Ukrainian Nationalists Decided To Be In Opposition To Zelensky

April 25, 2019Stalker Zone source : Stalker Zone

The victory of Vladimir Zelensky caused an extremely negative reaction among nationalists. Meanwhile, it can bring many of them considerable political dividends.

The radical nationalist Party “Svoboda” announced on April 22nd its opposition to Zelensky, having explained this decision in detail: “Svoboda” will not fight for positions and loyalty of the new government. We do not see in the new president the qualities necessary for confronting the enormous challenges that face Ukraine … “Svoboda” declares — we remain national opposition, but now against Zelensky. We clearly define the borders of national interests that the authorities have no right to cross … “Svoboda” will fight back any attempts to undermine our national identity and the state status of the Ukrainian language, to stop decommunisation, and the restoration of the Ukrainian historical memory. We will not allow Ukraine to be turned into Malorossiya, etc.

Another story with the initiative “Defend Ukraine”, announced on April 12th in rather representative structure: “Shukhevych, Yarosh, [the director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory Vladimir] Vyatrovich, Kvit, Melnik’s and Bandera’s OUN, ‘Right Sector’, ‘Maidan self-defense force’, ‘Free people’, CUN [Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists], ‘Otpor’, UNA-UNSO, YNC [Youth Nationalist Congress], and many other patriotic structures united to counter revenge, the locomotive of which is Zelensky”. In addition, under the declaration of the initiative “Defend Ukraine” there are the signatures of “AutoMaidan Ternopol”, the“Association of Participants of the ATO”, “Corps of Defenders of the Revolution of Dignity”, and still a number of public organisations.

Following the results of the march held on April 19th in Kiev by large-scale “landing forces” from Western Ukraine, a slightly different list of participants of the initiative was pronounced: “Today the conscious patriots-Maidanists successfully held the march ‘Defend Ukraine’, directed against the Russian revenge. Activists of ‘Free people’, ‘Maidan self-defense forces’, the Youth Nationalist Congress, the Ukrainian Galician party. and other Ukrainian organisations clearly showed to all politicians that the Ukrainian nation will not allow the Euro-Atlantic vector to be stopped and will not allow someone to destroy the sovereignty of our country”.

A new mobilisation of participants of the initiative is called for April 25th when the Verkhovna Rada will consider the language law, under the slogan “The First battle of Revenge”.

“2019 becomes an active phase of the revenge of pro-Russian forces, ahead of the parliamentary election,” it is noted in the statement published on April 22nd on the YNC page on Facebook. “Therefore it is now important more than ever to understand real threats and to stop revenge while it gains steam”.

“C14“, which was not giving signs of life after April 20th (when it denied on its Telegram channel sending threatening SMS to members of electoral commissions, after which it posted only news about the Ekaterina Gandzyuk case and the participation of activists in cleaning garbage in regions), intends to be involved on April 25th in actions. “On Thursday the law on language. If you want it to be adopted — it is necessary to do a lot of things. There is a plan. Whoever wants a result, write below,” wrote the leader of “C14” Evgeny Karas on his Facebook page on April 22nd.

“National Corpus” continues to savour a victory over Petro Poroshenko, who it entered into a rigid conflict with at the end of 2017. However, concerning Zelensky, there are obviously no special illusions in Andrey Biletsky‘s party, and how to exist with him after the festive atmosphere fades away is hardly clear.

“Tradition and Order”, which was noted in February in actions against Yuliya Tymoshenko, has reduced its activity on the political scene since then. The leader of the organisation, Bogdan Khodakovsky, noted in comment to the “ukraina.ru”website: “I do not share the apocalyptic moods of many patriots concerning the scale of pro-Russian revenge. Ukraine is a parliamentary and presidential republic, and the scale of the influence of the president often depends not on formal powers, but on personal authority and the scale of influence on business. So was the case with Poroshenko. Even if the future administration has the desire, the civil society in Ukraine, which is based on the ideals of Maidan and war, is too strong”.

According to Khodakovsky, the president will be forced to reckon with this part of society. “Moreover,” considers the leader of Tradition and Order, “the loyalty of this part of society (can be) even a priority for the retention of power”, because, “in a nutshell, for victory in the election it is necessary to place a stake on the neutral masses that are more focused on populist slogans, but power can only be held on national positions”.

“Therefore the right-wing and nationalist forces will not lose their influence, but, most likely, will increase it. There are too many factors and convenient targets for the expansion of this discourse,” believes Khodakovsky. Indeed, with a president representing the moderate electorate of the Southeast, nationalists stand a chance of gaining influence, since they will show any negative attitude towards the government. Thus at the time of Viktor Yanukovych nationalists experienced a rise in popularity and for the first time in 2012 were able to overcome the 5% barrier in the Verkhovna Rada, which is something they could not do in early the parliamentary election after Maidan’s victory. Back then the electorate of nationalists was intercepted by “People’s Front“, and during the 2019 presidential election – Petro Poroshenko.

After the approval rating of Yatsenyuk’s party reduced to zero, and Poroshenko received rather low results in the first and second round, yesterday’s ruling parties have every chance of not entering the parliament in the autumn, having lost voters in Western Ukraine and in Kiev. And nationalists can quite return this electorate to themselves.

For his own organisation, Khodakovsky proposes such a plan of action for the future: “Concerning the ‘Tradition and Order’ movement, we expect to maintain the dynamics of development, it is essential to increase the number of members, to become a pillar of support for wider social groups: to strengthen cooperation with Christian faiths, the army and veterans, business and student youth. We plan the first tests at local elections in the Kiev region. Ahead there are a lot of plans for the creation of the first patriotic force that will boldly declare its eurosceptic position”.

In addition, Khodakovsky speaks about plans “to set up cooperation with European right-wing parties”, but unlike “Carpathian Sich“, which chose marginal neo-Nazi groups as its partners in the West, he names as reference points such parties as “Alternative for Germany”, the Spanish “VOX”, and also certain deputies of the French “National Rally” (until 2018 — “National Front”).

In general we can say for sure that the main part of the nationalist and radical groups of Ukraine goes into obvious opposition to the future president Zelensky and his team.

And this, to some extent and at a certain level, brings them closer to the “Bloc of Petro Poroshenko”, which, apparently, will work in the same electoral field.

So it is possible, due to the convergence of political positions, that the efforts of nationalists and the “Bloc of Petro Poroshenko” will be combined in the upcoming parliamentary election, and some of them will even be included in the electoral party list of candidates for deputies from the “Bloc of Petro Poroshenko”.

Vladislav Maltsev