No more maidans

NABU has fallen, dozens must protest. Nationalists indifferent to the fate of Democracy. The failure of Gene Sharp Tech. Neoliberalism, neo-colonialism, ruthless operators. Peace?

There are decades where weeks happen, and weeks where decades happen. To be fair, in Ukraine, there’s no shortage of earth-shattering events every year, let alone decade.

Sometimes, this leads one to suspect that in fact, the more things change, the more things stay the same. The more revolutions, the stronger the corrupt deep state against which they rose up…

But this past week has certainly been momentous. The events just don’t stop coming.

Last week, I wrote about Zelensky’s mobilization of several prominent ‘anti-corruption activists’ (also known as ‘Sorosites’ due to their reliance on funding from the Open Society/Renaissance Foundation).

And today, Zelensky pushed through parliament and signed into action new legislation putting NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine) and SAPO (Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office) - the key ‘anti-corruption organs’ of the country - under direct government supervision.

This came after a spate of raids on July 21 by the Zelensky-controlled Security Services of Ukraine (SBU), which proclaimed that top NABU and SAPO officials were actually Russian agents.

The SBU enjoys posting photos of its humiliated victims. Here a NABU official is pictured, Ruslan Magomegrasulov

The SBU triumphantly shared photos of Russian roubles and Russian passports in the NABU official’s possession. I wrote about other government claims that NABU is full of Russian agents here.

Set up in 2015 on the demand and funding of the US and EU, interference in their activities by the Ukrainian government was always prevented by the ‘western partners’. Until now.

Ukrainian liberals are taking to the streets to protest against Zelensky and his coterie, claiming that they’ve ‘destroyed the gains of the euromaidan revolution’.

Through their media, the liberals yell about how Zelensky is a second Yanukovych, who will also be forced to flee the country, faced with a popular uprising. All the usual (formerly) USAID-funded suspects are fuming with rages.

Western media is bristling with articles about the sinister strengthening of ‘corrupt authoritarianism’ under Zelensky.

And finally, plenty of alternative media figures are predicting that Zelensky will soon be toppled from power. A new maidan, a CIA-MI6 regime change operation, and so on.

As for me, I think nothing will happen.

More precisely, I don’t think the current protests will lead to anything. The future lasts a long time, and Zelensky’s crackdown on the Sorosites is certainly potent with possibilities.

Lots of topics todays:

• Why the current protests are actually nothing like the euromaidan regime change of 2013-4

• Why Ukraine’s nationalists are unenthusiastic about the protests, and the failure of Gene Sharp Techⓒ

• Why Washington and Europe aren’t going to stop Zelensky’s war on democracy

• The power-hungry bureaucrats loyal to Zelensky that the liberals and the west accuse of being FSB agents

• The neoliberal, neocolonial function the anti-corruption organs always performed

• Finally, some tantalizing speculations on what all this might have to do with the possibility of an end to the war in Ukraine.

2014 and 2025

Let’s first of all take a trip back in time to late 2013 and early 2014, when the euromaidan movement swept the government out of power. Comparisons of current anti-Zelensky protests to euromaidan are wrong for several reasons.