By Dmitri Kovalevich*
26 Jul 2024
In the second half of July, the Ukrainian authorities have been preoccupied with the upheavals surrounding the forthcoming presidential election in the United States. Ukraine is today completely dependent on the United States, financially, politically and economically. And so the outcome of this foreign election on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean directly affects the political prospects of Ukrainian politicians. Ukraine’s wealthy elites willingly and enthusiastically engaged in the NATO proxy war against Russia because they were enriching themselves in the process. However, the war’s continuation requires more weapons and funding from the U.S. and European governments and more loans from predatory financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.
The assassination attempt against Donald Trump on July 13 now increases his chances of being elected, according to many reports in U.S. media. This prompted former Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko to quickly announce he would travel to and attend the Republican Party convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from July 15 to 18 where Trump was formally nominated. It was a be a gesture of respect and fidelity to the probable future master of the White House, but Poroshenko’s best-laid plans went awry after the speaker of the Ukrainian legislature barred him from traveling out of Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky and his entourage in Kiev are now extremely wary of any Ukrainian politician, other than those in their tight circle, who might ‘catch some love’ from Washington. This is all the more the case after Zelensky’s regime has in recent months placed all its bets on the Democratic Party candidate in November, going so far in June as to call Trump a ‘loser president’s should he fail to maintain the war commitments of the Joe Biden-led White House since February 2022. The regime is finding it difficult to navigate the treacherous waters of imperialist rule in Washington.
Former Ukrainian delegate to the national legislature (‘Rada’) and business titan Viktor Medvedchuk (elected to the Rada in 2019) wrote a letter to Trump one week ago in which he claimed a Ukrainian trace in the July 13 assassination attempt. According to Medvedchuk, Trump’s vague statements that he would ‘bring peace to Ukraine’ would mean the loss of power to the neo-Nazi regime of Zelensky and its American handlers in the Biden administration if carried out. Medvedchuk was arrested in Ukraine in 2022 and was then freed as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia. (The CNN news outlet in the U.S. is laying indirect blame on Iran for the Trump assassination attempt, citing as a source “a U.S. national security official”.)
Growing number of Ukrainians speak out against war or listen to those who do
The widely-read Ukraine news outlet Strana.ua began a news report on July 11 with: “The latest, massive missile strike on Ukraine on July 8 revealed a new trend in public sentiment. If previously after such attacks, Ukrainian social networks almost unanimously demanded revenge on Russia and to continue the war until victory, now the reaction is different. Of course, calls for war to the bitter end are still heard, and there are many of them. But there are also many calls now emerging for Ukraine authorities to quickly negotiate peace. These include popular bloggers, some with million-strong audiences who have rarely written about political topics before.”
As of mid-July, a number of widely-read bloggers on social networks in Ukraine have begun to advocate an early cessation of hostilities. Several legislators in the Rada are voicing their support. The popular Instagram blogger Vladyslava Rogovenko posted a typical comment on July 8: “I am shocked by the daily news. Let the clown [Zelensky] go and negotiate peace. Enough of innocent deaths and this horror! How long will this continue? My anger has no limit!” she wrote on July 8.
Blogger Oleksandr Voloshyn has written that Ukraine “is not surviving this war well” and says, “We should be smarter and more cunning” in planning to continue the war. For her part, blogger Mila Barayeva wrote to her 232,000 followers that she does not care how the war will stop as long as it stops.
Yulia Verbinets, the widely-read blogger ‘Yerba’ in Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine, accuses the Ukrainian authorities of ‘robbery’. “The world sees and does nothing. Our country is being robbed by our own authorities. Children and people are dying. Families and lives are destroyed.”
Following Verba’s comment, her colleagues also began to speak out against the war, including the widely read blogger from Dnipro city (the third largest in Ukraine), Anna Alkhim. She wrote on Telegram on July 11, “The betrayal continues! Your ‘We will not forgive, we will win!’ is all so bad!” She continued, “We will win, when? When you have already made lots of money, when nothing will be left of the country? When there will be no people, children, or military left? Is this what you mean when you say you ‘will not forgive or forget’?”
