WHERE ARE YOU GOING, UKRAINE?

Ukraine is increasingly sliding into the abyss of an internal political conflict. Eighteen months after the triumph of the Maidan, serious contradictions in the camp of the "revolutionary" government have come to the surface. This is evidenced by the bloody riots in Kiev, which led to the actual onset of the already initiated process of disintegration of the ruling coalition.

The tragic events took place in the Ukrainian capital on the day when the Parliament was considering in the first reading the bill on amendments to the Constitution providing for decentralization of power in the breakaway Donbass. Nationalist circles, which until recently were regarded as a vanguard force of the victorious Maidan, and which partially supported the ruling coalition led by President Petro Poroshenko and his bloc in parliament, opposed the adoption of the bill.

In spite of the assurances of Poroshenko's associates that the amendments do not involve the provision of "special status" for Donbass, members of parliament from the Radical Party, the associations of "Samopomich" [Self-Help] and "Batkivshchyna" [Fatherland], and the All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda" [Freedom] accused the head of state of an "anti-constitutional coup" and betrayal of national interests. This was followed by an attempt to storm the parliament building organized by radical nationalists. As a result of the clash between "protesters" and police, more than 140 people including 131 policemen and National Guard soldiers were injured and three soldiers of the Ukrainian army were killed.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine treated the actions of radical activists as an "act of terrorism". The charges brought by the General Prosecutor's Office against 18 participants in the massacre near the walls of the Verkhovna Rada [Parliament] included an "attempt on the life of a law enforcement officer and a terrorist attack" as well as a "group violation of public order". Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) has declined to treat the event as a "terrorist attack", which shows an obvious discrepancy in the approach of various law enforcement agencies to evaluation of the Kiev disturbances. The reason for this may well be found in the "image" of the SBU itself which, in the times of Maidan, proved to be the most "revolutionary-minded detachment" among the law enforcement agencies of the new Ukrainian authorities.

In any case, there is an attempt to put pressure on the government which was formed in Ukraine after the actual overthrow of the former president, Viktor Yanukovych. It is clear that if the incumbent president, Petro Poroshenko, does not have the strength and will to curb the destructive manifestations of protest energy, Ukraine may soon become a hostage to chronic political instability. In this regard, one cannot but agree with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, which wrote in its opinion article that "Poroshenko's ability to use carrots and sticks can be decisive in whether the clashes near the Parliament will be forgotten as a violent but isolated incident or they will become the beginning of Ukraine's transformation into a 'failed state' that is so often spoken about in Moscow".

Petro Poroshenko's close associates are apparently aware of such bleak prospects. In particular, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who asked the Ukrainian society to "fully support the most severe punishment of those who had organized this terrible thing in the centre of the capital," because "if we all do not respond, the country will plunge into chaos at the bidding of scoundrels with grenades".

President Poroshenko described the riots as an "anti-Ukrainian campaign, for which all the organizers without exception and all the representatives of the political forces should be held accountable". Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk sharply condemned the actions of the organizers of the storming of the Verkhovna Rada, too. He said that political forces which opposed the constitutional amendments "do not protect but rather abuse Ukraine and its Basic Law". Moreover, according to the prime minister, these forces "are in fact worse than the Russian gangsters and terrorists in the east. At least, they make no secret that they are at war with Ukraine".

However, some analysts do not rule out that the turmoil in Kiev reflected, in a sense, the growing confrontation between President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk. The latter is blamed for having special ties with the United States which is interested in further escalation of tension in Ukraine and ultimate perpetuation of the country as the epicentre of a geopolitical offensive against Russia intended to do away with the influence of the Kremlin in the post-Soviet space. On the other hand, the Ukrainian president and his supporters are more associated with the European vector of Kiev's policy, and therefore they are set to defuse the intensity of confrontation in the south-east of the country, which is evidenced by the constitutional changes partially decentralizing power in Donbass that were initiated by President Poroshenko.

