Kalashnikov decides everything

Democratic politics in Ukraine no longer exists. Everything is decided with a Kalashnikov. The dictate of the politicians who seized power rests precisely on the force of arms. Maidan initially positioned itself as a movement for democracy and received new impetus from protests against police violence after demonstrators were dispersed by the Kiev special police forces "Berkut." However, the regime that it gave birth to - is completely opposite to the expectations of the pro-democracy part of the participants.

Certainly, Maidan has never put forward a clear anti-oligarchic program - but the removal of the richest people from governance and the democratization of public life nevertheless seemed to be implied by some its slogans. But now the oligarchs -- appointed governors of the eastern regions -- give bloodthirsty speeches and wear blue and yellow ribbons to the applause of ‘professional patriots’. The media is rigidly formatted and censored, and there is no longer any question of real freedom of speech.

Ukrainians are killing each other in the Donbass [eastern Ukraine]. Thousands of Ukrainian citizens have moved to Russia’s Rostov region or to other Ukrainian regions, fleeing the so-called "anti-terrorist operation." Meanwhile, the Nazis from the Right Sector made the bravura statement of creating a private army for the president. The Right Sector’s representative said on a live radio show: "We have held talks with the president and now he has his own army." On what legal basis these "negotiations" were held is still anyone's guess. "From tomorrow we will start to help the president with the process of dissolution of Parliament - it will be dissolved," adds the representative of the Right Sector.

It is quite obvious that it comes about building a new mechanism of rigid autocracy or dictatorship, in which parliamentary power and administrative power will be tied to a single person, based on his Collegium of billionaire partners. Of course, the Kiev regime cannot immediately abandon the formal attributes of democracy. But now it sees nothing wrong with prohibiting certain parties or just throwing out parliamentary deputies who do not comply with this new totalitarian understanding of democratic freedoms.

However, we can see the emergence of the people's alternative to the regime. Not only the eastern regions rise to fight - people in western Ukraine come into the streets and organize protest rallies against the forced mobilization of their relatives. Residents of Lutsk and Rivne [western Ukraine] publish demands to stop the war. Of course, the "objective" media will not pay much attention to the rallies of soldiers' mothers – you will not find an oligarch’s son in their ranks - but the poor Ukrainian families whose loved ones are forcibly kept into the army – still continue to protest and speak out.

It is believed that the natives of Galicia and Volyn should mindlessly go into battle, sacrificing their lives "for the sake of a unified Ukraine." But these people do not want either to kill or be killed by their counterparts from the Donbass. You can’t meet at the military front the authors of the bloodthirsty Facebook-posts demanding expansion of the military operation. But those who have to go to the slaughter by all means try to desert from the army.

The paradigm of confrontation between East and West of the country, which was cultivated for many years by all kinds of Kiev regime, has resulted in a real civil war. The Lefts for years have been talking about the dangers of this political tactic that only splits the lower classes and helps the oligarchs to retain their dominance. But the ruling class brought this policy to its logical conclusion.

The only hope for the people of Ukraine today is that the war of the "West" and "East" will turn into a united front of Ukrainians - from the Carpathians to Lugansk - against a handful of cynical thieves robbing our country and all its citizens, regardless of the language they speak.

Sergey Kirichuk

Liva

Translated by Greg Butterfield