Popular bloggers such as the above have until now confined themselves to writing about topics of fashion and style. Ukrainian TV presenter Max Nazarov explained on Telegram on July 10 that successful bloggers in Ukraine, some with millions of followers (including those cited above), typically write and say what their subscribers want to hear from them. And indeed, there is a rising chorus in Ukrainian society demanding peace and negotiations.
Some of these bloggers are being summoned for questioning by the SBU (Ukraine’s secret police service), and criminal cases are being opened against them. In Ukraine, talking in favor of peace or even a ceasefire inevitably raises the issues of territory and who controls it, and even talk of such matters is equated to treason.
Authorities strike back, but concerns are being voiced by others, too
In response to the rising chorus of bloggers, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, has begun to threaten extrajudicial reprisals. “Hysteria about ending the war on Putin’s terms will lead to the elimination of those who are promoting such ideas in Ukraine today,” Yermak wrote on Telegram on July 9.
Ukrainian political analyst Kost Bondarenko believes that the presidential office is signaling a go-ahead for attacks against critical bloggers. Writing on Telegram on July 10, he said “The Office of the President has given the command through its ‘experts’ and other information sources working for the Office to harass those who even hint at the need to negotiate with Russia.” He, too, emphasizes that the critical bloggers only voice what the majority of Ukrainians want to hear.
He continued, “Read the brilliant Carl von Clausewitz. Two hundred years ago, he wrote everything we need to know today, explaining when an end to war should be sought. The first consideration is when the price of victory is too high and when it costs too many human casualties. The second is that when conducting wars, a political goal should prevail, the value of which is determined by the size of those sacrifices which we are ready to accept in order to achieve victory. When the expenditure of forces exceeds the value of the political goals being sought, then military conflict must be abandoned… Peace is not only a means but also a goal of politics…and of war.”
A peculiar and emerging ‘peace party’ is now supported by Aleksei Arestovich, an advisor to the Office of the President from December 2020 to January 2023. He wrote on Telegram on July 8, “A ‘war until victory’ means hundreds more deaths, and your ‘world’ [the ‘civilized world’ as Ukrainian authorities call it] will not do anything about it. And we cannot do anything – there are no funds and not enough organization. Our only chance is to stop the war and reset the state and society.”
Similar sentiments are present in the Ukrainian Armed Forces as well, as reported in the Ukrainian journal Politika.net on July 9, citing Artem Ilyin, a Kiev journalist recently conscripted into the ranks of the AFU and who now writes on social media. “Kievan Artem Ilyin previously worked in economic and business media and says he is shocked by the mood and worldview of his armed forces colleagues he is encountering. He writes that he is mainly surrounded by residents of rural regions in the west of Ukraine similar to himself, and says the lack of patriotism is immediately noticeable.”
Ilyin is cited, “A fairly large part of the people are openly stating, ‘For my 30-40-50 years, the state has given me nothing but a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Why should I be a patriot?’ ” He emphasizes that scaremongering about a Russian threat is no longer working on soldiers, saying that most of those he encounters accuse Ukrainian authorities of corruption and do not want to fight for them.
Ukrainian political scientist Ruslan Bortnik believes that such sentiments have been present in Ukrainian society, but only now are they breaking through into the public sphere as war fatigue in society grows. In his opinion, it will not be possible to suppress such sentiments by force.
Another Ukrainian political scientist Andriy Zolotarev concurs. “A significant part of society is tired of war and ready to accept any version of peace. Some bloggers feel this and want to voice this sentiment,” Zolotarev said.
The criminalization of millions of Ukrainians
Since July 16, millions of Ukrainian citizens have been automatically turned into violators and criminals; this is according to the revised law on conscription which came into force on May 18, setting a July 16 deadline for all conscription evaders to come forward and register for military service.
