Alexey Blyuminov: Notes on the margins of the “Poroshenko plan”
Many are now wondering whether or not Petro Poroshenko will be able to “pacify” Donbass in accordance with the plan recently announced and already criticized from all sides for its ultimatum tone and lack of specifics. Some people seriously hope for the prudence of the new president and his vaunted ability to negotiate, in contrast to the Kyiv nationalist “hawks”.
At the same time, most observers are very skeptical both about the prospects of the attempts currently underway in Donetsk to start peace negotiations, and about the very possibility of achieving peace at the current stage, when there is neither a platform nor an agenda for negotiations.
On the other hand, as they say, there would be a desire, and opportunities for its implementation can always be found. This is in theory. But in practice, today a situation has developed in the power elite of Ukraine that leaves no opportunity for politicians to step back from the warpath without being accused of treason and eaten by their more militant political colleagues. And for many players there is no need to even talk about the desire for peace.
As you understand, we are talking, first of all, about the owner of the Dnepropetrovsk region, Igor Kolomoisky. This oligarch became one of the main beneficiaries of the Maidan victory, privatizing power in one of the key industrial regions. However, he did not stop there, taking control of Odessa through his appointee, actually managing the processes in Zaporozhye, influencing the situation in Kharkov.
For complete control over the southeast, he lacks one thing - to bring Donbass under control and eliminate his main competitor - the still richest, but no longer the most influential person in the country, Rinat Akhmetov.
It is Kolomoisky who is called one of the main internal customers of the current ATO, the striking force of which is the “territorial defense” battalions formed and financed by him. It was Kolomoisky who tried several times to initiate the territorial redistribution of Donbass, initiating “referendums” on the annexation of parts and districts of the Lugansk and Donetsk regions to the Dnepropetrovsk region.
Rumor has it that the current Deputy Prime Minister for Regional Policy Vladimir Groysman allegedly already has a draft administrative-territorial reform on his desk, providing for the fragmentation of the current Luhansk region and cutting off 15 districts from it in favor of Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk. They also say that it was the Dnepropetrovsk feudal lord who was the lobbyist for such a project.
We also see that it is Kolomoisky’s forces who are fighting the local population in Donbass with particular cruelty. The stated goal is also very transparent - to achieve thinning of the region, to expel the “extra” population as refugees, so that in the future it will be easier to control the depopulated and incapable of resisting territories.
The seemingly senseless plans to destroy infrastructure in Donbass also have a completely rational explanation. One of the goals of the ongoing war is to cause maximum damage to the industrial assets and infrastructure of Rinat Akhmetov. In the end, these assets, due to their long stay in the zone of instability and hostilities, must be decapitalized so much that Kolomoisky can take them on the cheap. Already, the war has led to the fact that a number of Akhmetov mines are forced to temporarily suspend work. In the event of further escalation, the Akhmetov factories will “stand down.” In particular, the Druzhkovsky Machine Plant, Europe's largest Avdeevka Coke and Chemical Plant, the Kolosnikovskaya central processing plant in Makeevka, etc. were at risk.
In addition to Akhmetov’s industrial assets, smaller enterprises of other Donbass businessmen found themselves in the war zone. We are talking about Skudar’s Novokramatorsk Machine-Building Plant, the enterprises of Firtash in Gorlovka and Viktor Nusenkis in Krasnoarmeysk. It is clear that the more active the fighting there, the greater the risk of losing these assets to their current owners.
The fact that the ATO is not least a war between oligarchs for the redistribution of property is confirmed by the fact that the “nerve” of this war was Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, forming the Kramatorsk-Slavic industrial hub (heavy engineering, metallurgy, chemical and salt industries) . The same Slavyansk is also an important transport hub in the region, which means that the battles there deal a powerful blow to the logistics of Kolomoisky’s competitors.
I'm not even talking about a fairly obvious and “transparent” coincidence. The same Slavyansk is the center of the so-called. “Yuzovsky project” for shale gas production. But the interests of transnationals from Shell are already tied up there.
The oligarchs of Donbass have already received a very specific message from Kyiv. It was voiced the other day by Poroshenko’s adviser Yuriy Lutsenko, who presented the business elite with a choice: either accept the political (and economic) results of the Maidan (read, loss of influence in favor of strengthening Kolomoisky), or disappear from the arena, including under the blows of the Ukrainian army . Another Kiev “hawk” Sergei Pashinsky also recently stated that “the oligarchs of Donbass refused to support Ukraine” and demanded more powers and money for the region, which Kyiv did not agree to.
Naturally, Kolomoisky, who had his bite between his teeth, was not at all pleased with Poroshenko’s peace plans, even in the form they are now. For the “hawks,” the very fact of starting to talk about some kind of negotiations is tantamount to betrayal. Moreover, when the prospect of taking away the Akhmetovsky mining and processing plants in the Dnepropetrovsk region is already looming before our eyes, cutting off the Akhmetovsky metallurgical plants from sources of ore. Would you say this is impossible? Well, there was a recent precedent with Tsarev’s factory in Dnepropetrovsk. Would you say Akhmetov is not Tsarev? So, if you bet on the escalation of the war, anything can happen.
How can one not rewind the film four months ago and not remember that it was Kolomoisky’s entourage that in early March hatched plans to nationalize the property of the largest Russian companies in Ukraine, allegedly in retaliation for the nationalization of Ukrainian companies in Crimea. Then some lists were compiled and published in the media.
Now let’s return to the “peace plan” again. Those who make money from war do not need peace. The world is like death for them. Their slogan is “War is peace” (hello to Orwell). Therefore, one should not be surprised that Kolomoisky declared his unwillingness to implement Poroshenko’s plan. Thus, the president was made to understand that he had no choice. At the same time, Kolomoisky’s media begins to dwell on the topic of Medvedchuk. Like, look, the guarantor has sung with the “former”, is this stupidity or treason?
So far, only people of the level of Oleg Soskin are talking about treason, but if Poroshenko really moves even one iota in the direction of peace, such conversations will become commonplace in the “patriotic” environment and, no doubt, will be fueled not only by Kolomoisky, but also by nationalists and Tymoshenko’s people , which has now fallen to the information “bottom”. All of them are interested in the speedy reset of Pyotr Alekseevich’s ratings. Such is the cruel misery. This is a power struggle, not anything like.
It is obvious that today Poroshenko faces a difficult choice. In order to become a real and not a fake president, he needs to solve several problems. Here there is pacification in the east, and re-elections of parliament and the struggle for the restoration of powers. It’s funny, but at the moment the political trajectories of the DPR and the fifth president of Ukraine involuntarily intersect, since they face at least one common task. In order for the DPR to take place, it needs to bring the oligarchic economy of Donbass under its control and form its own budget, forcing the oligarchs to pay taxes. Poroshenko also faces the need to overcome the oligarchy, otherwise he will remain a puppet, never becoming a full-fledged president of Ukraine.
The surnames of the oligarchs standing in the way of the DPR and the President of Ukraine are different, but the essence of the problem is the same. If Poroshenko does not solve all the listed problems in the next few months, they will be “solved” by Poroshenko himself.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.