The website of the MIA of Ukraine published a message about upcoming provocations and attempts to bribe the opposition soldiers: "Having not reached their goal, the opposition even resorted to attempts to influence by bribing soldiers. According to reports, they are preparing provocative proposals of fabulous wealth to anyone who goes to the side of the so-called revolutionaries and joins the ranks of illegal armed groups. Agitators are told to promise a reward of 10-20 times an annual salary for treason. Each of you can face such a proposal," they warn.
The financial component of Euromaidan has already been discussed a lot, and there is nothing surprising in the fact that the opposition is using any means.
“There can be very different people within the opposition,” says Sergey Mikheev, Director of the Institute of Caspian Cooperation, “from naïve dreamers, I am talking about the crowds on the Maidan, who are awaiting free manna that will fall from the heavens if the association with the EU takes place, to, on the other hand, neo-Nazis, radicals, for whom the chance to beat up police without consequences and throw Molotov cocktails is the ultimate dream. They have been preparing for this. They wanted violence, they will have it, and impunity stirs aggression.
According to Mr Mikheev, the "fake" quality of the Ukrainian opposition is a problem. “The picture we are getting from the Maidan is only one layer, while the "real" behind-the-scenes action is something else. Sometimes it is very difficult to understand where there is opposition and where there are authorities, since in fact many opposition leaders were promoted by the pro-government team. The story with Tyagnibok is well known. His party was initiated into the bowels of the Party of Regions in order to bring him into the second round with Yanukovych. Although people say that it is a conspiracy theory, I understand that these rumours are at least somewhat true. All the provocations that have occurred there... It is unclear who ordered them: was it ordered by the leaders of the opposition? Or maybe someone from the other side has prompted them to act this way? Ukraine is a typical oligarchical country where 5-6 oligarchic groups seek their interests by means of political fighting among other means. They have their own political representatives, their media holdings and from time to time bring these things to the level of political conflicts, trying to achieve their specific financial goals by doing so. Therefore the questions of who is giving orders, whether the leaders are in fact independent, to what extent the people who are usually regarded as members of the pro-government camp in support of Yanukovych remain open”. That is the way Mr Mikheev explains the conventional character of some of the processes that are taking place there. In his opinion, the main problem “is the fact that aggressive, ultra-nationalist ideas have been made legitimate and "clear." They are the core spirit of the movement and have stirred most of the action in the last few days.”
Mr Mikheev sees the Ukrainian opposition as a large number of people with different views, who are united by the idea of Yanukovych’s resignation.” At first it was about signing the agreement with the EU, which was quickly forgotten and they began to put forward one demand after another. Yanukovych has given away his last trump card - Azarov has been dismissed. But it was not enough, because appetite comes with eating. The weakness of the government has resulted in the constant growth of the appetite of the Ukrainian opposition nowadays.
“The initiative in the latest events has been halted by radicals. In principle they are nationalists, and if you read any program documents of small groups posted on the Internet, you'll see how monstrous they are. To what extent they believe in it and whether they are going to stick to it, is yet another question. The worst thing that happened on the Maidan was the legalization of the radicalization of the neo-Nazi idea. If previously people were careful with these things, if previously they were marginal and constituted a marginalized minority, now that Tyahnibok has shaken hands with all the European politicians, when the Americans shook hands with him, when he stood on the stage with all the leaders of the opposition, when guys who throw Molotov's cocktails under Nazi slogans started to be considered heroes, it has become clear that there is nothing wrong with neo-Nazism. It has become a backbone, a legitimate element of the Ukrainian national idea among the opposition. I mean that people perceive it as a relatively normal thing. And this is a very negative and potentially devastating tendency for Ukrainian statehood,” states Mr Mikheev.
In his opinion, Ukrainian statehood cannot develop in this direction, since it will lead to too many internal conflicts.
“One cannot tell half of the country that they are proper Ukrainians, and the other half that they are rednecks, not Ukrainian enough, slaves who work in factories, while the other half is doing all the politics. The state cannot exist like that in any case. This is one of the main problems of the current opposition”.
