For the second day in a row, Ukrainian society has been raging with passion over the latest controversial statements by MP Mariana Bezuhla. As reported by Komersant ukrainskyi
yesterday, it became known that Ukrainian pilot Oleksiy Mes was killed in an F-16 aircraft while repelling a Russian massive air strike on 26 August.
A few hours after this information emerged, the MP wrote a post on Facebook in which she stated that Mes’s F-16 was shot down by “friendly fire” from the Patriot air defence system.
“According to my information, the F-16 of Ukrainian pilot Oleksiy ‘Moonfish’ Mes was shot down by a Patriot air defence system due to discoordination between units. The reports stated that he “lost control”,
– the MP wrote.
In this regard, Bezuhla traditionally accused the senior military leadership of cultivating lies and false information, which leads to the fact that it is almost impossible for the Armed Forces to learn from their own mistakes on the basis of high-quality, truthful analytics.
This post resonated widely and caused a wave of criticism against the MP, who, in their opinion, is causing very tangible damage to the army with her statements and is openly playing into the hands of the enemy. Many see this activity as a crime.
“Maybe someone will write a statement against Bezugla to the State Bureau of Investigation? How long will this mockery of the country and the army last?”
– Yuriy Ihnat, a former spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, wrote on Facebook.
Bezuhla and her style
In the current parliament, Mariana Bezuhla is definitely one of the most striking personalities in the media. The MP is regularly in the headlines of the national media, and it does not seem to matter to her that the tone of these publications is positive. Probably, the only authority among the state leadership for Bezuhla is President Zelenskyi.
“Here, we need to take into account Ms Mariana’s peculiarities, her style of communication with the Ukrainian generals. She believes that she has a personal mission, that she is the president’s man. She is very categorical, intolerant and uncompromising. This is her style. There are no authorities for her, except for one person, as far as I understand. This is the president. It is noticeable,”
– says political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko in an exclusive commentary
However, it seems that her statements often harm not only the state, but also Zelensky as a politician, the expert believes:
“She has already developed a certain image and a certain status for herself – a person of the president who can take responsibility and has the right to say anything. But it seems to me that in many cases she is not even controlled and makes actions and statements that do not meet the interests of the president.”
Fesenko even compares the MP to the former spokesperson for the Presidential Office, Oleksiy Arestovych, who quickly crossed the line in his freethinking, beyond which he could no longer be tolerated on Bankova Street.
“I think that in this case, she received such information from someone and immediately started to disseminate it without checking it or thinking about the consequences. And in this sense, I believe she is repeating the mistake of Arestovych, which led to his decline and break with the president’s team. Let’s see how it goes with her,”
– says the political analyst.
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Stupidity and short-sightedness or outright subversion?
Many commentators believe, like Yuriy Ihnat, that MP Mariana Bezuhla is engaged in outright subversion aimed at discrediting the army during the war.
“I have the impression that either she is a primitive provocateur, to be honest, or she is embedded in some system of subversion of defence capability and the military-industrial complex. The person held the position of deputy chairman of the National Security and Defence Committee, she has a lot of information and has been publishing outright lies about the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In fact, this is an action to completely destroy the reputation of both the Servant of the People and Zelensky personally,”
– he said in an exclusive comment
In other words, if Bezuhla’s behaviour is seen as an activity aimed at reducing Ukraine’s defence capabilities, then the state security agencies should indeed have questions for her. However, the Ukrainian society has not yet been informed of this.
Or maybe it is true?
But what if Bezugla is, in fact, a complex and ambiguous personality, but she is also a “truth-teller” who, in her own style, tries to raise important issues that are being silenced at the level of senior military leadership? According to military expert Oleg Zhdanov, regarding the incident with the tragic death of the Ukrainian pilot, “friendly fire” is indeed one of the versions of what happened. It was this version that was one of the first to be leaked in the Western press, citing sources in the Ukrainian and American military leadership.
“Apparently, as an MP and member of the National Security and Defence Committee, she has much more information than we do. That’s why she expressed the version she believes in. In reality, there are three versions being considered: pilot error, technical malfunction and friendly fire,”
– zhdanov said exclusively for
In support of Bezuhlaya’s version, he cites recent information from the Western press that the US is sending a new top military expert to Kyiv.
“The American press is reporting today that the Pentagon is sending a person to Kyiv to check the friend-or-foe warning system. So there is no smoke without fire,”
– says Zhdanov.
Reputation is everything
In short, if Bezugla is indeed a provocateur and almost an agent of the Kremlin, her style definitely plays into the hands of the state. But if she is an uncompromising fighter for the truth, then we have bad news for her, as well as for all of us. Because her behaviour and her style lead to the fact that society is increasingly discussing her personality rather than what she says or tries to convey. And the irresponsible and incompetent leadership of the Armed Forces (according to Bezuhla) can sleep peacefully.
However, Mariana Bezuhla, whoever she is, is not the kind of person who is deterred by public opinion. Today, after a huge wave of hate against her, the MP continued the topic. In her latest post, she not only continued to criticise the leadership of the Armed Forces, but added unpleasant facts: according to Bezuhla, the F-16 incident is at least the third time that domestic air defence systems have shot down their own aircraft.
“This is at least the third time that our aircraft with a pilot has been shot down by our own air defence. The two previous incidents, which did not involve F-16s, were officially blamed on the Russians. They also tried to keep silent about this case and hide the information until it appeared in foreign sources. This indicates a lack of proper conclusions and an objective investigation. The situation is similar to the one in the army – mutual responsibility. This needs to be changed! It cannot go on like this. The culture of lies is leading us to defeat,”
– bezuhla wrote.
This post, of course, is already causing a new wave of hate against the MP with a scandalous reputation. At the same time, we can recall a post from two months ago by one of the Azov commanders, Bohdan Krotevych, in which he also “took the rubbish out of the house” and accused one of the generals of the Armed Forces of Ukraine of “killing more Ukrainian soldiers than any Russian general”. Criticism of Krotevych by opinion leaders was almost invisible at the time, given one simple fact: his impeccable reputation as a fighter whose good intentions are doubted by very few people.