Political portrait of the warring Kharkiv region: Top-5 «missing» politicians | Center for Political Analysis «Observatory of Democracy»

Political portrait of the warring Kharkiv region: Top-5 «missing» politicians

Kharkiv oppositionist with his own party and presidential ambitions, informal curator of the «Servant of the People» in the region, chairman of the largest faction in the regional council – these three political individuals, influential before the full-scale war, were united by silence after February 24.

In the second part of the monitoring of the regional political process, the Observatory of Democracy Analytical Center presents the brightest personal cases of politicians who stopped public communication after the Russian invasion and whose current whereabouts are unknown.

Source: photo collage composed of open materials on politician`s‘ Facebook pages. 

№1. Yevhen Muraev (leader of the Nashi party) 

Yevhen Muraev, who decided to promote the personal party project “Nashi” after participating in the Opposition platform – for life and Opposition Bloc parties, in his last public statement on February 25 called on the Ukrainian authorities to “no longer compromise, but capitulate”, after which he closed access to his social networks and disappeared in a formally unknown, but predictable direction. The party’s website was “paused” on February 23, and the party’s activities were suspended by the National Security and Defense Council in March. The next step towards banning Muraev’s party was taken on May 3, with the Verkhovna Rada passing Bill №7172-1. The final decision remains with the  court, but the political context of the Nashi party’s incompatibility with Ukraine’s future party field is already clear. Apparently, Muraev himself chose not to pursue a political career in Ukraine, where he had ambitions to at least get his own faction in parliament a few months ago. In fact, after Ukraine became convinced of the reliability of  Western intelligence data on Russia’s plans, the information released in January 2022 about the Kremlin’s plans of making Muraev a “Gauleiter” of Ukraine looks quite plausible. Realizing this and not wishing to repeat Viktor Medvedchuk`s path, Yevhen Muraev disappeared from the public sphere, although he has not been formally charged with any charges by the Ukrainian state yet. 

№2. Vadim Slyusarev (ex-member of the political council “Servants of the People”, former adviser to the Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Sergey Trofimov)

According to the data by the Border Guard Service, Vadim Slyusarev, an informal curator of the «Servant of the People» in Kharkiv Region and a former member of the governing body of the pro-presidential party (political council), left for the Russian Federation on February 18 and registered with the migration service on February 26. The purpose of entry was stated as “temporary residence”. On April 29, the 65th day of full-scale war, Slyusarev’s lawyer denied the information about his client’s stay in the Russian Federation and noted that he did not hold any political or party position (Slyusarev was also removed from the list of members of the political council on the website of the “Servant of the People”, to which he was elected in March 2021). Considering all the professional background of Major General Slyusarev, who has been publicly called the “King of Goptivka”, his sources and connections in the Russian Federation may have been more informed than those of the most Kharkiv politicians. Probably, the information about the escape, not personally and properly denied, will significantly weaken Slyusarev’s political influence in Kharkiv region (if does not multiply it by zero), and the majority of deputies under his quota will give up their obligations to their former patron. 

№3. Andriy Lesyk (deputy of the Kharkiv City council, Head of the city Opposition platform-for life organization)

On February 16, Andriy Lesyk, a deputy of the Kharkiv City Council from the «Opposition platform-for life», organized a pro-Russian rally, where the remarks about the “Nazi stench coming from Kyiv” were heard, and since February 25, there has been no public activity from the politician. In recent posts on his Facebook page, Lesyk promised to “take Zelensky by the hand and take him to the negotiations and made ambiguous statements about his readiness to take responsibility for Kharkiv and to ensure that no one was killed in the city. After these statements, on February 25, Lesyk disappeared from public view. Nothing is known about his physical whereabouts either – Oleg Abramychev, a colleague in the parliamentary corps and the Head of the European Solidarity faction in the City Council, even “announced a search” and promised 100 thousand hryvnias for the dead or alive Lesyk. In general, Andriy Lesyk was clearly marked as a representative of  Viktor Medvedchuk’s “wing”, although he was the Head of the city organization “Opposition platform-for life”. Accordingly, after Medvedchuk’s arrest and the Kremlin’s refusal to exchange him, Lesyk (as well as his patron) found himself on a “fork” where he would be considered a traitor in Ukrainian politics and a theft of Kremlin funds in Russian politics. Therefore, even a scenario with a  sudden appearance on the air of  Russian TV propaganda (where Lesyk used to be a frequent guest) now seems unlikely, and the political career of the odious deputy has come to an end.

