Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 6 – While the
protest in Kyiv not unexpectedly attracted the most attention, the fact that
Ukrainians came out in more than 30 cities across their country may be more important.
On the one hand, and in sharp contrast to Russian protests, it shows that
protests in Ukraine can “go national” very fast.
And on the other, it suggests that
as Ukrainians face up to what Vladimir Zelensky has agreed to in the Steinmeier
plan, the share of opponents to that plan has risen from just over a quarter of
the population to a far larger share (atr.ua/news/191920-v-bolee-cem-30-gorodah-ukrainy-prohodit-akcia-ostanovim-kapitulaciu
and facebook.com/ProtectUkraine/posts/436614400542002).
That doesn’t mean that Zelensky will
reverse course or that there will be a Maidan that brings to power a government
that will do so. But it does mean that
he, others in Kyiv, and even more others in the West who assumed that Steinmeier
is the end and that they can now look away from the Ukrainian tragedy and
resume “business as usual” with Russia may be disabused.
The struggle against resurgent
Russian imperialism will continue. At the very least, the Ukrainian protesters
are going to call out those who have fallen into the trap of assuming they can
trust Moscow, actions that will also likely be denounced by those who say “give
peace a chance.”
They may not win in this round: the
situation and the powers arrayed against them are probably too strong. (For a
frank but pessimistic assessment, see kyivpost.com/
But the protesters too are part of a
new reality, one that points in a very different direction over the longer term,
a time frame neither Zelensky nor most of the politicians now in office appear
to be giving much thought to. They should because their “victories” now are
likely to prove as hollow and shortlived as others achieved in the same way in
the past have been.
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