Viktor Medvedchuk’s alternative political reality
Yesterday, in my piece titled “Viktor Medvedchuk’s European Voyage in spotlight of marginal media”, I described in detail that Madvedchuk’s Russian handlers decided this year to bring their man to the international level not as a participant in film festivals or someone posing for a glamorous magazine on the red carpet alongside his wife, but as a “serious political figure” — so serious it’s only he who could “bring peace” to Ukraine.
The plan turned out to be as simple as it was primitive: to arrange for Medvedchuk a large-scale voyage across where the pro-Kremlin lobby is the strongest and picking some catchy name for a so-called “conferences” that he would gather, with extremely pompous media coverage provided. However, this media coverage was ultimately limited to either the Russian and pro-Russian segment, or marginal local outlets. Participants in the so-called conferences were members of marginal parties and groups, while the attendance never exceeded a couple of dozen people.
How about that? See the epic scale and weight? But what’s next?
After Viktor Medvedchuk held the so-called conferences in the Luxembourg Palace in France and in the Bundestag in Germany, it became known that the “peacemaker” is now heading to a place with a more comfortable environment — to the State Duma of the Russian Federation!
According to Medvedchuk’s plans, his next step is to present his plan in the State Duma followed by a general meeting of parliamentary delegations that support the initiative for a peaceful settlement in Donbas.
In fact, all this “inter-parliamentary dialogue”, which, I emphasize, has no official status and attracts political marginals and renegades, is a special operation carried out by the Kremlin. A special operation, which in the global media space is supposed to imitate Russia’s return to the club of respected powers, as well as restored dialogue. Moreover, this must be implemented this before May 9, so that the holiday atmpshpere on Victory Day in Russia saw a fresh peacemaking narrative.
It was for this purpose that Viktor Medvedchuk flew throughout Europe, where he diligently promoted his inter-parliamentary platform to pro-Russian deputies, senators and parliamentarians, whose names and statuses average Russian citizens never heard in their lives. The main thing for the Russian propaganda media is to mention that interlocutors were “French” or “German” “politicians”.
Next goes a performance in the State Duma with the general coordination of the upcoming meeting of that pro-Russian junk in Strasbourg.
This all seems to be an absurd clownery. What a “pleasure” it is to read some praising reports in Russian media on the subject of Medvedchuk’s voyage, such as those published by the Argumenty I Fakty newspaper with a headline “He played everyone. Why Europe perceives Medvedchuk better than Zelensky”… How funny is that? After all, once again I note that not a single political heavyweight, not one has attended Medvedchuk’s events! Even such a notorious Russophile as Marine Le Pen ignored Medvedchuk in France!
But the dilemma is that while Europe doesn’t really take Medvedchuk seriously and today he is nothing more than a visiting guest performer for them, without any status, the corresponding audience in Russia and Ukraine consumes this information junk food quite well, begging for more. Moreover, within the framework of these audiences, another clear task is being carried out. In Russia, this is about creating the appearance of the return of the Russian Federation to the international political arena as equal, and in Ukraine, it is about Medvedchuk earning electoral points for the next presidential election and implementing a plan of integrating the occupied territories of Donbas back into Ukraine on Moscow’s conditions and in line with the plot by the Kozak-Babich-Beseda triumvirate handling him.
