Revenge in Ukraine: If there is one, it will not be pro-Russian
In Kyiv, the notorious ex-deputy Sergei Pashinsky, considered one of the organizers of the Maidan massacre, was sent to jail for two months. Ukrainian radicals are organizing rallies against “surrender” and “pro-Russian revenge.” However, if the “revenge” with which Petro Poroshenko is frightening his voters really does happen, it will turn out to be by no means pro-Russian, but only within the framework of what is permitted by the West. Kiev columnist Sergei Ustinov writes about this in his column for PolitNavigator.
...The topic of “revenge” has been promoted over the last six months by representatives of Poroshenko’s entourage. Voters focused on him are frightened by his real or imaginary prospects. There are also those in Ukraine who can’t wait for the “revanchists” to finally begin to energetically spin the “wheel of genocide” in the direction opposite to that set in 2014. Signs of revenge are sought in the personnel appointments of the new government and in initiatives to prosecute odious figures from the previous government.
It makes sense to talk about what this “revenge” is in Ukrainian conditions, whether it takes place and whether it is possible in principle. And if so, in what forms and to what extent. Maybe this is just an idle propaganda horror story for the right-wing electorate and a decoy for opponents of the Maidan?
First, we need to say a few words about what the Ukrainian majority is like - that same over 70% support for the president, until recently recorded by sociologists. Who does it consist of and what are its expectations?
Political scientists compared Zelensky’s election program to a coloring book, which was left to the voters to design according to their own wishes. In conditions when promises were of a broad declarative nature without detailed explanations of how certain problems would be solved, the voter had to imagine how this would happen. This became the basis for the formation of a “consensus majority” in the country – as broad as it is heterogeneous. In contrast to the more or less homogeneous electorate of Poroshenko and Vakarchuk and Svoboda.
What do these people want? What is the current situational social consensus? Expectations can be grouped into three main areas.
At first, it was a request to cleanse power from rotten and discredited politicians and bring a new generation to power. What is important is not just new names, but bearers of a fundamentally new quality of politics.
Second, the there was a demand for social justice, punishment and tough measures against the old elite, including - going beyond legal procedures - the same “spring will come, we will plant”, which found such a wide response among the masses.
Finally, the there was a request for an end or at least a reduction in the degree of hostility and hatred within the country, for the authorities to abandon attempts to increase their political capital by playing off and pitting different regions against each other.
If we look more broadly, this is a request for a peace policy and a correction of humanitarian policy, a correction of the nationalist imbalance and tilt into rabid denial of the real historical memory of several generations.
Of course, it is unlikely that it will be possible to implement all these requests at the same time. In addition, raising the standard of living is much more difficult than imprisoning the “former”. And there is always a temptation to compensate for the lack of success in some areas with deliberate achievements in others. However, everything must be done on time. Including responding to existing public requests.
Today, the authorities are reasonably asking why the Nazi Karas from C14, who has retrained as a “human rights activist,” is walking around Kiev like a Gogol, why Andrei Medvedko, a suspect in the murder of Oles Buzina, is in the dock instead of in the dock, and why they are not moving forward with the already prepared charges against the Odessa murderer Sternenko , where is the investigation into the Odessa events of 2014 and why Poroshenko did not celebrate his next birthday under an undertaking not to leave the place?
The lack of an answer from the authorities to these and similar questions will lead to the fact that society will eventually give its own answer. And the current government, which loudly promised to become Poroshenko’s “sentence,” will itself receive a sentence from the people who believed it. Surely they are good at subverting idols in Ukraine.
In a reputational sense, it is not even their predecessors who celebrate their birthdays in freedom that look deadly for the current government, but the demonstrative signs of attention and honor that today’s officials use to arrange the demobilization of yesterday’s officials.
After all, you must agree, even if you are going to continue the work of some Vyatrovich or Suprun, it is not at all necessary to talk about it publicly and reward odious persons with letters of gratitude. This is some kind of vicious mess.
It will be completely bad if the government comes to its senses when its rating slides down and decides to cheer it up with doping criminal cases and imprisonment of “preceders.” What yesterday and today would look like the restoration of justice, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow will look like a politically motivated persecution of a competitor who is nipping at his heels.
