"I'm a Complete Layman in Economics": What Honcharuk Said in a Scandalous Recording from a Meeting

Honcharuk is reportedly working with ministers on a plan for Zelensky.

Today, January 15, videos with a scandalous recording of a conversation, allegedly from a meeting of Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk with other ministers, appeared on the YouTube channel “How to Deceive the President.”

The video discusses strengthening and the course of the hryvnia. Allegedly present at the meeting are NBU Governor Yakiv Smoliy, NBU Deputy Governors Kateryna Rozhkova and Dmytro Sologub, Finance Minister Oksana Markarova, Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture Tymofiy Milovanov, and Deputy Head of the Office of the President Yuliia Kovaliv, while the alleged prime minister Honcharuk himself also comments on Zelensky.

“Zelensky has a very primitive understanding of economic processes. He understands that there is a balance of payments. The balance of payments is very wrong, and the hryvnia has strengthened a lot,” Honcharuk allegedly says in the recording.

In the conversation he admits that he is “a layman in economics” and says that Zelensky has a primitive understanding of economic processes. Meanwhile, the alleged Honcharuk ponders what to answer Zelensky about the strengthening of the hryvnia and the hole in the budget.

Allegedly, in the recording Honcharuk proposes this option: tell Zelensky that before the elections the hryvnia’s rate was “swung” heavily, and now people have accepted the “strong” president and government, so the hryvnia is strengthening.

“He doesn’t have this in his head. We need to show it, and it needs to look very realistic, let’s say. We need to show it, and this story needs to look realistic, honest. Because until the president has an answer to this question in his head, there will be an empty space there, and this crap about bonds will keep hitting him. And it gets into his head only because he has fog on this subject,” Honcharuk allegedly says in the recording.

A few hours after the first recording, a second part of the conversation was published, in which the alleged prime minister worries about the economy, which the government may allegedly soon “screw up.”

allegedly, Prime Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Honcharuk

We need to think about how we will stage this. Let’s answer the question: how are we coping with this. Right now there is no answer to the question “how are we coping with this,” that’s the whole problem. All of this together creates the president’s sense that the situation is uncontrollable: we don’t understand, we don’t have plans. And you really don’t have any. On the budget, I don’t understand how to do it right.

The Bottom Line

There were no direct insults of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the recording. The phrase “primitive understanding of the economy” was used in the sense of “simple understanding,” and the phrase “fog in the head” allegedly meant the same thing.

At the same time, if the participants in the conversation are really who they are presented as, the recording is interesting because the government is creating an entire scenario for explaining to Zelensky the problems and prospects of the Ukrainian economy.

But more important is the alleged admission by Prime Minister Honcharuk that he is a “complete layman in economics” and absolutely does not understand how to explain to President Zelensky the reasons for the strengthening of the hryvnia and the emergence of a hole in the budget.

The video also indicates that Zelensky, according to the alleged Honcharuk, constantly asks questions about the strengthening of the hryvnia, the creation of the OVGZ pyramid, the Rothschilds and Poroshenko.

Reactions

In the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers, they stated that they “have no information about the authenticity of any audio or video recordings distributed on the internet.” The statement also added that “information about the prime minister’s resignation does not correspond to reality.”

MP Oleksandr Dubinsky in his Telegram channel wrote that Honcharuk did not come to the meeting of the Servant of the People party but “went straight to the Office of the President.” Dubinsky also added: “I think he will come out of there no longer as prime minister but as a plain PR guy.” MP Maksym Buzhansky confirmed the information as well.

Radio Svoboda journalist Mykhailo Tkach wrote in his Telegram channel : “Honcharuk is Honcharuk, but the president has gone home.” Allegedly, this means that Zelensky never waited for the prime minister.

One of the Telegram channels of UP writes that Deputy Head of the Office of the President Yuliia Kovaliv told one of UP’s journalists that the voice on the recording is not hers: “It’s not me on the audio. I wasn’t at that meeting.”

Journalist Denys Ivanesko confirms the information about Kovaliv and suggests that “most likely, her voice was confused with the chief economist of the Finance Ministry, Oleksandra Betliy; in the photo she is sitting to Markarova’s left.”

Blogger Oleksandr Vergolyas called the recordings a “plant” and cited several arguments for this position:

• “there are cuts and edits from speeches;”
• “the leak was produced on the fly, the transcription was done on the go without listening closely; this is visible both from the typos in the text and from the omitted words and sentences, which are covered with asterisks, but which can be heard quite well;”
• “Honcharuk’s monologue ‘we have no plan’ is apparently cut, because the noise is very revealing; moreover, the noise is obvious and artificial, I would call it an insertion;”
• “the conversation between representatives of the Finance Ministry and the NBU also shows signs of cuts and insertions; and clearly to enhance the effect of Honcharuk’s monologue ‘we have no plan.’”

Vergolyas added that the recording was made by someone present, “judging by the especially loud stirring of sugar in the cup, i.e., not a wiretap as such, but a rat.”