for free, mr. oleksiy , i understand that you have already decided that this is the beginning of the collapse of zelensky's government, since it is happening right now, no, no, no, i'm not saying the beginning of the collapse, this is the beginning of the collapse of our democracy, which in principle , in principle, it was nothing special, so the 24th year will be a significant year, we are now at a crossroads. at a particular crossroads, where we have the opportunity to take a path, nevertheless, yes, very difficult, very difficult, zelensky will have to make very difficult decisions, this concerns his environment, this as for his working principle, it is necessary to deny completely what he said at the last press conference, yes, my team is great, we are coping with everything, it is necessary that there should be a doubt whether we are coping with everything, or if we are doing something right, and. .. this idea

, which started in principle from some circle, circle or other place, we have to complete 20 seconds, this is the idea of ​​the national government, this is the idea, because in principle now we have a really remarkable situation, what we are now seeing from journalists , this is the beginning of the end, the beginning of the end of our very weak democracy, thank you. holobutsky, oleg sahakyan and viktor boberenko were guests of our program today. gentlemen, thank you for participating in the program. during the program, we conducted a survey, we asked you about the following: do you believe in journalistic investigation. so, the results of the survey: 94% - yes, six - no, these are the results of the survey of those who watched the television broadcast. in addition, on youtube we have a ratio of 88 to 12%. on this, friends, i put a full stop, i wish everyone good health, take care of yourself and your relatives, it was...

the verdict program, conducted by serhiy rudenko, i say goodbye to you until 8:00 p.m. the next day. verdict with serhii rudenko, from now on in a new two-hour format, even more analytics, even more important topics, even more top guests, foreign experts, inclusion from abroad, about ukraine, the world, the front, society, and the other way around. you can express your opinion on the evil of the day with a telephone survey, turn on and turn on. verdict with serhiy rudenko. every day on weekdays from 20 to 22 for espresso. greetings, good evening, my name is miroslava barchuk, this is a self-titled program, a joint project of ukrainian pen and tv channel. and today we will talk. about the ukrainian

cultural fund, how to prevent its second collapse, how to save it. it may seem to you now that this topic, against the background of what is happening in the country, against the background of the drama that we are watching, may not be so hot or important, but believe me, this is exactly what we are fighting for on the fronts , this is culture. i have been working in ukrainian journalism for over 20 years and have been observing how ukrainian culture, it was called culture girl, was pushed out, disappeared from ukrainian television, and here we are today, what we will talk about is actually a consequence of how this second nature of culture in the consciousness of people, the consciousness of civil society, as inattention to media culture, what is this all about leads, today my interlocutors and guests are

volodymyr shiyko, director of the ukrainian institute, cultural diplomacy expert, cultural manager, volodya, congratulations, good evening, bohdan logvenenko, journalist, writer, founder and ideological inspiration of the ukrainer project, also our guest, i congratulate bohdan, and bohdan and volodymyr are candidates for the supervisory, new supervisory board of the ukrainian cultural foundation, and now there is a competition for this supervisory board. bohdan is a candidate from public organizations, and volodymyr is a candidate from cultural institutions. we, later, i will ask why they decided to actually submit their candidacies, why it is important for them, but first i will explain what the ukrainian cultural fund is, for those who may not be very knowledgeable. so, ukrainian the cultural fund is such a state investor, it is actually a state institution that must... on the basis of cultural competitive

selections, transparent and honest financing of art projects. the budget of the ukrainian cultural fund for the year 2024 is uah 215.5 million, these are our taxes, why is this particularly important? if we speak in one sentence about the prehistory, about the drama of the ukrainian cultural fund, then this history is as follows: after the revolution of dignity , this cultural institution was created, the relevant legislation was written, on at the beginning of 2018, the cultural manager yulia... fediv becomes the executive director of the ukf. the newly created institution has a good reputation among and in the cultural environment and in the society, it has positive reviews and is gradually turning into such a cultural institution that it would seem to have become

