Director of the London Ukrainian Institute, Andriy Hunder, in a VOA interview, reveals what everyone knows already - Ukraine has a very poor image in the English language global mass media. He provides 'advice' on what to do to improve this state of affairs.
Ukraine has a deservedly bad image because it is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe and since independence has been lead by greedy, narrow-minded and evil men with no vision. This has little to do with the country's culture, literature, or traditions.
Smart-talking PR hot-shots in foreign capitals who make their money polishing turds may make a few bucks persuading their clients to part with their money in an attempt to burnish the country's image, but this will not change anything.
Ukraine's grubby image will not improve without massive improvements in its governance.
A start could be made when political prisoners are released, prosecutors back off political opposition members and back off the already frail independent media, the president stops spending obscene amounts of money on his eleven palatial residences, oligarchic supporters of the ruling party stop carving up the nation's wealth in fixed privatisation 'sell-offs' etc. etc.
p.s. The London Ukrainian Institute offered a hearty welcome a few weeks ago to ex president Viktor Yushchenko, the man who, as a prosecution witness, gave highly dubious testimony at Yulia Tymoshenko's 2010 trial. Yet without Tymoshenko's unqualified support a few years previously during the Orange Revolution it is most unlikely Yushchenko would ever have made president.
One of the reasons Ukraine has such dreadful press is the blatant, widely recognised, politically motivated persecution of political opposition leaders like Tymoshenko by the current administration....aided and abetted, of course, by Yushchenko himself..
The Ukrainian Institute should make its position clear on this instead of 'brown-nosing' the discredited former president..
Tym only supported Yush because otherwise Yanuk would have won and she would never have been Prime Minister. She was lookiing afer herself. Moreover, Western Journalists and academics were paid money through a company called Ridge Consulting (ie from her gas profits) to write favourable remarks about Tym and rubbish Yush. You can see it in just about every article written in the western press. It appears corruptions isn't limited to Ukraine and Tym exploited it. So good this time the Institute got it right. She did everything to undermine the President and put herself in his place.
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