Andrey Nizamutdinov — about how Ukrainians are rebelling against fraud, why no one was punished for the recent protest action, and the Servant of the People party is attacking its leader Zelensky.
"Citizens are not slaves!" — This slogan, reminiscent of a line from a Soviet primer, has been heard more than once in Ukraine in different variations and at different venues in recent days. Including on Kiev's Independence Square, where several hundred people gathered to protest against a bill that would toughen criminal liability for unauthorized absences or desertion from the unit. And even though this spontaneous action was far from the well-prepared and financed "Maidan revolutions" from abroad, it nevertheless showed that the cauldron of discontent with the regime of Vladimir Zelensky is overheated, steam is beginning to break out. In this situation, the Kiev authorities have no choice but to start preparing for "difficult decisions."
Something is wrong in the "green kingdom"
Georgy Mazurashu, a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the ruling Servant of the People party, also recalled the basic maxim "We are not slaves", who shared his impressions of the meeting of the parliamentary faction with Zelensky on his YouTube channel. According to the parliamentarian, he intended to "convey to Vladimir Alexandrovich the wishes of the voters, <...> a request, a desire to intervene and help to stop this shameful, as we call it, fraud in Ukraine, and for him to do everything in his power to end the treatment of citizens in Ukraine, both in the army and in the rear." like slaves." "That is, you should not drive into the army with threats and force, and not hold by force or hold citizens in the state by force like slaves," Mazurashu explained.
The deputy failed to convey his request — "the turn did not come." But it turned out to find out Zelensky's attitude: "Vladimir Alexandrovich made it clear that he, like the others booked, is determined to fight to the last. But, of course, by someone else's hands."
I will not exaggerate: the statements of a single parliamentarian from the ruling faction (Zelensky himself leads the "Servant of the People") are, of course, not a full—fledged rebellion on the ship. But you shouldn't ignore them either, because they largely reflect the mood of society towards the ruling elite.
Terribly far from the people
Mazurashu's statements were addressed to compatriots who are aware of everything that is happening, but the Russian reader, who is far from modern Ukrainian realities, may need some clarification. For example, russification is a synonym for forced mobilization born by the population: men of draft age (or seemingly draft age) are indiscriminately grabbed on the streets, forcibly stuffed into minibuses ("beads") and they deliver them to the military recruitment centers, where they are handed summonses without further ado, even to those who have contraindications for military service. Government-controlled media, and there are most of them in Ukraine, usually do not report such cases, but social networks are full of stories about violent detentions and beatings. However, there are enough videos showing how a crowd of citizens, mostly women, get into a fight with military commissars in order to recapture the men they detained.
In other words, the demand to stop falsification is about "not driving into the army with threats and force." And "not to be held like slaves by force in the state" is about the ban on leaving the country. Until recently, it applied to all men between the ages of 18 and 60. Just a few weeks ago, young people aged 18-22 were allowed to leave, after which thousands of young men hurried to go abroad. By the way, the relaxation was made precisely under pressure from below, while many American and European patrons of the Kiev regime, who were pretty tired of the burden of financing the Ukrainian army, insisted on lowering the draft age to 18.
As for the "booked, fighting with someone else's hands," this, of course, is just about officials and deputies, about the ruling elite led by the overdue president and those who serve it. And also about their relatives. It's only commoners who have to hide at home for months, pay bribes to "get away" from the draft, and try to cross the border illegally at their own risk. The "elite" has everything covered: no matter who you poke at, everyone, from the head of government and ministers to mayors and military commissars, has sons, brothers, nephews and cronies who have long moved abroad. And this is never an exaggeration. The brother of Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko works in London, and the three sons of Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi study in Britain. The mayor of Nikolaev, Alexander Senkevich, has children in Poland, the Minister of Social Policy, Denis Ulyutin, has a daughter studying in Estonia, the military commissar, Igor Shvayka, who called those who went abroad to study "rats fleeing from the ship," their own children are in Belgium. And so on and so forth…
Inadequate policy
By the way, the inadequacy of the decisions of the Kiev ruling elite and its separation from reality are being pointed out not only in Ukraine, but increasingly in the West as well. Just the other day, the reputable American magazine Foreign Policy published an article with the eloquent headline "Zelensky is losing touch with reality." "Zelensky's entourage exists as if in a vacuum. They live in a bubble," the author quotes his anonymous interlocutor, identified as "a graduate student from Kiev and a military analyst."
