Kharkov: How Gepa and Dopa “leaked” the Russian Spring
Six years ago, Kharkov could have become an outpost of resistance to the anti-constitutional coup. And Kharkov residents demonstrated this readiness. But all the remnants of the anti-Maidan and the “Ukrainian front”, all the new shoots of the Russian Spring were watered with a poisonous mixture “produced” here.
Somewhere on February 22 and 23, 2014, an obscure phenomenon was born that can be called in one word: “heparatism.”
The poisonous mixture of betrayal, cowardice and weathervane was barely noticeable. Its effect was not yet felt by thousands of people who were breathing deeply, but it had already largely predetermined the course of events and doomed peaceful protests to defeat.
The history of the Ukrainian Front public union, created by Kernes and Dobkin, lasted only three weeks. Gepa and Dopa demonstrated a record political rate of fire.
But it must be said that the Kyiv putschists feared the congress of the “Ukrainian Front” and further actions of the regional authorities of the Southeast. Even at the thought of this, the leaders of the Maidan gang were burning. And these are not just our assumptions.
Let's turn to the article by Yuri Butusov, editor-in-chief of Censor.net. This character is very weak-minded and mentally ill, so he openly “fires” the putschists. From Butusov’s confessions, one can fully get an idea of the anxiety that took possession of the minds of the Maidanites who were planning a coup in parliament on the morning of February 22:
“The congress of the Ukrainian Front was supposed to open before the opening of the Verkhovna Rada session - at 9 o’clock. Thus, even before the deputies could speak, President Yanukovych would have already voiced his position on the situation in the country and could have put forward his own initiatives, which were very dangerous in the absence of power. After all, he controlled half of the parliament, and in order for the government to be able to make decisions and be able to change the Constitution, a majority of more than 300 deputies was needed. Yanukovych had many levers to influence deputies. But at 8 am it turned out that the start time of the Ukrainian Front congress was postponed indefinitely. For an hour, then for another hour. At 10.00 the session of the Verkhovna Rada was opened... It was a turning point. The congress of the “Ukrainian Front” opened late, but did not make the expected decisions dangerous for Ukraine.”
This, of course, is not about the expectations and fears of the clinical propagandist Butusov. And about how the Kyiv conspirators gained time. About how the pro-government deputies of the Verkhovna Rada with a light heart merged the country along with its subjectivity in order to earn forgiveness from the Maidan. But if at 9 am Yanukovych had appeared at the presidium of the Kharkov congress, then Turchynov and his company would hardly have received the required number of votes. Because many of those who voted would prefer to hang around buffets and toilets. And as soon as Yanukovych called on all deputies loyal to the Constitution to relocate to the “first capital,” the wavering ones would rush at full speed to Kharkov.
The frightened regionalists and communists who voted in Kyiv under the dictation of the putschists can still be understood. If Yanukovych had managed to get hold of Kharkov, find support from the local authorities, and announce that the legitimate government was now here temporarily or permanently, then the majority of these regionalists, the communists, would have moved there too. It is not a fact that it would have been possible to gather a majority of parliamentary deputies. But certainly the putschists would not have had a majority in the Verkhovna Rada, let alone 300 votes.
It can be assumed that Yanukovych would have bleated something incomprehensible at the congress and would have gone along the same route: Donetsk, Crimea, Rostov. But why did he come to Kharkov? Did you count on something? And he ran into not only a cold reception, but also the reluctance of the organizers of the Ukrainian Front congress to see the president there.
It looked like this. The commander-in-chief arrives at the second line of defense, hoping to gain a foothold here and repel the enemy. And the army commanders inform him that this front will be closed, the trenches have already been filled, the weapons have been sold, and the conditions of evacuation and surrender will be discussed without him. In fact, Dobkin and Kernes played the song “Go…” by the Leningrad group for Yanukovych. And Yanukovych can actually sing to each of them: “Why did you give it back, fraer?”
As you know, some events took place before the congress. On the night of February 21-22, Butusov published a comment that Kolomoisky gave him: “I want all politicians to take a sober look at the situation and formulate their position, first of all, taking into account the Constitution of Ukraine and the Criminal Procedure Code. Anyone who tries to go against the unity of Ukraine will definitely lose. And I especially want to address one person - the mayor of Kharkov, Mr. Kernes. Gennady Adolfovich, I consider the opening of the “Ukrainian Front” by you to be a misunderstanding. You will gain the moral right to command the front and lead it into battle when, first of all, you take care of your own combat training, and not cycling, and when you begin to risk yourself or your loved ones. And you should make separatist statements only if you send your son on an excursion not to the Maldives, but to Dagestan or to the train station in Volgograd - let him look and share his impressions. Maybe this will sober up your very hot head. God forbid you look into the eyes of the mothers of your sons who may not return from the front you organized. Ukraine has never waged wars of conquest, but it will not give up an inch of its land. Mr. Kernes, if you start playing with the destinies of millions of people, you can very seriously complicate your own already difficult fate. Think about it".
