In what way is today’s regime in Ukraine any different than the Bolshevik regime? The Communists committed crimes driven by ideology while Yanukovych’s regime is doing the same, only basing its actions on criminal logic.

The government has usurped authority in the country in virtually an undisguised manner. All roads to a legal and democratic resolution of the socio-political conflict have been blocked. The regime has assumed the role of a terrorist who has taken hostages and is threatening their lives with a knife to their throats.

The main goal is to not relinquish power at all cost. In 2004, Yanukovych declared the following sacramental phrase: “We won’t be forced and squeezed out of power.” Under this maxim, beginning in 2010, an entire authoritarian infrastructure has been in the making – seemingly democratic for the West, while in fact dictatorial for the Ukrainian people.

Political pundits have helped Yanukovych to appear as a “peace dove” and have learned to send the right messages to the West in a timely fashion. Evidently, the effects had been incredibly successful. At the same time, the Opposition – with its parliamentary mandate based on democratic values – was being taken for a ride by the criminal regime, which for the umpteenth time deceived the Opposition, proudly proclaiming: “We fooled them yet again.”

If such a tactic, based on duplicity and deception kept on producing such unequivocal results, who would shy away from it? Even today, during its extreme clashes with the Ukrainian people, the regime’s position is one and the same.

“I call upon the representatives of all political parties, Reverend Fathers, and members of the community to a national dialogue. I am personally willing to take part in such a round table.” Such was the declaration of Yanukovych, aimed at placating the West. It worked because the West is credulous when it comes to promises.

And this is why Ukrainian Prime Minister Azarov recently boasted on the “Russia 24” TV channel that the latest events in Ukraine cannot serve as a pretext for the US to introduce sanctions against Ukrainian officials: “I am not even considering this issue in any serious way because our relations, including those with the United States, are strategic and long-term, and this episode, taking place in Kyiv, in my opinion, bears no grounds for even discussing sanctions.”

In fact, each of the so-called “round tables” which convened over the course of the last two months has been nothing but theatres of the grotesque, which have only convinced the people that this regime understands only the language of force. For this reason, a portion of the population was compelled to engage in violent resistance, and in so doing seemed to be drawing upon the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Today, when people are literally dying on the barricades in Kyiv, we are appealing to our partners in the West: do you recall the words of the preamble? Do you concur that “it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law?”

Even today are we still to hear rhetoric about a “democratically elected president,” when Europe itself experienced the precedent of a “democratically elected” Reichsführer of Germany?

Thus far, I’ve referred only to the Ukrainian regime. However, scrutinizing its actions without taking into account the Kremlin, is analogous to analyzing the Moon’s trajectory without the Earth’s gravity.

Contemporary Ukraine is literally flooded with agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service, who are thoroughly executing a very specific plan devised by Putin.

– to destabilize the situation in Ukraine to such a degree that under circumstances involving unorganized “blind” revolts, all signs of democracy and all evidence of the “Orange” threat to Russia would be liquidated; in case of complications, the plan calls for “extending a helping hand to the fraternal Ukrainian people,” invading Ukraine with Russia’s Armed Forces or at divide the country;

– to discredit Yanukovych’s regime in the eyes of the West to such a degree that the latter is forced to accept Russia’s control over Ukraine as a last resort to save the country;

– to depose Yanukovych at the right moment and replace him with the “crisis manager,” namely Viktor Medvedchuk, who steadfastly continues to profess his loyalty to the Kremlin.

Gazing into Putin’s eyes, one can truly see only one thing: gloom. His logic is based on the premise of the “post-Versaille” humiliation and the need for revenge for the sake of the rebirth of the “greatness and glory of Russia” and a new partition of the world.

The role of the “special geopolitical case” which in 1939 was apparently assumed by “fascist Poland,” is today being played by so-called “nationalist” Ukraine – in the eyes of Putin “not even a state, only a territory.” It must completely disappear out of existence or at least be dismembered.

The parallel with the Nazi phenomenon is obvious – only blind “political correctness” would not recognize it. Nevertheless, this is an extremely dangerous scenario for the world: Western politicians are gravely underestimating the nature and severity of the Ukrainian crisis. In just a few days it might be too late.

This is no longer about the necessity of a “Marshall Plan for Ukraine” – Europe missed the boat on that one long ago. The situation now calls for a broad global coalition for the sake of stemming the tide of the new revanchist wave, the elements of which take such delight in their ability to continuously deceive the entire global diplomatic corps.

Let us recall the lessons of World War II: those who forsake (renounce, reject) the protection of values for the sake of their own safety, will inevitably pay with this safety for the renewal of the fundamental values of human civilization.

Myroslav Marynovych
Prisoner of Conscience during the Brezhnev era,
Currently Vice-Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine

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