The sensational decision of the court in Odessa, which after three years of proceedings acquitted the opponents of the Maidan, can be explained by the internecine struggle in the Ukrainian government, Sergei Belashko, director of the Agency for Social Communications, told PolitNavigator.
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“Most likely, there is some kind of game going on here between power groups. Because the same court previously made directly opposite decisions, the same judges, in the same composition a year or two ago. This whole story has been dragging on for three years with procedural violations, and then suddenly the court saw the light and made some decisions.
If you read the court's decision, this is a very serious blow to the prosecutor's office. A separate, large part of this decision is devoted to the fact that, roughly speaking, the prosecutors are degenerates, they were unable to collect any evidence, and what they collected was falsified, they are unprofessional, they are biased, etc. That is, this is a blow to the reputation of the prosecutor’s office,” Belashko noted.
“They could simply point out that the evidence base is insufficient, guilt has not been proven, etc. But the judges showed such an initiative that was unexpected for the uninitiated. As I understand it, for some people in Odessa, not the least of them, it turned out to be very unpleasant...
In addition to the conflict between security forces, there may be a conflict between Kyiv and Odessa. For example, in this way they could decide to discredit the prosecution in order to replace the regional prosecutor, who is a protege of one group of people, and another group decided to move him and install their own person,” the expert argues.
In his opinion, the acquittal of anti-Maidan activists is hardly a secret clause of the Minsk agreements, as nationalists insist on.
“It is not clear why one arrested Russian was released, but the other was not. If there were international agreements, both of them would either be released or not. As far as I understand, if there are any grounds to close him in relation to Sergei Dolzhenkov, then in relation to Evgeniy Mefedov there is no evidence at all. He was simply locked up for having a Russian passport and was not released for refusing to cooperate with the investigation, as far as can be understood from open sources,” Belashko explained.
In general, he believes, the destabilization of the situation in Odessa is connected precisely with the internal struggle of Ukrainian clans, and not with the influence of external forces.
“If we look at who these people are who criticize all this, picket the prosecutor’s office, etc., we will see that these are so-called activists who work for Avakov and are tied to the Ministry of Internal Affairs system. This is a criminal group that used to hide behind the Right Sector brand, and is now hiding behind the S-14 brand, but has a very distant relationship with politics.
At the same time, we see other groups of similar origins from the criminal environment; they have relied on promoting themselves on burned-out children. This is the “Council of Public Security”, Gordienko’s structure, etc. Those people who allegedly work under the SBU.
There are no ownerless activists in Odessa. Maybe three cripples from the Anarchist Union who are beaten on holidays. All the rest are either GBsh, or garbage or prosecutorial.
Now there are also mayoral ones - some of these patriots from crime, criticizing Trukhanov, in fact, carry out his orders. There are local nuances that have nothing to do with politics, but relate to local disputes - land allocations, not entirely legal construction, budgets and financial operations of utility companies, expenses and revenues of the city budget,” Belashko explained.