Are we struggling the right way?

“It seems to me that very many people in this country are engaged in the struggle, without ‘being in school.’ For this reason, the results of our struggle do not come to expectations, to put it mildly. It would be a good idea to put together those who are ‘in school’ and those who have the courage to struggle and rebuild the system.” Den’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna said these words at an unprecedented roundtable, in which well-known experts took part.

The domination of old approaches and figures in politics – even after very complicated and tragic events in Ukraine – gives some serious food for thought. Why is it so? What for? Perhaps we are doing something wrong? These questions are now a matter of concern for more and more people. For what is at stake is preservation of Ukrainian statehood. We have no more time for procrastination and simulation. We must do something at last to stop the counterrevolution of past values and begin to make qualitative and long-awaited changes. How? Who with?

The roundtable’s theme is “Can a Revanche be Averted?” The participants are Viktoria Podhorna, an expert; Oleksandr Yeliashkevych, member of parliament, 2nd and 3rd convocations; Andrii Senchenko, member of parliament, 5th, 6th, and 7th convocations; and Oleksandr Solontai, a leading expert at the Institute of Political Education.

At the beginning of the roundtable, which was the logical continuation of a series of roundtables that began during the Euromaidan in December 2013, its moderator Larysa Ivshyna explained why no other than this theme and these participants were chosen. This time we also had such a powerful information partner as 1+1 TV channel.

SENCHENKO: “WE HAVE NOT PARTED WITH THE OLD SYSTEM… MASS-SCALE EMBEZZLEMENT IS A PROVEN FACT”

Larysa IVSHYNA: “This roundtable is supposed to test the public environment and look for new chances because the Maidan emerged under the slogan of active integration into Europe. Can we see considerable progress towards this? I am likewise convinced that we must set another serious goal – Euro-Atlantic integration. Our non-participation in NATO is not accidental or spontaneous. It is part of an operation that was planned long ago, particularly by Moscow, to leave Ukraine in the lurch. Is the government doing enough for us to join the security club? In this case, the war must not slow down the process or justify inactivity. And, what is more, there are some political and economic events which I          cannot call reforms.

“We have named our roundtable ‘Can a Revanche be Averted?’ Everybody can have their own idea of what this means, but I think that revanche is not always an opposition party. A revanche is the approaches against which the Maidan rose up. Is there a danger of the preservation of these approaches and the mutation of old images in politics? What should we bear in mind and forestall?

“Our roundtable participants are not here by mere chance. We were thinking for quite a long time about who to invite, and we made an absolutely motivated and logical choice because each of the roundtable participants has an extremely valuable and, to some extent, still rare in our political class, quality. I mean attitudes and actions, which can always explain why this person is here.

“Andrii Senchenko is not only a three-convocation parliament member. Since the Crimea events began, Mr. Senchenko has been watching and forecasting what will occur in the peninsula. At certain stages, it was a foregone conclusion. In my view, one of the important things Senchenko has done is drawing up a land cadastre in Crimea. It was a really brave deed that had grave consequences for him – he was dismissed, quite expectedly, but this did not change his pattern of behavior, which is very important. I will not analyze all the important factors – it is enough to say about this example and about what was 21 years ago. During the last Mai­dan, Mr. Senchenko was also the October Palace superintendent, so he has every right to speak about the Maidan and post-Maidan events and concerns.

“Oleksandr Yeliashkevych. I was a parliamentary journalist when he was an MP. I          heard Mr. Yeliashkevych speak from the rostrum and saw his attitude, when he berated the then leadership, which was a hard thing to do. I often argued with him over many points – both tactical and political – but this left ample grounds for respect because he was taking a firm position, especially when all those involved in the Gongadze case behaved totally wrongly. But Mr. Yeliash­ke­vych always stood his ground, and his position deserves respect. He said in a 2007 interview: ‘I’d like to caution Yushchenko against physical contacts with Leonid Kuchma. I think every kiss with the former president may activate ‘Kuchma’s virus’ in Yushchenko’s body still weak after being heavily poisoned. Oleksandr defied the fact that the general public would not heed him and nobody would go with him to a new parliament. And this happened, for it was a test for our political ‘mire.’ And there will be no changes as long as people with an attitude are not valued highly.

“I can recall my first roundtable in Kharkiv, where there were such experts as Vadym Karasiov and Volodymyr Fesenko. They started in our newspaper as political experts, and after some time we could often see them on television. Then their lives took different paths. But I always look forward to seeing new people who take a certain position, have views, and cherish values. For example, we always watch what Viktoria Podhorna has said, for she is a person whom we respect very much for her values and views. Oleksandr Solontai was perhaps the only person in our publications during and after the Maidan, who opted for eschewing the old political parties and blocs, for which we called all young public activists. We used to say: ‘You must show that you want to be different,’ but far from all could venture to do so.

