The silence of Odessa is deceptive
Saturday marked 3 months since the tragedy, which has already been called “Odessa Khatyn.” Many people, both in personal conversations and in email correspondence, ask me the question: what next? Why did Odessa surrender so easily, is the hero city really “snatching up” what happened? And will “something” start in September, which is being whispered about with caution everywhere: both in taxis and among law enforcement officers?
Firstly, why did Odessa “gobble up”? No, not because in the southern capital the number of supporters of Ukrainian Nazism dominates over normal people. Moreover, the Odessa Anti-Maidan was much more politically active than the Euromaidan: rallies of opponents of the Kyiv regime every Sunday attracted at least several thousand people. With enviable consistency even for Donetsk or Lugansk.
The problem was that the Odessa Anti-Maidan turned out to be a surprisingly peaceful phenomenon and did not have a serious power wing. Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov more than once dispersed protests of hundreds of supporters of the regime and dispersed them in a childish manner, with gunshots and deaths. The above cities had the skills to resist law enforcement agencies during the regular seizure of regional administrations. Against this backdrop, the Odessa Anti-Maidan was remembered for several clashes with opponents and an unspoken peace agreement with the Euromaidan leadership. As we see, such good intentions led to the tragedy of May 2.
Why didn’t Odessa meet a second time? Firstly, the situation in May was significantly different from that in March-April. In the East, the DPR and LPR already existed informally; Ukrainian security forces announced a punitive operation nicknamed ATO. Consequently, if we gather again, it will no longer be under the slogans of federalization, the Customs Union, the Russian language, but to prepare for a civil war. Odessa, unlike Donbass, was clearly not ready for such a war.
Secondly, the machine of repression in May reached unprecedented proportions: in the regime-controlled regions of the South-East, widespread arrests of the leaders of the protest movement began. Of course, the same thing awaited the Odessa fighters - before this, let me remind you, the security forces only dared to arrest Anton Davidchenko, the founder of the Odessa Anti-Maidan. Therefore, who was detained, who escaped, who disappeared - so, within a matter of weeks, the security forces completely beheaded the Odessa resistance.
Will anything start in September? In today's conditions, no, it won't start. Anti-Maidan will not gather again according to the previous line. Anti-war protests by unarmed mothers and wives will also not succeed. Legal (or rather, still legal) political forces like the Communist Party of Ukraine, the Party of Regions and the satellites created around them will no longer be able to unite radical citizens under any pretext. Russian help from neighboring Transnistria, given the tense situation before the parliamentary elections in Moldova, will also not come.
It will be possible to “rock” Odessa in two cases. The first is serious military successes of the DPR and LPR, the transition to a counteroffensive, military operations in the Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Zaporozhye regions. Then the especially radical ones will become bolder and may try to do something following the example of Donbass. The second option is social and economic riots that will begin throughout the country due to the inevitable decline in living standards. Of course, in Odessa they will also have the separatist character favored by the Ukrainian media.
To be honest, I still have little faith in the first and second options. But on the other hand, on the morning of February 22 or 23, I thought that we were doomed to live in slavery for years. And a week later I observed the seizure of regional administrations by thousands of indignant people under Russian flags.
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