Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 29 – Even though the
Kremlin wanted Petro Poroshenko to suffer in the recent elections, it did not
want an outsider to win – and that is exactly what happened, a development that
threatens Vladimir Putin’s view of how power should be organized and thus dooms
the two Vladimirs, Zelensky and Putin, to be personal enemies, Vitaly Portnikov
says.
“The victory of a candidate who
looks so non-systemic over a representative of the traditional political elite
is a blow to the entire post-Soviet system in which some politicians replace
others even after the victory of uprisings and revolutions,” the Ukrainian
analyst says (ru.espreso.tv/article/2019/04/29/vytalyy_portnykov_zelenskyy_obrechen_na_protyvostoyanye_s_putynym).
Many
Ukrainians were surprised when Zelensky after his victory told the residents of
the post-Soviet states that they should see in his win the fact that
“everything is possible.” For Ukrainians,
unlike for Russians and Belarusians, power has been changing hands via
elections since 1991.
“But
for Putin,” Portnikov says, “there was nothing strange in this because he
understands perfectly well what Zelensky wanted to say. He understands that the
winner in the presidential elections in Ukraine had in mind not the change of
power but the victory of a candidate not associated with the political elite of
the country.”
According
to the Ukrainian commentator, “as long as Zelensky was only fighting for the
post of president, Putin could not take note of this: he was too concentrated
on taking revenge against Poroshenko. But then Zelensky won – and he
immediately became a threat” to Putin and
his system.
The
Kremlin leader has no reason to want to see Zelensky succeed because such a
success “in the eyes of Russians would mean the victory of the extra-systemic
over the systemic; and for Russia this is more frightening than any Maidan. It
would mean that the Kremlin by its struggle against Poroshenko had dug its own
grave.”
Consequently,
Putin is going to engage in one provocation after another: the passport offer
“is only the beginning. And Zelensky will respond as an extra-systemic
revolutionary by a declaration of war against the Putin regime.” Unlike
Poroshenko, he views Putin not as the leader of a foreign country but as the
leader of an alien power.
That
makes the incoming Ukrainian leader “far more dangerous for Putin than
Poroshenko has been.” But at the same
time, “Putin is a greater danger for Zelensky than he was for Poroshenko.” To survive, Zeensky will have to appeal to
“the so-called ‘Russian speaking’ electorate.”
That
electorate, Portnikov continues, consists of three parts: “those who speak
Russian but accept Ukrainian values,” “those who want a rapprochement with
Putin an dconsideer Ukraine part of ‘the Russian world,” and those who view
Ukraine “as simply a democratic Bryansk oblast.”
The
latter may support Zelensky, but it isn’t numerous enough to be his political
base, Portnikov argues. The incoming
Ukrainian president will need to recognize that in his battle with Putin, he
will need the support of “the pro-Ukrainian electorate” who voted for his
opponent in the elections.
Zelensky,
the Ukrainian commentator says, “can either win together with those who were
his opponents or collapse if he continues to appeal to those whom he considers
his allies. That is the logic of his
personal war with the Kremlin,” a war that is not just political but personal
and far more dangerous as a result.