“This preamble means that today’s roundtable is not an accidental event. I hope there will be more candidates in the next years, although you all know that it is not so easy. The experience of political battles and all the processes during and after the Maidan makes it possible to put a clear-cut question:

“Is there a danger of the revanche of old approaches?”

Andrii SENCHENKO: “It depends on what revanche is. If it is the comeback of the people who used to personify power, the ans­wer may be negative. But if we speak of the government’s old approaches and patterns of actions, then it seems to me it is not a revanche but inability of the state to part with what it has been doing before, to part with the old system of relationship between the authorities and society. Mass-scale embezzlement is still a proven fact. Governmental representatives are still trying to speak to society in a pri­mi­tive language: we have been told for so many months that ‘the war hinders reforms’ or ‘whoever criticizes the government is the fifth column.’ The authorities are counting on a comfortable environment even during the war, even though the grassroots are suffering losses. They still want to live in a warm bathtub. Our goal is to break these schemes.”

PODHORNA: “UKRAINE STILL DEPENDS ON WHAT THE WEST AND PUTIN DECIDE”

L.I.: “Revanche can be considered as a comeback of old approaches. Indeed, there was some stress, and politicians were thinking for some time over how to position themselves, but the ensuing portfolio distributions made it clear that the Maidan energy had vanished into thin air, instead of assuming some instrumental shapes.”

Viktoria PODHORNA: “Of course, some top officials were replaced, and there are new people in the Cabinet and partly in parliament. But the system of relations between the public and the authorities has not changed. I think it is a key moment which shows that the problem is not just in the comeback of old faces. EU experts are saying pointblank that we can really become a ‘failed state,’ which, in addition to terrorism, is a danger to the world because there will be a continuous conflict in this part of the globe. The West is also aware that if we fail to put the situation under control and launch true economic and political reforms, we may see recurrence of the drama­tic early-20th-century situation. This is a challenge for political elites to respond to, but, unfortunately, they have a very low level of edu­cation, particularly in history. Naturally, they never think in these categories, which constitutes a grave danger to Ukraine, because the elites are unable to rise above and fathom the situation. Hence there are no changes.

“And what is their vision of the country? This kind of questions are not on the agenda, and if such a strategic group as the National Council of Reforms proposed 10, not 60, reforms, they could perhaps work? There is so much talk today about President Poroshenko’s achievements on the international arena, but Ukraine has not yet become a subject. We still depend on what the West and Putin decide.”

IVSHYNA: “THERE IS A POSITION OF PEOPLE WHO DISAGREED WITH THE PREVIOUS REGIMES, BUT THEY REMAIN UNNEEDED EVEN IN NEW POLITICS”

L.I.: “This is why one of our roundtable’s questions is: ‘Has Ukraine become independent or more dependent?’ This has a direct bearing on the processes that have unfurled in the past 23 years. Viktoria said at the previous roundtable on September 26, 2014, that she was afraid that the Maidan would remain a superficial event. So, a deeper analysis is needed. For example, the leadership is now launching a constitutional process, and our newspaper has put a question: what is this process for, for what vision?”

V.P.: “Adam Przeworski has aptly described two types of modern-day constitutions. The first is constitutions adopted by the elite. They are very superficial. It is in fact a deal between the elites – we have had three constitutions of this type. It is very dangerous because we should build a modern society, a showpiece of European society. But this can only be done in the conventional way (the se­cond type). Roger Myerson said we should integrate the existing public interests to conclude a broad-based social contract – a constitution. This also involves regional interests and the middle class which is now the prime mover of all present-day revolutions. I can see that the president wishes to push through a constitution-making option typical of the Ukrainian elites. But the fundamental law cannot be durable if it embraces the elites only, all the more so that the elites have a not so high level of legitimacy. Therefore, we need a broader convention that could create a constitution by taking into account all public interests, for the latter are in fact being thrown out of this process. Of course, there will be profanation and simulation of a debate, but there will hardly be a real inclusion, the drawing-up and discussion of documents.”

L.I.: “Having a parliamentary-presidential republic, we can see that parliament is not an active full-fledged player and the Cabinet is also taking a very shaky position. For this reason, the Presidential Administration is becoming the main player.”

A.S.: “Actually, their ultimate goal is concentration of power. This spirit hovers in the corridors, even though the president said in his inauguration speech that he would be the first head of state who will not be trying to grab more powers. But he began doing so the very next day. A year has in fact been lost, as far as changes to the Constitution are concerned, just because he tried to shove into one package his wishes to concentrate power and change the system into a presidential-parliamentary one and all the rest that interest the public. Yet it would only be logical to set some priorities and change the Constitution piecemeal. Now this can be heard said owing to public pressure, but I don’t know how this will be put into practice. I would begin with reforming the judicial system. Important as it is, decentralization comes second after the judicial branch reform.”

