Radicals Will Blow Ukraine Before ‘First Snow Falls’ – US Media
Armed radical factions can bring Ukraine to its end as a state even before snow falls for the first time this year, American journalist Lev Golinkin wrote for Foreign Policy.
He pointed out that the vast majority of revolutions in Eastern Europe usually start as winter begins.
“Once the cold settles in, the [Ukrainian] government’s empty promises are laid bare. Over the next several days, forecasters are predicting, the temperature in Ukraine will plunge to freezing. When President Petro Poroshenko looks at the thermometer, he should be worried,” Golinkin wrote.
According to Golinkin, Ukraine’s citizens are fuming because of falling living standards and the government’s inability to rid the country of raging corruption and punish the oligarchs. These are considered the problems that “sparked” the Maidan protests in 2013.
“Ukraine — fresh off a revolution and followed by 19 months of war — is far from stable. Its citizens have more weapons than they do trust in their government,” the journalist wrote, explaining that if Ukrainians can’t “scrape” money to feed and warm their families, they will obviously blame authorities for the challenges and this time will express their fury not in the voting booths, but in the streets of Kyiv.
Golinkin believes that a possible uprising will be best scenario for far-rights radicals. Until now, they all had common enemies – Russia and pro-independence seekers in the east of the country. But now they have their eyes fixed on Kyiv.
As for now, both government and radical powers in Ukraine are in a standoff. Petro Poroshenko isn’t entitled to disband the extremist factions across the country and radicals are incapable of taking on the capital openly.
“For that [triggering a new revolution], they’ll [radicals] need to have everyday people protesting in the streets. They need another Maidan,” Golinkin pointed out.
The crowd is the best “fuel” for ultra-right powers; they succeed when they can intermix with protestors in the street, presenting themselves as fighters against corruption and breach of justice. This would bring Poroshenko to a situation in which he could no longer implement IMF reforms, as he would face a new revolt in the heart of Kyiv.
“At worst, this would set off a chain of events that would rapidly turn the country into a fractured, failed state of 45 million people in the middle of Europe,” Golinkin concluded.
The Right Sector is a Ukrainian coalition of far-right groups, which actively took part in clashes with law enforcement and the seizing of administrative facilities in the country’s capital in the beginning of 2014. They also participated in a crackdown on mass protests in eastern Ukraine later in April. The organization was banned in Russia and criminal charges were filed against its leader Dmytro Yarosh for his calls for terrorist activity.