Ukrainian MP on officials’ foreign trips and parliamentary freedom – interview

NV: It’s not the first day that we’ve been discussing how lawmakers are or not allowed to freely go on business trips abroad. This became relevant after the former Ukrainian president and sitting MP from the European Solidarity parliamentary faction, Petro Poroshenko, wasn’t permitted to leave the country. We saw two responses from Ukraine’s SBU security service. There is an interesting version that Poroshenko planned to meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Russians could allegedly use this. How is all this discussed in the Verkhovna Rada? What is the situation with the permits for MPs’ foreign trips?

Zheleznyak: I don’t know about my colleagues, but I’ve been on business trips abroad quite a bit since the beginning of the war, and I’ve never derived any pleasure from it. First, it’s expensive because I’m doing it at my own expense. Second, it’s long and challenging enough if it’s a busy schedule.

But I fully support the fact that various colleagues often travel abroad, no matter how bad or strange it may sound. Why? Because Ukraine should be on the agenda now. I’ve been chatting with my colleague Inna Sovsun. She is at an environmental conference and says: “There are many Russians here, and they’re promoting their agenda. But there aren’t many of us.”

No matter how some representatives of the President’s Office would like to forget about the existence of lawmakers, but in the civilized world, the deputy head of the President’s Office, the director of a department or anyone else is, I’m sorry, a big nobody. These are people who must buy paper, clean printers, maybe make good coffee. Senators and parliamentarians communicate with their peers, i.e., equal in status. And lawmakers or ministers are equal in status here.

When we send a largely unknown person from the President’s Office to negotiate with senators, it’s, to put it mildly, a violation of protocol. And I’m not talking about other countries of stable democracies that pay even more attention to these things.

NV: As far as I understand, you mean in particular Rostyslav Shurma, the deputy head of the President’s Office. You released information that UAH 428,000 ($11,665) had been spent on a business trip of his from the state budget. Do you mean this case?

Zheleznyak: I’m actually talking about both advisors and political consultants, and not only from the President’s Office, frankly. The problem with Shurma is that he has become the face of corruption. And I don’t understand why we don’t hide this face but send it abroad. As far as I know, international partners asked not to bring him anymore, because if we brought him, then send him to the queue for an iPhone at the AppStore, and not take him to the White House.

Once again: I’m in favor of as many of my colleagues as possible being abroad to promote this idea. At least, it would be logical to at least allow women, like all Ukrainian women are allowed, leave the country.

That’s not something I want for myself, to be honest. I have a baby, it’s quite difficult for me to do that. I travel only in the most necessary situations, to rather important international events, such as the IMF [International Monetary Fund] annual meeting.

NV: And how did you understand this situation around the European Solidarity, namely around Poroshenko? It was obvious this wouldn’t go smoothly. It cannot be the case that Poroshenko wasn’t allowed to leave the country, and everyone immediately forgot about it.

Zheleznyak: It’s not the first time that he has been barred [from departing]. And it’s not the first time that many colleagues have been barred. For example, I was refused to go to the IMF annual conference, a meeting where I was not only supposed to be a participant, but to speak on behalf of Ukraine. At my own expense. I didn’t really want to spend so much money, but I think it’s just stupid.

Why do I use the word “stupid”? Because we have the apparatus of the Verkhovna Rada, which, as far as I understand, communicates very closely with the President’s Office about who should be allowed or not allowed to go abroad.

But once again: if someone believes this is a reward, that it’s very prestigious and cool to go somewhere... I, a person who has traveled this way several times at my own expense, got the impression that next time I will be kicked out of my family if I spend family money on a business trip like this. I would like there to be more MPs [who are dispatched abroad].

After several controversies, which, I emphasize, are connected exclusively with the “servants of the people” [ruling parliamentary party] ... For example, [MP from the Servant of the People faction, who traveled to the Maldives during the full-scale war, Yuriy] Aristov, a friend of a well-known politician elected in 2019 [refers to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy]. For some reason, the Cabinet of Ministers forgot its place in the government system and decided that it could ban the lawmakers from leaving abroad. And the rather timid parliament swallowed it. Now the whole process is controlled manually.

Unfortunately, there are big questions about the payment of business trips, which I don’t want to raise publicly now. But as a person who, if anything, is well versed in public finances, I’ve already put together all the payments, and I have reasonable questions for the leadership of the parliament apparatus regarding the distribution of this money. And even I have a question about how it is being spent.

NV: If you aren’t ready to talk about it, then what is the trend?

Zheleznyak: The tendency is that some lawmakers, who don’t represent either the committees or the parliament presidium, for some reason receive quite large compensations, which are measured in the same amounts as Mr. Shurma’s, i.e., half a million hryvnias ($13,600). I would just like to know what they did so important and why they are so different from other MPs.

