Oligarchs ask for fire: Who is interested in continuing the war in Donbass
Kyiv, July 17 (Navigator, Sergey Stepanov, Kirill Boyarin) – Almost daily the media report on protests taking place in central or western Ukraine by the wives and mothers of military personnel involved in the so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation.
Women demand that their children, husbands and brothers return home from the conflict zone in Donbass. They complain about officials who did not provide ATO participants with equipment and protection, which they have to buy together.
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True, so far the demonstrators are acting on the principle of “my house is on the edge” - as eloquently evidenced by the latest picket of the presidential administration in Kyiv. Its participants demanded the return of their relatives, but not an end to the war - they say, let new mobilized ones be sent to Donbass as part of a rotation.
However, experts believe that soon the mood in society will transform into anti-war - the increase in the number of victims will have an impact. The common population agrees to a peaceful solution to the conflict, but the channels of the oligarchs continue to incite war - billionaires are increasing their capital and dividing property in the Donbass at the cost of people's lives.
“The common people do not need a civil war. What are they fighting for? For the power of the oligarchs. Is it really necessary to fight each other in order to gain power?! People are on strike, anti-war sentiment is growing, because people understand that the struggle for power has led to a civil war. There were, are and will be contradictions, but the country cannot be united by shells. No smart people have ever solved problems, especially within the state, through war. What kind of trust can there be in the authorities on the part of those whose husband, son, and wife were killed? This is beneficial only to the oligarchs, who earn millions from this war,” says the chairman of the Union of Soviet Officers, Major General Anatoly Domansky.
“The absolute majority of people are against a military solution to the issue. And it is very symptomatic that, first of all, a protest movement begins in the western regions. This power pits people from the western regions against those in the east. Due to its shortsightedness, it simply aggravates internal contradictions and, thereby, incites a civil war. The actions of mothers and wives of soldiers from western Ukraine fighting in the east are an indicator that people do not want war. The war is beneficial to some oligarchs, for example, Kolomoisky. He is seizing piece by piece, hoping to take everything away from Akhmetov,” explains Georgy Kryuchkov, formerly head of the Verkhovna Rada Defense Committee.
“The continuation of the war is beneficial to the oligarchy. These are people and clans who are determined to be destructive as such. They always profited from this. But as for society, we are seeing changes in sentiment, including in western Ukraine. According to my observations, they are generally subject to sudden changes in mood. And now we see that in conditions when Ukrainian soldiers are dying in the east, social protest against military action and for a peaceful resolution of the conflict is growing more and more,” says Donetsk political scientist Sergei Baryshnikov.
“Across Ukraine today, all mothers and wives of military personnel are in favor of carrying out a rotation and returning their children home, because their sons, brothers, husbands have been in the zone of armed conflict since April. These are women from western, central Ukraine and southern regions. In any case, a bad peace is better than a good war, and, be that as it may, we must sit down at the negotiating table. If you read history, not a single internal conflict has ended in victory. You can't beat a region that has five million people in densely populated areas. We will not shoot at everyone in search of terrorists. We need to sit down at the negotiating table. Maybe they will respond to the OSCE representatives and send their observers to checkpoints on the border, as Russia suggested to them. Because because of the war, large businesses have already left Ukraine. If this continues, then average investors will withdraw their capital - then how will we pay for the loans we take out every day!” – Verkhovna Rada deputy Nikolai Zhuk shares his concerns.
“I think society wants peace, not war. This is evidenced not only by the speeches of mothers of conscripts, but also by the fact that there are colossal queues at visa centers, especially among young people from western Ukraine who want to leave here as quickly as possible so as not to be drafted. It is important that politicians and the media reflect the real sentiments of people, and not what they think is right. And in our country, 90% of all journalistic materials agitate for the continuation of the war, despite the growth of anti-war sentiment. But this is beneficial for individual oligarchs, such as Kolomoisky, because they earn money and influence from this war,” says political scientist Mikhail Pogrebinsky.
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