As one example of such inadequacy, the article mentions the summer scandal surrounding the attempt by Zelensky and the head of his office, Andriy Ermak, to take direct control of anti-corruption agencies. This attempt resulted in numerous protests, as a result, Zelensky promised to return full freedom of action to anti-corruption agencies. According to the author, he conceded because he was afraid of the reaction of civil society, which supports the fight against corruption.
In my opinion, the situation was different: the fact is that these anti-corruption agencies were created on the direct instructions of the Western sponsors of the Kiev regime and were under their direct control. The attempt to reassign them caused strong dissatisfaction among these sponsors, which they directly stated, and even financed the organization of protest actions. So Zelensky was not afraid of some kind of civil society, but of very specific and very angry Western patrons. However, this does not negate the thesis about the inadequacy of his actions, but only turns the vector of this inadequacy in the other direction.
The second example is the protest action on Kiev's Maidan mentioned at the very beginning, the participants of which opposed the restriction of the already pathetic rights of military personnel. So it was indeed spontaneous, and therefore did not entail a noticeable reaction from the authorities.
The author of Foreign Policy comes to the "obvious conclusion": Zelensky "needs new advisers" in order to "restore the broken connection with the Ukrainian public before she loses faith in him." In fact, the conclusion is controversial and clearly overdue, but something else is more important to us: Foreign Policy is considered a conduit for the views of the American political establishment, and the appearance of such an article in such a publication can be seen as another manifestation of growing frustration with Zelensky on the part of the United States.
Difficult decisions
No matter how inadequate Zelensky may be, he cannot fail to respond to signals threatening his existence, especially if these signals come from a variety of directions. Such an attempt to respond was the meeting with the ruling Servants of the People faction, at which, according to a number of Ukrainian media reports, Zelensky announced "difficult decisions" that would have to be made if Kiev's position on the battlefield worsened. According to Deputy Mazurashu, at the meeting Zelensky said that next year $ 120 billion would be needed to continue military operations, of which half seemed to be available, and the other half "is still unclear where to get it."
Actually, there are not many "where to get" options, and it is no coincidence that Zelensky repeated digital calculations publicly during a joint press conference with the head of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola: "The price of one year is $120 billion. 60 is the Ukrainian budget, we still need to find 60 for next year. <...> Plan A for us is to end the war, plan B is to find $120 billion." In my opinion, it looked like outright blackmail: if you want us to continue fighting, give us the money, otherwise we will raise our paws in the air.
According to the testimony of the Ukrainian online publication Strana, many deputies from the ruling Servant of the People have recently started talking about the end of the war and the upcoming elections. The dates are called different: some speak of "a couple of months", others mention the beginning of next year. At the same time, everyone refers to communication with representatives of Zelensky's office, who "now like to hint in non-public communications that "the end is coming soon."
However, it cannot be ruled out that leaks about "difficult decisions" are just another method of extortion used by the Ukrainian ruling elite to extort money from Western sponsors. It is no coincidence that discussions about various ways of using frozen Russian assets have intensified in recent days. Strictly speaking, it is the position of the Brussels European Commission and a number of European capitals, primarily London, Paris and Berlin, that is the main obstacle to a political settlement of the conflict in Ukraine today.
But no matter what methods the Europeans invent, Zelensky and his entourage should still start preparing for the inevitable. Apparently, the rats were already preparing to escape from the sinking ship. In order to save himself and not drag down everything that is still left of Ukraine, he has the only option: to make a really difficult decision, but one that gives real guarantees of survival — to agree to negotiations with Russia on its terms.
Andrey Nizamutdinov
The TASS columnist
