As Volodymyr Zelensky seeks to dismiss Constitutional Court judges who are attacking the anti-corruption infrastructure, maybe, just maybe the Ukrainian president now realizes the size of the challenge he faces and the kind of forces that are arrayed against him.
Essentially he has the corrupt judiciary, old-style oligarchic vested interests plus also pro-Russian forces now allied together against reform.
It’s amazing really that so many of the former team of Viktor Yanukovych, ousted in 2014 by the EuroMaidan Revolution, such as Viktor Medvedchuk, Yuriy Boyko and others are actually still in Ukraine, and kind of never left. They were given a jail pass seemingly, and inexplicably after EuroMaidan and are now coming back to extract their revenge.
International Monetary Fund financing, European Union cash and visa-free travel are now on the line.
Zelensky is coming out fighting which is encouraging but his problem now is that likely Servant of the People lacks a majority in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, while Zelensky no longer has the popularity he had when he was first elected.
He lacks the political capital here to act and deliver a killer blow against those forces ranged against him. He also must be questioning the loyalty of many of those around him, as mistakes made over the past couple of years are now coming back to haunt him.
This is interesting timing, just before the U.S. presidential elections on Nov. 3, while the U.S. is distracted, and before a likely Joe Biden victory. Across the former Soviet Union space, I think we are seeing Russia trying to re-assert itself and take strategic advantage, and I think pro-Russian interests in Ukraine are doing exactly that now by playing to Vladimir Putin’s tune.
Ukraine seems to be in the middle of a constitutional crisis now, and that suits Putin just fine. He will seek to exploit that to the fullest.
