“Zelensky is a kind, honest, superprofessional actor.” Key points from Bogdan's interview with Gordon

Former head of the Presidential Office Andriy Bohdan on Zelensky, Putin, Akhmetov and others.

Former head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Bohdan, who held this post for six months (from summer 2019 to February 2020), gave a large interview to journalist Dmytro Gordon, in which he shared his views on the situation in the country and on individual politicians, including Volodymyr Zelensky.

On Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the presidential election:

“Kind, open, honest, he attracts people very much. He creates the feeling that he is your son, toward whom there is no hostility. He is a superprofessional actor, one must understand. He can switch on his charisma even with people who are unpleasant to him. He knows how to use this side of himself.

As far as I understand, they had been discussing this for a long time in their close circle, “95 Quarter.” I think the decision to run for president was made on December 31. Yes, we were preparing, but I did not hear a firm “yes” before December 31.

I told him there had to be some political platform, a minimal foundation from which you could go there, to the presidency. I have one phrase that I believe had a very strong influence on him. That after the series “Servant of the People” you gave people some hope. If you don't even try, they will be disappointed. It will be another con. If you don't succeed and don't win, no one will reproach you, but if you don't even try, then yes, I personally will be disappointed.”

On the relationship between Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin, Ukraine and Russia:

“Did Putin treat Zelensky with respect during their first conversation? Yes. And there was a sense of Putin's desire to find points of contact. During the conversation, it seemed to me, he drew a parallel between himself, a young elected president, and Volodymyr Zelensky. A very similar situation: Chechnya, collapse, economy.

What did Zelensky's first meeting with Putin in the Normandy format leave in memory? Then I understood that it would be a very difficult negotiation process. It seems to me there will be no success there in the near future.

At that time it was felt that Putin wanted to find some solution to this problem. I do not know what motives drove him, economic or political. I think political ones too. Zelensky also has tremendous support in Russia, and fighting the favorite of his people is inadequate. Today everything has changed radically. If press releases come out different, that means diplomatic negotiations are going badly. I think we somehow harshly deceived him [Putin]. We promised one thing and did nothing.

Did you have personal communication with Putin? Yes. A very tough person, but very self-confident, a very difficult negotiator. He is stronger [than German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron], but I may be wrong, I am not that qualified a diplomat. He has an algorithm and does not depart from it for a second.

Will there be peace with Russia? Probably yes, but not now. Can we only dream about Donbas and Crimea? Yes. I don't understand where we could meet. They are not ready for a second to step away from the Minsk agreements. For them, the first point, changes to the Constitution on the special status of Donbas, is fundamental. But our society is not ready to discuss this.”

On the case of the “Wagner men”:

“I don't believe—I know it was exactly as [journalist Yuriy Butusov wrote]. A company was indeed set up in Venezuela and staff were recruited. Some people have already gone there to work at some specific oil rigs. They were paid real money there, they really guarded those rigs. So it's not just some fairy tale, but someone checked from there: 'So you are there, yes? So you work here, yes?' – 'Yes, we get paid, everything...'

And then, at the second stage, they were already being picked out. And look: this operation has been going on for more than a year. It was super secret and super serious. One phone call destroyed it. And the person who made that phone call, he effectively admitted he made it. I know who called, and I know where and to whom he called. Is this a person from the president's inner circle? The very closest.

On former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov:

“Azarov—is he the best prime minister? I think so. Mykola Yanovych stopped a great many stupid things. And a great many... And if it weren't for Mykola Yanovych, probably the Maidan would have happened even earlier.

I am absolutely sure he is an honest man, he did not allow stealing. Although it was hard for him, as always: the president [Viktor Yanukovych] gave instructions to the prime minister, and it was very hard to argue with him. But he is a very experienced bureaucrat, he knew how to say 'no' properly.”

On the premierships of Volodymyr Groysman and Arseniy Yatsenyuk:

“I consider Groysman's government the most professional. The most optimistic time in the country, the most economically successful, the most understandable for international partners—that was Groysman's time. There were some 30-odd months of stable economic growth, low inflation, understandable relations with international partners, with other states, with society. I am sure he will still have some political or managerial career in state structures.