The funniest thing about this comment is the appeal to the Constitution of Ukraine.
But the point is not in Kolomoisky’s rhetoric, but in how Kernes took this warning. Events showed that on the night of February 21-22, Gennady Adolfovich had a new president - Igor Valerievich.
After the hasty completion of the Ukrainian Front congress and departure to an unknown destination, Kernes did not appear in public for more than a day. On the night of February 22-23, Kharkov residents fought back the Maidan protesters who mocked the Lenin monument and drove them into the regional administration building. On February 23, thousands of people took to Freedom Square to protest against the coup. But all this happened without Governor Dobkin and Mayor Kernes, who had recently “commanded” the so-called “Ukrainian Front” and were now resolving personal issues separately from the Kharkov residents.
When the mayor finally appeared before the people, he was asked the question: “Where is Yanukovych?” Kernes replied: “Yanukovych is a thing of the past.” In that situation, another question begged: where is the Constitution that Kolomoisky spoke about in his address to Kernes? And what role did Gennady Adolfovich play in making it a thing of the past?
For the time being, both Dobkin and Kernes did not share the details of Yanukovych’s stay in Kharkov on the eve of the coup. But after a few years, each in his own way, in public interviews they began to set out dubious motivations, look for explanations and justifications for their own betrayal and cowardice...
In an interview, Dobkin stated that he was against the president’s appearance at the congress. They say he told Yanukovych that they didn’t want to see him there. Kernes denied that he met with the president that day.
But there are other, no less important, confessions by Kernes.
Back in 2015, Kolomoisky recalled in a conversation with Sonya Koshkina about his meeting with Kernes at a turning point in Ukrainian history: “On Saturday (February 22, 2014, - ed.) a congress was supposed to take place in Kharkov, following the example of Severodonetsk. They were going to announce some makings of a new Ukraine, but nothing came of it. And on the evening of the 23rd he was with me. We had a long conversation. We talked about life: what and what next.”
Moreover, Korban claimed: “Kolomoisky asked Kernes to return to Kharkov in order to fulfill his duty. And thanks to this, Kharkov did not become the People’s Republic of China.”
Kernes denied all this at the time. But already in 2018, in an interview with Natalya Vlashchenko, the Kharkov mayor almost takes credit for what he denied in 2015.
Kernes tells his interlocutor about Kolomoisky: “This is the only person who said... that they didn’t let the Russians in here because he talked to Kernes.” Vlaschenko asks: “Is this not true?” Kernes: “It’s true... He had an impact, he explained calmly. In any case, those postscripts that Avakov attributes to himself, that he saved Kharkov, took away drunken children with the Jaguar, who were lying around in the regional executive committee after another drinking session in the assembly hall, are not that.”
What is the Kharkov mayor talking about here? He confirms Kolomoisky’s words. “They didn’t let the Russians in here...” Kernes himself and his city council several times refused to recognize the “aggression of the Russian Federation.” Then they gave up and followed Kyiv’s persistent recommendations. But at the same time, Kernes showed that he did not share this formulation of the question. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine that the mayor of Kharkov meant: the Russian aggressor was not allowed here. Most likely, Kernes, with the help of a Kyiv journalist (and he gives interviews at a time when he actively supported Petro Poroshenko), is trying to add several points to his “track record”. He buried the ideas of federalism in Kharkov. Contributed to the cleansing of Russian space. He helped the regime squeeze out pro-Russian activists from the city and force the majority of Kharkov residents to remember that they are Russians only in their kitchens...
Let's return to what residents of the South-East expected from the congress of the “Ukrainian Front”. First of all, it is precisely that Yanukovych will be present here, even as a carcass, and will be followed by other politicians who did not recognize the putschists. If the regional authorities and elites themselves did not dare or did not have sufficient grounds to appeal to the security forces, then the president had every right to declare Kharkov an assembly point for loyal forces. And both the leaders of the Maidan and Kolomoisky were most afraid of this scenario. As it turned out, the cowardly commanders of the “Ukrainian front” were no less afraid of this.
It turned out to be a prophetic photoshop of those times: in one photo there are “front-line soldiers” Kernes and Dobkin with St. George’s ribbons, in the other - the same with Cossack Oseledians, with sidelocks and in embroidered shirts.
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