Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 1 – Having
failed to find the number of backers for the Russian world in Ukraine it
expected, Moscow in the opinion of many in Kyiv is seeking to use Ukrainian
radicals in the pursuit of its goal of destabilizing Kyiv to the point that Ukraine
will fall back into Russia’s orbit, according to Vitaly Portnikov.
But that calculation is based on a
fundamental misperception of Ukraine and Ukrainian politics after the Maidan, the
Ukrainian commentator says, a misreading that ascribes far too much importance
to the radicals who helped make the earlier revolution but have been eclipsed
by the more rational leaders who have succeeded them.
Commenting on the violent
confrontation yesterday in front of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian
commentator points out, “informed observers in Kyiv are speaking about the beginning
of a Russian operation called ‘Golden Fall,’” one that will pursue the same
goals as “the Russian spring” but with different cadres (grani.ru/opinion/portnikov/m.243973.html).
“In the Lubyanka, they have come to
understand that there are too few people in Ukraine ready to be backers of this
Putin project.” Those who say they are for it are hardly willing to fight for
it let alone di. Instead, and “according to the old Russian tradition, they lie
on their stoves and wait for others to save them.”
Consequently, in the view of many, Moscow
is quite reasonably from its point of view now placing its bets “on the
Ukrainian world,” some of whose radical members can be counted on to “rise
against ‘the criminal junta’ and make it easier for Vladimir Vladimirovich to
gain the return of insubordinate Ukraine,” Portnikov argues.
“Social risings, meetings against the
authorities, excesses which claim lives, all this will be ‘the golden fall’ of
the Russian return to Ukraine. All this” if it works “would allow the Chekists
and also their comrades in the Russian Presidential Administration” to claim
victory over Ukraine.
However, Portnikov says, “this isn’t
‘the Golden Fall’” Moscow hopes for or that some Ukrainians fear. Instead, it
is “evidence of the most profound lack of understanding by Ukrainian
politicians of the psychology of people whom they lead” as well as an equally
profound lack of understanding in Moscow of where Ukraine now is.
Oleg Tyagnibok, the leader of
Svoboda, did not play the role after the Maidan that some of his followers
expected. He didn’t prevent the Russian
occupation of Crimea, and “therefore after the Maidan the process of the
disappearance of Svoboda from Ukrainian politics began.” His people didn’t get
into the Verkhovna Rada, and he is losing positions in western Ukraine.
In order to try to save the
situation, Tyagnibok has been trying “to reestablish a miracle- party out of
the ruins,” and for him, “the voting on changes in the Constitution is a real
gift,” because it allows him to strike a role and present himself on the
political stage as someone standing up against “the treason of the authorities.”
“But Tyaginbok isn’t taking one
thing into consideration,” Portnikov continues. In his rush to see treason
under every bush, “he believes those who say that changes in the Constitution
will bury Ukraine,” and thus, “he doesn’t understand why the National Guard is
defending the traitors who must be blown up so they will not be able to vote.”
Like some other Ukrainian
politicians, the commentator says, the Svoboda leader has been playing at
politics over the last two years despite the fact that he is not in a theater
as he appears to imagine but in the real world where people die and where “’the
Golden Fall’ could turn out to be just as horrific as ‘the Russian spring.’”
“It is necessary to stop playing,”
but he and some others “will not stop. They simply are not able to do
otherwise.” Not surprisingly, Moscow
will do what it can to encourage them and exploit their actions for its own
purpose. But hopefully, Portnikov concludes, the Ukrainian people will see
through all this and not vote for those who are merely acting a part.
In another comment
on yesterday’s events, this one for Espreso.tv, Portnikov says that “what we
are observing in Ukraine unfortunately is nothing new.” Instead, it is a
feature of developments “after all successful risings” because “their more
radical participants are never satisfied with the result” (ru.espreso.tv/article/2015/08/31/gosudarstvo_bunta).
Such radicals “always suspect the
more moderate part of society of betraying national interests. They are never
in a position to realistically evaluate the potential of their own country and
its role in the system of international relations … [and] they are always ready
to kill their own” in pursuit of their radical goals.
He cites the examples of Ireland
after it gained independence and of Israel, and he points out that “radical
politicians always have it easier than do their supporters. For the politician
radicalism is a career. For their supporters, it is a faith. And each dead
supporter becomes for the radical politician simply another step toward power.”
What is “most important,” Portnikov
says, “is that the ambitions and populism of some and the naïve faith of others
not lead to irreparable losses – death, war, and the destruction of the state.”
Given what Ukraine is up against and its willingness to exploit anything it can
for its purposes, those are real dangers: those who hear the calls of the
radicals should remember that.
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