L.I.: “Speaking of the new dangers, I am absolutely convinced that it is poor education and the fact that previous experience is not taken into account, especially when it is said all the time that we have a short substitute bench and lack manpower. But I see a different process. There is a position of people who disagreed with the previous regimes, but they often remain unneeded even in new politics. The current Constitutional Commission has, unfortunately, invited all the presidents, although some of them must be blamed for the fact that Ukraine has lost a part of its territory and has a conflict in the Donbas. It is conservation and absolute legitimization of a public defeat.”

A.S.: “I would like to recall that when a Constitutional Assembly was being formed under Yanukovych, the people who are now members of the current Constitutional Commission used to say that it was wrong because it was up to parliament to do so. Now they either have entered or are supporting the idea of a Constitutional Commission under Poroshenko, though its essence and mechanisms are the same.”

SOLONTAI: “IF WE LOOK INTO THE CONSTITUTIONAL AGREEMENT, WE WILL SEE THAT WE ARE CHRONICALLY LATE AT EVERY CHAPTER”

L.I.: “But why, in such a high turbulence and after the powerful second Maidan, which showed a strong civic potential, does Ukraine lack a sufficient number of voters with a clear civic attitude?”

Oleksandr SOLONTAI: “The political system is doing its best to integrate its new civil-society opponents into the old system and attach as much a new face as possible to the latter. The early parliamentary elections proved to be a suitable moment – as a result, civil society showed a dire shortage of new faces. The lists of the political parties that made their way into parliament comprise the people who, instead of showing a new qua­lity, have drifted apart and adopted the rules of a different game. As a result, they stopped being responsible for their words and deeds. Particularly, it is about failure to meet the reform deadlines envisioned in the Coalition Agreement – for example, it is not clear when the Constitution itself will be reformed. The same applies to other reforms. If we look into the Agreement, we will see that we are chronically late at every chapter.

“Revanche is not the price of this. A revanche similar to the one after Yushchenko’s rule is impossible today. At the time, we saw the white-blue regain power and waited for the coming of a generation of 18-25-year-olds who are not afraid of clashes with police and say: ‘Where is our revolution?’ We have a diffe­rent situation now. If eastern and southern Ukrainians choose to stop supporting Ukraine’s European choice and its future in general, they will see Russian troops. And the number of soldiers from the capital and western Ukraine will not be enough to stem the tide.

“There is a very specific situation in society now: on the one hand, there are a million of active citizens who staged the Mai­dan, pressured politicians, and called for changes, and, on the other, there are public leaders who have become part of the current authorities and are more or less satisfied with everything        – they are not exactly keen on reforms. Hence is a slow pace of changes – we are always late. This may lower the grassroots’ spirits. This will lead not to a revanche but to the loss of more territories. But if spirits remain high, there will be a chance that society, as a source of changes, will understand that, instead of demanding changes from politicians, it should self-organize – incidentally, not only in tents or in clashes with riot police. This year is very good for self-organization because there will be local elections and an opportunity to raise local questions and demand that politicians solve them.

“Indeed, the Constitutional Commission could have been more precise in spelling out the presidential initiative. But still it has a big plus – this is the first time it was said on the governmental level that decentralization will go down to the level of a commune, not of a region. It would be good, of course, if these words were fixed in a concrete document.”

L.I.: “This fragmentation is very positive if it is a question of well-prepared communes, but if these communes have long lost their subjectness, those who have formed clans or parties will rule the roost. I have a somewhat different picture of the world, and I would say that the Opposition Bloc is not an opponent of the ruling government because it is one and the same systemic phenomenon.”

A.S.: “As a matter of fact, they entered parliament as a result of a non-public deal.”

L.I.: “For this very reason, we must also note the following sign: why, for example, does the Kyiv leadership consider Kolomoisky a greater threat than the Opposition Bloc? It is not a question of a concrete leader with the life story of an oligarch – it is a question of different approaches. We have a danger in the country, and an oligarch took on responsibility. Others either did not take it on or failed to cope with the job. I don’t mean that he must be absolved of all the rest because of this. But even Andrii Sadovy said in a Den interview that when Kolomoisky came to testify to parliament’s ad hoc commission on privatization and gave valuable evidence, the parliamentary opposition, not to mention the Prosecutor General’s Office, did not take it on its own account. If the opposition does not perform this function, ci­vil society should produce new forces that will control this. Otherwise, there will be a conspiracy of elites – this is bound to result in a new turbulence, which is a dire threat to Ukraine.”

O.S.: “In this case, civil society must perform the functions of the opposition.”

L.I.: “Not a society as such but instruments of civil society. For example, there is a need in the Assembly of Civic Organizations which society is still capable of forming.”

V.P.: “We need a system of representation that will run through the entire society.”

