25 years: the firm grip of the past...

Ukraine has celebrated the Independence Day. A quarter of a century that has passed since the restoration rather than proclamation of statehood means that this country is old enough for this period to require a thorough analysis. Without it, it will be hard to move forward. Dealing with the celebration and public response to it after the fact, we would like to distinguish three components.

THE MILITARY AND THE PARADE

It is no secret that Ukraine entered the war with its defense apparatus almost totally destroyed. The reasons for that situation were listed on many occasions and usually seen as limited to Viktor Yanukovych’s actions in his time in power, when he appointed openly pro-Russian people to high positions in the military and at some point started strengthening defenses against domestic enemies as opposed to targeting foreign ones. His motives were clear: Yanukovych was afraid of his own people more than any foreign enemy. Truth be told, there was another reason behind these trends, we mean elimination of NATO accession as an objective from the Military Doctrine, which happened much earlier, namely during Leonid Kuchma’s presidency. Accordingly, the public associated the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) mostly with sales (read: thefts) of real estate belonging to military units and foreign films describing arms smuggling.

That is why, after two and a half years of war, it is important for the nation that has actually started to rebuild its defenses from scratch in the toughest conditions to show the fruits of this effort. Of course, the public debate is still on whether displays of military might are the right thing to do when the country is daily losing soldiers in the Donbas (the Independence Day was no exception, for volunteer soldier of the UAF’s 15th Battalion Oleh Diachenko was killed in a mortar attack at Zaitseve, Donetsk region, on August 24). Some service people take offense at what they perceive as the government’s rather selective approach to bestowing awards and supplying the military with weapons. These criticisms are not unfounded.

However, we should not forget that any military parade is intended to create a pretty picture. While being intended as a patriotism-inducing display, many people believe it turned out quite touching and genuine this year. One could not fail to notice bestowal of the Hero of Ukraine titles on two paratroopers (Andrii Kovalchuk and Valerii Chybinieiev), and in particular promotion of Hero of Ukraine Ihor Hordiichuk to the rank of Major General. Leaning on the arms of his two heroic brothers-in-arms, Hordiichuk cut an impressive figure with his smile and straight look. The story of his deed at Savur-Mohyla in that terrible summer of 2014 is equally impressive. That story shows that it is not only tanks and missiles, but most importantly, people of action who protect the nation. Such actions were conspicuously absent at a critical juncture when the top leadership ought to issue timely orders, to take responsibility for decisive steps. Then, it was left to soldiers facing enemy guns to perform heroic acts.

We fully support the president’s statement in his speech that “the military is the only guarantor of this nation’s survival.” That is despite all its shortcomings and urgent problems, and despite the fact that the enemy is actually stronger in terms of brute force, but, like the Nazis during the Second World War, the seemingly more powerful aggressor suffers from the fatal flaw as it fights in a foreign land. So, the focus of our strength is precisely our highly motivated soldiers and citizens who formed volunteer military units and volunteer-staffed shadow ministries in our hour of need.

POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY

Indeed, the celebrations held in the capital, especially the military parade at Khreshchatyk and Independence Square, impressed our public. Both in the form and content, the parade made people feel pride for their country, for their armed forces, which are fundamentally different from what they were just a few years ago. However, we need to understand that there is a very large gap still between the pretty picture and the real situation. We have long been aware of the current government’s capacity for using key dates in our history well, in a very apt manner, and employing exactly the right words to describe them. What is lacking is the most important element: genuine reforms. All attempts at changing the judiciary, bringing about decentralization, or combating corruption... mostly end up as mere simulations.

The military and law-enforcement agencies are also not having it as good as the president described it in his speech during the celebrations. For example, military expert Valentyn Badrak has repeatedly told The Day that while the situation has certainly changed for the better, the current government is still very slow and reluctant to move towards building a professional military, as well as to support domestic production of military equipment and weapons. Treatment of the soldiers and volunteers who have returned from the front is a major issue as well. It is significant that immediately after the parade, the March of the Unbroken was held at Khreshchatyk by veterans and serving soldiers of the anti-terrorist operation, volunteers and families of fallen soldiers. They intended to thank the living and honor the dead, and most importantly, to draw attention of the authorities, who should not forget the civic and military volunteers, veterans, and families of the fallen...

Symbolically and highly importantly, the parade was also attended by the first three presidents: Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma, and Viktor Yushchenko. TV cameramen and photographers often dwelled on the presence of former heads of state, especially the grimaces on the face of the second president. It seems that Petro Poroshenko unnerved some people by his speech. “A quarter century ago, we chose an independent future. It was we who brought about what Vladimir Putin later called ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe.’ But we did not dare to uncompromisingly break with the past then. We got confused in arrows of multi-vector policies and caught between two stools. Endless looking for the Kremlin’s approval and belief in a mythical brotherhood as well as paternalism and socialist stereotypes were firmly entrenched in the consciousness of our society, weighed heavily on its feet and prevented us from moving forward. The political elite in general preferred to follow the trends rather than to lead. It was long captivated by populist electoral passions and beholden to mercenary, selfish interests, while its planning horizon stretched no further than the nearest election campaign. And we, the current people in power, have to atone for this collective sin, the sin of the elite which was accumulated over two decades.”

Whether the president inserted these words in his speech himself or merely read aloud his speechwriters’ product, is another story. The main thing is taking the political responsibility for the current situation in the country. The entire country was struck by the story of Hordiichuk, but the question is, why do we have so many cripples participating in the parade, why did the war came at all, and why have we lost thousands of people and broad swaths of land? The answer should go beyond the Russian aggression and the Kremlin’s imperialist disease. Let us go back to the picture of the presidents’ reunion, though it was somewhat lacking due to the fugitive Yanukovych being absent. Out of all these figures, the lion’s share of responsibility lies with the second president, because it was he who once appointed Yanukovych as head of the Donetsk Oblast State Administration, then made him prime minister, and finally attempted to “appoint” him as the successor in the presidential office through the electoral procedure.

