UKRAINE'S GREAT PURGE

The so-called ceasefire has been in place for a month in Ukraine. On 5 September, Kiev and representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics (DPR-LPR) reached a deal on a ceasefire and prisoner exchange. Since then, news bulletins stopped to be filled with almost hourly reports about the bloody Ukrainian drama. However, it is still just a truce, not peace. If only because "states of silence" need to be declared in order to maintain the truce, otherwise it does not work as the shots are heard from both sides.

Both Kiev and DPR-LPR representatives periodically report about shelling (meaning thermite mixtures, artillery shells, smoke grenades, gas). Particularly fierce events are unfolding around Donetsk airport, which is quite understandable given that this place is logistically important, well fortified and has subways to various facilities in the city. In fact, according to witnesses, there is a whole underground city, the control of which gives a lot of strategic benefits. But who controls what in Donetsk airport is hard to say as the struggle is going on for the control towers, basements and terminals and is akin to some bad action movie in a non-existent country or a computer shooter game with different levels of complexity. Ukrainian security forces say they continuously repel the attacks of the separatists and note the arrival of new batches of Russian armoured vehicles and infiltrations of combat aircraft. Meanwhile, DPR-LPR representatives say the security forces continue the shelling of residential areas in Donetsk with rockets falling on the sleeping areas, markets and public transport stops. In addition to mutual accusations, UN experts also notify of continuing human rights violations and destruction of buildings on both sides. Moreover, the United States continues to assert that Russia is keeping its forces in Ukraine's breakaway regions and providing material support to the separatists, as was recently stated by Secretary of State John Kerry. In turn, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs and Eurasian Integration Leonid Slutskiy said that the West continuously provides political, financial, military and moral support to Kiev.

Meanwhile, according to UN data, as of 6 October, about 3,660 people were killed and more than 8,000 people were injured as the result of the conflict in Ukraine. Figures of the OSCE Observer Mission are lower: according to European experts, nearly 1,500 people have been killed in the Donetsk region since March 2014, when the conflict broke out in Ukraine. In turn, DPR-LPR representatives report of thousands of dead. Over five million people live in the area directly affected by the hostilities, and where the buildings are destroyed there is no water and electricity and the access to health services and education is limited. Unemployment is rising, which is not surprising given that about 40,000 small and medium enterprises have been closed in Donbass. The payment systems have been blocked, making it impossible to receive salaries and pensions that are still being accrued.

Actually, the entire Ukraine has been on the verge of default for some time already. It is expected that external borrowing will save the economy, and the IMF has approved the provision of a 17bn dollar loan to Ukraine, but at the moment no one thinks who, on what terms and at whose expense will repay it. The issue of the supply and transit of Russian gas still remains unresolved, and this is when winter frosts are already at hand. Alas, Kiev is now occupied with the parliamentary elections to be held on 26 October.

Ukraine's current election campaign will certainly be remembered for a long time. The country's leadership is trying to get rid of everything that reminds it of the past. This is why President Petro Poroshenko has signed the law on lustration, which is "to restore confidence in the government and create conditions for the construction of a new system of government in accordance with European standards." Ukrainian Premier Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that about 1 million persons would come within the purview of this law, or the entire vertical structure of Ukraine's executive branch. In other words, the law will apply not only to major politicians and bureaucrats in Kiev, but also to the heads of the regional administrations, all their deputies, and all heads of the district administrations who worked during Viktor Yanukovych's presidency and also during the Maydan period. It will also apply to those who "were elected and worked in senior positions in the Communist Party of the USSR, were permanent workers or secret agents of the KGB of the USSR and other Soviet republics or the Main Intelligence Directorate [GRU] of the Ministry of Defence of the USSR, or graduated from higher education establishments of the Soviet KGB." That is to say a whole layer of managers will have to go to the dustbin of history. It is not clear, however, wherefrom Ukraine is going to recruit a new staff of statists. Equally unclear is how soon will they be able to achieve the criteria established by Poroshenko? "Fluency in English should be the second criterion, after the lustration, of the requirements for the Ukrainian civil servant," the president said during a meeting in Lviv.

