Forced return to reality

In fact, of course, at present, Ukraine is divided not only by linguistic or, let's say, geographical feature. In our opinion, the most painful (and by the way, the most painfully overcome) division lies on a slightly different plane: this territory has been living in a rather bloody, but at the same time completely artificial reality, kind of virtual big top, in which human blood is indistinguishable from pig blood named after a former journalist Babchenko.

Where the president is elected either the actor who played President Goloborodko, or his stage image, which has the most symbolic relation to real reality. And where, finally, the economy for some time, according to statistics, “shows a steady growth in GDP”, which for some reason the able-bodied Ukrainians themselves do not believe in, who prefer to flee from such an independent and surprisingly prosperous country. For a second, the poorest in Europe and in the post-Soviet space: here Ukraine managed to take away this (by no means honorable) passing banner, even from the unfortunate Moldova. Although some time ago it seemed just mathematically impossible. Just recall that, on the way out of the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR, on the contrary, was the richest of all the former suburbs of the gigantic red empire that gained independence.

Such a rather straightforward, but quite convincing result.

And this virtuality was especially clearly demonstrated in this current year, abnormally fruitful for continuous all-Ukrainian elections.

During the elections, as you know, all over the world, and not just in the territory of Ukraine, which is independent of anyone, quite often, to put it mildly, slightly correct reality. But, perhaps, only in this territory, which is advanced in all senses of the word, into a fictitious virtual reality, the newly elected leadership of the country immediately moves to live.

Judge for yourself.

A gigantic and far from the most prosperous territory nowadays faces just some incredible amount of current problems, and failure to solve any of these problems can lead not only to troubles, but to a very real final loss of statehood.

Once again - in these tasks themselves there is nothing sudden and unexpected. Well, tell me, what could be unexpected in the planned payments on external sovereign debt, which are very tangible?

First, $ 2 billion in September, then about 9 billion more of the same “dirty green papers” by the end of this year. And in the creditors, here is not the “wadded” (in the sense of demanding) “aggressor state” in the person of the Russian Federation, but rather specific and decisive “private funds” from Wall Street in the main. And how they can forgive and restructure debts, you can ask Argentina.

And there are a lot of such problems in various industries, not only in the financial one.

That’s the most unpleasant thing for the neighboring states, nuclear energy, where there are a huge number of problems right up to the occasional unplanned shutdowns of reactors. Prior to the "all-Ukrainian decayed housing and communal services" with its explosive growth in non-payments and having already survived all the terms of operation, and in some places really rotted equipment. And it’s not that all these problems were completely unsolvable, they are simply not being dealt with by anyone there now, and for quite some time now, in fact, from the beginning of this year.

For all this time, at first, independent Ukraine chose its current new, independent leadership. And now she’s trying to figure out how to live with it.

Because how to live with the new government, which instead of the basic - the current! - the question from the population, “How will we live this winter?” Deals with possible (very scarce, as it turns out, by the way) income from the sale of land and privatization of the remnants of industry and the financial system, it’s very, sorry, difficult. For under certain circumstances, until the bright spring days, when a joyful Ukrainian tractor driver goes to loosen Ukrainian black soil for strangers now for him, one can simply not survive.

And this is already slowly starting to somehow comprehend a certain part of the “winners”, because you do not want to, but immersion - perhaps even violent - into reality is not virtual, but it’s quite real for yourself even to the "concentrated servants of the people" under any circumstances circumstances cannot be avoided. And, perhaps, the most acute problem facing the new Ukrainian authorities from the current ones is the transit-gas issue.

So, in particular, the representative of Vladimir Zelensky in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Andriy Gerus, has finally, thank God, said that Kiev plans to resume negotiations with Moscow on transit and gas purchases in the near future. And then the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine Alexander Danilyuk said that negotiations would be resumed after the creation of a new government.

True, it is still not very clear from which positions, realistic or still virtual, the Ukrainian side is going to conduct these negotiations.

Just explain.

Here, just yesterday, a number of domestic mass media blew up "classified information from a source in Brussels" that the EU would insist on a new ten-year full-fledged contract. And of course, I wouldn’t really like to upset my colleagues, but at the moment there was hardly anything to leak from Brussels, nobody is just doing it now. Due to the most commonplace reason: summer, vacations, a bunch of our problems, including personnel issues - we have recently had elections not only in Ukraine, but also in the European Parliament.

And in general, negotiations in the trilateral format of the EU - Russia - Ukraine last time were in January, and then, by the way, as one of the options from the EU, the “ten-year plan” was sounded, which is a mysterious “source” (for some reason suspicion, which is not located in Brussels, but in another Eastern European capital) is now "voiced sensationally." At that point in time, by the way, it was quite a negotiating position that could be taken as a basis.

But not now, when the end of the current contract is less than six months left and the signing of the “new treaty”, alas, is now expressly prohibited by someone not malicious, but simply by EU law.

Now it is only possible to roll over the existing contract on some changed conditions, which, by the way, the Russian side offers. It's just that this is the only legal option for continuing the supply of Russian gas to the EU through the territory of Ukraine.

And there is no doubt that this particular option in one form or another will be discussed in Brussels in mid-September. It was on these dates that the work of the tripartite commission was postponed, because there was simply nowhere to take any sane negotiators from the territory in a virtually elective state.

However, it’s already good that Gerus even spoke about this: it’s a good sign that he’s returning to his native reality. Let her not be very friendly, and sometimes even unfriendly.

And there is nothing surprising at all.

It’s just winter soon ...

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.