russia white of eight years of war and more than 14 thousand deaths.

Demilitarization and denazification mean Ukraine without Bandera.

Shame on them! Came to war only eight years after it started. They were waited for… and they wandered in the middle of nowhere.

On February 25, Kalinichenko appeared on Medvedchuk’s channel Ukrlive (through videocall) and presenter Diana Panchenko asked him in Ukrainian to express his opinion. It was that Ukraine needs either to surrender or “continue to put peaceful people under the bullets.” Still, Kalinichenko did not point who exactly fire these bullets.

Mykhailo Mishchaniuk. He is young but not promising pro-Russian tv-analyst. Denies the war with Russia even now.

Everything’s like I said — there would be no war. This is a special military operation. Peaceful citizens will not be hurt in this format. So, don’t panic. Stay at home. Everything will be all right.

Opposition Platform For Life. The party of Putin’s crony waited a bit and expressed its position only on the second day of Russia’s war with Ukraine. It is predictable: “We are sure that nowadays millions of Ukrainians are able to appreciate those feelings and reasons that has been making us fight for ceasing fire and establishing peace on Donbas. It was never done because our government lacked political will.” No condemnation for Russia, basically blaming Ukraine, self-promotion. And, of course, forcing the negotiations: “The situation demands more persistence for President Zelensky in organization of these negotiations.” Also, OPFL offers its own help but it seems that Ukraine does not need it anymore.

MPs of this party did not take the chance to take Ukraine’s side. Only one member of their fraction supported implementation of the state of emergency on the eve of Russian invasion, the rest did not participate in the vote at all. Vadym Rabinovych, ex-founder of the party and one of its leaders, shares fakes about alleged taking Zelensky out “to the shelter”, criticizes the government for giving weapons to Kyiv’s defenders, calling that agony, and promotes negotiations with Putin (in other words — capitulation). Renat Kuzmin openly repeats Putin’s demands to Ukraine, as if in his own name. Still, most of them prefer not to show themselves at all — their pages in social media froze before February 24. Notably, the party leader Viktor Medvedchuk is silent — he should have been on house arrest in Kyiv suburbs.

New names are constantly added to this list. You can help us by sending your examples but you’d better unfollow these traitors and read official sources that provide truthful information.