Armed radical factions can bring Ukraine to its end as a state even before snow falls for the first time this year, American journalist Lev Golinkin wrote for Foreign Policy.
He pointed out that the vast majority of revolutions in Eastern Europe usually start as winter begins.
“Once the cold settles in, the [Ukrainian] government’s empty promises are laid bare. Over the next several days, forecasters are predicting, the temperature in Ukraine will plunge to freezing. When President Petro Poroshenko looks at the thermometer, he should be worried,” Golinkin wrote.
“Ukraine — fresh off a revolution and followed by 19 months of war — is far from stable. Its citizens have more weapons than they do trust in their government,” the journalist wrote, explaining that if Ukrainians can’t “scrape” money to feed and warm their families, they will obviously blame authorities for the challenges and this time will express their fury not in the voting booths, but in the streets of Kiev.
Golinkin believes that a possible uprising will be best scenario for far-rights radicals. Until now, they all had common enemies – Russia and pro-independence seekers in the east of the country. But now they have their eyes fixed on Kiev.
As for now, both government and radical powers in Ukraine are in a standoff. Petro Poroshenko isn’t entitled to disband the extremist factions across the country and radicals are incapable of taking on the capital openly.
The crowd is the best “fuel” for ultra-right powers; they succeed when they can intermix with protestors in the street, presenting themselves as fighters against corruption and breach of justice. This would bring Poroshenko to a situation in which he could no longer implement IMF reforms, as he would face a new revolt in the heart of Kiev.
“At worst, this would set off a chain of events that would rapidly turn the country into a fractured, failed state of 45 million people in the middle of Europe,” Golinkin concluded.
