In the near future Ukrainians could expect neither positive changes nor stability. In the course of last month, more and more Ukrainians clamoured for impeachment of Poroshenko. Specifically, women representing the movement “Mothers for Poroshenko’s Impeachment” gathered at the building of the presidential administration. They rally under the slogan “Poroshenko is killing our children”. The activists chained themselves with handcuffs to the gates of the presidential administration building stating they would stay on until the Ukrainian president resigned.
The leaflets spread by the activists read: 20,000 of our children have been killed so far in Donbass. Poroshenko and his government officials earn by dint of the war. So as long as Poroshenko is in power, the war will not end. Poroshenko and his henchmen plunder our country, make money on weapons, using which then kill our children and their own people!
The main demand of the protesters is to stop the war in Donbass. Women who lost their sons in the so-called antiterrorist operation (“ATO”) zone are sure that the war will continue as long as Poroshenko is in power. According to activists, the president and his team plunder Ukraine by warmongering.
Interestingly, three years ago, when the “ATO” was just beginning, the mothers of potential Ukrainian soldiers never protested against the war in Donbass. On the contrary, all women’s protests were related to the demand of purging operation in Donetsk and Lugansk and the supply of lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military. As coffins filled with Ukrainian soldiers’ and officers’ dead bodies have been regularly coming in the capital from Donbas, mothers came to their senses and began to oppose the war. “ATO veterans” who came to the building of the presidential administration joined the protesters and they all began to chant “Impeachment!”
However, there is no law allowing the legitimate “dismissal” of the president in Ukraine. But does it embarrass anyone? Once during Maydan in 2014, the same “peaceful protesters” demanded impeachment, and then they were shooting at Yanukovych. This scenario may possibly repeat itself.
Natalia Don, head of the movement and member of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, considers that the Ukrainian authorities and the head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasily Hrytsak for some reason see in their movement “the hand of Moscow”. Apparently, those in power in Kiev believe that the real patriots will remain silent, whatever the authorities do with the country and its people.
The people are gradually beginning to understand that the so-called “revolution of dignity” was a political bluff which led Ukraine to a destructive civil war. Now the state, which is in fact under external control, cannot expect anything better. The crisis in the country is due not only to costly military operations, but also to poor management of the state system, which leads to an actual default, external economic and thereby political dependence. All this has transformed the life of ordinary Ukrainians into a desperate battle for existence.
While the degree of destruction and degradation of the state is steadily growing and moving to a critical level, the social atmosphere grows tense. But even if the situation in the state becomes threatening and the discontent with government come up ceiling, next coup will not take place without the will of external players who have their own idea in mind, which is far from Ukrainian national interests. It is possible that the patrons will have a desire to “renew their control of power” in Kiev again, entrusting it to a more effective figure. And the current president of Ukraine is very afraid of it.
Petro Poroshenko is trying to lead a “double game”, but it turns out badly. On the one hand, he tries to persuade the West that the Donbas region will soon ask to return back to his control, and that heavy military losses are not a defeat, but an innovative military strategy. On the other hand, he perfectly understands that it is high time the war finished. In any case, Poroshenko is unlikely to be able to keep his hold on power.
It is not easy to keep the power in a situation where crowds of armed aggressive radicals who have fought in Donbas present to the authorities an account of their “heroism” and assert their claims. Poroshenko has to solve an almost impossible problem: to disarm the battalions of thugs who do not obey anyone. Of course, he will seek to “distract” them with a new rush to the front.
All this scabrous political card game indicates that in the near future the Ukrainian people can expect neither positive changes nor stability.