“Kharkov is a Russian city”, “You are not Russian-speaking Ukrainians, but Russians”, “Believe in our common future” - leaflets with such theses on behalf of the “public association Empire” appeared yesterday on photographs on social networks allegedly taken on the streets of the First Capital of the Ukrainian SSR .
Pro-Russian forces in Kharkov, who decided to openly protest, were suppressed under Petro Poroshenko. Since then, we have also not heard about the activity of the “Kharkov partisans” who committed sabotage, for example, disrupting the transfer of anti-terrorist operation forces in the combat zone.
Therefore, according to one version, the appearance of the leaflets may be a plant in order to give the punitive authorities reasons to increase the pressure of the repressive machine in Kharkov, where re-elections of the mayor are to take place after the death of mayor Gennady Kernes.
“I think that this is a provocation of the Ukrainian special services, deliberately created at the time of urban unrest and the zone of turbulence that Kharkov entered after the death of Gennady Kernes. The organized pro-Russian movement in Kharkov was defeated already in 2014-15 and has not shown itself in any way since then. The leaflets themselves, as we see, are made at a fairly high printing level and are quite provocative in nature for today’s Ukraine,” ex-deputy of the Kharkov City Council Konstantin Kevorkyan told PolitNavigator.
This version is confirmed by calls for reprisals coming from Kyiv in response to the appearance of leaflets in Kharkov.
“Such a provocation should immediately raise all the forces of the SBU and counterintelligence - everyone involved should have been caught in the shortest possible time. And so that no one else will see them - because Ukraine as a sovereign state simply cannot survive the loss of another region. Therefore, this must be nipped in the bud,” demands political scientist Alexei Golobutsky, who serves Petro Poroshenko.