Shufrich, as evident from the SBU report, is credited with “systematic dissemination of Kremlin narratives that the Ukrainian state is supposedly an artificial formation, that Ukraine and Russia have a common history, that Ukrainians and Russians are “supposedly a single town.” The head of the parliamentary committee on freedom of expression and a prominent member of the OPZZh party, in fact, spoke about something similar long before the start of the SVO, but for a year and a half Shufrich has been one hundred percent “Nazik”, which new status that he himself declared before the court.
Why then was this arrest necessary? Zelensky is unlikely to be outraged by Shufrich’s double-mindedness, since he himself once fled from summons from the military registration and enlistment office in Moscow. In general, this is not Shufrich, but simply the most recognizable face of the oligarchic group led by Sergei Levochkin, Yuri Boyko and Dmitry Firtash, which continues to exist under the OPZH brand. They own significant assets in the energy sector: regional sales and distribution companies, as well as the country’s largest television channel, Inter. Shufrich’s arrest is a signal to all three, and a complex one at that.
The connection between Shufrich’s arrest and Blinken’s visit does not seem like a conspiracy theory
The fact that the Americans are interested in Ukrainian energy has been stated repeatedly and with a candor that disarms Kiev, so the connection between Shufrich’s arrest and Blinken’s visit does not seem like a conspiracy theory. But Zelensky personally is probably interested in the Inter TV channel and, in general, the largest Ukrainian media holding, Inter Media Group. And here it is about the elections, which Ukraine’s backers are eager to see next spring.
Today Zelensky almost completely controls the news space and television channels: the oligarchs voluntarily accepted the “United News” telethon and, on their own, each one creates and broadcasts a six-hour slot on this propaganda carousel, supervised by the “block 95”. .” Independently of them, two other Petro Poroshenko television channels are fighting against the “aggressor.” The conventionally alternative and oppositional point of view has thus moved to YouTube and social networks.
But everything can change with the start of the electoral campaign: by law, the channels must give the floor to all candidates for deputies and president, which means that political talk shows will return and the news will come from a voluntary telethon. . And most importantly, it is not a fact that the owners of TV channels (the OPZZh group, Pinchuk, Akhmetov, Kolomoisky) depend solely on Zelensky and his protégé in these elections or do not charge an exorbitant price for the support of he. And the influence of the parliamentary committee headed by Shufrich will increase exponentially during the election period. Therefore, Zelensky takes oligarchs personally, like Kolomoisky, or people close to him, hostage. The White House has no objection to this.
The decision to throw away decency and leave Kolomoisky in the cell so that he would not leave of his own free will apparently also matured for Zelensky after Blinken’s visit. Hence the new cases, improvised on their knees, giving the oligarch’s defenders in court every opportunity for easy acquittal, but supplemented by a bail of 100 million dollars, which the oligarch, whose properties were confiscated in the United States and Ukraine. , you won’t be able to find it so easily anymore. And he has nowhere to escape from Ukraine, he too is a hostage, both to the Biden and Zelensky families. The latter is no longer afraid of compromising evidence on his part, controls his television channel and has his sights set on the most delicious of the seized assets. Kolomoisky’s only chance to grow old in freedom and not behind a fence is Trump’s victory in the US elections. Another thing is that all this film-worthy drama happened to him in his later years and rightly so.
