A former lead designer at the Antonov state enterprise called Ukraine a “rotten state”

Former lead designer at the Antonov State Enterprise, Anatolii Vovnian ko, and political analyst Yurii Romanenko discussed the reasons for Ukraine’s economic and institutional decline in a joint broadcast. Comparing Ukraine’s trajectory with the successes of neighboring Poland, they concluded that the post-Soviet model of the state has collapsed.

Anatolii Vovnian ko pointed out that, despite similar starting conditions, Poland was able to become one of the world’s twenty most developed countries (the G20), while Ukraine squandered its potential.

“Today Poland’s GDP is $1 trillion, Ukraine’s is $180 billion. Poland is being taken into the top twenty, the G20, and we…,” the designer remarked.

He rejected the argument that Poland’s success is due solely to membership in the European Union, citing Bulgaria as an example of a country that did not make a comparable leap. In Vovnian ko’s view, the secret of Poland’s success lies in using resources correctly.

“Poland made its leap not because it ended up inside the European Union, but because once it was inside the European Union, they understood the priorities correctly and understood what was needed, where to direct resources,” he emphasized.

To illustrate the difference in approaches, Vovnian ko spoke about building a road to the border: “Ukraine and Poland were given money to build a highway to Lviv… Poland—have you seen the road toward Krakovets? And we just cut a clearing through the forest.”

Discussing personnel policy, Vovnian ko said Ukraine lacks meritocracy—the rule of the competent—which existed in the Soviet aircraft industry or operates today in China. According to him, the current state apparatus is completely rotten.

“In this rotten state, the only things that resemble a state are the SBU, the military intelligence directorate, and the armed forces. Everything else is just decay,” the expert said bluntly.

He expressed the belief that saving the situation requires radical, harsh measures, because liberal leaders like Václav Havel or Lech Wałęsa never emerged in Ukraine.

“I do have a proposal: if we had, excuse me, a Pinochet or a Saakashvili who would sweep away this rotten state,” Vovnian ko said.

Yurii Romanenko summed up the conversation with a metaphor about the cold that was physically felt in the studio due to the lack of heating and electricity, linking it to the end of post-Soviet Ukraine.

“That chill that many people feel right now… that’s about the ‘sunset of an era.’ The sunset of the era of the Second Ukrainian Republic, which was a continuation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union, only in its worst manifestations,” the political analyst said.

Romanenko also noted that even the “blood the country is choking on” does not trigger basic self-preservation instincts in many Ukrainians. As an example of irresponsibility, he cited people driving luxury cars onto the ice of the Kyiv Reservoir.

“Someone in an Audi Q8… gets into an accident… and you ask yourself: what were you doing there in your Q8, on the ice of the Kyiv Reservoir? What were you doing there at all? It’s simply incomprehensible,” Romanenko concluded emotionally.