This is a very serious signal.
The facts are these: right
under the very noses of Ukrainian secret services, in a problematic city,
pro-Russian groups were able to organize a combat unit, successfully lead an
attack and leave without being neither captivated nor even identified. This
means that Ukrainian rears are open for further attacks of the enemy and the
Ukrainian government is weak and unable to protect itself, almost the same as
exactly two years ago.
It is obvious that Russian President Putin, having a propagandist goal, is
“warming up” the city only days before the memorable day of May 2, when
fights between the supporters of Russia and their opponents took place in the
very centre of Odesa in 2014. People of both sides died then as a result of an
intentionally organized by militia and Russian agents provocation.
I would like to remind that because of the recent offshore
scandal with information on owners of Panama Papers leaking, it was made clear
that Trukhanov, the Odesa mayor, is a Russian citizen. The pro-Western
head of Odesa region Mikheil Saakashvili stated multiple times that such
situation is inadmissible and demanded the respective authorities to do
something with it, and he wasn’t heard.
Why did such an event happen today?
First off, politics. Letting a corrupted Russian citizen,
who served in Federal Security Service, become the mayor of a city which is saturated by Kremlin
agents who see it as a base for their future anti-Ukrainian revolt, is the
political position of the current government, their “peace plan.”
Declaring
peace with the fifth pillar of Moscow was blessed by the West, because they
would prefer the temperature of the confrontation to lower as soon as possible,
and they don’t care to realize what tomorrow is going to bring.
This way, because of the separatist mayor being elected, the
Russian forces received the resource of legitimacy in Odesa, which they needed.
Second, it’s the absence of reformation in the sphere of
national security and defense. All of this became possible because President Petro Poroshenko
and his political partners are trying to squeeze the discussion on necessary
protection of national interests off the informational field.
They permanently
attempt to substitute the agenda on defense capability of the country by
something else in order to cover up the absence of progress in this most
important sphere.
Above all, it’s the unsatisfactory work of Security Service of Ukraine and the national
police in Odesa (as in the whole Ukraine).
Reforms in these law enforcement
bodies, if there were any, sadly didn’t create adequate ability for these
offices to protect sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country.
The
experience of tragic events in Crimea and Donbas, the role of police and SBU in
facilitating the separatism wasn’t conceptualized and integrated into the
reform of law enforcement bodies and national security. We can see no measures
of detection and neutralization of Russian agents from the police. These
measures are insteas conducted by activists who fight against police bosses’
resistance and seek dismissal for outright separatists.
Altogether, there is no plan of police reform in the form of
a single document. The tries to change something in police and SBU are of a chaotic nature. “Reformation” gravitates towards superficial, decorative actions
and PR.
Speaking about police, it is worth to mention that the day
before last night Russians organized street actions, which were obviously of a
provocative nature. Sadly, there was no obstruction to these actions from the
authorities. Moreover, the new patrol police of Odesa wrongfully used force
against Ukrainian activists, giving a positive sign to Russians.
Unfortunately, it is safe to say that Odesa police, despite
the tries to reform it, isn’t coping with the task of keeping law and order
in the city that is very important for Ukrainian statehood. It is worth to
thank Europe and the United State for those multimillion-dollar grants, which were given to the
leader of Odesa Oblast Saakashvili.
And it is very sad to see that all of these
unique investments of our Western partners have not yet hit the main goal, have
not yet created intellectual and organizational forces for defense against the
hybrid Russian aggression in Ukraine.
