What’s next? A regime change requires leadership, and a competing vision.
Neither has materialized to a degree necessary to actually cause change, and
the opposition is risking losing the initiative the protesters have given it.
The protests, although capturing the minds of the country’s population, are
doing little damage to the actual infrastructure that supports the regime, and
at some point the civilized tactics of the protesters are bound to exhaust
their energy when applied to brutish, post-Soviet structures of the regime.

The opposition leaders are facing a daunting task – the people want changes
to the vague “better”, but in reality getting there means establishing a rule
of law and severely curbing the corruption that has permeated all spheres of
life. They also harbor no illusions about where the real struggle for power
lies: getting big money out of politics, as there is no such thing as a
plutocratic democracy – these terms are irreconcilable opposites of each other.
Obliterating the oligarchy altogether would be a mistake, as these people form
the industrial backbone of the economy, but they must be removed from their
position as power brokers and somehow integrated into the new paradigm, which
means frank negotiations that must succeed, as soon as possible. Failure to
limiting oligarchs’ power and persuading them to switch sides means further
stagnation and persecution of the protest leaders (jailing of Tymoshenko and
other members of the Orange government offer a great example of that).

Ukraine must choose


Revolution means forcing the current players out of power, such as through resignations, and purging the corrupt judiciary and law enforcement;
recruitment of new talent (incorporation of student and other leaders of the
movement, active recruitment from diaspora and other countries to obtain
experience and skill sets not found in the country). At the same time the power of the nationalists
must be curbed. This is a high risk/high benefit approach, as it would offer a
decisive solution to the internal issues as well as significantly limit the
effectiveness of the Russian meddling in the country’s internal affairs. Poland
offers a great example of a successful outcome of such an undertaking.


Evolution means replacing the current government with a more progressive
one at election time, which may or may not be successful in the inevitable power struggle with
the oligarchy and corrupt bureaucracy, while also dealing with an active Russian
influence in the country’s politics. Turkey is an example of a reasonable
success; Bulgaria and Hungary – of failure.

For either approach to succeed the new government must have an unwavering
commitment from the Ukrainian military and secret services. This may require a
purge of the top ranks and elevation of lower-level officers not marred by
corruption to take over the command of the armed services, and a complete,
Georgia-style restructuring of the law enforcement and judiciary.

Vision, message and plan

To draw a solid plan one must first understand the opposing party
and the landscape of the unfolding conflict. The current regime and associated
top ranking officials across all branches of the government and armed services
who have grown wealthy through corruption understand that a victory by the
demonstrators means a serious, possibly lethal threat to their estates, and quite
possibly to their own lives as well. Given that the subjugation by the Russian
counterparts likely means the same, they have only two options:

Bide their time till
re-elections, then attempt to integrate the perceived winners into the
current paradigm, thus making the incoming government essentially
toothless. If that proves impossible, steal the elections, since they
stand no chance of winning fairly. Obviously, this carries a real danger
of facing another popular uprising, but that risk can be mitigated through
allowing certain reforms to succeed, signing the European Union association deal, etc.
There are already several precedents of this approach being successful in
Bulgaria, Hungary, etc., in violently suppressing the
protests and pushing the country towards a Belarus-style authoritarian
despotism. Obviously, Belarus and Hungary offer precedents for it, but
Ukraine is a more difficult case because of its size and ethnic
complexity; this approach carries a high risk of a civil conflict.

Violence begets violence, which in
turn increases the risk of a Russian military intervention. While unlikely to
succeed, and likely to backfire, no one is interested in seeing yet a bloody Russian military adventure in Europe.

To keep the initiative and to use the obtained momentum, the opposition
must, in short order, present the Ukrainian people with a cohesive, easy to
understand plan and the team that will implement it, cutting off the last bastions
of popular support to the current regime:

1.
First and foremost, build a media machine capable of carrying the message
to the people, with a heavy focus on TV and print media. Social media alone
will not suffice.

2.
Formulate a thee-point message about the goals of the new government (EU
association; rule of law/prevention of capital flight; transparency of energy
markets).

3.
Present people a team that will rule the country until new elections. The
team must consist of people unmarred by corruption; fresh faces led by the
opposition leaders.

Epilogue

It is clear that the Ukrainian population is fed up by the lawlessness perpetuated
by the consumed by corruption post-Soviet powers that be and ceaseless meddling
in the country’s internal affairs by the neighboring Russian empire who openly
doesn’t recognize Ukraine’s independence and is doing everything in its power
to keep its smaller neighbor on a short leash. A successful, modern, wealthy
and free Ukraine is a direct threat to the power of the Russian ruling elite,
especially as their own population is starting to feel the promise of the
economic progress built on the foundation of waning natural resources reserves
evaporate, and is still reeling from centuries of mismanagement. Ukrainians,
however, will no longer tolerate their roles as troublesome peons in the
Russian media folklore constructed by the old Russian empire, continued by the
Soviet Union and perpetuated by the new Russian Federation. The Ukrainians are
determined to be the masters of their destiny. Admittedly, losing the Russian
market would be a painful transition, but it would force the oligarchy to
modernize the ancient industrial base of Ukraine in order to remain competitive
on the global markets.

At the same time, although an EU association agreement is clearly desired, it must be
negotiated in a way that preserves Ukraine’s heavy industry, machine building
and energy industry. The country must be prevented from becoming simply yet
another market for European goods – it must retain its industrial base to have
a future.

Jay Tkachuk is a vice president for online services at Security Service Federal Credit Union. Originally from Odessa, Ukraine, he has lived in the United States for 20 years and holds an MBA from University of Texas at Austin.