, which in fact has financed many wonderful projects. you must have been to music exhibitions. events that were financed precisely from the submission of experts of the ukrainian cultural fund. and then i will quote daria badyor, a critic who wrote the following: 2021 in 2015, the new ministry of culture, together with the president's office, hacked the ukrainian cultural fund, just as they had hacked state cinema before, in order to turn it into a manual institution. so, the first... question to the guests, how did it become possible, why is the ukrainian cultural institution, which seemed, i said, became an institution, so it seemed to us that, what, that it is irreversible, so that we have some kind of reputationally clean history, how it happened

that it was possible to raid it, bohdan, let's start with you, well, i'll say for sure that this happens sometimes with various... institutions, and this happens not only in our country, sometimes laws are not perfect, they need to be improved, and therefore, in particular , public attention is extremely important now to defend this institution, to improve the law, to improve the provisions on the supervisory board and so on, and for to further prevent hacker attacks, it is permanent. there are a large number of dinosaurs in ukrainian culture, as in any other sphere, who are trying to regain power, recognition, distribution of funds, which is extremely important for many, so, first of all, it should go here

about the security of the institution, unfortunately, the law on the ukf was imperfect, it was perfect at the time... of its creation, yes, but in the process we have already seen many shortcomings that need to be improved now, but in order for them, these shortcomings remove, it is necessary that a worthy supervisory board was elected. volodya, how did it happen that in the 21st year it was possible to raid the ukrainian cultural fund, as many cultural activists say, as many people with a good reputation say. progressive views, i will probably start with an answer to the question, which in logic precedes your question, the actual question is why, yes, who needs it, why raid or hack one of such system-forming institutions of culture in

post-maidan ukraine, for viewers who may not know or have not followed the situation with the ukf, i will tell you, that ... the ukf was conceived as a new, transparent , honest, accountable to the public, way of distributing budget funds, i.e. taxpayers' funds, both among the state and non-state sectors of culture, it is very important to say this, because before the creation almost all budget funds of the ucf went through the ministry of culture for the maintenance of the so-called network of cultural institutions, i.e.... these are theaters, museums, other, national and cultural institutions, which actually excluded - this process excluded from the field of cultural financing all non-state, i.e. independent the public sector, which is

a huge number and the people who work in it, and it is a huge number of initiatives, many of which i am sure the audience knows well, and festivals and independent theaters. and various public initiatives in the field cinema, literature, music and the like. and in fact, the establishment of the ukf meant that a huge number of new actors, who had previously been excluded from the state's field of vision, got access to... budget funds in a transparent manner, and this, of course, created the need for many unscrupulous people to take advantage of this opportunity to distort the procedures the selection of members of the supervisory board, and then the procedure for the selection of experts who evaluate the applications and , accordingly, the results of the competitive selection of projects in their favor, therefore... and the situation that happened in the 21st year became possible, when, as bohdan said, the law of the ukf was

written in such a way that the procedures for selecting members of the supervisory board of the okf could be bypassed, or they could be used in this way to bring the right people to the supervisory board, we will talk about this separately , because it is a very interesting story, because this process'. the stupidity of competitive selection with the help of public organizations, it was not only for the ukf, it was also applied, for example, to the art arsenal, the election of the director of the art arsenal, when the director mykhailo kolinyak, the minister of culture of the yanukovych regime, who was remembered for holding a violin while playing it between his legs, and only... thanks to one vote, we succeeded, because i was also in the competition commission, that's why i

speak as a witness, we managed to prevent this with only one vote, and my other question, actually very important, is whether legislation is legislation, we will talk about it later, but did civil society do this two years ago to prevent this , if such results were? selection, then obviously not everything was done by the civil society , since the procedure looks like the quota of the civil society, which actually consists of two people, in it the public can nominate both candidates for the supervisory board and voters, who then choose these candidates by ranking vote, and unfortunately, here the quantitative rule worked, that is, one of the unscrupulous actual candidates and current members of the supervisory board. e-e introduced a critical number of members of the public who are related to him and friendly to him as voters

organizations that actually voted for him, and thus he chose a larger number of votes for the rest, and it seems to me that despite the mobilization of the public around the ukf, around yulia fediv, which occurred in several waves over the previous few years, somehow did not work in at the moment in... the selection to the supervisory board, that is, daria badyor correctly says that we, well, we actually lost this battle, we will now explain, explain to people what we mean when we talk about pocket money public organizations which then the members of the supervisory board are elected, but first we will show the appeal, ukrainian cultural figures have appealed. on friday to president volodymyr zelenskyi, please show this appeal and to the ministry

of culture, information policy of ukraine, with a call to take responsibility for the formation of a new supervisory board of the ukrainian cultural fund. please show this appeal. they write that the current procedure for elections to the supervisory board undermines the principle of independence and impartiality, since the requirements... for candidates to have impeccable business reputation, as the law provides, remain purely formal, what they demand, so in this appeal to the president and the ministry of culture, therefore they call, in particular, in the case of the election to the members of the supervisory board of persons whose actions will show signs of election manipulation through voting by authorized representatives of non- governmental organizations, to demand from them themselves. move forward from the appointment of members of the national council, as well as conduct an open discussion of candidacies based on the quotas of the president

