A year after the Maidan Ukraine becomes West
Yesterday, some Ukrainian activists wrote in social networks that deliberately did not come on February 20, an event dedicated to the memory of the Heavenly hundreds – because it is a shame.
Over the past year the memory of the executed men, the desire to at least partially make amends to the departed was one of the driving motivations for change within the country. But a year after the mass shooting in the center of Kiev investigation rather modest success: the court has not found any who fired or who gave the order. The perpetrators have not been punished in the most high-profile case of the independent Ukraine. And even if the evidence of special forces SBU employees “alpha” with respect to involvement in the dramatic events Surkov confirmed – not only led shot from outside the snipers, but also quite local gunmen, the citizens of Ukraine. Why else would a shame? Vital reforms are not carried out. The economic situation – on the brink of a foul. The country is exposed to military aggression by Russia, which we were not able to prevent.
But here’s the paradox.
Ukrainian human rights activists involved in migration issues, claim that the number of Russians who arrive in Ukraine, hoping to get asylum here, has increased dramatically. To think that people are fleeing the country, part of which is covered by the war – though quite unpredictable war that already tomorrow can get to Kiev and Lviv, as promised by the inscription on the “acquired Voentorg” tanks.
Is not it strange?
No, it is not strange. Because a year after the shooting of Heaven hundreds Maidan completion and the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, after the rivers of blood that had been shed and continues to shed the Donbas, it turned out that this year Ukraine became the West – not in the sense now popular concept of realpolitik and certainly not in the eyes of “putinfershteerov”, but in terms of the cold war.
A year ago, it would be difficult to imagine that my colleagues, the liberals of the liberals (sometimes even excessively, as for me), will be invited to participate in the Commission for the selection of candidates to the patrol; that film about the shooting of human rights initiatives Maidan at least theoretically can enter the so-called official program of events of the presidential administration; that the top leadership of the country will respond to the posts in social networks – and no arrests; that public defenders council may enter at the Ukrainian Security Service. Yes, as long as it’s pretty shaky, sometimes too superficial. But we must understand that the focus and efforts of society are now focused on the war.
However, those of us who appreciate Europe’s foremost level of comfort, the idea that Ukraine has become the West, seem ridiculous. Yes, that really there – over her laugh above all the Europeans, most of whom have not yet assessed the Ukrainian impulse to freedom. But, nevertheless, it is here, in Ukraine, fleeing those representatives of post-Soviet societies, who are trying to escape from an authoritarian regime to avoid arrest for political reasons, to put it simply – to remain a free man. There have even create public organizations for the protection of such people. It is quite possible that in the near future, even taking into account the ongoing armed conflict and the gradual promotion of the occupation into the country, it is Ukraine will become a springboard for the civil society, to free people from the former Soviet Union.
Yes, a shame. Before Heavenly hundred, which, incidentally, included and activists who were killed during the swing “Russian Spring” in the Donbas. It is a shame to those who died on the Donbass. To those who disappeared and was never found in the Crimea, and found – but dead. In the previous year it did not happen anything good in Ukraine. But, at the same time, there has been important – Ukraine became the West. In the classic sense. True, the West itself has become very unlike yourself.
Author: Maria Tomak (Center for Civil Liberties, Kiev)
