Mechanisms of Maidan: Moscow’s view

By Vestnik Kavkaza

The internet is full of pictures of violence on Ukrainian streets, which depicts the disability of the authorities. However, yesterday we could see a turning point. First, President Viktor Yanukovich accepted the resignation of the government headed by Premier Nikolai Azarov (his dismissal was one of the main demands of the opposition); and later Vladimir Putin summarized the results of the summit Russia-EU in Brussels: “Will we reconsider our agreements on loans and power industry, if the opposition comes in power?  No, we won’t. We will provide a dialogue with our partners in Ukraine, notwithstanding, who heads the Ukrainian government.” “The loan and gradual decrease of gas prices are connected with a necessity and desire to support not a certain government, but the Ukrainian nation. We have a proverb: when masters are fighting, servants are beaten, i.e. a common citizen suffers always. And we wish a burden of a common citizen was minimal.”

The first vice-premier Shuvalov specified that Russia won’t cancel financial support of Ukraine, if its new government continues cooperation with Russian industry and develops bilateral economic relations.

However, no one dares forecast what will happen next in Ukraine. Vladimir Zharikhin, Deputy Director of the Institute of CIS countries believes that "without taking into consideration this external influence, it wouldn’t be possible to understand the tragic situation Ukraine is in at the moment. In the EU authorities there have been three stages that strangely coincide with the three Maidans.

The first stage was an element of confusion after the unexpected decision of the president of Ukraine to refuse to sign the agreement. The second one was an attempt to get him to do it anyway. And in the new year, we see the third stage - a desire to somehow help the internal forces in Ukraine – no matter who says that the Ukrainians have good reasons for claims to the President  - help, nevertheless, to certain forces in Ukraine to bring the President down. The technologies are quite standard, unfortunately. They are similar to the technologies that have been used, for example, in Egypt”.

Commenting on the inactivity of the Russian authorities, Mr Zharikhin said," The EU officials say: " We are conducting an audit of the accounts of the Ukrainian oligarchs in our banks ." Ms. Nuland openly and frankly, as they say, to the camera, threatens Mr. Akhmetov that he will have problems with his business. Here are the basic mechanisms of the "color revolutions" -  first of all, to deprive the country's government of the commitment to legally oppose an ongoing coup. It is impossible to pay no attention to it, focusing on purely Ukrainian domestic problems that undoubtedly are present”.

Not much more optimistic about the situation in Ukraine is Alexey Vlasov, Executive Director of the Political Science Center “North-South”, editor-in-chief of Vestnik Kavkaza: “We’re seeing the “Titanic” of the Ukrainian national and political project sink, the way it was being built for over 20 years. And I’m afraid that it is impossible to save the ship just because the enthusiasm about political diversification in foreign policy  or the “big ship policy”, where the government and the opposition are always together, just swap places sometimes: one is steering, and the other is in the basement”. Mr Vlasov believes that the “shipwreck” threat will lead to a need to change the rules of the game: “There comes the question – who will suggest newrules when the western and the eastern part of the country are heterogeneous and divided interms of civilization. There are no remedies for this disease… Can the overcoming of this crisis go via some sane social forces that will succeed Ukrainian today’s political elite? It would be the perfect scenario. Just like in Russia in 1612 the incapable government was replaced by people who went from the people, from the regions. But I have serious doubts if it is possible in today’s Ukraine.