In the two months since the officials responsible for military conscription are having to scramble to update their data in military enlistment offices. Registrants are sent immediately to a medical examination, and 99 percent of those are being declared fit for service. Those eligible are shipped off to the front.
Millions of Ukrainians, of course, knew of the change in the law requiring them to step forward and register, but they had no desire to fight so they ignored the law. However, they face perilous consequences. From now on, they can be fined an indefinite number of times from 17,000 to 22,500 hryvnia (US$ 420-$600 equivalent) for failure to register. There are separate fines for failure to update existing registration data, failure to present a military registration card when accosted and demanded by conscription officials, and failure to show up for the required medical examination.
In case of non-payment of fines, Ukrainians can now be deprived of their property, including their house and home, and thus be thrown out into the street. This applies to all persons liable for military duty whom Ukraine considers to be its citizens, even if they took another citizenship 20 years ago or are today no longer living in the country. It even applies to residents of the two Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, who have voted several times during the past ten years to join the Russian Federation, and to residents of Crimea, who voted definitively in March 2014 to secede from coup Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. It applies to the residents of what is called the ‘new territories’ of the Russian Federation, that is, in the former Ukrainian provinces (oblasts) of Kherson and Zaporozhye (‘ Zaporizhzhia’) that lie south and east of the Dnieper River.
The representative of the military enlistment office in Poltava province in central Ukraine, Roman Istomin, has said that starting from July 16, there will be even more military patrols and police on the streets of Ukrainian cities, seeking out yet more cannon fodder for the front lines (or to take the bribes paid by evaders).
According to Ukraine legislator Oleh Sinutka, some six to seven million Ukrainians will refuse to update their data. Authorities will try to levy large fines against each of them, and in case of non-payment, the authorities will seize property. According to such minds, the fines collected and the properties seized will assist in paying Western creditors for the massive and rising debts owed to international governments and financial institutions. However, many Ukrainians were deeply angered in July by the news that all employees of Western-financed NGOs have received exemptions from serving in the AFU. All employees of 133 such organizations are deemed “critical for the economy”.
Such employees and services have suddenly become “critically important” for Ukraine, while only half of the employees working in railroads, power plants, and military production enterprises are formally exempted. What’s more, the ‘50%’ exemptions are not actually adhered to by the military enlistment officers. They grab anyone suitable by age or gender.
Simply put, the so-called leadership academies in Ukraine are being funded by the West (including NGOs) and are training and employing students (invariably pro-Western in their views) are far more important to Ukraine than the workers and professionals who are trained to operate nuclear power plants, transportation services, a host of other public services. After all, forcibly conscripted Ukrainian peasants can march to the front lines without a railroad if needed, but without centers devoted to ‘nurturing democracy’, the very essence of post-2014 Ukraine as an anti-Russia bulwark may be threatened.
Even wealthy representatives of Ukrainian businesses are often forced to lie and look for illegal loopholes to buy off conscription or flee abroad. Meanwhile, an entire segment of society consisting of several thousands of people is being exempted from conscription in advance. These are people who effectively work for the U.S. and UK governments and for the European Union. They have no need to try and escape the country, bribe officials or forge identity documents.
Thus, a hierarchical pyramid of Ukrainian society has emerged. At the top are the untouchable employees whose salaries are paid by Western funding. Alongside them in evading military service are government leaders and officials, the wealthy class of businessmen. Meanwhile, at the very bottom sit the residents of Ukrainian villages that have been devastated by the work of conscription officers and by the deaths and injuries at the front that have followed.
A legislator from Zelensky’s party/machine, Maxim Buzhansky, commenting on the military reservation system and obligations, writes that a new caste is emerging in Ukrainian society, a new kind of nobility, which no one has chosen in elections. “They don’t pay taxes, they don’t fight, but they basically rule. Let’s be honest, the old nobility could not dream of such a thing,” Buzhansky writes. He also reminds his readers that all such people have never worked, in principle; they have spent their time at conferences here and there in the West, talking about ‘reforms’ and ‘changes’ that are underway or anticipated. The fact that full immunity from military service has been granted to employees of Western grant organizations shows who are the true masters of Ukraine.