YELIASHKEVYCH: “IF KUCHMA WAS INDUCTED INTO THE CONSTITUTIONAL COMMISSION, THEN IT ONLY REMAINS TO CALL YANUKOVYCH”

Oleksandr YELIASHKEVYCH: “The Constitutional Commission’s session was very revealing for me – particularly, the participation of Leonid Kuchma, the creator of the criminal Kuchma-Yanukovych system, and almost a complete silence over this of all journalists and the public activists who raised the first and second Maidans. I am asking: is this pure chance or not? It is good that the newspaper Den noticed Kuchma’s presence and the danger of this situation. But do we want to build a new system with a human face on an old foundation? Instead of being tried in a court of law, this person, who is the ‘godfather’ of Ukrainian corruption and the entire oligarchic system and is suspected of committing major crimes, is becoming a role model of sorts for society – our leadership flatly forgives those who have reduced this country to the current state of affairs. It only remains to induct Viktor Yanukovych into the Constitutional Commission.”

L.I.: “We’ve been pointing this out for many years. And in many political matters we get back to 1999. This shows how fast generations change and how long the same inertia has been going on. It is not until young activists know the root cause of Ukrainian problems that the infected past will stop haunting us. We are not getting rid of anything, but we just keep on missing chances at every turn. Sometimes people shun and don’t want to hear this truth. They say: ‘Look, he’s a pensioner after all. Enough.’ What is the essence of what society must understand at last?”

O.Ye.: “The essence is that you must not build new relations by engaging the people who created the old criminal system. Moreover, no upheavals in this system will cause its ruination. It can only modify and incorporate new names and new representatives of civil society. And they feel very good and forget what they said yesterday, when they condemned the Kuchma-Yanukovych regime and called on the great masses of people to bring this system down.

“It is not only about the Constitutional Commission. For example, on the night when it was in session, the TV program ‘Freedom of Speech’ (it is just cynical to use a channel appropriated by the Kuchma family) shows the young leader of the OPORA organization, which I respect, and says that the pre­sident once solved the Constitution problem overnight, forcing parliament to make a proper decision. It is not just ignorance of history – it is dissemination of false and doubtful information. This raises a question: are the ci­vil society ele­ments that care about the election campaign and modernization of the election system prepared to respond to the challenges of society?

“I believe in the Ukrainian people’s potential and think that we will soon see public activists who will go through thick and thin. We are still in a situation when heroic efforts on Maidans bring to power young activists who, unfortunately, are unable to stand the test of fame. We can see an enormous number of journalists in parliament today. But how effectively do they work as lawmakers from the viewpoint of public interests? For example, it is very interest­ing to watch the performance of the Mus­tafa Nayyem – Serhii Leshchenko tandem. Instead of raising the questions they have been broaching for many years – the Kuchma and Gongadze cases and a lot of others – they forget this all and switch to very commercial pro­jects sponsored by an oligarchic team.”

L.I.: “These bottlenecks occur in the journalistic milieu because Ukrainian journalism is really in dire straits. The quality of journalism is a separate subject to discuss.”

O.Ye.: “The Constitutional Commission’s session showed that the tenden­cies the new parliament brought about are still continuing. Mr. Hroisman has not yet realized that he is the Ver­khovna Rada speaker, not the junior partner of Petro Poroshenko. We can see even on the example of this commission that he accepted this kind of institutional work, for the commission was set up by parliament. Moreover, he agreed to the presence in it of not just odious persons but people who have no right to be there. The public should tell him that it is shame and insult to the memory of those killed, including the Heavenly Hundred heroes.”

L.I.: “The trouble in fact is that people on the Maidan did not fully understand what they wanted from it, while those who stood on the Maidan stage more or less knew why they were there. But society must still press very hard to prevent our remaining chances from slipping. Our Moscow-based contributor Dmitry Shusharin said about Ukrainian politics: ‘A bipartite system is now being formed in Ukrainian society – a party of collaborationism and a party of resistance.’ Indeed, we must all make a personal choice.”

A.S.: “We must answer the main question: do we want to live in this kind of two-dimensional space?”

PODHORNA: “THE DANGER OF REVANCHE RESULTS FROM OUR FAILURE TO CARRY OUT A TRUE LUSTRATION”

L.I.: “I know that some people want to conserve everything – their property and interests – in order to be able to wield as much clout as possible in politics. But this way is sure to lead into a blind alley. Who will raise this bar which really requires new actions, attitudes, and people?”

V.P.: “The danger of revanche results from our failure to carry out a true lustration which was necessary and which must be based on totally different principles. Corruption control involves taking lengthy judicial and prosecutorial proceedings. This cannot have a sufficient effect on society and fetch quick results. There should be a moral ostracism based on condemnation of the elites’ antinational attitudes. If we rely on the system of national interests, we will see that Kuchma must not conduct talks on behalf of Ukraine or be in the Constitutional Commission. In other words, he cannot reincarnate himself and be a political figure. The same also applies to Yanukovych. The question of moral ostracism and morality is in reality a question of the rule of law. This is so far being flouted in Ukraine.”