of ukraine and the ministry of ukraine and of the information policy of ukraine with the community of cultural workers, so it should be explained here that there are nine members in the supervisory board of the ucf, four of them are appointed by the president and the ministry of culture without any voting, and another four by cultural institutions and public bodies. the ninth member of the supervisory board is elected by the already elected members of the board, and right now there are elections for the second four from cultural institutions and... public associations, i would like to show, show a diagram, one table printed by ukranian pravda, this is the table from izi, institute of legislative ideas, where more than fifty organizations followed, which will actually

vote for the members of the supervisory board. so, there are 103 of these organizations in total, and half of these organizations are connected by the approval of the institute of legislative ideas with one candidate, an active member of the supervisory board of the ukrainian football federation, oleksandr suslenskyi. so, iz is an institute of legislative ideas, they say that about 20 of these public organizations are directly related to the family. oleksandr suslynskyi, the same number has potential or partnership with oleksandr suslynskyi. this, i quote the institute of legislative ideas. now, actually, the time has come for me to ask a rather obvious question to you, bohdan, and to you, volodya.

why, against the background of this, did you decide to run for the supervisory board. and if this is the situation, as we see in this table, then what gives you optimism that it is possible, that the mission, that the mission can be completed, the unity of public organizations gives me optimism, that is , it is possible for the first time in such elections to supervisory councils, various institutions, most of the candidates withdrew, yes , that is, six out of 11, but... in favor of the others , so that actually, what the audience just saw did not pass, actually with uh, there are two candidates, mr. suslenskyi and his colleague , so that they do not go to the supervisory board and continue to distribute funds, because for them it is

purely a distribution of funds, in fact, therefore in the environment, therefore among public organizations, yes. and six candidates withdrew, yes in your favor, yes, yes, and volodymyr vorobey, volodymyr vorobey, who is, who is a member of the supervisory board of promprilad, yes, ah, why did i leave, because we had quite a long experience of working with the ukrainian cultural fund, it was very successful, we received some kind of award from the ukrainian cultural fund there, er, well, from the 21st year we made a decision not to apply anymore to the ukf , because of the fact that it was hacked, and now , that is, we have not applied for three years and are ready not to apply further, but we understand, ukrainians, i mean, as a public

organization, we understand the importance of this institution , the importance of the institution for us. at the start, yes, because ukf us actually supported in the first years of our existence, and therefore now this opportunity, it should return to those actors of culture who are now talking about, for example, the ukrainian war, books know about it, but we have to fix our narrative, we have to spread it in the world, because similar exhibitions, as russia tried. it will be held in italy, they will continue to happen and multiply, books by ex-wagnerians will be published all over the world, and we have to oppose this, and it is uh, and it is clear that the ukrainian institute, this is this mission of the ukrainian institute, to spread ukrainian narratives in the world, yes, but these narratives should appear here, and the ukrainian cultural fund should support those

cultural sprouts that are being born here now, and actually in this... my personal motivation , bohdan, but here you are they said that you have not submitted since the 21st year, that is, you know that this supervisory board, which currently exists, is in the ukrainian cultural fund or those experts who work there, that they were biased somewhere, or that there are some problems in their activities ukf, can you confirm this or not you simply do not submit in principle, or whether there is already such a formed opinion in... the cultural or media environment regarding this , please explain to people who do not know anything, yes, there was a whole chain of events, that is, we watched how suslensky became, well, not only him, he became a member of the supervisory board, that is, it was... it was unscrupulous, then the elections of the executive director of the ukrainian cultural fund were unscrupulous, and then there were the dismissals

of experts, well, i cannot name specific cases now, but this also happened dishonest, accordingly we made a decision for ourselves that it is a very big reputational risk for us to apply further to the program of the ukrainian cultural fund, therefore... even then as an applicant we had no work experience, but, well, from time to time various cases appeared not very successful cooperation with the ukf, certain projects that experts had already selected and voted for were canceled by the supervisory board, accordingly manual management of the cultural fund began, which absolutely destroys the reputation... of transparency and fairness in the selection of projects, the authority, why, why did you decide to submit

your candidacy, i know that unlike public organizations, yes, from cultural organizations, none of the candidates, if i understand correctly, yes, did not withdraw their candidacy, i mean public organizations in the field of culture, i am running... i am running at the request and for the nomination of the artistic arsenal, and, as far as i know, none of the candidates who are applying for a role in the supervisory board in this category have withdrawn their candidacies in favor of someone else, which it means we can only guessing may not mean anything, but it is important to me, the principle is important to me. in general, the management of the institution in the form of a supervisory board, that is, it is very important, i think, to unpack it, because before the foundation of ucvist

