Window on Eurasia: Russians Seek New Leader; Ukrainians Seek Their Rights, Illarionov Says

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, January 1 – Russians are constantly searching for a new leader to replace the one in office, while Ukrainians are seeking to defend their rights and freedoms, “a principle difference” between the two nations and one where Russia, not Ukraine, has put itself on the path to “a dead end,” according to Andrey Illarionov.

 

            “In Ukraine, people came out into the square not for a Ukrainian Navalny or for Ukrainian Navalnys,” he says. Instead, “in Ukraine, people came out in defense of their rights and freedoms, standing up to and protesting a repressive, authoritarian, and corrupt regime” (svoboda.org/content/transcript/26767371.html).

 

            What has been taking place in Russia in recent years and perhaps decades is a constant search for some leader, be it Navalny, Khodorkovsky or someone else. Instead of one leader, who is in the Kremlin, with us, there is a constant search for some other leader,” the Russian analyst says.

 

            “If [Russians] remain on this path,” Illarionov says, “then we will never get out of that dead end in which we find ourselves.  As far as the mass appearance of people on the streets as a result of a political crisis, I do not very much believe in that … Let’s recall the transition of power from Stalin to the triumvirate, from the triumvirate to Khrushchev, from Khrushchev to Brezhnev, from Brezhnev to Andropov.”

 

            In each case, the actual change was the work of “a maximum of several dozen people and was not accompanied by any mass movements.”

 

            Illarionov’s comment on this most profound difference between Russians and Ukrainians, one that is often obscured by Western media coverage which tends to focus on what it imagines to be a horse race for the top job, points to the best reason for optimism about the future of Ukraine and the most compelling reason for pessimism about Russia, at least in 2015.