Russia’s government controlled news agency Sputnik declared this week that three years after the Maydan protests Ukraine was economically much worse than ever before. The source for this non-story is Kharkiv based translator Dennis Schedrivy, a purported citizen activist and blogger, whom official Russian media regularly cite in their Ukrainian disinformation mission.
Schedrivy claims that Ukraine’s market is dead and that it is impossible to find work that is well paid.
According to Ukraine’s headhunting and job site rabota.ua, Ukraine’s employment market is growing. Compared to January 2015, the current jobs market has grown by 200%, the average salary has risen by 14% and the salaries of the top 50 most popular jobs have grown by 18%.
Schedrivy also proclaims all of Ukraine’s reform efforts a complete failure.
According to the official monitoring of Ukraine’s 2015–2016 reform efforts, the country has successfully implemented an independent and transparent procurement system ProZorro, launched an Anti-Corruption bureau and enacted important legislation concerning education, decentralization and deregulation. Crucial constitutional, justice and prosecution reforms are still to be enacted.
The NGO Reforms Speedometer site monitors reform progress in Ukraine while the reforms coalition Reanimation Package of Reforms has marked twelve areas where the country’s has achieved concrete reforms.
The International Monetary Fund meanwhile is forecasting a 1.5% GDP growth for Ukraine for 2016 and 2.5% for 2017.
The source for this distorted and inaccurate story is Kharkiv resident Dennis Schedrivy, Sputnik calls him an activist and blogger, but according to his LinkedIn profile, Schedrivy is a professional translator. He is also the administrator of a popular separatist Facebook group and subscribes to scores of anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian sites and pages. Schedrivy is also an active participant in the Slav World forum as well as a member of a Russian pagan association.
Schedrivy is regularly featured in Sputnik stories where he dutifully toes the official Moscow view on Ukraine and warns about growing Nazism in the country.
