There are a few elements that need to be combined in order to attain power. Controlling information is certainly one of the key foundations towards having ultimate power. One of the major challenges to ultimate power is the rule of law, and that’s why the absolute key to absolute power, loved by dictators the world over, is control over the law itself. If you can control the law, you can make the illegal legal and the legal illegal.
If you can control the systems where laws are made, and then also control where judgments based on law are passed, then you have everything, and – technically – you can even claim that you are acting within the law, and therefore pretend to be observant of the concept of “the rule of law.”
The tools to ultimate power, therefore, are a compliant parliament, a subservient judiciary, and a willing or fearfully cooperative media.
A compliant parliament in Ukraine, during the reign of the filthily corrupt Victor Yanukovych, passed a series of laws well known for the part they played in the history of the Revolution of Dignity. The simple goal was to legally end the revolution. One of the *claimed co-authors of what were dubbed the ‘Dictatorship Laws’ was then Party of Regions member of parliament Vladimir Oleynik. Recently, Oleynik had his day in court, but sadly it was not a court in post-revolution Ukraine, it was a court in Russia. A country where the only certainty one can have about the law is that it will be applied arbitrarily.
(*Note, the Dictatorship Laws were devised in Russia and sent to Ukraine, Oleynik was co-author in name only.)
The point of the court proceeding in Russia was to hear a complaint brought by Oleynik with regard to the events that took place in Kyiv between the dates of Nov. 21, 2013 and Jan. 22, 2014. The first date is the start of Ukraine’s revolution, the latter date is when Yanukovych (along with the 50 or so most corrupt people in his inner circle) fled Ukraine after their power base collapsed. Those who left with Yanukovych included Oleynik, former Prime Minister Mykola “I’m not afraid of the protesters” Azarov, former Acting Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov, as well as the horrendously corrupt member of parliament Yuriy Ivanyushenko and young “Yanukovych family” bag man Sergiy Kurchenko.
Those people did not go to Moscow for the fine cuisine. They went to Moscow because it is a place where the corrupt are welcome and can find shelter (the phrase “honor amongst thieves” comes to mind) and something that is quite certain that they retain their liberty at a price. The Kremlin kings of the system there demand loyalty, and so at times and places where they may appear to be useful these individuals are called on in service of their masters. This recent court appearance, a “case” in point.
It’s official, it was a coup
The start point for this case even being heard in some obscure Moscow court is strange. To begin with the judge had to conjure up legalish reasoning granting her court authority to preside over a complaint relating to events in another country, the solution the innovative Judge Anna Shipikova found was to declare that “Special relations between Russia and Ukraine necessitate that this court gives legal assessment of events in Ukraine.”
Ukraine and Russia have much shared history, but nothing in that “special relationship” gives Russia any kind of jurisdiction to interfere in Ukrainian internal affairs, something that Russians should remember in a wider sense of course.
The farcical proceedings then went on to hear a barrage of claims, and accepted them all as fact without, apparently, there being any need to support claims with evidence.
Former Head of Yanukovych’s Presidential Administration (a multimillionaire, unsurprisingly) Andriy Kluyev gave testimony that the snipers who fired on Maidan were from the Baltics, they had been organized by individuals from Georgia, and that these people had been caught with their weapons. Evidence offered? Zero. This bizarre claim has absolutely no foundation. All available video evidence shows that snipers were certainly on the government side on that day, and that the unarmed protesters advancing up Institutskaya Street on Feb. 20 were being killed by shots fired from the direction of government-controlled positions.
In the fantasy land of the Russian media it is an interesting exercise to analyze the difference between the claims made in their English language versus Russian language output. For example, according to Pravda.ru (in Russian) Claimant Oleynik also testified that the headquarters of Maidan was the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. However the RT.com (in English) reporting of the court proceedings makes no mention of this, most likely due to a calculation that such a claim was too absurd for even RT readers to believe. The “headquarters” of Maidan was the (legally rented, not illegally occupied) Trade Union Building.