Let's say Yatsenyuk is a very smart man, I treat him with great respect, but he came in a difficult time, right after the Maidan and the revolution, during the war. And coping with what was happening in the country was [was] very hard.”

On Ihor Kolomoisky:

“Many will probably not believe me, but these elections are elections of the people. Even I took my personal money and put it into the elections. And many of my friends did too. We simply announced an account registered with the CEC, and money came there from people we didn't know. It was one of the cheapest election campaigns in the world. I have never regretted it.

Kolomoisky is charming, I love him. In a certain sense he is a wonderful person. He doesn't hide his desire to make money, he is very energetic, very charismatic. If you take him as he is, you can learn a lot from him. I was his lawyer for a long time, but I considered him my friend. But I did not allow him to influence Zelensky.

Is Zelensky afraid of Kolomoisky? I don't know. Are there recordings of conversations between Zelensky and Kolomoisky that could harm the president? I have never heard of any—neither from Kolomoisky nor from Zelensky. There have never been any hints about the real existence of these recordings.

He [Kolomoisky] has always expressed his thoughts. Something always outraged him, some ministers he didn't like. Unlike many, Kolomoisky believed as early as the end of January. Before that it was hilarious, fun. It was not a game for money. He needed Poroshenko not to remain president. He bet on Yulia Tymoshenko, and he did it publicly and not publicly.”

On the “brawl” with SBU chief Ivan Bakanov:

“There were no [brawls]. All teeth are in place. I even put my avatar on Facebook. Everyone laughed at it and rejoiced. There were no murders—there were no brawls.”

On Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko:

“This is a person I brought into the team. He is an expert in the media market, without him we would not have coped. When Kyrylo was there, the president was alive, cheerful, one of the guys. And now Kyrylo has been pushed aside, and media-market swindlers have come in. And Volodymyr Oleksandrovych is now bronze.

They have made a Brezhnev out of him. Well, how can that be? A regular guy from the people, bam-bam, kicked the ball, and everyone goes: 'Aga-ga.' I don't understand what they have been sculpting from him for six months. You are lying, people feel it. He is not like Brezhnev, he will never understand such a system of coordinates.”

On presidential aide Serhiy Shefir:

“Shefir is good, he is Volodya's mentor. This is probably the most trusted person. At least he was. He is very good. I can't say anything bad about him. You understand, there is wisdom, and there is understanding of the algorithm. He is the wisdom. There is reason, there is wisdom. He is wise. But he is not a bureaucrat, he is not from there.”

On MP Mykola Tyshchenko:

“Back in December 2019 there was very active discussion in the Office—and Volodymyr Oleksandrovych, in principle, agreed with it—about the possibility of replacing David Arakhamia, head of the Servant of the People faction, whom I brought into our team, with Tyshchenko. I am not joking. Why this change was not completed, I don't know.

He enjoys the trust of society, the trust of the Presidential Office management and the president himself. He constantly appears on air. Officials of the Presidential Office are not there. I always went and made my deputies go. But if you can't communicate, if you have nothing to say, then you can't work either. Now nobody goes. And I think they should go. In short, Mykola Tyshchenko is on all the broadcasts. Well, I think that is, so to speak, an indicator.

He is really the smartest person of them all. I swear that this person was meant to become head of the faction. He is a public manager. Not a gray cardinal. He is a public manager who defines the point of view of the whole faction.”

On oligarch Rinat Akhmetov:

“He appeals to me very much. I am not a specialist in his business, but for me, a guy from Lviv, this is a man of his word and of deeds. If he says something, you don't have to check—it will be done. That's the Donetsk temper. A very rare quality among businessmen and politicians. And Putin's file, when I flew to St. Petersburg with Azarov, also noted his word given. This word must be kept. Rinat is a man of his word and a patriot of Ukraine.”

On Petro Poroshenko:

“Priority was set for all law enforcement agencies: there are no stops, no sly glances upward. Work honestly, get going. That's all. Well, they all came and said: 'We would, but political will...' All right, go ahead! We will sanction everything. We will not stop even if you are working on us. I told the law enforcers, the same NABU people, everyone: 'If you put a wiretap on me, surveillance. Do whatever you want. If I steal—arrest me.'

