It happened that paradoxically the current presidential elections in Ukraine mean nothing. The process's demiurge implies that regardless of who you, Ukrainians, elect, the new president will be a simulacrum. So be it. We'll figure it out later, we'll educate him in the required format, or we'll think of something else. The main thing is to prolong the situation, to keep things for later.
All leading players on the Ukrainian field - the USA, Germany, France, Poland, "the new two-speed EU", and NATO - have reached a consensus on this strategy. The first point of the consensus: Project "Ukraine", whose first edition in 2014 was aimed at torpedoing the EU's energy security and whose second edition in 2015 sought to turn a poor country into a scarecrow for demonstrating "Putin's aggressive aspirations" (Get united, Europe! Protect yourself! Don't strain Uncle Sam!), is closed once and for all. The second point: there is so far no new Project "Ukraine". Point three: Ukraine is horrible, horrible, horrible!
Let's begin with the French. French politicians don’t know what to do but know well what shouldn't be done! Political analyst Cesar Lesage wrote for Les Echos (December 4, 2018) expressing the opinion of almost all of his colleagues: "Brussels should show cold blood and restraint and shouldn't impose additional sanctions against Russia as this won't yield expected results. It's better to take the position of a peacekeeper and mediator between Russia and Ukraine." The issue is about Europe's understanding the following thing: "Starting from 2014 Kyiv has deliberately tried to take Brussels hostage and drag Europe into an ultra-nationalistic crusade that is increasingly getting out of control."
Arnaud Dubien, the head of the Observatory analytical center at the French-Russian Chamber of Commerce in Moscow said the following about Ukraine in an interview with the journal L'Opinion on December 21, 2018: "The situation is blocked and could get even worse. Ukraine is entering the electoral period, where the presidential elections will take place in March and the parliamentary elections in October.
Some political leaders, especially President Poroshenko, want to resort to the escalation of tensions hoping that this will help them remain in power. We should get prepared for the third gas war next year, because the gas transit contract expires at the end of 2019 and an agreement is unlikely to be reached by that time. As for Donbas, the Minsk Agreements are in stalemate."
It should be stressed that foreign analysts say that corruption is the deadly sin of the current Kyiv authorities. Let's explain to readers that Western politicians advocating globalism have a false image that in some "semi-civilized" countries of Eastern Europe specialists would stop explicitly stealing gratis "financial assistance" that actually is controlled by parliaments and financial institutions of donating countries. That is why the theme song of new Ukraine's electoral cycle is shamanistic rituals "in search for new people."
If we generalize, countries of the world care little about the Ukrainian presidential elections. For example, if we take the popularity of this topic in Ukraine for 1, then the index is 0.39 in Moldova, 0.36 in Belarus, 0.2 in Russia, 0.15 in Latvia. Interest in Ukraine's elections of other countries, especially outside the post-Soviet space, is at the level of statistical error.
Just a few candidates were really popular in Ukraine's public space ahead of the elections.
Vladimir Zelensky is really a shot. He understands (or was hinted) that the creation of new morphological sculptures on mental landscapes and electoral fields happens nowadays according to mass media rules and formats – show yourself on TV and get to the top. Petro Poroshenko also has been on TV since early March thanks to earlier saved news topics. But he has run out of topics, and Zelensky is again on top. Yulia Tymoshenko is undergoing an existential catastrophe – she is no more befriended with the Germans. German media write shamefully little and surprisingly negative things about the elections.
German media is openly rude as far as Tymoshenko is concerned. Just look at this excerpt from a negative article with the journal Der Spiegel (February 23, 2019): "No sexuality, no money, but fame. Five years after the Maidan Yulia Tymoshenko is going to run for presidency. She is ready for everything for this reason." The newspaper Der Tagesspiegel wrote on March 14, 2019: "Tymoshenko hasn't been a revolutionary she used to be for a long time /.../ Brussels should seriously listen to the reconciliatory tone Tymoshenko uses speaking about Putin."
Studying the popularity dynamics of Ukrainian presidential candidates, any "armchair politician" will conclude that the second tour scenario will occur. If we calculate chances of Zelensky, Poroshenko and Tymohsenko, the classical 3:2:1 proportion will emerge. It's not even interesting to elaborate more on this topic.
Let me express a seditious thought that in the current situation any new president of "independent" Ukraine will be a product and a puppet of if not united but negotiable external geopolitical group. American media that surprisingly indifferent to the current campaign in Ukraine literally swear the developments. Usually polite Bloomberg put it bluntly a couple of days ago (March 22, 2019): "The dirtiest election campaign ever" and proved that these are not just a propaganda fake as voters are bought, candidates' conversations tapped and namesake candidates run in the race.
Globalist, anti-Trump and Russophbic newspaper The Washington Post even said in its article on March 18, 2019 that Ukraine should be divided: "If Ukraine can increase its move toward decentralization, removing power from Kiev, it may not actually matter who the next president is."
For those who don't understand, Bukovina for example has long been a part of the specific neo-German world. In Chernivtsi, the local authorities don't erect monuments to Bandera or Shukhevich but there are already three (!!!) monuments to Franz Joseph of Austria. Ukrainian nationalists with irrational anger pour pink paint on the sculptures of the emperor of tragic fate. The beautiful little town of Chernivtsi has been declared "small Vienna."
To make the image settle, a very quality monument to Maria Theresa, a famous icon of Volksdeutsche and those who are nostalgic about the greatness of the Habsburg Empire, has been erected. The opening ceremony was unofficially sponsored by Kyiv's Ministry of Foreign Affairs as it considered (here is Klimkin's quote) as "a proof for the many-century presence of Ukraine in Europe."
The dullness of quality British media is quite reasonable after such tricks. It pretended to be busy with Brexit (and this is an issue indeed). Local media have shown no creativity saying that in any way everything will be for favor of "hateful Putin." The express.co.uk said directly on February 27, 2019 (well citing American political expert Alexander Motyl): "A Zelensky victory would be Putin’s dream scenario."
Here are the deals and doodles.