L.I.: “The problem is that our moral gurus do not know much about our politics, while our politicians know almost nothing about morality. And unless this is put across to society in new instrumental forms, there will be no country of new citizens.”

A.S.: “Our lustration was a publicity stunt rather than an anticorruption measure. Debaters always confuse such notions as ‘corruption,’ ‘lustration,’ and ‘demonopolization’ and use them as synonyms. Naturally, these phenomena are interconnected, but in each case there should be separate prescriptions to treat a disease.”

L.I.: “Who will answer the question: why was Admiral Kabanenko the first victim of lustration, while General Kuzmuk is still an advisor to the president?”

O.Ye.: “Conceptually, the law on lustration rests on an absolutely wrong foundation. It is a Bolshevik law by its spirit: whoever was at a certain place and time, no matter what he was doing and what his position was, can be lustrated. Does this differ from the erstwhile practice, when they looked at whether you were of proletarian origin or whether your grandfather and grandmother had been on the occupied territory? Moreover, I can see that this law does not take into account the period of Kuchmism at all, although the latter has not yet ended – it is just passing a new stage. Kuchmists have just used his law to fight against some oligarchic groups that once hindered them from monopolizing the economic situation.”

L.I.: “When our newspaper was one of the first to raise the question of what the Minsk Agreements were and why Ukraine was represented by Kuchma, nobody picked up this subject. There is no political representation, although there are a large number of political parties – there are no institutionalized groups of interests which could say clearly: ‘We want to break with the past and reestablish our country on other principles.’ Why do I emphasize this session of the ad hoc commission on privatization? No matter who will come there, it is the basis of the whole system, a benchmark. And the state should set the tone here, but it is so far evading its duty.”

SOLONTAI: “POROSHENKO AND YATSENIUK BECAME WHAT THEY ARE NOT WITHOUT HELP FROM KUCHMA AND PINCHUK, RESPECTIVELY”

Ivan KAPSAMUN: “Today’s society, which spent very much of its strength first on the Maidan and then in the fight against the Russian aggressor, is in fact fighting on two fronts – against its own politicians and against the external enemy. What possibilities and mechanisms do we have to break this system?”

O.S.: “We want too much from the politicians who grew up under Kuchma – they will not suddenly stop perceiving his as part of their life story. The current President Poroshenko became what he is not without help from Kuchma. We also know that the current Premier Yatseniuk became what he is not without help from the Pinchuk group. And Hroisman is not a self-sufficient figure at all. Were it not for the war, society would not have swallowed such a sacrilege against the Heavenly Hundred. The war has raised the threshold of sensitivity very high. And it is no accident that such thing as ‘garbage lustration’ has appeared. I can see no other way out than educational and civic work with the activists and people who understand that one can exert influence on the system not only by means of burning car tires.

“What has been done in the past year is quite a lot but not enough. For example, laws have been passed on public information, publicness of state finances, etc. People were also allowed to visit sessions of governmental bodies, but this has not yet removed parapets or Kernes’s private guards who keep people from visiting Kharkiv City Council sessions. So, it is important not only to grant people a right, but also to teach them to exercise it. A lot of goals have been set for this year – from judicial reform to the law on local referendums.

“As for the new Constitution, nobody expects it to be radically revised. It is about the second package of changes, which entered into force in 2004 and was updated in 2014. The transitional provisions of this Constitution say that a reform of local self-government is to be carried out from January 1, 2006, onwards. So, the Constitutional Commission should do what has not been done in 10 years – to finish decentralization and carry out a judicial reform to boot.”

V.P.: “I do not believe that these political forces are capable of founding a modern Ukrainian state. The problem of our elite is that it is medieval, as is the Russian elite. There are a sufficient number of people in society, who can constitute the new political elite, but there is a problem of internal communication. Ukraine needs a new political revolution, i.e., real changes. These should be associated with the establishment of a new party system, for the previous system led to a split because it was based on the ‘east-west’ conflict. The party system should knit the country together. For this to occur, we need a broad-based civic movement which will include people with different views, who will nevertheless be united and perform the function of Solidarity in Poland.

“We need a true constitutional convention which will represent various interests – there should be city mayors, representatives of entrepreneurs’ association, etc., in it. This representation can be of a structural nature. For example, the Constitutional Assembly in France comprised people elected on the principles of representation, who created the Constitution later. But in Ukraine this kind of people were just appointed.

“We need politics to be modeled and designed. One should first make analyzes, work out a design, and only then pass all kinds of laws.

“Another important point. The army was the No.1 question for Ukraine in the early 20th century and still remains as such now. When Napoleon formed the army, he formed a modern French state. Therefore, the army should also be politically represented.”

