The Zelenskyy phenomenon, the activities of the so-called Ze!team, and the “new normal” they relentlessly push — none of this is mere politics. It is a full-scale multimedia project that survives solely through dominance over the information field. Its effectiveness is directly proportional to the regime’s ability to crush, buy off, or marginalize any dissenting voices.
At the end of 2021 and into early 2022, Zelenskyy, Yermak, and their team operated in an almost entirely hostile information environment inside Ukraine. Society was drowning in exhaustion and rage from COVID-era repressions: lockdowns, forced QR codes, fines, and vicious harassment of the unvaccinated. A gaping chasm separated the official line of major media, the brutal censorship policies of Facebook and YouTube, and the raw mood on the streets. The Ze!team went all-in: using multimedia tools (bots, targeted ads, account blocks, pressure on employers) they tried to physically erase from public life anyone who refused to “believe” in the official COVID religion. Meanwhile, left-wing globalists (Soros-linked structures and their grant recipients) gave Zelenskyy and company carte blanche to launder billions through the “Great Construction” project — a classic scheme for siphoning state funds under the guise of infrastructure development.
People were boiling over entirely different issues: skyrocketing utility tariffs (in winter 2021–2022 heating bills tripled compared to the previous year), rampant inflation devouring salaries, and a precipitous collapse in living standards. The chasm between the fairy tales the Ze!team sold in the first half of 2019 (“imprisonments,” “end of the era of poverty,” “cheap gas”) and the brutal reality of 2021–2022 had become painfully obvious and intolerable. While a silent cartel agreement existed around COVID (oligarchs, politicians, and major opinion leaders kept quiet), on tariffs, poverty, and blatant corruption in “Great Construction,” Zelenskyy was drenched in filth from every direction — leftists to rightists, patriots to populists.
Who controlled the field back then?
The information landscape of late 2021 – early 2022 was still relatively pluralistic — censorship had already increased dramatically compared to the 2010s, but alternative voices could still break through noticeably.
The most powerful and aggressive player was the Soros ecosystem — the informational backbone of the left-globalist project “Ukraine,” built on the cult of two Maidans. Its flagship and main mouthpiece, “Ukrainska Pravda,” claimed the status of ultimate arbiter of truth. The pool included “Radio Svoboda” (operating practically in the same building as Akhmetov’s media structures), NV, LB.ua, “Novynarnia,” “Krym.Realii,” “Graty,” and dozens of small regional outlets that, for meager grants, covered local news strictly according to Soros guidelines. Activists, funded by the same grants, pushed LGBT expansion, “woke agenda,” “digitalization,” language-army-faith narratives, and above all the “new COVID normality” (grants on this topic flowed especially generously). At the same time, Soros leaders, who secretly conducted business in Russia and occupied Crimea, meticulously ensured that inconvenient truths about real Kyiv-Moscow deals on Crimea and Donbas never reached the mainstream. On the eve of the full-scale invasion, they cautiously ramped up hysteria about the “inevitable war with Russia,” but carefully — so as not to panic the average citizen prematurely.
Parallel to this, Poroshenko’s pool was gaining momentum: “5 Kanal,” “Pryamyi,” “Censor.NET,” “Bukvy,” “Dumska,” and a massive bot farm of so-called “porokhobots.” The Zelenskyy-Poroshenko conflict became one of the main trends — giving the fifth president’s media a second wind.
The war changed everything — and fast
From February 24, 2022, Ukraine’s information space underwent a shock mutation. At first — euphoria of unity, explosive patriotism, total media mobilization for resistance. But within months, consolidation of power over information began. The “United News” telethon became de facto the state broadcaster — 24/7, one voice, one picture, ruthless censorship of any criticism. Alternative opinions were branded “treason” or “working for the enemy.”
Telegram exploded as the primary news source — average daily usage jumped from 5 minutes to over 40. Channels of the Armed Forces, the Office of the President, politicians, volunteers, and bloggers flooded the space. Simultaneously, the authorities launched total pressure: blocking inconvenient Telegram channels, criminal cases against bloggers, “cleansing” of opposition media.
By 2025–2026, the media landscape had turned into a semi-desert. Independent voices were either forced to play by the rules of the Office of the President, pushed to the margins, or simply shut down. Journalists themselves name the main threats to freedom of speech: Russian aggression, pressure from the Presidential Office (especially Yermak), financial strangulation, Telegram chaos, and self-censorship. The Soros ecosystem partially adapted — now often rowing in the same boat with the authorities, promoting “European values” and “post-war reconstruction according to Western blueprints.” Poroshenko’s pool lost ground but remains a mouthpiece for opposition within the patriotic camp.
The war transformed the information field from competitive to tightly controlled. Instead of debate — a single narrative. Instead of pluralism — “solidarity” under the barrel of censorship. And this is not temporary. This is the new reality, where media survival depends on loyalty, not quality.
(Continuation in Part 2: how Telegram became the new center of power, why the telethon still hasn’t been canceled, and who really controls the information field in 2026.)