Vitaliy Klitschko, former Presidential candidate and now Kyiv
mayoral candidate warns of massive provocations in Eastern Ukraine that
will be blamed on nationalist, ‘western’ Ukrainian groups. The worst of the
violence, it is feared, will be aimed at (and between) pensioners and youth: patriotic
Ukrainian citizens, local self-defense forces, and citizens who feel that they
are tired of not being able to trust neither government leadership nor media. Information about these provocations has been provided
by multiple sources: from ordinary Kyiv residents to political representatives.
Most everyone is afraid of what will happen in the next week. Ukrainians
and Russians, both in Ukraine and watching from outside, fear May will be the most difficult month.
Annually, from 1 May to 9 May, there are
many celebrations and commemorations of VE-Day as well as May-day celebrations.
The Ukrainian government has said that they will honour the time this year with
peace and prayers and not the typical commemorative parades and celebrations. But
this has only lead the Russian government to criticise Ukraine, saying that this
Ukrainian government is not commemorating these celebrations ‘properly’—as if
to indicate that this government is oppressing its citizens and denigrating the
memory of those who fought the Nazis.
That is one level.
On the second level of Russian
intervention, there is a fear that Russian intelligence services and pro-Yanukovych figures have infiltrated Svoboda and the Right Sector. In the
coming days these groups will be conducting nationalist demonstrations. These
demonstrations would give Russian intelligence the ideal opportunity to provoke
violence in the Western and the Eastern cities of Ukraine, blame it on, what
they call, the ‘fascists’ of Kyiv and Western Ukraine, and use this to justify
Russian’s intervention to ‘protect’ it’s Russian speakers.
The
Russian media has historically identified Ukrainian nationalist forces in World
War II as fascists. During the past months, this accusation has extended to the
Kyiv government and the Maidan. The Russian media have been calling Maidan
demonstrators ‘banderivsti’. This is in reference to Stepan Bandera, who was
the leader of the revolutionary OUN. Although Bandera, the OUN and the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) fought both the Germans and the Soviet Red Army,
depending on circumstance, Russian nationalists (as the Soviet media before)
choose to only speak of the periods when the Ukrainians allied with the Germans
to fight the Soviets.
Russian
media seems to be unaware of the fact that many nationalist leaders were in
fact imprisoned in German concentration camps, Bandera included. OUN and UPA
attempted to establish an independent Ukrainian state contrasting with the
policies of both Nazi Germany and the USSR. Nevertheless, Russian media has dug out this
history in order to paint Kyivans, and generally all Ukrainian speakers and
pro-unity Ukrainians, as if they were fascist nationalists.
Yesterday, in Kyiv, at the Maidan, a ‘torchlight
parade’ to Parliament was meant to begin exactly this type of provocation and
violence in Kyiv. The participants of the torchlight parade refused to remove
their balaclavas and show their faces, and many of them carried bats, sticks
and firearms. However, the Maidan self-defense groups remain organised and
managed to stop the potential violence and confrontations.
Maidan continues to be a community hub,
where groups organise clean-ups and re-construction of the square. Food is also
freely available and distributed. The memorial of those killed in the student
protests and between Feb. 18th and 20th continues to draw
hundreds of visitors, who bring flowers and candles.
Comments
Post a Comment