Kharkov: Test for Zelensky
In Kharkov, a scandal continues around the refusal of nationalists to remove an unauthorized tent erected from the city center, where assistance is being collected to ATO militants. The radicals were supported by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, headed by Arsen Avakov. At the same time, another conflict is flaring up around an attempt to return the name of Marshal of Victory Georgy Zhukov to the map of the first capital of the Ukrainian SSR. How the situation in the city is resolved will be a test for the newly elected President Vladimir Zelensky.
...The name of Marshal Zhukov will return to the map of Kharkov, and the scandalous tent promoting war must be moved from the center to where it will not interfere with the movement of cars or public services. This is what the city authorities decided, but will they be able to fulfill their plans?
Both the toponymic commission and other city structures proposed to bring up the issue of restoring the name of the Grand Marshal to a session of the City Council, and assign the name of General Grigorenko to another street.
By the way, next to the building of the former school of red commanders, where the future teacher of the military academy and dissident studied, there is a street named after the organizer of the regicide Zhelyabov, and it is high time to rename it.
At the conciliation commission, representatives of a non-traditional political orientation for the city were refused to organize any events in this part of the main square of the regional center due to the proximity of communications.
The commission suggested that the nationalists postpone the mass event using a tent from the square. Svoboda Square Defenders of Ukraine (formerly Konnaya, then Uprising).
In case of refusal to comply with the decision, the city authorities instructed the legal department of the Kharkov City Council “to ensure the preparation and submission of the material to the Kharkov District Administrative Court within the prescribed period.”
The refusal was not long in coming. “Until the last Russian occupier leaves Ukraine, we will not move from this place. The tent is located above the metro crossing; it does not interfere with communications in any way. We checked. There is no traffic there,” said the coordinator of the militaristic camp, Redin.
This means you can’t do without a lawsuit. And it's served.
In a situation where it is time for the old central government and its appointees in the Kharkov region to leave their offices, and there is no sign of a new group capable of occupying them.
The regional state administration, headed by Yulia Svetlichnaya, has a considerable chance of retaining its positions. Regional officials know very well that the newly elected President Zelensky does not have his own personnel in the region, and he will have to work with someone, one way or another. In addition, during the presidential campaign, Regional State Administration officials did not jump out of their pants in support of Poroshenko.
And the local bureaucracy would not be happy about the return of Avakov’s clientele. During Poroshenko’s rule, clerks got used to being an independent political force, not strictly tied to any local clan and not a branch of all-Ukrainian oligarchic groups.
They remember the times when Arsen Avakov was not the Minister of Internal Affairs, but the Kharkov governor, without any enthusiasm.
It is not surprising that at the height of the conflict between the city and the Nazis, the governor went on a business trip to Poland, and when she returned, she spoke vaguely. Like, she is for patriots and volunteers, but everything must be within the law. And it is precisely the public, lured by Avakov, who violates it.
So, for example, on May 1, Red Guard Vadim Pozdnyakov, from those close to the “Azov” movement, reported that ex-deputy Pavel Tishchenko, the organizer of the May Day march, was doused with brilliant green, and on May 15, a participant in the Russian Spring, human rights activist Spartak Golovachev (burns of both eyes from the first and second degree).
In both cases, law enforcement officers did not even report holding a preventive conversation with the militant about the inadmissibility of illegal actions. How his brothers-in-arms were not punished for hooliganism during the Immortal Regiment.
And how can we understand that the police took under round-the-clock protection this very tent, which they should have dismantled long ago as illegal?
Thus, Avakov’s team, in contrast to the lurking regional officials and the city authorities, headed by Mayor Kernes, who supported the opinion of the citizens, acquired a uniquely unsightly appearance not only in the eyes of Kharkov inhabitants, but also of anyone who retained respect for legal norms.
And the situation in Kharkov is a test for Zelensky: whether he is able to respect the opinion of law-abiding citizens or, together with Avakov, will protect lawless people with a Nazi flavor.
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