The latter attempt failed because Kuchma’s policies provoked the Orange events. And the paradox is precisely that while the first Maidan was a protest against Kuchma, the second one attacked his disciple Yanukovych. That is, it was the administration of the second president, who ruled the country the longest, that sowed the chief problems of the country. And these problems only accumulated like a snowball over all these years. Kuchma himself did not lose political influence under Yushchenko as well as Yanukovych. However, the latter dared to launch a criminal case against Kuchma over his role in the Gongadze-Podolsky case, but as time has shown, the reasons for such a move were mostly of political and financial nature. After the second Maidan, it has got even worse, with Kuchma becoming the official representative of Ukraine in the Minsk peace talks.

In fairness, it should be noted that the “collective sin” mentioned by Poroshenko applies to the current government too. Not only is it a structural part of previous elites, but worst of all, it has not ditched the old rules of the Kuchma-Yanukovych system in these two years, although the Euromaidan and the war should have long ago become a “cold shower” prompting action.

THE DIPLOMATIC COMPONENT

A striking feature of this year’s parade was the presence of a single foreign leader, President of Poland Andrzej Duda. This is surprising for several reasons. Firstly, why only the Polish president, but not the presidents of Moldova, Romania, Belarus, Turkey, the Baltic States... was invited by the Ukrainian side to this parade? And secondly, Ukrainians remember well the recent unilateral decision of the Polish Sejm which passed a resolution blaming Ukrainians of committing genocide against Volhynian Poles during the Second World War.

And interestingly, no explanation was offered by the Presidential Administration (PA). Neither presidential spokesman Sviatoslav Tseholko nor deputy head of the administration for foreign policy Kostiantyn Yeliseiev answered phone calls.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told The Day that only the PA was empowered to comment on the activities of the president, including his foreign visits and foreign leaders he receives. Our source noted that the president might have well sent out invitations to other fo-reign leaders as well, but virtually no one could be contacted in this season, because no one is in office.

By the way, we saw a similar picture on October 28, 2004. Then, president Kuchma shared the parade’s podium with Russian president Putin. Then, at least, it was clear that Kuchma wanted to show off his close ties with Russia and enlist its support for Yanukovych’s presidential campaign.

What, then, did the sitting president try to show off by inviting to the parade the head of the Polish state, that recently passed an unfriendly resolution attacking Ukraine and using history for political purposes?

Moreover, we were surprised to hear Poroshenko stating once again at a joint press briefing with Duda that Poland was an advocate for Ukraine’s European aspirations. It sounded as if Ukraine was a naughty boy who had to be defended in front of European authorities. We ourselves must represent our interests in Europe. There are many mechanisms for it, and of course, the chief one of them is showing by our actions and reforms our desire to integrate into the EU.

“President of Poland Duda was invited and agreed to go to the parade before the adoption of the resolution in the Sejm,” Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland Andrii Deshchytsia commented for The Day. “The joint declaration was also negotiated during the last meeting of the two presidents in Warsaw. So, it all had happened before the resolution was passed. As for inviting other heads of state, I do not know about it. The visit of Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite was in the works (especially due to the existence of the Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian Brigade), but she ultimately could not come because US Vice President Joseph Biden visited Lithuania precisely on that day. The declaration reaffirms the two nations’ readiness to continue cooperation, including by discussing troubled issues of our shared history.”

“I do not think the joint declaration, and Duda’s visit itself, should be unequivocally seen as a compensation for the Polish Sejm’s resolution,” director of the Institute of World Politics Aliona Hetmanchuk commented for The Day. “The Polish side really ascribes a highly symbolic meaning to the fact that Poland was the first country to recognize Ukraine’s independence. That is why the August 24 visit of President Duda to Ukraine had been planned long before the famous resolution was passed. The visit and the joint declaration constituted rather an attempt to show that there was no conflict in the Ukrainian-Polish relations, and both countries still remained strategic partners and allies on the issue of security threats in the region. There is no need to treat the visit of Duda and the joint declaration as an expression of remorse on the part of the Polish authorities caused by the Sejm resolution. The historical dialog, just as the security one, is still a priority for the current Polish government’s Ukrainian policy. The ruling Law and Justice party, which President Duda represents as well, has to contend with contradictory impulses: on the one hand, they do not want to spoil relations with Ukraine, realizing its geostrategic importance for the security of Poland, but on the other, they do not want to give up leadership on historical issues, including that of the Volhynia, to other political forces in Poland and therefore lose electorally. On the Independence Day in Kyiv, Duda represented the part of his party which believes that the historical dialog, too, may have to be moderated if it threatens a serious aggravation with Ukraine, but that does not mean that the historical dialog will be sidelined. We may only hope that it will be more coordinated.”

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The 25th anniversary of the start of modern Ukrainian history led many to speak about our achievements and failures. Of course, many right thoughts were expressed, but the other side of the coin drew our attention as well. As it has turned out, some stereotypes and fabrications produced by a distorted coordinate system are still alive in some people’s minds. In the age of the Internet and broad access to information, it looks at least strange. It is thus no wonder why the country still lives in this system, for a part of society wants to be misinformed. For example, journalist Leonid Shvets’s article “A Quarter of Century with Wrong Leaders,” published by iamir.info website, is a case in point. His choice of topic is correct, but the reasons behind current state of the country, in particular where the role of Yevhen Marchuk is mentioned, are clearly derived from conspiracy theories of our past... What do we need to find a way out from this difficult situation for the country? Time, patience, and political education.