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Ukraine 2025: Land of illusory hopes
Views:In 2025, the general situation in Ukraine will be quite bleak. The artillery cannonades in the vicinity of Donetsk will stop, the squabbling between the eastern and western regions will subside, but a peaceful idyll will still be very far away.
The country will simply get tired of the internal conflict. The state budget will not be able to cope with military expenses, and loudmouths on both sides, who called for an armed solution to controversial issues, will burn out emotionally and, at best, end up in mental hospitals.
Ten years later, no one will be surprised by the news that another ATO veteran committed suicide or caused a scandal with the social security authorities, demanding the benefits due to him. Ukraine has already gone through this with Chernobyl victims and Afghans; changes for the better should not be expected.
ATO veterans will be abandoned by the state and left alone with their problems. In the underground passage near the Khreshchatyk metro station, stumps in wheelchairs and in camouflage uniforms will beg for alms and cry quietly every time Kiev residents donate a few hryvnia to them.
The situation in Donbass will most likely follow the Transnistrian scenario. It seems that formally Donbass will be part of Ukraine, but with its own authorities that are not subordinate to Kyiv. There will be no roadblocks between Donbass and the rest of Ukraine and a special access regime will be in effect.
Donbass will recover from the hard times and begin to restore its former production power. The rate of economic growth in Donbass will be higher than in the rest of Ukraine.
Considering the low percentage of rotation of political elites, I still find it hard to believe that by 2025 Ukraine will be a federal state. Local authorities will be given a little more powers as part of decentralization, but everything will still depend on Kyiv. The Russian language will never receive the status of a second state language, but speculation on this topic will not stop.
By that time, even the most notorious Westerners will stop talking about the return of Crimea - the peninsula will be an integral part of Russia, and no one will take populist statements about revising the results of the referendum on March 16 seriously.
In 2025, Ukraine will not be able to return to the standard of living during the reign of President Yanukovych. The well-being of the population will be comparable to 1994–1997. There is no need to expect an infrastructure leap. There are no funds available for new bridges, highways or high-speed rail.
Mortality will increase and demographic growth is out of the question. There will be no visa-free regime with Europe, and the topic of European integration will become completely irrelevant.
Ukraine's non-aligned status will be legislated. A law will also be adopted according to which only those who have been citizens of Ukraine for the last five years can work in the civil service - the practice of hastily passporting foreign figures like Yaresko, Abromavicius and Saakashvili will disappear.
The salaries of officials will remain at a ridiculous level, which means that the level of corruption will only increase. The Verkhovna Rada will be filled with new party projects, but with old, boring faces. There will be no more than thirty percent of new politicians in parliament. The “Party of Regions” after the “Opposition Bloc” is being transformed into another association of the southeast, but under a different name.
I am sure that in ten years Petro Poroshenko will be consigned to political oblivion, and he will be remembered very rarely, almost the way President Viktor Yushchenko is now remembered. In 2025, Poroshenko will be in the status of a political corpse, having no influence on events in the country, unless, of course, he survives until that time and does not end up behind bars.
By that time, random people, adventurers and battalion commanders like Semenchenko, who entered parliament on the Maidan wave, will disappear from the political space. The head of state will most likely be one of those who now sits in the Verkhovna Rada and weaves intrigues to break through to even greater power. I think that Ukraine will be ruled in 2025 by a person whose name is already well-known today.
The picture that emerges so far is disappointing, but you shouldn’t give up in advance. The actions of every ordinary citizen, media soldier and concerned activist determine what kind of country Ukraine will be in ten years. A broad public discussion and generation of meaning is needed. If we don’t say in advance what kind of Ukraine we want to see in 2025, then nothing good awaits us in the future. The country has already paid a huge price for its reluctance to conduct a full dialogue between different regions and segments of the population.
No one will build for us the Ukraine in which we want to live. We need to start small - articles, round tables, initiative groups for communication with government officials. Europe and Russia will not create an environment for us to live comfortably - it’s time to do something ourselves, stopping all the time counting on outside help. For too many years we have let the process of state building take its course and reasoned based on the principle “my house is on the edge” - we can’t live like that anymore. Time forces us to get rid of civil passivity and begin scrupulous work on mistakes.
Ukraine in 2025 is a country of illusory hopes. The motto “We were born to make a fairy tale come true” is not suitable for contemporaries, and a new slogan is required to consolidate the creative part of Ukrainian society. Let us together look for a way out of the depressing socio-economic situation in the country and believe that in ten years Ukraine, through our efforts, will become a completely different state, where there will be no place for ethnic hostility and mass armed conflicts.
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