For example, many people from my faction are doing just great work abroad. For example, Lesia Vasylenko. I’m proud of how she finds support in the two most important [countries] after the United States, namely in France and the United Kingdom. She does it for some reason at her own expense and finds money for it.

And someone receives compensation for some long-distance trips, it’s not clear how. And we’ll raise these issues as a party. I think we’ll have a meeting with the parliament leadership. My personal opinion is very unpopular, especially since it comes from a politician. I believe that all lawmakers who know English and while they have time and inspiration should now be sent abroad to communicate with colleagues.

NV: I’ve heard that the President’s Office may be concerned about the lack of coordination. When different officials, lawmakers knock on the same door and can send different messages. But it seems that for it to take place, someone must initiate it. Do you think this might be a problem? Is this some kind of imaginary problem?

Zheleznyak: First, as per form, I don’t care at all what the President's Office thinks.

Rostyslav Shurma, he was selected from the outlawed Opposition Platform – For Life [OPFL] pro-Russian party. If he were elected as a MP, his opinion on what to do for lawmakers would be relevant. I’ll remind you once again that he deals either with corruption or with some other things, which, I think, the anti-corruption bodies will give a worthy assessment. That’s why I don’t care what the President’s Office thinks. For me, it’s an institution called the State Management of Affairs, there is nothing else.

As for trips. I know a lot about what some of our officials from the government, from the President’s Office, some advisors tell international partners. Then I just talk and explain to them. I would think about the coordination of messages within their team, at least directly those who are already involved in some rather careless comments, in particular the foreign media, as we saw in the Times, The Economist. In principle, I wouldn’t let them go there, speaking neither Ukrainian nor English.

The third. Unfortunately, we cannot find another option now, other than to promote Ukraine everywhere. For those who doubt it, open The Washington Post or The New York Times, you’ll see just how much the coverage has decreased. Therefore, the more people do it, the better.

And finally: what is the President’s Office afraid of? Let me explain to you. They’re afraid that when an opposition lawmaker arrives, conditionally, he, to put it politely, starts talking about some obvious flaws of the current government and criticizes them. And that’s bad.

So, for the less intellectually advanced people in the President’s Office, I will explain that this is very easily done in calls and emails. And I’ve never seen at any international meeting that I had the honor to attend that some lawmaker, regardless of their political affiliation, said a bad word about Ukraine.

In these delegations, we always say at these meetings: “Look, here is a representative of the government, a representative of the opposition, we have no politics now, we jointly ask you to help our country.” And I saw it every time, exemplified by many colleagues.

NV: I would like to mention the interview of Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko who talked with the German media, in particular with Der Spiegel. He said a lot of things, including that Ukraine is allegedly moving towards authoritarianism, and that everything depends on one person’s whim. He doesn’t need to travel anywhere to promote such messages. Do you see this as a classic confrontation between the central government and local self-government?

Zheleznyak: I don’t see this pressure from legislative work. I want to be objective here. I believe that it was right to transfer the military personal income tax to the central state budget. If any of the mayors wants to argue with me, I invite them. But I will then download from Prozorro [transparent procurement system] all the purchases that were made in this territorial community, and we’ll sit down with them and discuss what the money was spent on.

But as for the activities of law enforcement agencies... Unfortunately, yes, I see that the State Bureau of Investigation, the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine, the National Police, the SBU security service are actively “working” the opposition. Not all of them, to put it mildly, are holy people, and I have no sympathy for many of them. But I see this trend clearly enough. It’s the same as with business, I think, they just broke off the chain, so to speak.

That’s why I would talk here more about the general system than about the parliament in particular. There are many single-seat constituency sitting MPs, a lot of decentralization. Vitaliy Bezhin, my colleague and representative of the Servant of the People faction: I see how he’s concerned about this, like many other colleagues.

I don’t confirm this trend at the legislative level but, unfortunately, this is a fact at the level of law enforcement agencies.

NV: Klitschko is a big political figure, probably of a national scale. How do you understand his words? Is he trying to somehow protect himself in this way?

Zheleznyak: It’s not a secret that they didn’t develop relations with the current government, with the president, even before the election, from both sides. And right away, from the very beginning, when Andriy Bohdan was the head of the President’s Office, they had, to put it mildly, rather cold relations and interaction between the President’s Office and the mayor.

Let Mr. Klitschko interpret his words himself. But I wouldn’t be so radical in my assessment of the trends that are taking place. I see another problem. Unfortunately, according to all ratings, any government is losing support now. And I’m much more concerned about this trend, even as an opposition lawmaker.