By the way, the riots in Kiev have once again demonstrated the extraordinary complexity of solving the problem that actually led to the slaughter outside the Ukrainian parliament building. While nationalists accuse the president of taking steps towards decentralization of Ukraine and consider the move as a defeat at the hands of Moscow and Donbass separatists, the latter believe that Kiev does not seek to provide the breakaway region with "special status". The leaders of the self-proclaimed "people's republics" of Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) have criticized the bill presented by Petro Poroshenko Bloc, which, in their view, violates Minsk accords that provide, according to their interpretation by the DPR and LPR leaders, for the introduction of self-government at the level of actual independence in a number of south-eastern regions of Ukraine.

However, this is not the most important thing in the context of the Kiev bloodshed. The riots have exposed the aggravated relations between the leading parties of independent Ukraine. It is not only that the nationalist circles - primarily the Svoboda party and personally its leader, Oleh Tyagnybok, which are implicated by official Kiev in organizing the storming of Parliament - deny their involvement and condemn the pro-presidential forces for voting in favour of the constitutional changes that "enshrine special status for Donbass and are in fact tantamount to surrender to the Kremlin". The situation is characterized by a serious political crisis that is brewing in Ukraine.

Immediately after the clashes near the parliament, Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko announced the party's withdrawal from the ruling coalition. Deputy Prime Minister Valeriy Voshchevskiy, a member of the party, announced his resignation from his post. The Radicals officially declared their going into opposition, saying that "President Poroshenko is no better than Yanukovych, and maybe even worse". According to Lyashko, voting for the presidential amendments to the Constitution demonstrated that an "anti-Ukrainian coalition" had been formed in the Parliament.

It seems that the withdrawal of the Radical Party faction, which holds only 21 seats out of 450 in the Verkhovna Rada, should not create any particular problems for Poro-shenko and his supporters in parliament. However, there is no guarantee that other leaders - in particular, that of the Batkivshchyna party - would not follow suit since this party, too, opposed the constitutional changes during the voting in parliament. Moreover, Batkivshchyna leader Yulia Tymoshenko is already sending very clear signals about her readiness to strengthen her personal position in the political arena which, given the well-known ambition of the former prime minister, means only one thing - she is ready to use any opportunity and the weakening of President Poro-shenko to secure her own claims to the highest office in Ukraine. Taking into account the ongoing internal political conflicts in Ukraine, it is suggested, not surprisingly, that a whole campaign against Petro Poroshenko is being organized. Its eventual goal may consist in depriving the Ukrainian president of the majority in the Verkhovna Rada and provoking the dissolution of Parliament, followed by early elections.

The US and EU, which are interested in maintaining at least a relative unity in the camp of pro-Western forces in Ukraine, have expressed regret and concern over the clashes in Kiev. While Washington and Brussels seek to ensure the continuation of the pro-Western trend in Ukrainian politics, it is evident that the contradictions between Maidan's proteges are increasingly annoying the Euro-Atlantic centres. They would be much more pleased to see a stronger government in Kiev. In this regard, one should not view as accidental the growing activity of Odessa Governor Mikheil Saakashvili, the father of the Georgian Rose Revolution, who made everything possible at the time of his leadership in his historic homeland to distance, practically irreversibly, Tbilisi from Moscow and put Georgia on the pro-Western path.

Saakashvili's nomination as one of the leading individuals in Ukrainian politics means that the West, openly reshuffling the cards with images of personalities at the summit of power in Kiev, recognizes the obvious lack of promising, strategically savvy ministers of the Euro-Atlantic path in Ukraine. The latest bloodshed in Kiev, which threatens to turn Ukraine into a space of chaos or, at best, a tragicomic farce, speaks only about the validity of such fears of the West. With this in mind, the idea of a petition to appoint the former Georgian president and now the governor of Odessa the head of the Ukrainian government, which is being prepared by part of the Ukrainian public, does not seem so unpromising.

While the vote in the Verkhovna Rada on the issue of decentralization of power was expected to defuse the situation in the country, in fact it only heightened the tension and formed a new Ukrainian reality tainted by the crimson colour of blood. So now it seems more than ever reasonable to ask, whether the Maidan was worth all the sacrifices brought to the altar of its triumph in Ukraine? In the once flourishing country, which was so mercilessly thrown into the millstones of interstate warfare by the will of the titans of global politics? The answer to this question is, of course, better known to Ukrainians, because the fate of their country and its government ultimately depends on their will and desire, or so it is hoped.