YELIASHKEVYCH: “MERKEL AND HOLLANDE WILL BE FORCING US TO CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION BECAUSE OF MINSK AGREEMENTS”

L.I.: “How many people do we have, who have the experience of changes in the country? Here are two persons with political experience, and I can name five more. Their experience is far more valuable than that of those who were raised on the oligarchs’ backyard and then integrated into public structures and hyped up. The grassroots are glad to see this neo-cynicism, which is positioned as a younger generation in politics, because they want to see new and young ones who have no controversial points in their life stories. But it would be a good idea to combine those who have the experience of struggling at various stages for a different model of our state’s development and behavior with the young ones who are seeking a new quality.”

A.S.: “Unfortunately, our protective mechanisms continue to work in the shape of false goals and characters. For example, the government has raised the gas price six-fold, which caused a stir in society. Then we are told that it is possible to halve the prices. So, it is a case of diverting the attention of society. For this reason, the patriotic media should help people discriminate between false and real objectives. This concerns changes to the Constitution, the judicial system, the election law… Why do we have a parliament like this? At least because the first-past-the-post system partially remains behind. We must urgently change the election law at all levels. Also needed is demonopolization in politics and the economy.”

L.I.: “What is the reason why we still don’t have an Antimonopoly Committee head?”

A.S.: “Because they are busy dividing. As far as I know, the previous attempt to appoint the Antimonopoly Committee chairman was worth $20 million allotted by a Russian-Ukrainian entity. A half of it belonged to some illustrious figures of the previous regime and another 50 percent to the Russian side – a family in the Caucasus.”

O.Ye.: “There is also a problem of the president’s property in Russia, which he is not exactly rushing to solve – in spite of the war.

“I have watched long enough the attempts of presidents to revamp the Constitution – also in the times of Kuchma, Yushchenko, and Yanukovych. Only the latter ‘successfully’ managed to do so with ‘a stroke of the Constitutional Court’s pen.’ Incidentally, this court’s composition is still the same, as is that of the Central Electoral Commission, although the validity of the latter expired almost a year ago. This means everything suits the leadership.

“I am worried very much about the current constitutional process, for Ukraine has taken some international commitments under the disgraceful and treacherous Minsk agreements. We must understand that the point is not only in Putin who will go on trying to increase his influence in Ukraine militarily – there are also the political and legal sides. This is also the responsibility of Merkel and Hollande, and they will be forcing our political class, irrespective of its wishes, to adopt changes to the Constitution. And the problem is not even in the dangerous question of federalization. There may be extreme centralization and usurpation of some governmental bodies’ powers. For we have not yet decided on the attitude to the institution of presidency as a source of the horrible problems our society has faced in the past few decades. Today we blindly trust the president’s Constitutional Commission, even though it comprises Kuchma and a number of other exotic characters. If civil society does not pay attention to this now and does not force the government to return to a normal legal procedure, we will see very unpleasant changes in the Constitution by the autumn, which Ukraine will have to make in line with the Minsk agreements.”

IVSHYNA: “WE MUST WRITE CONTEMPORARY HISTORY. OTHERWISE WE WILL NOT KNOW WHEN WE HAD A CHANCE AND WHEN WE WENT ASTRAY”

Maria YUZYCH: “In what way and under what conditions do you think the young political elite of Ukraine should be brought up? When will it be mature enough?”

V.P.: “When some German journalists asked me the other day what the EU could do for Ukraine, I answered that it would be better to spend the received money on educational programs – for example, to teach people public administration and public policy which are not taught here. From the angle of resources, it is not so heavy expenses. But they change the thinking pattern of people. And there should be hundreds of programs, not just one or two, so that people can see European values in practice and bring them to this country.

“When there are very many people like these, old politicians will have to do nothing but step aside.”

L.I.: “In my opinion, young people will hardly learn anything from the Germans who have a very vague idea of Ukrainian reality. It is perhaps better to learn from the Swedes, Lithuanians, and Poles. We should analyze our database and come to know why we have failed in the past 23 years. There has been a fierce struggle. Maybe, it did not look so on the ‘screen,’ but it took a very heavy toll of people. But the analysis of Ukraine’s past practice is not being taken into account today.”

V.P.: “And we don’t have many books on this subject. There are a lot of political scientists but, unfortunately, too few publications.”

L.I.: “We must write contemporary history. Otherwise we will not know when we had a chance and when we went astray. And as long as there are active participants in these events among us, we must ask them everything.”

O.Ye.: “Apart from learning and analyzing new things, we must, above all, remain ourselves. For some reason, it is easier today for young people to go to barricades than to speak in parliament, when they see that something is wrong, and voice their position. Clearly, it is not the young politicians who mastermind this artificial blocking of the rostrum. But the young do not oppose these schemes and travesty of parliamentarianism. For example, many have already forgotten about the Roman Statute. But I want to warn that non-ratification of the Roman Statute is a betrayal of every young MP. It is a question of their morality and responsibility. For, had it not been for the Maidan, they would not be in parliament now.”

