Ten years of hell

How the collapse of Ukraine began

Recently, one of the largest geopolitical catastrophes of our time — the Kiev Maidan — marked its 10th anniversary

On November 21st, 2013, the Ukrainian government suspended preparations for concluding an association agreement with the EU. On the evening of the same day, journalist and politician Mustafa Nayyem wrote a post that gave rise to the Euromaidan, “Meet at 22:30 under the monument of Independence. Dress warmly; take umbrellas, tea, coffee, and friends. Reposts are kindly welcome.”

Coming of darkness

That evening, the rally in the centre of Kiev was not particularly crowded — about 2 thousand people gathered, but the mechanism for overthrowing the legitimate government in the person of elected President Yanukovych and the subsequent separation of the country from Russia was launched. Within three days, the first tents appeared on the main square of Kiev, and the opposition, NGOs and media, lured by the West, unanimously attacked the President and the government. Demands to resume work on an association agreement with the EU and stop attempts to join the Customs Union quickly moved on to anti-Russian slogans.
The situation was complicated by the fact that the problems of corruption and arbitrariness of some local officials, which were immediately exploited by the pro-Western layer of political elites, were practically not addressed in any way.
At that time, Maidan did not yet represent the evil destructive force that it would become in early December. Therefore, when the Kiev police dispersed the camp on the square on the night of November 30th, detaining 35 people, some breathed a sigh of relief. However, the rather herbivorous actions of the Berkut were nevertheless used as a reason for foreign intervention and a transition to more active actions — the West condemned the crackdown, and inflamed by the myth about the ‘brutal beating’ on December 2nd, the radicals began to build a new camp on the Maidan. On December 8th, nationalists demolished the monument to Lenin, and on the 11th, Deputy Secretary of State Nuland arrived in the seething Russophobic cauldron in the centre of Kiev with her then-meme cookies. At this point, only very naive observers had no idea who was behind the rapidly flaring fire.

At that time, the legitimate Ukrainian authorities still had a chance to turn back history, but Yanukovych lacked the determination to use tough force methods, including the deployment of army units.

Disappointing results

As a result, already on December 8th, Maidan formed its own government — the union of opposition forces included Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Vitali Klitschko, Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, who was in prison. Dual power took shape in the country.
The situation quickly began to slide into a full-fledged coup d’etat — the Maidan hundreds of Parubiy and the stormtroopers of Yarosh’s Right Sector  had already formed into combat-ready units of street warfare, and the West pointed out to the leaders of the rebellion the need to speed up events.
The peak of the confrontation came in February, when, as a result of full-fledged street battles, 78 Maidan protesters and 13 security forces were killed, most of the victims were shot by unknown snipers on Instytutskaya Street on February 20th. The next day, with the mediation of Europeans, an agreement was concluded on holding early presidential elections, the formation of a ‘government of people’s trust’, the withdrawal of law enforcement officers from the centre of Kiev and the surrender of weapons to the opposition. However, predictably, in the evening, after the release of the detainees and the withdrawal of the Berkut, the opposition refused to fulfill the agreements and the militants rushed to unprotected administrative buildings. At night, President Yanukovych left the capital. Legitimate power collapsed.

The result of the Maidan was the establishment of the Nazi regime, the destruction of Ukraine’s ties with Russia and Belarus, the country’s loss of political subjectivity and becoming completely dependent on Western countries and transnational corporations. Since the victory of the Maidan, Ukraine has acquired the status of failed state, which the US and EU use as a weapon in the struggle for dominance in Eastern Europe.

The city is ruined

The hybrid invasion of Western countries in Ukraine is comparable in its consequences to the Mongol invasion of the 13th century, a series of conflicts between the Muscovite kingdom and Poland and the Great Patriotic War. The country’s population, which was 45.49 million people in 2013, dropped to 29 million in May 2023, according to the Ukrainian Institute of the Future analytical centre. The birth rate became half the rate necessary to maintain the population at the same level. Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, which became a delayed consequence of the Nazi Russophobic regime coming to power, 8.6 million people have left the country, and, according to various estimates, up to half a million have died on the fronts since February 2022.

In 2021, in terms of GDP per capita, Ukraine occupied an ‘honourable’ last place in Europe and 97th in the world. And while the population was rapidly becoming impoverished, the elites were getting rich, profiting from corruption schemes, without losing anything, even if cunning plans to steal people’s money surfaced.

Ex-Minister of Defence Reznikov never answered for corruption in the purchase of body armour and food, simply disappearing from the screens after his dismissal. Apparently, the case against the leadership of the State Property Fund, whose head Umerov moved to the chair of the Minister of Defence, ‘forgot’ to resign from the board of directors of one of the large Estonian companies, has also been shelved. And this is not to mention Zelensky, who still, as if nothing had happened, owns several offshore companies and a scattering of media businesses at once, and the appetites of his wife Olena amazed even New York boutiques.
Unlike millions of ordinary Ukrainians, the Maidan leaders also settled in quite well. Vitaliy Klitschko is still the mayor of Kiev — in just one year, he increased his fortune from $150 million to $800 (probably now the ex-boxer is already a dollar billionaire). The first post-Maidan President, Poroshenko, successfully expanded his business empire, and since the beginning of the special military operation, he is actively promoting himself as a defender of Ukraine. The bloody pastor Turchynov, who started the war in Donbass, disappeared from the sight of even experts in 2023 — apparently, he decided that he had done enough, and it was time for him to retire. The sinister ‘rabbit’ Yatsenyuk made a decent fortune in 2 years in the prime minister’s chair and now appears in Ukraine only occasionally, preferring to run his Kiev Security Forum from the United States.

Most of the Maidan leaders did not have amazing careers, but at the expense of their compatriots they managed to build and expand businesses, and then quietly left the stage.

Ukraine celebrates the Maidan anniversary in ruins and blood. More and more often in recent weeks there has been talk of a new Maidan, already the third in a row. In an interview with the American Bloomberg, Zelensky accused Russia of preparing an operation to overthrow the Kiev regime. However, if a coup is brewing in Ukraine, then it is definitely not being prepared in Moscow, but in the place where the decisions about the ‘revolutions’ of 2004 and 2014 have matured — in the West. The inability to overcome the crisis at the front, interruptions in the supply of Western weapons, and the growing popularity of Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny suggest that power on Bankova Street may indeed change. Another question is, will this be able to bring the country out of the hell in which it has been living for 10 years?

By Anton Popov