It is not surprising that not all agree with such a fundamental political purge. Thus, the Opposition Bloc comprising six Ukrainian parties has stated that the adopted law, which is likely to affect about two million people, is the beginning of a "massive campaign of political repression," where "under the guise of catchy slogans the new government will embark on a purge of public servants and ostracize hundreds of thousands of highly skilled workers and members of their families," which violates [Ukraine's] constitution and international legal instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that prohibits any distinction on the basis of political views. Leader of the Strong Ukraine party Serhiy Tihipko called the law on lustration an election political game of the authorities.

The "dustbin of history" might have seemed a vivid metaphor, had it not been taken too literally in Ukraine sometimes. Currently, the so-called "junk lustration" is gaining momentum in the country and certain Ukrainian politicians were literally equated with household waste by local radicals, i.e. they were ruthlessly and in public thrown into garbage cans. For example, in Kiev, right in front of the Central Election Commission building, Member of Parliament Viktor Pylypyshyn found himself in a dumpster and with red paint on his head. Member of Parliament and of the Party of Regions Nestor Shufrych was beaten in Odessa and in full view of law enforcement officers at that. Ukraine's Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema could not remain silent in these circumstances and said that the increase in the number of such cases would have serious repercussions. In the opinion of the prosecutor general, the line between "mob rule" and "junk lustration" is very fragile. According to the Ukrainian media, there is concern in society that the so-called power resource will be used during the election to intimidate and bribe voters or to damage unwanted election results. The possibility of radical politicians coming to power also raises great fears. For example, the chances of the Radical Party of Ukraine and its leader Oleh Lyashko, who proclaimed himself a fighter against the oligarchs, are on the rise. According to surveys, the radicals are now inferior in popularity only to the Block of Petro Poroshenko.

In fact, many of Ukraine's parliamentary candidates are birds of a feather. Take, for example, Pavlo Koshka who promises, in his colourful video, a lot of buckwheat to grandmothers (on video, he throws cereal into his own face), "three patched holes" (in the asphalt) and a "painted Soviet-style children's playground." Whereas flamboyant Darth Vader has become a legend already.

Meanwhile, the new membership of Ukraine's parliament should comprise 420 instead of 450 seats, excluding the candidates from Crimea and parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Nevertheless, residents of the breakaway regions who wish to vote can still do so; for this, they need to "take their passports and, prior to 20 October, come to any department maintaining the State Register of Voters, which is located in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities." In November, the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR plan to elect their own parliamentarians and leaders - separately from Kiev. In response to Kiev's assertion that Russia should discourage the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics from carrying out their own election, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation said that it would not do that. It is noted that everything takes place within the framework of the September truce deal.

But in fact, the truce is very shaky in nature, and Ukraine is actually electing the parliament without the participation of two of its regions. According to "first deputy prime minister of DPR" Andrey Purgin [Andriy Purhin], the "republic does not conduct any negotiations with Kiev - either about its political status or about the truce." Denis Pushilin, the head of the socio-economic staff of the "People's Front of Novorossia," believes that President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko is deliberately delaying the signing of the law on the special status of Donbass, and without the signing of this law all agreements are meaningless.

However, it is clear that the truce must be maintained at all costs. It does not matter who will accomplish it - the Block of Petro Poroshenko or magic powers of Darth Vader. After all, the truce has stopped the civil war. But the danger of its reoccurrence is still standing in the doorway. We are talking about the above "junk lustration," about a frenzied desire to quickly eliminate all memories of the past, about the popularity of radical thought and action and about the fact that essentially there is no dialogue between Kiev and DPR-LPR. Such state of affairs is quite dangerous in a country which is awash with weapons that are being used every day.