PODHORNA: “WE SAID TO THE YOUNG MPs: THE OLD ELITE WILL BE ‘DISSOLVING’ YOU, SO YOU SHOULD UNITE. BUT THEY WOULDN’T LISTEN”

A.S.: “Frankly speaking, parliament is degenerating before our eyes. For me personally, the inquiry into the Ilovaisk tragedy is an acid test. Before the elections, when a commission was set up on September 4, 2014, for this purpose, some of those who supported this idea were pursuing their personal interests associated with political struggle. We managed to conduct quite a thorough inquiry in one and a half months. Our commission said in the report that there were some blank spots left and even recommended that some questions should be put to certain people. But we hoped only that the new parliament would obtain the answers.

“Last year the security and defense committee resolved, even though it was not in its competence, that this commission should resume its work. Silence was the answer. The Presidential Administration applied pressure, and the new parliament, including the young deputies who were riding on the wave of the Maidan, kept silent. And only at Savik Schuster’s latest ‘Freedom of Speech’ program, when corruptionists began to clash verbally, representatives of one clan told their opponents that if they continued to take on them, they would get even with them for Ilovaisk. It is a catastrophe.”

O.Ye.: “Getting back to contemporary history, I will outline the main stages. Out of the events in which I was a witness and a participant, the first milestone was the year 1995, when Ukraine joined the Council of Europe. It seemed to us that Ukraine stood a chance. We had a pro-European prime minister, and the president also declared that he was pro-European. The Constitution adoption process was beginning. The end of it is very well known: the really pro-European premier was not destined to see the adoption. And what Kuchma’s team is saying today that he, as president, promoted the adoption of the Constitution is a tall story. He hindered this in every possible way. Had it not been for the young members of that parliament, who remained honest, the 1996 Constitution would not have been passed. But a miracle occurred, and the Constitution was adopted. We thought this could pave the way to transformations. But Kuchma appointed Lazarenko as premier, and we entered the stage of a rapid development of oligarchy.

“The next milestone was 1999, the year of presidential elections. It was common knowledge that very much depended on these elections – they were in fact supposed to set a vector of movement. But the majority finally resigned itself to the fact that the elections were dirty and rigged.

“The next significant span of times was the year 2000 and the so-called ‘Kuchmagate.’ To be more exact, it was a statement of Oleksandr Moroz in parliament on November 28, 2000. It seemed that this would give the country a chance to clean itself. There were very serious accusations against the president. Nothing again.

“The next event was the first Maidan. The year 2004. Euphoria. We seemed to be going over, in an absolutely peaceful way in such a victorious mood, to a stage when it was possible to realize the slogan ‘Bandits to Prison’ and develop Ukraine as a pro-European state. Viktor Yushchenko could have become the symbol of this development. But he became the symbol of a missed chance. And we’ve had a lot of such ‘missed’ chances.

“But, in my view, we crossed the crucial line after ‘swallowing’ the Melnychenko tapes. Nobody passed a legal, let alone a moral, judgment of what was on them. Nobody said that the ones who were recorded had no right to assume political or any other offices in the state because these people did not protect the interests of people, to say the least. Thereafter, our politics became absolutely amoral. All the further developments resulted from the fact that both politicians and civil society failed to do their moral and civil duty in this matter.

“Naturally, there were many people who were taking a different stand, but the majority, as the well-known Russian historian Yury Afanasyev once said, was ‘aggressively silent.’”

L.I.: “In Ukraine it is not aggressive. The majority is simply silent here.”

O.Ye.: “This majority performed its ‘black deed.’ Now too, unfortunately, when we have had so many victims, blood, tears, sufferings, they – public activists and young MPs – simply keep silent, even as they see some obviously very negative things.”

V.P.: “They can’t but keep silent. They have no common ground. They are unprotected. And we warned them about this risk. As you remember, we said to our future young MPs here at a Den roundtable: you will have problems, the old elites will be ‘dissolving’ you, and you should unite. But they wouldn’t listen.”

SENCHENKO: “ONE MUST FIGHT FOR EVERY INCH OF LAND, BUT OFFICIALS FIGHT FOR COMFORTABLE EXISTENCE IN POWER”

Dmytro KRYVTSUN: “What is your forecast about the Donbas situation? How can these territories be regained if the government does not want to change itself and its approaches?”

A.S.: “It is difficult and painful to speak about this. But it seems to me that Poroshenko wanted to be the president of a peaceful country. This is why he has an inner dilemma: to fence off the ‘zone of peace’ and rule in it or to fight. Premier Yatseniuk also wanted to be the premier, or maybe the president, of a non-warring country. And he also faces a dilemma: to fight for territorial integrity and peace in the country or to be the premier on a relatively comfortable territory. I guess this is the main contradiction between the leadership and the public. We don’t have this dilemma.