There are several points here. All these economic crimes—they are very hard to investigate. There are offshores everywhere, international legal assistance, long deadlines... You write to Cyprus—they tell you: 'Go away.' So it takes time. But there is a prospect there, it seems to me as a lawyer. But what is happening now is, in my view, inflating the rating of Petro Oleksiyovych.

I heard that some officials of the Presidential Office often dine at [the restaurant] Sanahunt, where they quite by chance have lunch with Petro Oleksiyovych. But these coincidences happen very, very often. I won't name names, but everyone understands everything. Why can't I name names? Because I like it when some people run across the ceiling, indignant: 'What did he say?'—and everyone tells him: 'But he didn't name you. Why are you nervous? I heard rumors that Yermak and Poroshenko met.'

On Svyatoslav Vakarchuk:

“Slava is a good guy, but not a politician at all. At all. It was obvious right away. Since March 2018 we took sociology and in one way or another tossed it out. Well, we simply published it officially. And Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky was in sixth or seventh place. With some 4%. And then that top tier started fighting among themselves so actively that they didn't pay him any attention at all.

And then from August 2018 we began airing short promotional teasers for “Servant of the People 3”, there were 15 of them, I think, where they buried an official, cut down a forest. They were so bright, so right. His rating began to rise sharply. Sharply-sharply-sharply. And then we started playing the intrigue: is he running or not?

Well, Slava Vakarchuk overheated this intrigue. In the end everyone wanted him not to run. You have to keep the intrigue. It's impossible to keep it for nine months. There was also a shift of the core. Volodymyr Oleksandrovych, after all, has an eastern core, center and east. And there it's the west. And he then needed to conduct a different rhetoric.

He could have been made to work. He has 100% recognizability, he is pro-Ukrainian. But what he said, first of all, nobody understood what he wanted to say. And second, it overlapped very strongly with Poroshenko's electoral field.

Nobody understood what he was saying. He said such clever phrases that he himself did not understand. He could not finish, he would dive into a thought and then lose it on the way.”

On Arsen Avakov:

“I know for certain that for the last three months they have been actively dealing with this issue. That is, there was already an attempt to remove Avakov directly in the Verkhovna Rada, they were gathering votes there. They didn't succeed. They realized they wouldn't get enough. And now the topic of the Cabinet of Ministers is being circulated.

There is an algorithm for firing people who hold a pro-Western position. Avakov is control of the street. Just look at who is being fired. These are people with pro-Western views on the country's development. The last one who independently and clearly states his position is Avakov. And Avakov is key. What do smart people say, what do they pass on? They pass on that Russia's plan for Ukraine is not direct military aggression.

It is creating chaos inside the situation, ungovernability. Just track the events: hostage-taking, shooting, brawls, the Opposition Bloc is fighting. What's the brawl about? What were they dividing? Nothing at all. And why were they fighting? Also unclear. Chaos is being created here. And during such chaos, whoever controls the street is the one who determines whose OMON, in what uniform, and whom it will disperse.”

On Andriy Yermak and his negotiations with Russia:

“I have not seen this document, but I have met mentions of it many times among diplomats and intelligence services. It has 12 or 13 points, I'm not sure which. But all foreign intelligence services believe it. It's some kind of algorithm of actions. 'We give you ships, you give us water to Crimea, we give you prisoners, you give us direct air traffic. We give you $3 billion by court decision, and you give us something.

We somehow immediately did not like each other. I don't like people, men, with cat-like manners. For me, the “Yermak tapes” were a revelation. Everyone thinks I made them. But I did not make them. I swear to you. I have heard a lot about them. I heard there are far more tapes. And important people are directly present in them.

He is convenient. As one of my comrades said, he is convenient like Italian shoes. He doesn't bring bad news, he doesn't ask difficult questions, he is always gentle, kind and says nice words. This effect of a warm bath, when everything around is good because you're told everything around is good. The head of the office and the structure of the office is state bureaucracy. He doesn't understand a damn thing about it.”