🌊 Is Ukraine a Democracy?

Our deep-dive on the claims about Zelensky being a “dictator”

March 04, 2025

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By Max Frost

On Sunday, Elon Musk shared a video released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Within a day, the video had 16.6M views. 

“Here is something that the political establishment and propaganda media don’t want you to know,” Gabbard began. 

She proceeded to list a slew of allegedly anti-democratic actions taken by President Zelensky: Banning a party that questioned his legitimacy, seizing that party’s assets, banning TV channels associated with his political opponents, and taking “total control” of Ukraine’s largest television networks. 

“Zelensky’s presidential term ended on May 20. He canceled elections in the name of martial law, suspending Ukraine’s constitution so that he could stay in power.”

Gabbard continued, “Defenders of Zelensky will say, ‘Hey – Ukraine is in the middle of a war. They can’t have elections!’ Stop for a moment and think – if we accept that excuse or criteria for suspending the constitution and canceling elections, then we should presume that leaders in our own country and own establishment media will also use the same excuse and rationale when they suspend our constitution or our elections.”

Has Zelensky centralized power and squashed dissent? Has he violated Ukraine’s constitution? Are Gabbard’s claims about him true? 

That’s the subject of today’s deep-dive. 

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Editor’s Note

We’re eager to hear your thoughts on today’s story, particularly on the centralization of the media and banning of opposition parties. Are you concerned by the democratic situation in Ukraine? Is Gabbard spreading misleading information? Let us know by replying here. 

Also, here are our last five stories, in case you missed any:

Reader Replies

A ton of replies to yesterday’s deep-dive about the UK’s efforts to compel Apple to create a “back door” to encrypted information. Here’s a selection:

Stephen wrote: 

Personally I don't care because they wanted to see the shenanigans that I'm up to it'll be just a waste of their time and bore them to death. I'm just curious as to why they're focusing on Apple I mean I'm guessing and it's only a guess that there's probably more Android users than Apple simply because they're more devices on Android than Apple but what do I know. 

David wrote:

I strongly disagree with Apple on this issue. Just like the US government can search your house (with a court order) they should be able to search your phone (with a court order). BUT, the access UK government is wanting is not by court order so I disagree with the UK government on unfettered access to British citizen’s phone and totally, 100% disagree to access to all iPhones.

And Roberto from New York:

I really hate it when I agree with a Trump administration individual, but I tend to agree with Gabbard on this issue. Compelling a tech company to grant access to a device or data with a court order or warrant secured through the proper process is one thing - creating a special “back door” for a single government based on their demand is absurd and a clear violation of their citizens’ expectation of privacy. Not to mention the risk it exposes all Apple users to globally. Privacy is already becoming a foreign concept in the digital world and I believe it’s important to protect it where we can. I think the risks of random terrorism are generally overblown by the fear mongering media. I do agree that allowances should be made for investigating crimes against children, but what those allowances are I couldn’t say as I’m not a tech expert. I do know that law enforcement agencies have been thinking of creative ways to get what they want, get around warrants, etc since the early days of policing (ie asking for a glass of water or to use the bathroom so an officer can snoop around someone’s house) so I’m sure if they think hard they’ll come up with something.

That’s all for today. Make sure to send in your thoughts about today’s newsletter, so we can feature them here tomorrow. See you then.

–Max and Max