Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has sharply criticised Volodymyr Zelensky and his team for Ukraine not securing an invitation to join the North Atlantic defense alliance at the recent NATO summit in Vilnius. While leaders in Kyiv are domestically communicating achievements at the summit a success, the country's popular Telegram political messaging channels are reporting of a complete flop and a show of insecurity.
Sensing a sign of weakness and in keeping with Ukrainian political tradition, his predecessor Poroshenko lashed out against President Zelensky. In a speech to the Kyiv Supreme Council, the former president blamed Zelensky and his circles for Ukraine's failure to win an invitation to join NATO at the Vilnius summit. However, Poroshenko was also critical of NATO's, in his view hypocritical, policy, saying that the "open doors" should actually be open;
For two days, our country lived in hope and trusted that the NATO summit in Vilnius would be successful. I don't see where those who claim that Vilnius was very successful for Ukraine have found any tangible results. Unfortunately, today's Vilnius is very similar to the Vilnius that happened in 2013, when Ukraine did not sign the association agreement with the European Union, which I finally signed after I was elected.
Poroshenko recalled that in 2013, the then President Viktor Yanukovych also failed to sign the EU-Ukraine association agreement in Vilnius, which led to the unrest on Maidan.
"And now we have not received a well-deserved invitation to join NATO, while the Ukrainian army is defending the eastern flank of the alliance. Neither the parliament, nor the president, nor the president's office, nor even the government has done everything in its power," Poroshenko said, stressing that only the army alone has done all it could to promote NATO membership. "Unfortunately, the current Vilnius document is nothing but a photocopy of the 2008 Bucharest summit," the former president continued. And the G7 declaration only mentions the intent for defense guarantees - anyone can look at it - the word guarantee is simply not in it. What is laid down in it is nothing other than the start of consultations in the event of a future war. I am well aware of how these consultations took place in 2014, and in any case, we must not repeat this. We don't need words about open doors."
If the doors are open, let us in through them! Seeing that they didn't let us in the door, it means it's closed, but then tell the truth!
the former president retorted.
However, Poroshenko noted that the partners should be thanked for the weapons and long-range missiles. He also said that there had been much discussion regarding the summit, with some blaming the government and others blaming Biden for the failure. But for who is actually at fault will have to be discussed after the war. The former president said that preparations for the NATO summit in Washington in a year's time should start now: meeting the conditions for the invitation, implementing judicial reform, defending democracy, and protecting human rights and press freedom. This is the responsibility of the Ukrainians.
Of course, in agreement with his successor, Poroshenko did not mention in his speech the obligation to observe minority rights, which NATO would also expect from Ukraine at the request of Hungary and Romania.
This is not by accident, since it was under his watch in 2017 that the measures making the use of minority languages in the country impossible began. During his term of office, first the exclusionary Education Act and then the Language Act were passed, which virtually bans the use of any other language. Finally, the authorities started to harass indigenous ethnic groups, including Hungarians, who protested against it.
Afghanistan playbook
The popular Telegram channels are not letting the Vilnius summit pass without a word. For example, Kartel, a mostly insider political information sharing channel, which is considered to have opposition leanings, bluntly states:
Rumors are spreading that behind the scenes there are an increasing number of people who claim that the Afghanistan playbook is what awaits Ukraine. Or in a better case scenario the Korean.
As they write, after the failure in Vilnius, this feeling increased tenfold and frustrations are rapidly growing.
But the Kyiv authorities are masters at deflecting failure. They recently succeeded in diverting attention away from the loss of Bahmut by focusing the entire press, which continues to be manually controlled during the war, on the Belgorod region, where "Russian Free Forces" invading from Ukraine were rampaging through some villages. It is no different now.
During the NATO summit, the city council of Kyiv, which is known to be 90 percent Russian-speaking, banned Russian-language songs, concerts, books, cultural and handicraft products, and works of art in public places.
According to the report, the ban is aimed at protecting the Ukrainian information space from the influence of the aggressor state.
Let's beat up Orban
Regarding the NATO summit, which ultimately ended in failure for Ukraine, the diversion of public attention within the public square has started on all fronts across the board. Trans-Carpathia is no exception.
However, in that region, Hungarians are to blame, as they are for everything else, for Ukraine not being invited to NATO.
For example, Vitaliy Glagola, a freelance journalist from Uzhhorod (Ungvar) Ukraine, who has a striking and well-known relationship with the interior affairs authorities, often puts out posts blaming Hungarians for Ukraine's failures. He did so in this case too. In his latest post on NATO, he wrote:
We demand three things:
- Entry into NATO
- F-16's
- Beat up orban [lower case]
The pundit, also popular among nationalists, eventually deleted his post, but the internet never forgets.
Cover photo: Volodymyr Zelensky standing alone at the NATO summit in Vilnius (Photo: Getty Images/Yves Herman)
