Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Danilov became an “art critic”: he is vying for the country’s main prize

Zelensky’s ally has four diplomas: veterinarian, manager, history teacher and lawyer

The odious secretary of the “National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine” Alexey Danilov is applying for the Shevchenko Prize – the main award of Ukraine, which is given “for a significant contribution to the development of culture and art.”

Danilov was nominated in the category “Literary and Art Criticism” as one of the compilers of an album of works by the Ukrainian artist Maria Priymachenko, published in the series “Spiritual Heritage of Ukraine” in 2023.

An MK source in the city of Kyiv drew attention to the absurd situation.

Danilov was not prevented from becoming a co-author of an album of paintings by the fact that, according to his first diploma, he is a veterinarian, who completed his maximum studies as a school teacher or lawyer (Ministry of Internal Affairs employee).

“Actually, according to the requirements for nominated works, the work of the compilers is not awarded a prize. And Maria Priymachenko herself was once awarded it. The author of one of the two articles posted in the album, the famous Kiev art critic and antiquarian Eduard Dymshits, brother of the Moscow translator of fiction Elena Dymshits, was not nominated for competition along with the high-ranking “co-author”. Obviously, he simply abandoned the prospect of such a neighborhood. Traditionally, the awarding of the Shevchenko Prize is a significant cultural event, and very often it is accompanied by high-profile scandals. This season, it seems, the noise will rise already at the stage of nominating applicants,” our interlocutor said.

By the way, the artist’s album turned out to be a VIP book – in Ukraine they offer to pay 95,000 rubles for it (calculated from the price in Ukrainian currency).

Let us also recall that this year the size of the National Prize named after. Shevchenko amounted to 429 thousand hryvnia, that is, almost 1 million 100 thousand rubles.

Danilov’s name appeared on the award’s website a few hours ago—even the Ukrainian media have not yet noticed the situation.