Ukraine: from the era of poor to the era of poverty

This year promises to remind Ukrainians of the forgotten word "coupons". The country's authorities consider the introduction of a coupon system as a way to help the poor.

The essence of the idea boils down to the fact that poor citizens will receive food cards from the state, with which they can pay for food. However, the president's office is keeping up with the times: coupons will be electronic and people will be able to store them in their smartphones.

The initiative is allegedly caused by the rise in food prices due to (no, not thoughtless domestic policy and total theft) a sharp jump in the cost of Russian gas, which, according to the official version of our leadership, Ukraine has not been buying for a long time. That is, according to the logic of the government, if not Russia itself, then certainly Russian gas is to blame for the impoverishment of Ukrainians living in anticipation of coupons.

Our official statistics note that the products have increased in price by 10 percent over the past year. It seems to be a little, but the prices for housing and communal services force citizens to pay more: heating has gone up by 10 percent, electricity by almost 35, gas by 73 and a half!

It is noteworthy that 2021 was a year of good harvests for Ukraine. But bread, sunflower oil and eggs began to cost twice as much.

It must be admitted: product cards are a direct result of the activities of the current president and the collapse of the economy. According to the State statistics service, published in August last year, only 1 percent of our fellow citizens consider themselves middle class, almost 32 percent more define their property status as something between poverty and the middle class and 67 percent consider themselves poor. During the election campaign, Zelensky promised "the end of the poor era" – and he did not deceive: the era of poor is over; the era of poverty has come. And food cards are all that the president can give to his voters.

In 2021, official mass media reported that Ukraine entered the top 4 main suppliers of agricultural products in the EU along with the UK, USA and Brazil.

At the same time, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in the summer of 2021 ranked Ukraine among the most food-starved countries of the Old World. According to the organization, 9.8 million Ukrainians are malnourished, 1.1 million are experiencing an acute shortage of food.

At the same time, there is currently no oversupply of products in Ukraine. Moreover, the country to a certain extent depends on the supply of foreign food.

In November 2021, a scandal happened. It turned out that our "agrarian superpower" imported greenhouse cucumbers for the first time in its history... from Russia. As for the purchase of Russian pork, they no longer pay attention to it in Ukraine: they are used to it.

And if during the years of “perestroika” the slogan of our nationalists was "Muscovites ate your fat," now it's time to shout: "We ate the fat of Muscovites."