The US Is Preparing for the Downfall of Maidan Ukraine

Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland says Russia is destabilizing the situation in Ukraine, and she is threatening Moscow with sanctions. But as we consider the situation in Ukraine, there’s no doubt that the opposition and authorities are undermining the already fragile state of this country.

Potentially, the most destabilizing factor of all could be the return of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Jan. 17. He probably will be detained immediately upon entry to Ukraine under a pending court order. But whether Ukrainian law enforcement be able to arrest the former head of state is another question.

Poroshenko’s supporters are not hiding their intention to protect their leader. This means that if police arrest the former president, they will have to engage his followers. An outraged mob might free Poroshenko from detention if he is arrested, events which could ignite a new Maidan.

In 2017, When the former governor of Odessa Oblast (and the former president of Georgia), Mikheil Saakashvili, broke into Ukraine through the Polish border, the country experienced another Maidan, resulting in some of the most serious protests during Poroshenko’s administration. But the Ukrainians never considered Saakashvili to be “their guy,” and Poroshenko’s political position then was much more stable than the political position of Ukraine’s current president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

It’s unclear what the Ukrainian police would do if there was a new Maidan in Kyiv. As the events in Kazakhstan have shown us, when serious protests verging on revolt break out, law enforcement takes the wheel. Many policemen in Ukraine are leaving their jobs right now and even threatening to protest because of unpaid bonuses and the lack of COVID-19-related payouts. Furthermore, the former minister of internal affairs, Arsen Avakov, who still has considerable influence over the police, is part of the opposition against Zelenskyy. Hence, it’s quite possible that if there is a new Maidan, police may withdraw or even support the protesters. Current Internal Affairs Minister Denys Monastyrsky has promised to raise the salaries of law enforcement by 10%. But that seems as likely to be effective as stuffing rags into holes on a sinking ship.

We can see this situation in many areas of daily life in Ukraine. High gas prices are driving up the cost of food, including bread. The government has only just begun to provide gas benefits to some food manufacturers. However, as Ukrainian TV reports, only businessmen with close ties to the government will gain access to cheap gas. It’s doubtful that these measures will make food more affordable to the public.

The Zelenskyy administration has also begun to seek extrajudicial reprisals, using the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to impose economic sanctions against its own citizens. There are also oligarchs, like Rinat Akhmetov, Ihor Kolomoyskyi and others, who use their influence in government circles to increase their personal wealth. Those are the people who are destabilizing Ukraine like no one else. Perhaps Nuland believes that Poroshenko, Zelenskyy, Avakov, Akhmetov and Kolomoyskyi are Kremlin agents?

If we take a serious look at the situation, we can see that additional messages from top U.S. officials followed Nuland’s remarks, messages which now demand our attention. For example, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said that Russia will face harsh economic repercussions if it invades Ukraine or undermines the situation in any other way, provoking changes that the Ukrainian nation has not asked for. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that the U.S. does not preclude the possibility that that a coup attempt in Ukraine could serve as the pretext for a Russian invasion. By now, everyone is familiar with assertions that Russia may invade Ukraine. The world has been talking about it for a year and the subject is getting old. But Sherman’s statements about changes that the nation has not asked for are curious, as are Sullivan’s words about a Ukrainian coup.

Could it mean that U.S. officials expect a new wave of mass protests in Ukraine? Probably The U.S. cannot ignore the fact that in the Ukrainian political sphere, there is a war in which every man stands for himself, a situation overlaid by bleak social conditions and the inability of Ukrainian leaders to solve their problems. Americans, despite all their efforts, could not eliminate the oligarchs from Ukrainian political life; the Zelenskyy team conducts its de-oligarchization efforts only on paper. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy spent the New Year’s holidays vacationing at the Bukovel ski resort, the same hotel where Kolomoyskyi was staying.

That’s not what the Americans wanted when they staged the Ukrainian coup in 2014. First, NATO did not claim Crimea for itself. Then, the U.S. and its allies were not content with just turning Ukraine against Russia. One could speculate there was also the need to transform Ukraine into a “storefront” of European development, so Russians would see how blessed life is in Ukraine and would be tempted to organize their own Maidan. But things turned out differently. And Ukraine’s example shows how a Maidan and a coup can push a relatively stable country to the cusp of ruin, and its people to the edge of survival. Perhaps the U.S. realizes that social chaos in Ukraine is imminent, and the processes inside of the country will become uncontrollable. If that happens, we will witness a repeat of the Afghanistan experience, but with Ukrainian flavor.

The U.S. is already preparing for such an outcome, and it’s ready now to blame it all on Russia. The White House plans to save face by claiming that the Kremlin is responsible for the downfall of Maidan Ukraine. Or maybe Washington plans a new Maidan in Ukraine. And in case of failure, or if the situation veers out of control, the U.S. will once more blame Russia. The U.S. is preparing an information smokescreen ahead of time, so the downfall of another pro-American regime will not deal a heavy blow to the American president’s popularity.