On the eve of war, when Ukrainian political circles were not ready to establish new, post-Poroshenko political reality, one of the main forecasts for further game to be played was the emerging of some kind of a project to kill reputation of the president and his “servants”. New political force should have been a hypothetical party of “mayors and peers” headed by Vitali Klitschko, where, for the interests of city communities, other inveterate political opponents – mayors had to speak with one voice: Igor Terekhov, mayor of Kharkov, Gennadi Truckhanov, mayor of Odessa, Boris Filatov, mayor of Dnepr, Alexander Vilkul, mayor of Krivoy Rog, and Andrey Sadovoy, mayor of Lvov. The role of the conductor of this ensemble of top-ranking politicians should have been given to Arsen Avakov, whose plot should have been accompanied by all the Kharkov’s men – from Azov to Rabinovich and from Gerashchenko to Dobkin, and together with the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, screwed over by the oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, who’d been always there for any powerful political hustle, and whatnot.
Yet, while the experts were busy reading tea leaves, the Office of President knew for certain: there would be a war. And they were getting prepared for a war time reality, and, probably, laughed out loud at the vain attempts of Arsen Avakov and company to rock the boat. Just because if tomorrow is war, then it would be possible to deal with internal enemies by all possible means, by proxy, as it happened with businesses of Akhmetov, that were reduced to rubble by the Russian army, or as with Dobkin, whom the radicals dress up in camouflage and make him pose, like a trained bear, before the camera and post the brave photos to the social media on his own behalf. This BDSM looks shameful and scary, and, the once powerful politic and expert in selecting socks to go with a suit can only be felt for. Well, he could’ve at least gotten away from all of this just pretending to be a has been. Dobkin had already lost both his role as the right hand of Gennadiy Kernes, and the mayor election, — the mayor’s chair went to the next in line protégé of charismatic Kernes. In fact, Dobkin kept staying in politics just because the family capital allowed paying the staff of speechwriters. However, he didn’t get away – enemy hands were itching badly to humiliate “Dopa” (his publically known nickname) down to the point where even Putin himself wouldn’t forgive. Like the Russians didn’t forgive Nikolay Rudkovsky for that brick he threw, under duress, onto the Russian embassy’s fence, neither they will forgive a hat with the Right Sector (Ukrainian far-right nationalist organization) logo.
While Dobkin’s story is just an interesting history lesson, the today’s jumping on the current mayors is setting new standards, thereby changing the state system of Ukraine. On the eve of the collapse of housing and communal services, the government is already appointing the ones to take the fall. Those to blame for everything around here are going to be beheaded live on the national television. The “blood thirsty clowns” governance principle allows whacking anybody in real time for the most absurd reasons. For instance, Terekhov, mayor of Kharkov, was fined for using Russian language when he addressed the Russian speaking residents of the city. The speech of the mayor was quite patriotic though, while at the same all the pathos was addressed mainly to the Russian speaking citizens of Kharkov. But this didn’t matter much, ‘cause Danilov, Head of the national security council of Ukraine did indeed promise to completely eliminate Russian language, so, — eat this, Kharkovites! The time of compromises and the silent Avakovs has gone. Get yourselves Ukrainianized. And Terekhov was appointed a whipping boy, with a preliminary hint made to the ex minister of Interior, who had mentioned positive aspects of the Minsk Agreements, that corruption fled Ukraine, that’s why dear Arsen Avakov, if you don’t want to be directly labelled as a corruptionist, sit quiet there in the Mediterranean, have your meal and drink and don’t bother with this nonsense.
Vitali Klitschko, however, was pinned down a way harder, — he was directly accused of compromising the whole arrangement of heating points for Kievans. The president, who used to be nicknamed “not-a-loser” in his 42, and, having gained proper shape in the gym by the age of 44, changed into camouflage uniform and turned into a proper goon, practices what he preaches. Obviously, everything with the heating points is not as pretty as Klitschko claims. Moreover, instead of arranging the notorious heating points, the Klitschko office has launched large-scale road repairs, where it is more convenient to steal, but when the head of the pro-president party sets a deadline for the mayor, with the following rigorous inspection, you can almost smell the flogging:
“In a week the city authorities will correct the mistakes made, and we, together with the mayor, would go for inspection. It would be the best evidence that no one is looking for speculation”. And if still to remember how in his time Klitschko prevented “the Servants” from Machiavellian taking control of the country, plus how he humiliated the ambitious Irina Vershchuk in the mayoral election (now she holds the position of Vice Premier Minister of Occupied Territories, i.e. a powerful enforcer in today’s reality), it becomes obvious that the role of MC in this execution will be given to the strict lady in yellow raincoat. The thing is that in time of war only heroes are allowed to steal, the sport heroes aren’t, — they’ve lost their glamorous gloss in the country where people are not enthusiastic even about the FIFA World Cup, and they’re totally not interested.
Meanwhile, in Office of the President’s war against the institution of mayors there are not only prerequisites of a subjective nature, such as personal vengeance. First of all, there are reasons predetermined by the logic of the historic process. And if the state authorities are not ready to take full responsibility for the war, its consequences, and the lack of any desire to prevent this war for the sake of civilians’ life, and preservation of the country’s infrastructure, the local authorities will be to blame. It will be them the Office of the President is planning to pin everything on. After all, it seems that the authorities, apparently, have come to terms with necessity of evacuating the cities, otherwise, nobody would ever mention it. It is likely that office of the President is moving towards dismantling a local authority per se, since cities are a potential source of separatism. No one is safe from the scenario when the mayor of some Chernigov would consent to power his city from the energy system, say, of Belarus contrary to the requirements of Kiev not to take anything from the enemy.
And the cities, yesterday “Russified”, as one of the Ukrainian bards sang, are the clusters of potential separatists. Because in the harsh survival conditions there is no guarantee that the mentioned “being Russified” thing, or an identity, if you will, would not bristle after years of enforced patriotism and heroic decadence of the popular song about Bandera. The cities should therefore be dispersed and transformed into garrisons, and the garrisons need no mayor. All this, of course, makes perfect sense. But following this logic will result in ultimate transformation of Ukraine, a quite successful country until 2014, into a total war zone under control of the military. Some kind of a test ground where the military industrial complex of various countries test use and exhibit their weapons. At the cost of millions of civilian lives.