Ukrainian military analysts are discussing these days the location of the next likely breakthrough by the Russian Armed Forces, which advance inexorably every day. An officer of the 59th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade of the AFU, Sergey Tsekhotsky, drew attention on Telegram on July 10 to the region around the town of Pokrovsk, some 50 km northwest of Donetsk city. He wrote on Telegram on July 10: “Kurakhovo, Selidovo, Pokrovsk–these are perhaps the main settlements the Russians are trying to reach. The enemy is using everything it has at its disposal, and their assaults are ongoing along the entire front line, simultaneously and continuously.”
Ukrainian political analyst Andriy Zolotarev believes that an advance by Russia is looming in the direction of Zaporozhye, the fifth-largest city in Ukraine. “The military says we can expect an advance in the Zaporozhye direction. The question is whether the AFU will hold the situation. Given what we have seen in recent months, it is not good when there is a conflict between Ukraine’s military and political leadership and there is the need or desire to make someone a scapegoat.”
Military expert Kostyantyn Mashovets reports that a crisis is also brewing in the direction of Kupyansk (pre-war population 28,000), which lies app. 70km southeast of Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine.
Ukrainian analyst Ruslan Bortnyk admits that neither a new U.S. aid package nor a new wave of conscription will make it possible to stop the Russian offensive westward from Donbass. In his opinion, Russia is preparing an attack on the Dnipropetrovsk region (renamed ‘Dnipro’ by Kiev following the 2014 coup), which will be a serious image blow to the Ukrainian authorities. Dnipro is the third largest city in Ukraine.
Ukrainian military officer Konstantin Proshinsky complains about the quality of soldiers who are being forcibly conscripted throughout Ukraine. He estimates that 90% of them are not fit to participate in military action. “Let’s look at persons who were forcibly stuffed into a military bus and brought to me. We can make a soldier out of only one out of ten such persons. Nine of ten will refuse orders, seek surrender, look for a medical exemption, or just hide away for a long time.” According to him, such “conscription” results are burdens, adding to the AFU’s problems.
A ‘peace plan’ by Hungary’s prime minister draws condemnations
Also in July, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban spoke of Zelensky’s plan for continued war as he, Orban, sees it. The ‘plan’ amounts to dubious claims that Russia will soon be obliged to launch mass conscription, and this, in turn, will allegedly cause protests in Russian society and lead to an overthrow of the Russian government.
“As for the outcome of the war, the Ukrainian president is confident that the Russian armed forces will be forced to resort to a general conscription in the middle of next year, which will lead to internal destabilization in Russia,” Orban opined.
“Kiev’s main bet is not on the military defeat of Russia, but on internal upheaval within it,” said an editorial commentary in Strana.ua on July 17. But that idea appears completely unrealistic. In Ukraine, tougher conscription rules and regulations have been going on for two years, accompanied by kidnappings and beatings of conscripts, but so far this cannot be said to have destabilized the Ukrainian regime. What’s more, the Russian Federation has much more human resources and much more financial incentives for volunteers compared to Ukraine.
Prior to the Russian Special Military Operation launched in February 2022, Ukraine had refused for eight long years to implement the ‘Minsk 2’ agreement of February 2015 and the ‘Minsk 1’ peace agreement reached five months earlier. These agreements envisioned the reintegration of Donbass into Ukraine but with a new, semi-autonomous status.
The refusals by Ukraine to implement those agreements were supposed to stoke tensions in Russia, cause a continued flow of war refugees there from Donbass, and cause political instability. This ‘plan’ has never changed. It amounts to the following: Ukrainian soldiers are still dying in order that greedy Western companies may eventually gain by force direct access to Russian natural resources and the Russian government and people may eventually be divided and weakened. This is the dream world still prevalent in the minds of those who rule in Kiev.
* Dmitri Kovalevich is the special correspondent in Ukraine for Al Mayadeen English. In this report, he examines the political and military situation in the country.
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