Vladimir Fesenko: Tragedy in Kiev will damp people’s emotions for some time

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What was the reason for the tragedy in Kiev that happened on Monday and resulted in more than 140 injured police officers and 3 deaths of the Ukraine National Guard’s members? Whose fault is that?

Let us recall that on Monday, August 31, protesters clashed with the police and soldiers of the Ukraine National Guard near the building of Ukraine Verkhovna Rada. It happened after Verkhovna Rada adopted amendments re decentralization to the Constitution. The clashes resulted in the death of three law enforcement officials and about 140 injuries of soldier, most of which resulted from the fired grenade. Ukrainian Public Prosecutor qualified the explosion as a terrorist attack. EuroBelarus Information Service asked Vladimir Fesenko, famous Ukrainian political scientist, the Head of the Center for Political Analysis "Penta", to comment upon the situation.

- Did the explosion near Verkhovna Rada demonstrate negative attitude that the population has to the authorities? Is it possible that the protests will continue? Can sparkle start fire?

- I don’t think it will happen. Of course, there are protest moods. But as the social polls conducted in summer demonstrated, now these protest moods in Ukraine are lower than they used to be this spring. Of course, some part of the society has radical moods. But we need to take into consideration that the tragedy that has happened will rather become a cooling shower. If we consider the reaction that followed in the social networks and mass media, we see that it demonstrated people’s critical attitude to what’s happened. Well, there is criticism of the authorities, too, but there is also an absolute rejection of protesters’ actions. The leader of the “Right sector” strongly criticized this situation, stating that patriots are pushed to a bloody riot, that this is a chaos, and only serves to Russia’s benefit. He named it “a KGB multimove game”. This statement says a lot; and in my opinion, we can’t say that sparkle start fire and new Maidan starts. Of course, there are risks of some clashes and conflicts; but we can’t say that the current situation is a catalyzer. Vice versa, my calculations assume that the tragedy in Kiev will damp people’s emotions for some time and might warn them against aggressive, violent actions in these or that protest actions.

- Is the tragedy near Verkhovna Rada on Monday a planned action or a caprice of a certain person?

- I think that the tragedy wasn’t a planned action. I don’t think that “Svoboda” intended to kill the soldiers of the National Guard; it was rather affect that worked there. “Svoboda” is responsible for having organized this mass fight and for provoking this incident with their collective aggressive actions. I.e. the man, who threw the grenade, surely didn’t plan to do it; he was fighting. And here, I think, several factors are working: first, there are people, who are very radical and critical against the acting authorities, who believe that police that protects state buildings and the National Guard altogether are their enemies since the first Maidan and the fore that they should fight against. Some of these people went to the army and many of them have weapons since then. Unfortunately, risks that these weapons will be used are quite high, which means that in future, when such protest actions are planned, their organizers should secure them all together.

- Can the situation that has happened initiate the stoppage of uncoordinated separate battalions that are taking part in the anti-terror operation (ATO)?

- The process of integrating voluntary battalions into the Ukrainian army, the National Guard, and other state structures has been going on since the last year. At the beginning of summer practically every voluntary battalion was integrated into the Armed Forces and the National Guard, apart from the voluntary sector of the “Right sector”. The battalion “Sech”, the representative of which made this move, numbers a lot of activists of “Svoboda” and is a part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The person, who is accused of this crime, is a police officer.

- So he threw a grenade in his colleagues, didn’t he?

- In fact, yes, he did. But he is a police officer, who was fighting at the battlefront and thought of those who were standing near the Verkhovna Rada as of enemies. All the more that Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of “Svoboda” party, gave a pompous speech, where he told that “a year ago we saw people in these helmets”, behind whom are the same chiefs of police that used to be when Yanukovich was in power. By this he was getting his supporters worked up emotionally. And all the atmosphere of hostility has, unfortunately, turned into such catastrophe.