Profiteers who rule us

Gangsters seized the Holy Trinity Church in Luhansk, which belongs to the Kyiv Patriarchate. They believe that the Moscow Patriarchate should be the only allowed denomination in the city. Lech Walesa arrived to Kyiv on October 4, visited soldiers from the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) area now being treated in hospitals and tearfully laid flowers in Independence Square. Later on, a thousands-strong Peace March was held in Khreshchatyk, with marchers carrying banners, slogans, and balloons. Speaker of the Russian State Duma thanked the OSCE observers for their failure to notice Russian military presence in Ukraine. Even though we do not know yet whether Russia’s gratitude had a more tangible form as well, such blindness on the observers’ part has long stopped to surprise us. Following Leonid Kuchma representation of Ukraine at the Minsk talks, Serhii Kivalov, known for vote-rigging in 2004, has been chosen to present the lustration law for consideration to the European Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice Commission. Soldiers of the Aidar battalion captured a “minister” of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), known as Malysh, and brought him to Kyiv, where the men were arrested, and the “minister” released. Subsequently, the Aidar men were released as well, but required to provide bails. Meanwhile, someone trusted the infamous ankle monitor for people on house arrest too much again, allowing a riot police officer accused of taking part in the Euromaidan shootings to flee, allegedly accidentally.

All these events happened from September 29 through October 5, and they add up to one thing: Ukraine is a mess. The war, by the way, has nothing to do with it. The war does not justify that mess, chaos, chaotic kaleidoscope of parades, battles, betrayals, and political flashmobs, and efforts to cheat people, which we are seeing now, at this tragic time. One can understand underreporting of the Ukrainian KIA numbers, because people should not be scared. There have been, of course, far more than a thousand of our fallen, despite what the official sources say. However, it is unacceptable for the so-called punishment of members of the Party of Regions and drug dealers by the Right Sector (as we have seen in Odesa) to serve as a smokescreen distorting our reality. We have not just let our guard down, worse still, we are playing with a fire that has long been burning us alive. We are on fire! Pressing public charges against the Aidar men and letting a gangster to walk free for he is allegedly not the worst of his sort is a mockery of the whole Ukrainian nation who consume this information mirage. It is clear to everyone that some people are making money, selling indulgences that allow a gangster for a certain sum to not just turn into a decent citizen, but get shamefully released in full view of the entire nation. All see that if the offender may not be let go via an acquittal, they may get a defective ankle monitor, without any remorse on the part of the law enforcement. The trick was done under Viktor Yanukovych for notorious university rector Petro Melnyk, and it was equally notorious riot police officer Sadovnyk who was let free in this way recently. Some people do not even make an effort to come up with something new, they are lazy to even hide their criminal acts, including abuse of office. I am curious whether anyone of our rulers has even a bit of awareness how it all is likely to end? Oh, they are consumed with the elections? They would like to address it all later? What a folly! Some people are hurrying to suck the remaining juice out of the country, having no regard for anything. Some people are selling lifeboats on a sinking ship.

Local militants in the Donbas will not stay with us for long. Regular Russian troops are now destroying them en masse, as has been happening in Sverdlovsk, Luhansk region, where Nikolay Kozitsyn’s Cossacks are attacking the local gangs. By the way, we saw just another characteristic occurrence in Sverdlovsk on October 4, as the militants began firing into an indignant crowd, which demanded that they disburse the promised money. It can be safely said that the so-called LNR and DNR will be fully controlled by the Russian military and mercenaries come November 2, the date of the so-called referendums. The locals have long been eliminated as a factor there.

Former defense minister Ihor Teniukh stated frankly that another full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine would start within a month in order to ensure control of the arc from Kharkov to Odesa and provide an access to Crimea. Winter is coming and there is a real risk of a major humanitarian trouble, if not a disaster, happening in Crimea. One cannot imagine such an invasion happening now, but given that our government is revealed as consisting of profiteers rather than businesspeople (much less statespeople), it will come as no surprise. Such a threat does exist. We should not expect any aid from the West in this situation. We can accuse European countries to no end of cowardice, or even betrayal and material dependence on Russia, but we need to take a hard look at ourselves first. Even the Poles, who had recently declared their readiness to supply weapons to Ukraine, are now refusing to help us. Are Vladimir Putin’s threats to blame? Maybe. But somehow, it seems that there is another reason: people do not trust us. We are regarded as a fading light, which can, however, explode with public discontent at any moment. It seems that no one of our rulers takes note of it. The ship has not sunk yet, and three lifeboats are still up for sale! And then, after us the Deluge!