Any revenge does not happen on its own. It is carried out by people in the interests of other people. And here it is worth making another important digression. Contrary to both the hysterics from the Poroshenko camp and the assessments of guests and experts of numerous talk shows on Russian TV, the Ukrainian revenge in the current conditions will not and cannot, in principle, be of a “pro-Russian” nature.
And, if it does take place, it will be of a limited nature and solve exclusively domestic political problems, without affecting the foreign policy vector of Ukraine as a whole.
In other words: with a successful combination of circumstances and an open window of opportunity, it is possible to revise the most ugly political consequences of the Maidan. It is even possible to make Ukraine’s foreign policy less ideological and more pragmatic, but Kyiv’s departure under the “umbrella” of the EU and the United States is a constant that cannot be revised, since the solution to this issue is beyond the competence of the Ukrainian elites and the Ukrainian masses.
Moreover, in general, Ukrainians who support Zelensky are by no means pro-Russian. Yes, a significant part of the residents of the east and south came under the green banner from the former “white-blue” and even red camp, and the majority of voters Boyko and Vilkul supported Ze in the second round in the spring. However, they do not have a blocking stake or a golden share in the new majority.
Zelensky would have won without them - his percentage would simply have been less impressive. Here are some numbers to understand the situation: at the peak of the popularity of the PR and the Communist Party of Ukraine in 2012, both parties had no more than 48% of support in the divided Ukrainian society. Of these, only 16% in 2019 inherited the remains of the regionals. Zelensky, as you know, won with a result of 73%. This means that more than half of his voters are not Yanukovych’s former electorate.
However, several times a year, supporters of ex-regionals still become part of a broader consensus majority, united not by “pro-Russianism”, but by traditional historical memory.
We are talking, first of all, about the events for May 9, when hundreds of thousands of people with different views on the problem of Donbass and Crimea, the EU and NATO take to the streets of Ukrainian cities. The same story is observed during religious processions of the UOC-MP, in which one can see both the pro-Russian public and even some ATO veterans defending churches from the encroachments of Filaret’s members.
At the same time, the opportunity to use the anti-Maidan resource for “revenge” and suppress opponents of the current government on the right still remains. But exclusively as a result of a purely voluntaristic decision at the very top. Which may not exist.
However, while serious support among the masses has not yet been squandered, the very rating that does not allow the “gunpowder bots” to raise their heads excessively, the authorities can theoretically even take such steps as appointing figures “odious” for the Maidan activists, such as Portnov or Lukash in executive power.
And even the return of Yanukovych and Azarov to the current political space - after the necessary media and legal preparation. Fortunately, smaller figures, like ex-minister Yuri Kolobov, who served five years in Spain, or former minister and secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Raisa Bogatyreva, have already returned to their homeland and, theoretically, can be in demand by the authorities as a personnel resource with management experience - in contrast to experts who have not smelled gunpowder. grant eaters.
Of course, looking at the current movements in power, this scenario seems almost fantastic. However, nothing prevents us from modeling the situation, how it could be, and what results it would ultimately lead to. Moreover, individual appointments of the same lawyer Lukash and Efremov Andrei Smirnov, who became deputy head of the Presidential Office, indicate that scaling such a personnel policy to the entire government is not so incredible. The main thing is that the card fits in the right way.
For successful revenge, you can use the free energy of those groups of the population that have been humiliated and bent over the past five years, giving them the opportunity to recoup for the grievances they have suffered. In this case, the return will be serious. But the risk of the situation getting out of control is too great.
Moreover, the possibilities for such domestic political maneuver are limited by foreign policy circumstances. Namely: the dependence of official Kyiv on the wishes and advice from European capitals and Washington. And there, as noted above, if they give the go-ahead for revenge, it will only be a controlled one.
With the purge of odious persons who have spent their resources, the adjustment of domestic policy, but with the preservation of the foreign policy vector. The mincemeat cannot be scrolled back, but clearing out the militants, bringing chaos to the shores, returning the state’s monopoly on violence, lowering the degree of aggression in society and punishing the most odious “activists” is a completely feasible task. But it can be solved exclusively in the form of a “counter-revolution from above”, and not from below.
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