“For me, one situation became the acid test of this dilemma. Somewhere in late March – early June, when I worked at the Presidential Administration, I was given a list of daycare facilities to be commissioned by September 1. The list included about 45 facilities in the Donbas, of which 11 were on a territory where there had never been any separatism – 9 districts in Luhansk oblast. To begin to function, they needed 7 million hryvnias. It was a time when various ‘DNR’ and ‘LNR’ representatives and some Russian mercenaries ‘promenaded’ with tricolors on this land. I first contacted Volodymyr Hroisman, who worked in the Cabinet at the time, and said that if we financed these kindergartens, mothers in certain cities and villages would form ‘self-defense units’ which would allow no separatism in those places. Hroisman replied that it was up to the premier to deal with this matter. The premier said in his turn that the Cabinet would not pass a resolution for a mere 7 million. You can see the attitude. When it is necessary to fight for every inch of land and for every soul, topmost governmental officials do not do this. Instead, they fight for comfortable existence in power, also at the cost of surrendering territories.”

L.I.: “The Maidan’s goal will only be achieved when we really join the European Union. But, judging by the steps of the current post-Maidan politicians, we and the EU are drifting apart not only because of the war. Speaking of the government, we mention their declarations but analyze their practice very little. Which of the current government’s decisions are bringing us closer to or taking us away from Europe?”

A.S.: “I may be too critical of the government, but what is bringing us closer is perhaps a formality – the appointment of deputy ministers in charge of integration into Europe. Although appointed on a competitive basis, many of them were dismissed from ministries on no discernable grounds. But as for changing the way the government works, for example, providing greater transparency, we do not see this. Arresting top officials of the emergencies ministry during a Cabinet meeting is not a step forward in my view.”

L.I.: “This demonstrativeness is like a pungent sauce to a not very good dish. A good dish does not need too many spices.”

O.Ye.: “There is only one plus as far as integration into Europe is concerned: in spite of the government’s incompetence and cynicism in certain matters, our people are working wonders both at the front and as a result of survival in a terrible economic situation. The upcoming experiments, such as, for example, an abrupt hike in public utility rates, have nothing to do with economics. This turns Ukraine from a social state into a fully monopolistic and capitalist system which centralizes all the financial resources and then dishes out subsidies and other sops to most of the people to enable them to survive at least in some way. This has nothing to do with a democratic society or Europe. I therefore believe in the resistance of the human factor which is extremely powerful in Ukraine. The only problem is that it is dormant for the time being. I wouldn’t like revolutions to erupt once in 10 years. I’d like everybody to perform their civic duty at their worksite.”

YELIASHKEVYCH: “THE CURRENT POLITICIANS ARE TEMPORARY FIGURES. THEY ARE THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE GROWN OUT OF ‘KUCHMA’S OVERCOAT’”

L.I.: “This requires some study.”

O.Ye.: “I think the current politicians are temporary figures. They are the people who have grown out of ‘Kuchma’s overcoat’ and cannot be cured of kleptomania and other ailments. I don’t think they will change. This year is supposed to show changes in the country. Only then we will have a serious movement, when new people will come out on the political arena and lead the entire society.”

L.I.: “Above all, they should read books. I want to show you a book from our library. It is an illustration to the theme ‘Are we struggling the right way?’ Anatolii Kazansky made this drawing in 1997, when the newspaper was founded: a man is striking at the house wall, it is written ‘national idea’ on the weight, and a backpack-wearing boy asks: ‘Daddy, should I go to school or help you struggle?’

“It seems to me that very many people in this country are engaged in the struggle, without ‘being in school.’ For this reason, the results of our struggle do not come to expectations, to put it mildly. It would be a good idea to put together those who are ‘in school’ and those who have the courage to struggle and rebuild the system so that there is at least the sensation of a hierarchy of values. This was broken at the very first stages of our independence, when the national democrats were unable to offer not a single rallying project in the first presidential elections. This caused them to vanish from the political arena. Going over to a new stage, ‘identity and modernization,’ we should correct all our mistakes on the move. The Euromaidan showed that there is again no common opinion about the criteria of a true leader. There is no consensus about this in society. We must make an effort to enable Ukrainian society to switch from a negative reference frame to a positive one, win over the active class, exert pressure on the existing politicians, and show a red card to those who will not take part in future politics. I can see a number of politicians who should be told right now that the public no longer wants to see them. This is needed in order to assess the way we had gone.

“Somebody wrote in Facebook recently that we need to go to school, not to the EU. It is very self-critical. Indeed, we lack the right self-criticism. And we should learn more in various forms.”