Yesterday, the Anti-terrorism Center of the Security Service of Ukraine was switched to high alert mode. The SBU authorities explain this was due to a sharp increase in the number of reports about the bombing of facilities with a massive presence of people, the presence of threats of bombings, including high-risk facilities (nuclear power and hydropower plants, infrastructure objects, "Boryspil", "Kiev", "Lviv", "Kharkiv", "Dnipropetrovsk", "Donetsk" and "Simferopol" international airports, railway and bus stations, transmission pipelines), blocking the premises of executive authorities, calls for the seizure of objects that have significant amounts of stored weapons, as well as an attempt to capture a passenger plane on February 7. Meanwhile, the opposition is once again going to blockade the Verkhovna Rada and the regional city halls, as well as strengthen the "self defense" troops. Experts say that in this way the opposition in Ukraine has acheived a new level of strategic planning with far-reaching consequences.
"If the activity of our opposition is built around the struggle against Yanukovych, as an ineffective, corrupt man who is oriented toward Russia, not toward Europe, and so on, it doesn't explain why they are so aggressive", says Vladimir Lepekhin, Director of the EurAsEC Institute. "The Maidan might as well have been organized in a peaceful way, using various forms of pressure without radical methods. But it seems we are facing an uncompromising approach. Negotiations fail, proposals of the authorities are rejected, new demands appear, which are quite strict. Thus, the reason must be global and fundamental. The point is not only in overthrowing Yanukovych, and not even a simple struggle for power. Some foreign forces with long-term interests stand behind this."
From Mr Lepekhin's point of view, "to a large extent, Ukraine is an artificial state, as there are two civilizations within one statehood. And there are two kinds of nationalism. On the one hand, there is moderate nationalism, which is being realized within the self-identification of the new statehood, but within the civilization which was formed a thousand years ago. I mean preservation of the Orthodox religion, preservation of Slavdom and so on. From this point of view, the attitude toward Russia is an attitude toward a country to cooperate with, as well as with other countries. There is a common history, common faith, ethnic unity and so on with Russia."
"On the other hand, there are artificial inclusions due to certain historic events, when a foreign matter was included in the space of Ukraine. And as the matter was foreign, it is clear that the entity is focused on Europe. Civilized self-identification which is not connected with the current events, but is connected with a long period (the self-identification began in the 1990s) is developing and will continue to strengthen."
Mr Lepekhin named those who benefit from the situation, "The Polish benefit from this, as well as the Lithuanians, the Romanians, as they have territorial claims. The Turks benefit from it, as their experts recall the agreement which was signed 230 years ago between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, when the Crimea couldn't be sold to a third side; and now it is an opportunity to join the Crimea to Turkey again. The Austrians, the Hungarians, the Vatican benefit from this, as well as the Constantinople Patriarch, and so on. So there are many forces who are interested in it. And all these vectors are combined into one - on the ground of the fact that Yanukovych should resign; but in fact it is a conflict between the West and the East, i.e. the Slavic Orthodox East and the West, which even being Orthodox doesn't belong to the Russian Orthodox Church - it is either an autocephalic church or a church of a Catholic patriarch, i.e. it is focused on Catholicism, Protestantism and so on. Therefore, there can be no consent in the near future, even in the next 5-10 years. Only a temporary ceasefire is possible."
