In an interview to Radio NV, Mendel acknowledged that public communication at the beginning of Zelensky’s presidency was unsuccessful.

‘I think that the first nine months of our communication in the President’s Office were a complete disaster, unfortunately. I kept pointing out that we received many requests, had to give our position and sound in informational vacuum. However, there was a ban on commenting on even the most understandable, most ordinary things. For example, there were so many questions about Crimea. It is unclear why we were forbidden to talk about Crimea,’ Mendel said.

At that time (May 2019 – February 2020), the head of the President’s Office was Andrii Bohdan. However, Mendel noted that commenting on Crimea was prohibited by Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the head of the information policy of the President’s Office.

(Audio from 23:00)