The only logical place to have a headquarters for Maidan was actually on Maidan. The Trade Union building is located on Maidan and it served as a media/press centre, hospital, feeding station, clothing bank and almost anything else that was required of it. It was because of the importance of that building to the revolution that on the night of Feb. 18, after a day of non-stop attacks on Maidan from the security forces of the state, this building was destroyed by fire.
According to RT, “The main claim of the lawsuit has been confirmed by testimony presented with the case.” Following that, in an attempt to sound clever, RT goes on to say that Parliament’s Feb. 22 decision to “oust” Yanukovych because of “self-withdrawal from execution of Presidential responsibilities” isn’t stipulated in Ukraine’s constitution as a reason for “impeachment.” De facto, this was “unconstitutional” therefore. The problem with this “logic” is that Yanukovych wasn’t impeached, so whether the circumstances at that time are or are not specifically mentioned in the constitution as grounds for impeachment is completely irrelevant.
Parliament declared that Yanukovych had fled the country and at the same time abandoned his office. Most likely this course was taken as many of the former Yanukovych allies in Parliament who had decided not to flee with him to Russia were fully aware that, by the morning of Feb. 22, Yanukovych had been packing up his belongings for 4 days and so it was common knowledge in the halls of power that he was gone for good and would never return.
The simple fact is that Yanukovych was deserted by his power base, his murder on Feb.20 of those who had campaigned against him for over three months was not an effort to stay in power, it was an evil and final act of revenge for the fact that people had dared to stand up to him.
RT goes on to inform towards the end of their “article” – as if simply by way of helpful background – that “these events led to Yanukovych fleeing to Russia, and the opposition forming a new government.” But this is also not correct. The post-revolution government was not formed by “the opposition” at all. As previously stated, not all of Yanukovych’s former allies felt the need to abandon their country and, previous misdeeds notwithstanding, many saw the serious situation in their country and stayed to help find solutions to the constitutional challenges that were faced at the time. In the days after Yanukovych fled, Ukraine’s parliament, which had full legal authority having been legitimately elected in 2012, functioned almost 24 hours a day.
The “coup” narrative needs to be centered on a group seizing power, therefore the disinformation that “the opposition” formed the post Maidan government is a key element in the tale, not just a footnote simply by way of helpful background. It was not “the opposition” that formed the new government, it was Parliament, and Parliament was unchanged. After 5 days of working out how to move forward, and with a very large vote of approval, Ukraine’s duly elected Members of Parliament appointed the post-revolution government.
The purpose of the farce in the Dorogomilovsky Court in Moscow? An excuse to repeat Moscow’s narrative? As that narrative is so very easy to disprove and as Russian credibility with regard to their relationship with the truth is already in tatters, Russia would be wise to stop venturing down avenues like this.
Ukraine’s revolution started on Nov. 21, 2013 because a decade old promise was suddenly broken. Ukraine’s revolution became about dignity and human rights on Nov. 30, 2013 when peaceful protesters were violently beaten. Ukraine’s revolution became a struggle for basic freedoms on Jan. 16 after the passing of the Dictatorship Laws, and Ukraine’s revolution of Dignity was a battle about ending corruption and demanding democratic norms that lasted for 93 days.
A fundamental part of the definition of the word “coup” is that it is a “sudden” event.
Whatever abuses of procedure and ignorance of norms of international behavior may have just been perpetrated with this hearing in Moscow, the pronouncements of the court and the lies told there do not alter the truth. Vladimir Putin doesn’t want the people of Russia to know the truth about events in Ukraine, and it is not hard to figure out why.
Silly actions like those in the Dorogomilsky Court only serve to provide us with another opportunity to not only tell, but importantly to demonstrate, the truth. So, it backfired.
The law doesn’t matter when you control it and justice can be avoided through the acquisition of ultimate power, but, as Yanukovych learned, this situation is only ever temporary.
