buy drones or finance cultural projects, the debate agitates kyiv

2023-07-28 14:48:39

A group of helmeted workers are busy at the foot of the huge steel statue of the motherland, filmed from a low angle against a sky streaked with clouds. Heads tilted back, they watch, as winches held by heavy counterweights unroll their cables towards the contentious object that Ukraine’s most famous statue holds up for all to see, 102 meters above the waves. of the great Dnieper river: a shield struck with a sickle and a hammer. In a few weeks, the Soviet emblem pegged to the monument since its erection in 1981 will be taken down and replaced by the trizoub (“trident”, in Ukrainian), the national coat of arms of Ukraine. Quite a symbol at a time when Ukraine is struggling to repel the invasion of Russia, the successor state of the Soviet Union.

But while the Ukrainian army’s counter-offensive, launched in early June, is still struggling to bear fruit, the announcement of this work has fueled a fierce debate in Ukraine on the advisability of financing projects deemed “secondary”, “cosmetic” or memorials. The Ukrainian Ministry of Culture may have assured on July 13 that the operation would not cost the public treasury a kopeck, and that the bill of 28 million hryvnias (€690,000) would be paid entirely by private patrons, many many commentators claim that this money would be better used to buy drones or vehicles for the army.

“There are other priorities”

A few days earlier, the restoration of the cobblestones of a street in the center of Kiev has already provoked strong criticism on social networks and in the media because of its cost of 300 million hryvnias (7.3 million euros) . The controversy was further fueled by the allocation of 33 million hryvnias (€800,000) for the production of a comedy television series around the war. And the allocation, validated by the Ukrainian Parliament on July 13, of 570 million hryvnias (14 million euros) for the completion of a Holodomor museum, under construction since 2009, in addition to oil on the fire. The controversy took on such magnitude that it forced President Volodymyr Zelensky to disavow his Minister of Culture, Oleksandr Tkatchenko.

“In these times of war, the maximum attention and resources should be given to the defensesaid the Head of State in his daily address on July 20. Museums, cultural centers, symbols, TV series… All this is important, but at the moment there are other priorities. » In the process, Volodymyr Zelensky recommended to his Prime Minister Denys Chmyhal to “find extrabudgetary funds” to finance this type of project, and “to consider replacing” of the Minister of Culture. The following day, Oleksandr Tkatchenko submitted his letter of resignation, stating that the allocation of funds “Private and public during the war on culture is no less important than drones, because culture is the shield of our identity and our borders”. His resignation was confirmed on July 27 by a vote in the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament.

Concern about the difficulties of the counter-offensive

The shelving of projects as consensual as the construction of a Holodomor museum or the replacement of the shield of the Motherland statue (85% approved by a July 2022 poll) illustrates the feverishness of Ukrainian society faced with the difficulties of the counter-offensive in the regions of Zaporijjia and Donetsk. Authorities in kyiv have repeatedly acknowledged that operations are proceeding more slowly than expected, which they attribute to material shortcomings in overcoming the fortifications erected by Russia.

As a result of the controversy, the producer of the television series supposed to receive 33 million hryvnias announced that it was abandoning this funding. Friday, July 28, Volodymyr Zelensky vetoed the allocation of 570 million hryvnias planned for the Holodomor museum. The project aimed to transform the shield of the statue of the Batkivschina-Mat’ (“motherland”, in Ukrainian) is however still afloat. Images published shortly before the resignation of the Minister of Culture showed workers busy making the big trizoub 7.5 meters by 4.5 and which will replace the sickle and the hammer. Work should be completed by August 24, Ukraine’s Independence Day.