№4. Kyrylo Kernes (Chairman of the Kernes Bloc – Successful Kharkiv Faction in the Regional Council)

The son of the late mayor of Kharkiv, Kyrylo Kernes, began his political career in Autumn of 2020, when he became the first number on the “Kernes Bloc” list in the regional council elections. Legally, Gennady Kernes could not be a candidate for mayor and the first number on the list for the city and regional councils at the same time, so, accordingly , a person with the same surname was needed to maximize the result . After the death of Gennady Kernes, his son’s “political weight” only increased and his likely run in the early mayoral election would confuse all the cards of the campaign’s favorites. But Kyrylo Kernes decided to support Igor Terekhov and in return, he became a Chairman of the largest faction in the regional council. In this role, Kernes Jr. began to drift towards greater publicity – in particular, he started and actively filled his Facebook and Instagram pages with various content. In fact, the latest publications are dated February 21 and after the start of the war, no public comment, appeal, activity report or anything else from the Head of the largest faction of the regional council has appeared. At the same time, on May 9, Kernes registered at a remote online session of the Kharkiv Regional Council and voted in favor of the appeal for support of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. It is also worth noting that Kyrylo Kerneses wife passed away on February 10 after a long illness, so there may be various explanations to why the Head of the Successful Kharkiv regional faction did not react publicly to what had happened to his hometown. In any case, it is obvious that the effect of identification with his father will be significantly weakened, and the political influence (in particular, within his “nominal” faction) of Kyrylo Kernes will decrease.

№5. Alina Mustafayeva (deputy of the Kharkiv City council) 

Elected from the “Servant of the People” to the Kharkiv City Council in 2021, Alina Mustafayeva was one of the most active and brightest local politicians. An eloquent illustration is the fact that Mustafayeva officially spent more than $ 22,000 on advertising her Facebook page alone last year,  which is more than, for example, Petro Poroshenko. And this is despite the fact that Facebook was not the main social platform for the 29-year-old deputy as the priority was YouTube, where hundreds of thousands of views were collected under some videos on Mustafayeva’s channel (for which the advertising was ordered). The peak of content intensity occured during the mayoral election campaign, in which Mustafayeva took part as a self-nominated candidate (she took 5th place with 9,151 votes). Obviously, frustration with the election results reduced advertising budgets (for example, all the subsequent videos on the deputy`s channel went without advertising and garnered several hundred views), but the intensity of content and media presence remained. This was the case before the start of the full-scale war with Russia and there have been no new videos on Mustafayeva’s channel for more than two months, her last Instagram post was made on February 24 and in the comments, dissatisfied subscribers accuse the deputy of escaping from Ukraine. At the same time, it should be noted that on April 28, in one of the FB posts, Kharkiv volunteer Anastasia Major thanked Mustafayeva for free rent of  5 cars for the needs of volunteers. However, the media active deputy traditionally did not make any personal statements after February 24, stopping public communication with her electorate. 

Conclusions 

The part of political entities that have chosen the communication strategy of  the “silence of the lambs” and “disappeared” (socially, media-wise and sometimes physically) is likely to be weakened or erased from the political future of Ukraine and Kharkiv region.

And the contours of the current transformations were  already outlined at the first postwar sessions of local councils, and the most obvious marker is the absence of those deputies whose political bets were made on Russia. In particular, at the first “postwar” online session of the Kharkiv Regional Council, 22 deputies out of 120 were absent (although, of course, not in all cases this indicates a “pro-Russian” vector). Among them are former first deputy chairman of the regional council Albert Kononenko (on May he stated  that he could not connect due to technical problems), “family deputies” Nikita Shentsev (son of People’s Deputy Dmitry Shentsev), Pavlo Stolbovy (son of  the Mayor of Balakleya  Ivan Stolbovy), Volodymyr Sviatash (father of ex-People’s Deputy Dmitry Svyatash).

The self-dissolution of the Opposition platform- for life faction and the creation of a parliamentary group “Restoration of Ukraine” on its basis was also a landmark event of the session. The group includes mostly deputies from the wing focused on Viktor Medvedchuk and Vadym Rabinovych, led by the former leader of the Opposition platform – for life faction Serhiy Gladkoskok. It is noteworthy that out of 29 deputies elected on the “Opposition platform-for life” lists, only 12 agreed to join the newly formed group.