Here are some examples: The Crimean parliament asked Russia for “support, help and defense of its autonomy.” The national currency started tumbling at the same time, while parliament bickered without solving the political crisis. A new radical group has formed in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv. Called Ukrainian Front, it claimed it was ready to free the nation of fascist conquerors from western Ukraine, a euphemism for EuroMaidan protesters, who are also becoming more radicalized.
In Munich, Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara said that abducted AutoMaidan activist, Dmytro Bulatov, was in fine physical shape and only had a scratch on his cheek. The scratch had needed 12 stitches to patch, and Bulatov was barely conscious as Kozhara spoke. Moreover, police tried to arrest Bulatov from his hospital bed, before he was squired away to Lithuania for treatment.
Against this backdrop, First Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov said the country is getting better. “In general, the heat of the conflict is going down, and the executive power has to support the process of stabilization in the country,” he said at a government meeting on Feb. 5.
His comments underscored the gap between the massive problems and the government’s perception of them. In many cases, problems are exaggerated by the incompetence and malice of the government.
A good case in point is the work of the Interior Ministry, the place to go for the latest provocations against EuroMaidan demonstrators. Instead of objective investigators, the police have become a source of disinformation. Any request by the Kyiv Post to talk to injured officers, high-ranking decision-makers or anyone meets passive-aggressive resistance.
We’re seeing signs that economic problems will be handled with the same elegance as a bull in a china shop. As the hryvnia continued to slide on Feb. 5, National Bank Governor Ihor Sorkin and Finance Minister Yuriy Kolobov called in more than a dozen of bankers to tell them they see a conspiracy in the hryvnia collapse.
They would not listen to arguments that a new policy is needed and basically admitted that they wasted most of Russia’s December bailout tranche of $3 billion to prop up the currency, to no avail. Reserves are down to $17.75 billion, while Ukraine owes $3.3 billion to Russia for gas.
The problems haven’t stopped President Viktor Yanukovych from flying off to the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi on Feb. 7. He met with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Feb. 5, a talk described as “disastrous” by two political insiders and also had a slightly better one with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.
The president isn’t going to move fast on anything. He might even make longtime loyalist Serhiy Kliuyev the next prime minister, which could enrage EuroMaidan demonstrators even more. In the meantime, the parliamentary opposition cannot persuade the Party of Regions to dump their patron. They grumble about corruption, raids on their businesses by tax authorities and terror tactics against their families, but they still stick with the heavy-handed president.
Everyone is talking, but it amounts to hot air, while only 27 percent of people polled in January by Democratic Initiatives expressed hope for a political solution.
Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected]