, these new institutions were managed manually, according to their design and meaning, therefore, according to this logic , the supervisory board exists and operates of the ukrainian institute, the supervisory board of the ukrainian book institute follows a similar logic of action, and it is very important to me that... such a key institution as the ukf is also managed in an honest way, so that the interests of very different stakeholders are represented in it, but so that none of them has the temptation to turn on the handbrake again and change the activities, operational activities of the fund in a convenient or necessary way for themselves, this principle of the cultural institution was borrowed from corporate management, it is not new , it is as old as the world when... the business owner, yes, in our case , the founding state, delegates the functions of managing the institution or organization or business

to the supervisory board and removes itself from a number of strategic and tactical decisions, and it is to me it seems like a big test of all of us for maturity and readiness, firstly, for the state to dare to take such a step is very uncharacteristic for itself, because the instinct of the state prescribes. and on the other hand , this is a test for the public, which must also be able to mobilize, which must also be able to defend its voice, make itself visible to the same authorities and be an interlocutor for them, which evokes both trust and a desire to communicate with them, that's when we if we are talking about the state, then... in this situation , the state is represented in the supervisory board four people, yes, there are two people from the president's office and two people from the ministry

of culture, by the way, the ministry of culture communicates in some way, we already know the candidates from the ministry of culture to the supervisory board of the ukf, bohdan? no, we don't know, well i would say at least four, yes, because most likely six. persons represent the state and the bi-public sector, since cultural institutions are mostly also state-owned, and now the second question, here we are now returning to the legislation, because you started talking about it as if it were it is enough, how to say, too optimistic, maybe the law that regulated was drawn up after the maidan and... and which actually determines that the office of the president delegates two people to the supervisory board of the ukf, in general there are such precedents, firstly, are there such...

precedents in the world and when the presidential administration there delegates its people to a cultural institution, yes, for example, there are such precedents, you know, you know about, i would say that depends a lot on the role of the president, because the role of the president is representative, yes, and, well, we know democracies, where the president has very limited powers and... is rather a symbol of democracy than a branch of government, there are such precedents as, if we talk about the role of the president, who bears all the responsibility for everything that happens both in the cabinet and in the parliament , and in any state department, yes, well, this additional burden on the president is

absolutely there. absurd, well, you know a person in the office at the bank who is engaged in the field of culture, but you personally know a person at the bank whose name i only know, me it seems that this is being done by mr. dniprov, who used to be tabachnyk's deputy and is also the president of the badminton federation of ukraine. unfortunately, i don't know anything more about this person, and i never had the opportunity to meet her. volodya, what do you think about the presence in the supervisory board of people from the power, from the presidential power, well, this is such an unusual precedent for cultural institutions, i mean in ukraine, of course, it seems to me to be the only institution to the supervisory board of which he has the right to delegate the president of their nominations or the office

of the president. there are and there are actually different political cultures in the world, the french, in my opinion, is very close to ours, there it is a presidential republic, and there the culture management vertical is very sensitive to the wishes and orders of the direct, actually presidential office, we witnessed this on my own experience, having launched a representative office of the ukrainian institute in france, and i know that a number, especially national ones. cultural institutions in france, they really listen, hear and carry out assignments of the presidential administration of the french , yes, we have a slightly different management system in culture, but in terms of political culture and the rules of the game, it seems to me that france and ukraine are similar in many respects, but here i think we need to do it a little differently too look at this

situation. the delegation of candidates does not mean , that is, it should not mean, so in an ideal world, it is quite a lot, further control or management through these people of the decisions of the institution, in an ideal world again , the subjects who delegate or choose the supervisory board of its representatives should choose the best, most conscientious, those who... very clear requirements for candidates for the supervisory board of the ukrainian cultural fund, in our case, are defined in article six , it seems, of the law on the ukrainian cultural foundation, that is, people with an impeccable business reputation, people with extensive work experience in the field of culture, virtuous and so on, and in principle , the function of the delegators ends there, because the supervisory board is an autonomous, independent collegial body, which no longer has to...